Decision-Forcing Cases
Decision Games: A Guidebook for Marines (5 of 7)
A decision-forcing case qualified as both a case study and a decision game. As a case study, it provides a reliable description of an event that took place in the real world at some point in the past. As a decision game, decision-forcing case asks players to solve one or more of the problems faced by an actual person who found himself faced with an especially challenging problem.
Decision-forcing cases differ from most other case studies in two important respects. Firstly, while most case studies look at the events in question after they have taken place, a decision-forcing case replaces this retrospective perspective with a prospective point of view. In other words, the player seeking a solution to the problems at the heart of a decision-forcing case looks forward in time and, as a result, lacks the benefit of hindsight. Secondly, while most case studies are written from the point-of-view of an objective outside observer, decision-forcing cases place players in the position of someone deeply involved in the situation in question.
‘History is lived forward but is written in retrospect. We know the end before we consider the beginning and we can never wholly recapture what it was like to know the beginning only.’
Cicely Veronica Wedgwood William the Silent: William of Nassau, Prince of Orange, 1533-1584 (London: Jonathan Cape, 1944) page 35
‘It is probably impossible to reconstruct a battle completely. Some information will be absent, some incorrect, and some will contradict.’
Colonel Walter Davis, USMC ‘Interactive Reading and the Art of War’ The Marine Corps Gazette (July 2000) page 53
‘The history of war is to be regarded and used as the main source for tactical knowledge. One should therefore make frequent reference to historical incidents and, as much as possible, to borrow the scenarios for decision games from military history.’
Edouard von Peucker Vorschrift über die Methode, den Umfang und die Eintheilung des Unterrichts auf den Königlichen Kriegsschulen [Manual for the Methods, Extent, and Arrangement of Instruction at the Royal War Schools] (Berlin: R. Decker, 1859), page 38
‘Not everyone is able to make up, for the sake of decision games, the sort of situations that can be found in war. There is no need, however, for such inventions. Military history itself provides us with them.’
Julius von Verdy du Vernois Taktische Details aus der Schlacht von Custozza, 24. Juni 1866 [Tactical Details from the Battle of Custozza, 24 June 1866] (Berlin: E. S. Mittler, 1876) page VIIRelated Reading
