Traveller in the New Yorker

[Garnfellow]

Malcolm Gladwell has a great article in this week's New Yorker: "How David Beats Goliath: When underdogs break the rules." Gladwell provides a series of interesting examples of how the underdogs can win asymmetrical conflicts, and one of his case studies was pulled straight from Traveller history:

In 1981, a computer scientist from Stanford University named Doug Lenat entered the Traveller Trillion Credit Squadron tournament, in San Mateo, California. It was a war game. The contestants had been given several volumes of rules, well beforehand, and had been asked to design their own fleet of warships with a mythical budget of a trillion dollars. The fleets then squared off against one another in the course of a weekend. "Imagine this enormous auditorium area with tables, and at each table people are paired off," Lenat said. "The winners go on and advance. The losers get eliminated, and the field gets smaller and smaller, and the audience gets larger and larger."

I'm not sure Gladwell realized the scenario was a science fiction one, or if he just simplified for a general readership, but it's still a great article and a very cool shout-out to the hobby.

 

[far-trader]

You might be interested in some of the comments on the article over on the SJG board as well for some broader background info

http://forums.sjgames.com/showthread.php?t=57747

 

[saundby]

Another classic example of choose your story then massage reality to fit.

Still, there's no such thing as bad publicity.

Thanks for the link to the other discussion, it pretty well covers things.

 

[fiat_knox]

Massaging reality's something I do anyway, regardless of whether there's a story in it. There's nothing more relaxed than a well-massaged reality.

 

[lucasdigital]

Another classic example of choose your story then massage reality to fit.

It's got a technical name....journalism ;-)


As for the article - I love it.

The TCS incident whiffs of Kobayashi_Maru.
"You mean, you cheated?"
"No, I simply changed the rules"...

 

[Madarin Dude]

He does indirectly explain himself too. There is a loophole in the rules.
(sorry not that familiar with trillion credit squadron) Basically did a unrealistic kind of fleet. An example I can remember was playing with the rules of a number of games and my friend found ways to make things that will win every time. In champions made a low budget character that could defeat superman because his one power was to explode one time in his life. I think he also had soem weakness like melts in water but the one explosion being a one time good deal and since it woudl kill the character was so powerful it could take out any other character. He also made the dreaded jumping mech with no other abilities in battletech.

I think it is more of a case some loophole in the rules was exploited and those who would fill in the blanks would not do so.