Name Jim Dunnigan Role Author | ||
 | ||
Education Columbia University, Pace University Books complete wargames handbook, Dirty Little Secrets: Military In, A quick & dirty guide to war, Dirty Little Secrets of the Vietn, Digital Soldiers: The Evol | ||
Organizations founded Simulation Publications | ||
Jim Dunnigan, Utah House of Representatives District 39 - 3 Questions with Bob Evans
James F. Dunnigan (born 8 August 1943) is an author, military-political analyst, Defense and State Department consultant, and wargame designer currently living in New York City.
Contents
- Jim Dunnigan Utah House of Representatives District 39 3 Questions with Bob Evans
- Career
- Awardsrecognition
- Books
- Co author
- Other works
- References
Career
Dunnigan was born in Rockland County, New York. After high school, he volunteered for the military instead of waiting to be drafted. From 1961 to 1964, he worked as a repair technician for the Sergeant ballistic missile; his service included a tour in Korea. Afterwards, he attended Pace University studying accounting, then transferred to Columbia University, graduating with a degree in history in 1970.
While still in college, he became involved in wargaming. He designed Jutland, which Avalon Hill published in 1967, following it up with 1914 the next year, and PanzerBlitz in 1970, which eventually sold more than 300,000 copies. Meanwhile, Dunnigan had founded his own company, initially known as Poultron Press, and which soon became Simulations Publications Inc. (SPI). Dunnigan created SPI in order to save the magazine Strategy & Tactics, which was published by Chris Wagner. Dunnigan had been a contributor to the magazine since Strategy & Tactics #2 (February 1967), and when Wagner was having financial difficulties with the magazine he sold Dunningan the rights for $1. Dunnigan set up shop in a windowless basement in New York City's Lower East Side, and published his first issue from there, Strategy & Tactics #18 (September 1969); starting with that issue, every issue included a new wargame. Dunnigan also designed the game Sniper! (1973) . Dunnigan later designed Dallas: The Television Role-Playing Game (1980), the first ever licensed role-playing game. In 1980, Dunnigan was forced out of SPI due to the company's worsening financial situation. He left SPI to write more books, begin modeling financial markets, and pursue other projects.
Between 1966 and 1992, he designed over 100 wargames and other conflict simulations, ranging from 1969's Up Against the Wall, Motherfucker about the student takeover at Columbia (which he witnessed as a bystander), to the gigantic War in Europe, to the online Hundred Years' War with his long time partners Albert Nofi and Daniel Masterson, which has been running since 1992.
In 1979, he wrote The Complete Wargames Handbook (first edition), and in 1980 How to Make War.
With his partners from the Hundred Years War, Daniel Masterson and Albert Nofi, Dunnigan founded the online military news site StrategyPage.com in 1999. Dunnigan is the chief editor of StrategyPage.Com. Podcasts of his commentaries on history, military affairs, and the contemporary world are regularly posted on StrategyPage.Com and as at Instapundit.com
Dunnigan regularly lectures at military and academic institutions, such as the Chief of Naval Operations Strategic Studies Group, in Newport, Rhode Island.
Awards/recognition
In 1975, Dunnigan was inducted into the Charles Roberts Awards Hall of Fame of Fame. In 1999 Pyramid magazine named him as one of the millennium's most influential persons "at least in the realm of adventure gaming". He was honored as a "famous game designer" by being featured on the king of diamonds in Flying Buffalo's 2008 Famous Game Designers Playing Card Deck.