Strategy board games like Risk were complicated enough for most people. But some advanced players wanted games that simulated battles more accurately and in greater detail.
Wargaming became a serious hobby. Wargamers learned the complex games that had been invented to train military officers. And because they loved their hobby, they invented ways to improve the games they played. For example, some experimented with adding specific characters into their games, such as the mayor of a town near a battlefield.
Others turned to fantasy. Wargames often recreated battles from history. But the battles in the games could turn out very differently than actual historical events. That was part of the fun. Since the games were already imagining alternate versions of history (“What if the other side won?”), there was no reason why the players couldn’t imagine other fantastic “what if” details just for the fun of it.
Experimenting with the Fantastic
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About Skeptic
BEHE’S LAST STAND
COLUMNS
The SkepDoc: Is Low-Dose Radiation Good for You? The Questionable Claims for Hormesis, by Harriet Hall, M.D. • The Gadfly: Define Your Terms (or, Here we Go Again), by Carol Tavris
ARTICLES
Making Gasoline from Water: John Andrews and the Invention of a Legend • Online Gaming: A Virtual Experiment in the Dark Side of Human Nature • Duped by Data Mining • How Science Will Explain and Fix Fake News • The Cult of Falun Gong: A Dance Troupe and Victimhood Raises Big Money • The Opioid Epidemic Misunderstood • Why the Human-Centered View Has Not Served us Well • Behe’s Last Stand: The Lion of Intelligent Design Roars Again • Straw Man on a Slippery Slope: The Case Against the Case Against Postmodernism • A Disproof of God’s Existence
REVIEWS
Reviews of: The Coddling of the American Mind: How Good Intentions and Bad Ideas are Setting Up a Generation for Failure; The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe: How to Know What’s Really Real in a World Increasingly Full of Fake; Investigating Ghosts: The Scientific Search for Spirits; Bunk: The Rise of Hoaxes, Humbug, Plagiarists, Phonies, Post- Facts, and Fake News; Hoax: A History of Deception: 5000 Years of Fakes, Forgeries, and Fallacies; Truth’s Fool: Derek Freeman and the War Over Anthropology
JUNIOR SKEPTIC
Quest for the Truth about Dungeons and Dragons