EM Disaster Gaming Con 2026!
We did it! This was LoRokka Games' first-ever traveling convention, and what a convention it was! After seeing our game at last year's Connections Wargaming Conference, Dr. Arthur Simental, founder and CEO of EM Disaster Gaming, invited us to his inaugural convention in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
While we were invited to share some of the unique mechanics and considerations behind IADS: The Game, I learned way more than I ever thought I would about emergency management. The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) sits within the Department of Homeland Security, while state and county emergency managers operate within their own jurisdictions. Across those levels, emergency managers have to coordinate teams in ways similar to those I've seen in military organizations. From understanding the operational environment to coordinating firefighters, epidemiologists, utilities (looking at you, USAF Civil Engineers!), military liaisons, and weather and environmental experts, emergency managers face their own "fog of war," observe-orient-decide-act (OODA) loops, and operational-planning challenges.
Expecting my presentation and networking to be the most central parts of my trip, I was surprised to find emergency managers lining up to play IADS: The Game! Attendees from as near as the Air Force Academy and as far away as the Netherlands stopped by for quick demonstrations and in-depth play over the three-day convention. Many of them, like Birch Barron, Eagle County's Emergency Management Director, were responsible for training programs within their own emergency-management circles and attended to gather unique perspectives on making training more effective.
As a USAF Master Instructor myself, discussing training put me right in my element; the problems they were trying to solve were just so familiar:
How do we keep instruction and training engaging?
How can training be adapted to varied experience levels while remaining valuable to everyone?
Is it possible to develop curiosity and critical thinking, even among audiences set in their ways?
I loved the solutions some of the other presenters brought to the table -- Stormhaven and Crisis Command are both tabletop role-playing games that double as leadership and decision laboratories for trainees. Stormhaven happens to be compatible with D&D 5E, which I thought was hilarious and awesome, while Crisis Command has a more real-world feel. Watching crews of emergency managers come together and bond over these rich games was heartening; passionate, experienced, and driven innovators bringing their experiences to the table made me wish I had more to offer in that space!
The presenters were world-class as well. Hope LaVelle shared her insights on world-building, character design, and improv -- all crucial for any tabletop training -- drawing from a career that includes work on Fringe, Supernatural, Chronicle, and Children of Éarte. Mr. Tom Sivak, a former FEMA Region 5 Administrator and now Chief Emergency Manager at EM1, described his experiences and the importance of venues like this for keeping current with best practices in training, readiness, and resilience.
I expected my presentation to fall a bit flat, since the military theme behind IADS: The Game didn't align perfectly with EM Disaster Gaming, but I was happy to see it was well received! I wove in my discussions with attendees and included some ideas we'd brainstormed just before my presentation to give my take on the big questions I saw emerging from the convention:
1. Make training engaging enough to drive interest
A story I found myself repeating during this particular conference starts with the fact that I originally didn't believe in IADS: The Game as a viable commercial product. I felt that the game's theme was too niche, its terminology made it feel opaque to outsiders, and the fact that a game like ours would NEED to be made and assembled in the USA felt like way too many barriers to a successful product. So, in 2019, I left it as a bit of a novelty.
In 2024, I participated in a USAF exercise and happened to share a room with two Airmen responsible for the general's communications devices. Since their particular expertise was needed when connectivity or hardware broke, I brought them a copy of our game to play during the quieter periods. They started out not knowing that the High-Speed Bomber couldn't shoot down other aircraft and left with a broader understanding of air units, the Joint Force, and asymmetric capabilities like Cyber, Special Operations, and sUAS Swarms. At the end of the exercise, they told me it was the most addicting board game they'd ever played.
My pitch was that making a game fun enough to drive independent engagement makes trainees look forward to those experiences. Pairing that enthusiasm with clear learning objectives and a good debrief creates a positive feedback loop that builds curiosity, positivity, and confidence.
2. Keep scenarios open enough for decisions and performance to matter
For this one, I drew from my own experience as a trainee and course developer. I hated feeling like the Master Scenario Events List (MSEL) was just something that would happen TO me or to the students.
Acknowledging that this is difficult (and requires broad, deep knowledge from the White Cell or Game Master), training HAS to be open enough for the trainees' decisions, performance, and dice rolls to actually matter.
During earlier discussions, this raised the point that there's an old guard within the emergency-management community that just wants to run its Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) and call it a day... which led me to...
3. Design training light enough to repeat
My final recommendation tries to account for:
The SOP "old guard"
How training can be adapted to varied experience levels while remaining valuable to everyone
Whether it is possible to develop curiosity and critical thinking, even among audiences set in their ways
What we'd landed on was the idea of holding two or three quicker sessions rather than one big, involved one. It really comes down to accommodating different learning objectives -- one session where familiarity with the SOP is the objective and the scenario is a bit more railroaded, followed by another where insane changes in the upper atmosphere and the resulting increase in extreme weather provide a sandbox for real contingency decision-making. (Thanks for the presentation, Chief Meteorologist Sunny Wescott! My vote for the convention's most captivating speaker!)
I closed with some book recommendations for the attendees:
Two that align with the recurring theme of community resilience:
A Paradise Built in Hell, by Rebecca Solnit
Humankind, by Rutger Bregman
Two that align with the academic portions, especially Dr. "Pigeon" Fielder's presentation on "The Psychology of Wargaming" (which I loved -- Pigeon rules!) and Dr. Jul's presentation, "The Power of Analog: Embodied Action to Build Resilience":
The Master and His Emissary, by Iain McGilchrist
A Brief History of Intelligence, by Max S. Bennett
One that applies broadly to training, course development, and game development for the whole audience:
The Score, by C. Thi Nguyen
The trip was a trip! I took advantage of my time there to visit my old stomping grounds at the Air Force Academy -- check out the brand-new Visitor Center if you get a chance; it's amazing!! -- and picked up some merch from Doolittle Outfitters to represent my old squadron.
Being back in Colorado Springs was wonderful, and the welcome Dr. Simental and the broader emergency-management community gave me into their fold was amazing. I would love to attend again next year, especially if we can get even more of the tabletop role-playing game, board game, wargame, and military communities involved!
Everyone out there, thank your local emergency managers and first responders!
-- Ric
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