Polygon
In 1956, following the lukewarm reception of his first novel, Player Piano, Vonnegut was one of the 16 million other World War II veterans struggling to put food on the table. His moneymaking solution at the time was a board game called GHQ, which leveraged his understanding of modern combined arms warfare and distilled it into a simple game played on an eight-by-eight grid. Vonnegut pitched the game relentlessly to publishers all year long according to game designer and NYU faculty member Geoff Engelstein, who recently found those letters sitting in the archives at Indiana University. But the real treasure was an original set of typewritten rules, complete with Vonnegut’s own notes in the margins. More
My son (a scientist at a biotech company in the Bay Area) was telling me about this boardgame he and his fellow lab nerds play, it’s called Secret Hitler;
https://www.secrethitler.com/
It is a strategy game using subterfuge and guile to suss out which player is Hitler, how to deal with him, and which players are either liberals or fascists.
When my mom was still alive we would play Scrabble together (still sharp at 90) but it’s been a while since I played any board game.
Kurt was a lying sack of shit.
The end.
Loved Vonnegut when I was in High School….Lost interest in the 90’s…But
recently got a bunch of Books from e-bay, and one of Them was “Bluebeard” .
Thoroughly enjoyed it.
I think He was really onto something with “Slapstick” I need to reread it.
I’ll always remember the Line/poem from one of His Novels…..
“Sally in the Garden
sifting Cinders
lifted up her Leg
and Farted like a Man
the cheeks of Her Ass
(claps hands three times)
Given what a peacenik Vonnegut was later in life a war game would seem out of character.
I’d like to see it played. I’m expecting someone to post video on YouTube soon.