Richard Berg

Richard Harvey Berg (1943 – July 26, 2019) was a prolific American wargame designer. He was inducted into the Charles Roberts Awards Hall of Fame in 1987.

Richard Berg was born in New York City. At age 21, he entered the United States Army, and served from 1967 to 1969, where he was assigned to be the musical director of the Army Theater in Frankfurt, West Germany. He earned a Bachelor of Arts from Union College in Schenectady, New York, majoring in Asian History, and then earned a Juris Doctor from Brooklyn Law School.

From 1971 to 1988, he worked as a criminal defense attorney in private practice and for the Legal Aid Society. He also worked as a media communications consultant, actor, director, author, lyricist, and composer, as well as working briefly for the Internal Revenue Service.

In 1975, Richard Berg had his first game published by Simulations Publications Inc. (SPI), a wargame titled Hooker and Lee: The Battle of Chancellorsville that was one of four games in SPI's Blue and Gray II quadrigame. His next game was Conquistador, which appeared in Issue 58 of SPI's Strategy & Tactics magazine. Set during the Spanish conquest of the New World, the game does not involve much combat; instead, players vie to accumulate as much wealth, land and exploration as possible. It was not a top seller for SPI. As the game's developer, Greg Costikyan explained, "S&T subscribers preferred hard World War II military games, and Conquistador was rather anomalous from their point of view."

It was Berg's next game in 1976 that would make his reputation as a top-line designer: Terrible Swift Sword, a monster game simulation of the Battle of Gettysburg. Although it had over 2000 counters, a 32-page rulebook, and often took longer to complete than the actual 3-day battle, SPI sold more than 30,000 copies. The game's unique combat and operational rules resulted in a host of imitators. The game won Berg his first Charles S. Roberts Award, for "Best Tactical Game of 1976". He would go on to win another eight "Charlies", seven of them after he was inducted into the Charles Roberts Awards Hall of Fame in 1987.

Other notable games included War of the Ring, which was SPI's bestselling game for almost two years; SPQR, which won Berg another Charlie and an Origins Award; the Great Battles of the American Civil War series, and the Great Battles of History series. His most notable and infamous game was The Campaign for North Africa, published by SPI in 1978. It has been called the longest board game ever produced, with estimates that a full game would take 1,500 hours to complete. It has also been called the most complex wargame ever designed, with the commonly cited example (noted in SPI's advertising) that Italian troops require additional daily water supplies to prepare pasta. The map board alone is 9.5 ft (3 m) long.

By the end of his career, he was credited as designer or co-designer of 195 games.[10]

In 1980, Berg started writing and editing reviews of wargames, which SPI published as Richard Berg's Review of Games. It began as a two-page standalone newsletter, published twice a month for 25 issues.[11] SPI then converted it into a regular feature in the pages of SPI's Strategy & Tactics until late 1985.[12]

In the fall of 1991, Berg became editor of a self-published fanzine, the similarly titled Berg's Review of Games (or BROG). Berg differentiated this magazine from his previous one by adding "Vol. 2" to the issue number. He published BROG six times a year, ending publication with Issue 28.

In his original Richard Berg's Review of Games, Berg had started a satirical annual feature called the "Little Mac Awards" for dubious achievements in gaming. The awards were named for the less-than-stellar American Civil War general George McClellan. In Issue #2 of BROG, Berg restarted this tradition, handing out "Little Macs" to various companies and industry personalities for perceived errors and injustices.[13]

Berg's Review of Games was awarded Best Amateur Adventure Gaming Magazine at the Origins Awards three times: in 1992,[14] 1993,[15] and 1995.[16]

BROG was inducted into the Academy of Adventure Gaming Arts & Design's Hall of Fame in 1997.[17]

Berg died in Charleston, South Carolina on July 26, 2019.[18]

Berg was voted to be featured as the king of diamonds in Flying Buffalo's 2014 edition of their Famous Game Designer Trading Cards.[19][20]

Berg's famous/infamous The Campaign for North Africa was featured in an eleventh season episode of The Big Bang Theory called "The Neonatal Nomenclature". During Bernadette's long labor, Sheldon pulls out The Campaign for North Africa, but despite his enthusiasm for the intricate details of the game, his friends show little interest.[21]

Richard Berg designed or co-designed the following:[22]