The Counter

When Charles S. Roberts (3 Feb 1930 – 20 Aug 2010), founder of the now mythical Avalon Hill, released his first game - Tactics - in 1953, he replaced the traditional wood, plastic or even metal game piece with less expensive die-cut cardboard squares, which would be known by several generations of gamers as the counter. His 1/2" counters included 2 pieces of information: the unit type and an identifying serial number:

Roberts redesigned the game and released Tactics II in 1958. He updated the counters to include standard US/NATO military map symbols to identify unit types as well as values for combat strength and movement - a total of five pieces of information.

It turned out to be an inspired design choice. Although you can argue that the military symbols were somewhat inscrutable to anyone other than perhaps an armchair war historian - that is exactly who Roberts was marketing the game to. For this crowd the symbols lent the game a certain verisimilitude - with the game board and pieces resembling a "live" military situation map.

Robert's design was so influential that it was used almost exclusively for over a decade. Here, for example, are the counters from the 1965 Battle of the Bulge, which adds only two more pieces of historical data:

The first person to reconsider the counter was, not surprisingly, a graphic designer. Redmond A. Simonsen (18 Jun 1942 - 8 Mar 2005), studied at Cooper Union and began working for Jim Dunnigan and his Strategy and Tactics magazine in the late 1960s. In 1970 Dunnigan offered Avalon Hill the rights to his groundbreaking tactical-level game Panzerblitz.

For the 5/8"counters Simonsen drew on miniature wargames and created a counter with a recognizable silhouette (mostly) replacing the military symbol, a name, ID and four numbers covering the necessary game data: a total of eight pieces of information.

As a game designer Simonson was critically interested in what he called physical systems design - placing as much graphical content into the game components as was necessary and reasonable. His work on Panzerblitz stands not only as a high point in wargame design but, more generally, was an elegant piece of information design .

Detail of Expo 67 housing. Jul 1965

Tower of the new University of Illinois. Orlando Corbanban. Sep 1965

LeCorbusier –a tribute. Peter Bradford. Oct 1965

The McNulty House. Peter Bradford. Nov 1965

The Clark Library. Peter Bradford from a Louis Checkman photo. Jan/Feb 1966

Repetition without Monotony. Myron Goldfinger. Mar 1966 (a design we’ve seen before)

Tougaloo College Plan. Peter Bradford. Apr 1966

The BART tracks above twisting lines of auto traffic. Peter Bradford. Jun 1966

Movement system for market. Jeremiah Bragstad. Nov 1966

1. “Dialogue in Washington.” The Architectural Forum. Oct 1966: 38–45.

2. See: “Press: Organ of Integration.” Time Magazine. 11 Apr 1932.

3. True Story: Your humble narrator is writing this post sitting at my Herman Miller George Nelson Executive Management Group walnut veneer/laminate desk (w/ later t-pulls, ca.1960). The fact that my wife could buy this desk without me noticing and successfully hide it until my 40th birthday party surprises me to this day. I consider the desk – and her wonderfully egregious deception – to be the karmic reward for the walnet Herman Miller Lounge chair and ottoman (w/ down-filled cushions, ca.1956) I found for her at Goodwill several years earlier. The story of the chair is now part of family lore – remind me to tell it to you sometime.

1 Oct 2012 ‧ Design