Costykian on Wargames

Tabletop: Analog Game Design is a book published in affiliation with Carnegie Mellon's Entertainment Technology Center.  It features several interesting articles about the design and play of boardgames, card games and RPGs.

I found Greg Costykian's essay on game esthetics to be an interesting read.  He captures some of my feelings about wargames:

"To a wargamer, wargames are not abstract, time-wasting pastimes,like other games, but representative of the real. They show history, orhypothetical conflicts that are nonetheless grounded in a real understandingof military affairs and the complexity of combat. You can learnsomething from wargames; indeed, in some ways, you can learn morefrom wargames than from reading history. A work of history can onlytell about the events it depicts; a wargame can show the events, and giveinsight into why the commanders did as they did, and provide the playera gut understanding of the forces at play and the factors that influencedthe outcome."

You can read Costykian's article here.  You can download the entire book here.  You can order a paper copy shipped to your home for a modest price here.