Creations span continents, history

Tyrone Walker
The Post and Courier

Richard Berg of North Charleston is a historian and designer of highly detailed historical board games.

Players of Richard Berg's Terrible Swift Sword, a historical board game on the Battle of Gettysburg, can, and often do, turn the tide in favor of the Confederacy, rewriting history at whim.

"I would say the South wins the battle with about 60 percent of the people who play it," says Berg, a North Charleston-based designer of historical simulations. "The Confederate player knows what Robert E. Lee didn't. And that's a tremendous advantage on the first day of Gettysburg. The pleasure is in, 'Let's see what happens if I do this, or don't do this.' "

Would you prefer that Roman general Scipio Africanus did not defeat his Carthaginian nemesis, Hannibal, at the Battle of Zama in 202 B.C.? Or that Poland deflected the Blitz in World War II? Find the appropriate game and make it so.

You'll find a kindred spirit in Berg.

The native New Yorker was a Chinese history major with two years of study in Chinese languages to his credit when he was drafted out of law school during the Vietnam War. Instead of sending him to Southeast Asia as a language specialist, the Army dispatched him to Frankfurt, Germany, as a musical director for a theater. It gave him an appreciation for the oddities involved in military deployments.

Love of gaming

The genesis of his work in designing games came simply from an affinity for playing them.

"It was a hobby you pick up as a kid," says Berg, whose latest board game is Blackbeard. "I played a lot of them in the '60s and early '70s, and I got friendly with a company in New York, Simulations Publications Inc., which published what we'd call war games these days. I prefer to call them historical simulations. The fellow who ran the place said to me at one point, 'Would you like to do a game?' I said, 'Sure, I'll try.' And I did a very small one."

In 1976, Berg, by then a full-time criminal defense attorney in New York City, took on a giant game project from SPI that no one else wanted to do: the aforementioned Battle of Gettysburg.

"Today, it's considered one of the 100 greatest board games ever designed, which is not my evaluation, but that of others. I was off and running after that. I was really lucky. I didn't dislike being an attorney. I just got tired of being responsible for other people's problems. It really does weigh on you. I found I very much enjoyed designing games and doing it on a free-lance basis."

For Berg, who stopped practicing law in 1989, creating games was like stepping back in time. He also discovered he was intrigued by almost any subject.

His award-winning games, most available through Web sites such as www.consimworld.com (historical) and www.boardgamegeek.com (general), span Asia, the Americas, Europe and the Middle East as well as subjects ranging from Geronimo to "The Lord of the Rings."

Historical accuracy

"I've designed and had published more than 140 games," says Berg, a Lowcountry resident since 2002. "I did a lot of early work in Civil War games, about two dozen of them. Actually, I'm about to start work on one on the Siege of Charleston: Gates of Hell. I immerse myself in reading and research, not unlike what you do in writing a book. I try to get the player to feel that he is in the time that the game represents. That's my specialty, the thing I'm known for."

Historical rigor is of great importance to Berg, whether it's a game based on a single battle, military campaign or a totally unrelated subject.

"You can't put everything in a game, obviously. You have to distill it. You're not killing anybody, so there's no 'reality' to it. You're not making that decision."

But players do have an advantage over the real-world commanders who directed a battle.

"You can see all the pieces on the board, so you have a bird's-eye view. Plus, you have a back knowledge of history. Other than that, I try to get as much accuracy, as much period feel, as I can. I want the players to have to make the decisions that the people at the event had to make. Naturally, the players get to rewrite history; otherwise they might as well be reading a book."

Historical accuracy was critical to Berg's recent game on the Crusades, Onward Christian Soldiers, because "you have to put into the game the incredible internal politics and divisions on both sides that created the First Crusade. It was one of the most fascinating military campaigns of all time."

Devotees

Berg, a co-author of the large-format book, "The London Times' History of War" (2000), says board games are very popular in Europe. The International Board Game Convention in Essen, Germany, for example, attracts more than 125,000 people each year.

The audience for his games typically are people in their 40s and older, with an age range of 30-50.

"However, we are seeing a lot of younger people get in. And we're also getting women. I used to go to conventions and never see women there. Now I do. And some of my best play-testers, the people who play a game first to make sure it works, are women."

Berg, who is aware of several local gamer groups, including the Charleston Area Board Game Society, estimates that 80 percent of the audience for his games is composed of history buffs.

"The rest are just curious or interested in the social aspect of board-gaming. One of the reasons I enjoy board games more than computer games, which I've also designed, is that it is a social event. You sit around a table with a bunch of people and you have fun together. However, I also spend a lot of time making sure the games I design are playable solitaire."

Do military or highly violent games dominate the industry like they appear to do in computer gaming?

"No. The games that dominate now are what are called Eurogames. They are not necessarily designed in Europe, but they are mostly games that may have a theme but do not cover anything historical. One of the most popular board games ever introduced is Carcassonne, named after a medieval city in southwest France, which is basically a graphically well-done game of Dominos. So it's not all troop movements and pillaging."

Reach Bill Thompson at bthompson@postandcourier.com or 937-5707.