Professional quality decision-making games using real-world possibilities
About NSDMG
Our Philosophy
We believe that improving critical thinking and decision-making is essential to individual development. All our events focus on sharing ways to examine what drives world events. We strive to create an inclusive, collaborative, and supportive learning environment. We recognize that every individual has unique talents and strengths, and we aim to help all our participants to develop their full potential.
Our Origin
NSMDG started as a gathering of people trying to understand how international geopolitics work and what elements drive leaders to make world-altering decisions. With an initial core of professional simulators, we added educators, historians, information technology specialists, other analysts, and hobby gamers. From that base, we have built seminars and games that garner attention from professional, academic, and hobby venues and have developed a reputation for being able to run useful events for a wide range of audiences. These include high schools, colleges, military institutions, and hobby gaming groups.
< Adjacent photo of some of our happy sponsors at Campbellsville e University 15 Nopv2019 >
Our Games
NSDMG is an intense face-to-face immersive multiplayer
seminar role-playing game. Players represent large social,
industrial, political, and military groups in real-world nations
experiencing major domestic and international challenges
where their interactions/negotiations with others drive world-
changing events.
Our staff’s in-depth knowledge of military, political,
economic, and social aspects allows for believable
and exciting play. In our games, player decisions make a
difference—there are no inevitable outcomes. Frequently we use counter-factual scenarios to provide a synthetic learning experience where participants can gain insights into the basics of international relations AND experience some aspects of the governance, culture, and circumstances impacting how other nations work.
<Adjacent photo from Gencon 03 Aug 2016>
Our Event Venues
NSMDG started as a gathering of people trying to understand how international geopolitics work and what elements drive leaders to make world-altering decisions. With an initial core of professional simulators, we added educators, historians, information technology specialists, other analysts, and hobby gamers. From that base, we have built seminars and games that garner attention from professional, academic, and hobby venues and have developed a reputation for being able to run useful events for a wide range of audiences. These include high schools, colleges, military institutions, and hobby gaming groups.
Our Assumptions
Experiential Learning is a superior way to learn. We use models representing groups and factions worldwide which cover several historical periods to facilitate the development of decision-making skills. In our view, Wisdom comes from experience and experience from utilizing our judgment and observing others' decisions.
Our Focus
In our events, we try to cover four critical elements that impact decision-making. For cultures our research allows participants to gain a simple understanding of varied groups. Since many roles in our games involve groups with thousands of years of cultures, languages, and different educational systems - this is one of our continuing challenges for improvement. However, the things we do exceptionally well are in the representation of circumstances, choices, and consequences of participant decisions.
Our Goal - Improve Understanding
We use live-action roleplay to enhance participants' understanding of how a leader's background (culture), circumstances, and choices impact world events.