Mark Herman (game designer)

Last updated
Mark Herman
Born1954[ citation needed ]
Brooklyn, New York, United States[ citation needed ]
NationalityAmerican
OccupationGame designer
Notable workWe the People, For the People, Empire of the Sun, Churchill

Mark Herman (born 1954[ citation needed ]) is an American game designer known for his contributions to wargames and historical strategy games. With a career spanning more than five decades, Herman is regarded as a pioneer in the genre, particularly for his innovations in card-driven games (CDGs), which blend narrative and strategy through card-based mechanics.

Contents

Biography

Born in Brooklyn, New York in 1954, he was the first child of businessman Nathaniel Herman and homemaker Joan Herman.[ citation needed ] He graduated with a bachelor's degree in history from Stony Brook University and a master's degree in National Security Studies from Georgetown University. [1] He was a senior partner for Booz Allen. [1] He was an adjunct professor teaching military strategy and analytic methods for Georgetown University, and lectured for the U.S. Naval War College, and the University of Maryland. [1]

Wargame designer

Herman began playing wargames at age 12, and at that age started thinking about creating his own games. [2] : 102 

Mark Herman started apprenticing for Simulations Publications Inc. (SPI) in 1976 under James F. Dunnigan, [2] : 102  and Redmond A. Simonsen.[ citation needed ] In 1977, he published his first game for SPI, called October War. He went on to design several more games and, after a brief departure, returned to SPI in 1978, during which time SPI was being taken over by TSR, Inc. [3]

Herman was working on a game in 1982 about the Pacific Front of World War II and would read a book each day to immerse himself in that subject, and would use math to do probability calculations for the rival forces, and was also able to get the codebreaking capabilities of the American and British forces integrated into a game he was working on. [4]

In 1982, Eric Dott, owner of Monarch Avalon and Avalon Hill, founded Victory Games, where Herman served as Executive Vice President of publishing as well as a game designer.[ citation needed ] During his time at Victory Games, he designed popular titles such as Gulf Strike [5] [6] , AMBUSH!, NATO: The Next War in Europe, and Pacific War.

Herman states that he created three games to be used by Pentagon planners for officer training on contingencies for combat. [7] Staff members at the United States Central Command headquarters at MacDill Air Force Base bought the game Gulf Strike which Herman designed, and officers played it at the base. [7]

Since 1987, Herman has worked as an independent game designer, publishing his games through Monarch Avalon and GMT Games. During this period, he has created some of his most popular games, including We the People, For the People, Fire in the Lake [8] , The Great Battles of Alexander, Washington’s War, Empire of the Sun, and Churchill. [9]

Herman worked with General William E. DePuy on games at BDM International for the United States Department of Defense. [2] : 102  Ellis Simpson of Games International described Herman in 1988 as "one of the gurus of modern gaming" for whom "the more controversial the topic, the greater his interest". [10] Herman designed a second edition of Gulf Strike that was published in 1988, as well as the 1990 Desert Shield expansion module for the game. [11] [12] [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] Herman continued to work as a defense and military analyst in the early 1990s, and designed the simulation that the Pentagon used for Operation Desert Storm. [18] [19] [20]

Innovator of card-driven game mechanics

Herman was inducted into the Charles S. Roberts Hall of Fame by 1991. [21] : 93 

In 1993, Mark Herman and Avalon Hill released We the People [22] [23] , a historical wargame that pioneered the card-driven mechanic. [21] : 93 We The People began a shift with strategic games including ways of incorporating politics into the designs. [21] : 12 

The game includes Battle Cards and Strategy Cards, which replaced traditional dice-rolling as the combat system. During battles, players alternate playing Battle Cards, with each player’s hand size determined by their General's rating, the number of strength points, and other factors. The attacker plays a Battle Card, and the defender must respond with a matching card to continue the fight or attempt a counterattack by rolling within their General's battle rating. This back-and-forth continues until one player cannot match the opponent’s Battle Card, resulting in a decisive outcome.

Herman was working on game design in the early 2000s at the management consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, working with the United States military. [24] Herman designed the game Empire of the Sun (2005) for GMT Games. [25] Herman designed Churchill: Big Three Struggle For Peace (2015). [21] : 250  Herman wrote the 2024 book Wargames According to Mark: An Historian's View on Wargame Design. [21] : 206 

Awards

Selected Works

Related Research Articles

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References

  1. 1 2 3 Spencer-Churchill, Julian (November 3, 2022). "Mark Herman: Wargame Design Speaker Series". Concordia University . Retrieved 2025-01-21.
  2. 1 2 3 Allen, Thomas B. (1987). War Games: The Secret World of the Creators, Players, and Policy Makers Rehearsing World War III. London: Mandarin Paperbacks. pp. 101–111. ISBN   0-7493-0011-6 . Retrieved 2025-01-20– via Internet Archive.
  3. ↑ Dunnigan, James F. (1997). "Into the 1980s". Chapter 5: History of Wargames. The Complete Wargames Handbook (2nd ed.). Archived from the original on 2006-10-31.
  4. ↑ "Books and Bookmen article". Books and Bookmen . 1982. p. 6. Retrieved 2025-01-20– via Google Books.
  5. ↑ "BOARD SEX SPICES SEX FOR THE BORED". Sun Sentinel. 19 July 1985.
  6. ↑ "Billboard". Nielsen Business Media, Inc. August 17, 1985 – via Google Books.
  7. 1 2 Melone, Mary Jo (1986-01-20). "Tabletop wars are part of training at MacDill". Tampa Bay Times . Archived from the original on 2025-01-20. Retrieved 2025-01-20– via Newspapers.com. The previous page is here.
  8. ↑ Jason Albert (January 10, 2014). "In the world of war games, Volko Ruhnke has become a hero". The Washington Post . Retrieved January 17, 2014.
  9. ↑ Harrigan, Pat; Kirschenbaum, Matthew G. (2016). Zones of Control: Perspectives on Wargaming. The MIT Press.
  10. ↑ Simpson, Ellis (October 1988). "Wargames: Game of the Month". Games International . No. 3. p. 34. Retrieved 2025-01-20– via Internet Archive.
  11. ↑ Marvel, Bill (1990-10-30). "The gulf war game - Everyone can be an armchair general when Desert Shield hits the stores". The Dallas Morning News . Archived from the original on 2025-01-20. Retrieved 2025-01-20.
  12. ↑ Hansen, Liane (1990-11-18). ""Desert Shield" War Board Game Is Serious". Weekend Edition . Archived from the original on 2025-01-20. Retrieved 2025-01-20.
  13. ↑ Piller, Ruth (1990-12-08). "Take on Saddam at home - Games give you crisis control". Houston Chronicle . Archived from the original on 2025-01-20. Retrieved 2025-01-20.
  14. ↑ Greve, Frank (1990-12-15). "In Games, Gulf War Plays Out However You Like". Miami Herald . Archived from the original on 2025-01-20. Retrieved 2025-01-20.
  15. ↑ Case, Fredrerick (1991-02-01). "War of the war games". The Tampa Tribune . Archived from the original on 2025-01-20. Retrieved 2025-01-20.
  16. ↑ Marshall, G.L. (1991-02-05). "Desert Shield' war game designer sees 2, 3 week ground war". United Press International. Archived from the original on 2025-01-20. Retrieved 2025-01-20.
  17. ↑ Rubin, Saul (1991-02-12). "War Games - Playing out crisis at home". Daily Breeze . Archived from the original on 2025-01-20. Retrieved 2025-01-20.
  18. ↑ Smith, George (1991-03-10). "When War Games Imitate Life". The Morning Call . Archived from the original on 2025-01-20. Retrieved 2025-01-20.
  19. ↑ Fesperman, Dan (1991-03-27). "Military Lessons Learned By U.S. in Persian Gulf / Tactics, troops and hardware used on Iraq". San Francisco Chronicle . Archived from the original on 2025-01-20. Retrieved 2025-01-20.
  20. ↑ Johnson, Curt (1994-06-18). "Some historical entertainment". The Washington Times . Archived from the original on 2025-01-20. Retrieved 2025-01-20.
  21. 1 2 3 4 5 Suckling, Maurice W. (2024). Paper Time Machines: Critical Game Design and Historical Board Games. New York: Routledge. doi:10.1201/9781003359265. ISBN   978-1-032-41692-2 . Retrieved 2025-01-20– via Google Books.
  22. ↑ BoardGameGeek
  23. ↑ "Casus Belli #080". 1994.
  24. ↑ London, Simon (2003-02-10). "Inside Track: From battlefield to boardroom: War Gaming: Military-style exercises can offer insights for business strategists - provided the simulations are designed we:". Financial Times . Archived from the original on 2025-01-20. Retrieved 2025-01-20.
  25. ↑ Masini, Riccardo (2025). Historical Simulation and Wargames: The Hexagon and the Sword. Abingdon, Oxon: CRC Press. ISBN   978-1-032-55110-4 . Retrieved 2025-01-20– via Google Books.
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