Southern California Kriegsspiel Society name change

Hello everyone!

The Southern California Kriegsspiel Society has voted to change its name to the International Kriegsspiel Society. We are adding a lot of new members and we'd like you to be involved in the growing group, its administration, and its games. We'd also like to support you too, in every way possible. I am certain many of our members would enjoy joining your events, especially the online games.

I made a video explaining the name change. However, before we set this in stone, I would like to hear any commentary from the group here. If you have any concerns or thoughts about the change, and what we can do to cross-pollinate our efforts rather than duplicate them unessecarily.

As you know, we have a Discord and a Facebook. We probably need to establish a webpage somewhere.

We've discovered there's a lot of interest in Kriegsspiel, and now that we have the knowledge to run games online, people are flocking to give it a try.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zeMnpcRiwpU

Discord: https://discord.gg/yu8sUAkhfA

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/groups/SoCalKriegsspiel/

Hi Marsh

A big pat on the back for all your efforts to promote kriegsspiel, both in face-to-face games and more recently online.

Very glad to hear that our 2 groups are in discussion and planning to collaborate.

Martin J

Well done Sir!

Thank you, everyone!

A few things I would like to add, if I may. I have a lot of hopes for this endeavor/endeavour. 

1. I very much want to see your group offer some games online, especially to cater to the EU crowd. Presently, I am starting our large games at 6 AM Pacific so they can play at a reasonable hour. It's hard on everyone, of course. If European players have games offered at reasonable GMT hours, they can have a better experience and I can sleep in a little more. 

2. I want to umpire with your gentlemen, especially to learn. We have our own system, born of necessity which I found works really, really well. I call it "Southern California Kriegsspiel," and it is a free-kriegsspiel variant that is useful when you have few umpires and a lot of players. Remarkably, when I met James Sterret of the Army University, we compared notes and discovered we do a lot of things the same way. However, it trades accuracy for speed, and that isn't always the best system to use. We have another system, based on 1824 and 1862, modified for the American Civil War. It offers more precision, but it takes longer to play. It requires more umpires and they need to be trained. We discovered that during testing, when umpires consistently delivered poor reports to the players. Right now, I am working on getting small skirmish games out in 6 hours. I have 1 more week to get that dialed in, due to a convention...

3. We are developing our own "School of the Umpire" to train our umpires in both of our systems. From now on, our umpires will be "certified" at four different levels, with each level capable of doing certain things. At the highest level are "master umpires." These are people who have demonstrated they can plan, assemble, manage, and run a successful game. I have informed everyone in the IKS that members of your group are generally trained to umpire, and therefore you come with your "street cred" already established. Your members are welcome to umpire at any time. Also, I owe you a debt of help. Specifically, if you need someone to help umpire an online game, please let me know and I will be present, even if I have to get up at 3 AM. I mean this. 

4. I have granted Steve Hockin "Administrator" and "Field Marshal" in the group, co-equal with me. (The "Field Marshal" rank is a joke, based on my name.) What matters is you folks have permission to use our Discord for yourselves. You have the ability to set up channels, move players as needed, and so on. And if you need me to assist with this, let me know. You have carte blanche. 

5 . Everything we have is yours as well. Everything we build is yours. Please enjoy our maps, modules, and anything else we have for the good of the order. 

6. Finally, it is my sincere hope that once or twice per year we can have a big online game featuring both groups. I will get up early, as will many players here in the USA. We can play anything. Civil War, Napoleonic, American Revolution (we might let you win this time, many of us wish the Queen would intervene at this point) or any other scenario. I also want to play a "silly" game once per year. Something hypothetical, like Grant and Lee vs. Napoleon and Wellington. Who knows. Something fun, if we can adapt the rules for the differences between the forces. 

7. Note the logo. You will see a blue star at the top, which represents your community. You have that position in recognition of your first-in-place status, and as our parent. At the bottom right, you will see a red star for the Southern California group. It's red because the star on our state flag is also red, so it's a nod to California. Here in the USA, we have an unreasonable level of pride in our individual states.

I look forward to playing with you!