Season 2 - Episode 6 - Gender in Historical Megagames

Podcast - Megagame Assembly

Deborah Southwell (pictured centre) playing ‘By the Grace of God’, a historic megagame written by Ed Silverstone. (Picture by: Jim Wallman)

This month Matty is joined by Deborah Southwell and Peter Nixon to tackle the tricky but important subject of gender in historical games. They discuss some of their own experiences from playing in games where this has been handled well, or handled badly.

They also speak about potential ways to approach the design of historical games to try to tackle some of these issues and make things better for all.

Some of the resources mentioned during the episode;

Peter’s appearance on The Great Game podcast

The Handbook for As Thou Commands

Deborah’s Seminar at Megacon

Playtest of As Thou Commands at Megacon

Megacon site

Some suggested further reading;

Suarez, C. (2018). The power manual: How to master complex power dynamics. New Society Publishers.

Shaw, A. (2014). Gaming at the edge: sexuality and gender at the margins of gamer culture. University of Minnesota Press.

Thompson, J. (2010). Wargames: Inside the world of 20th century war reenactors. Smithsonian Books.