Game Jargon Definition: “Dudes on a Map”
Dudes on a Map (noun) - / do͞odz ôn ə map /
A “dudes on a map” game generally utilizes a game board and tokens, models, and/or miniatures to serve as abstractions of military forces. The amount and ratio of strategic to tactical decision-making varies with the game and the play style of the individual players.
But a “dudes on a map” game is distinct from a war game or military simulation game in that the former tends to play best with two, three, four, or even five (or more) players and have more of a designed focus on aesthetics and theme. War games and military simulation games tend to be more tactically complex, and are generally designed to be fought with two sides/players/opposing forces. Finally, because of the complexity of play and vagaries of the rules in highly specific war and military simulation game situations, those games are often subject to third-party adjudication (i.e., are refereed). Outside of tournament play, dudes-on-map games (almost universally) do not call for adjudication. While the origins of war and military simulation game situations can be traced to Kriegsspiel (originating in 19th century Prussia), the origins of dudes-on-a-map games can be traced back to Diplomacy (1959) and Risk (1959).
Abstracted military components in concert with a game board map (regardless of other game mechanics, theme, and setting foci) are quite common in many games in the industry, and thus the term “dudes on the map” is difficult to apply meaningfully to many modern board games.
For example, the 2016 game Scythe has a number of dudes-on-a-map traits: mechs moving around a board engaging in combat, a 1–5 player count, and a modular or single-piece board, depending on which version of the map players happen to be using. However, to describe Scythe as predominantly a “dudes on a map” game is not entirely accurate, as the game features prominent worker placement and action selection mechanics that are at least as important (if not more important), than the dudes-on-a-map aspects. As a result, if Scythe were only referred to as a “dudes on a map” game, one might reasonably expect quite a different gaming experience than what Scythe provides, as wonderful as it is.
Because of the increasingly commonplace nature of dudes-on-a-map elements in board games, more and more games coming out every year, and designers and developers finding new combinations of mechanics in varying amounts of importance and prominence to bring different flavors of the abstract military genres to life, it could be that “dudes on a map” is no longer a meaningfully differentiating term on its own. Perhaps in the not-too-distant future, it will become more common to refer to a game with dudes-on-a-map elements not simply as “a dudes on a map game” but as a “dudes on a map worker placement game” (Scythe, 2016), or a “dudes on a map card-driven game” (Inis, 2016), or a “dudes on a map historic dice chucker” (Axis & Allies, 1981).
