How to play Kurt Vonnegut's long-lost board game
Add Axios as your preferred source to
see more of our stories on Google.
Game night with Vonnegut? Count us in. Photo: Oliver Morris/Getty Images
Nearly 70 years after its conception, you can finally battle your friends with Kurt Vonnegut's rejected chess rival.
Why it matters: General Headquarters, the war game crafted by Vonnegut between the release of "Player Piano" in 1952 and "The Sirens of Titan" in 1959, shows another side of the legendary Indianapolis author.
- While the game's existence and general premise have been mentioned in the past, the original instructions needed to reproduce or actually play it were being kept under the protection of Indiana University's Lilly Library.
Driving the news: Barnes & Noble is now selling the two-player game in which the objective is to move military units to destroy the opponent's GHQ (General Headquarters).
Zoom in: Geoff Engelstein — an award-winning tabletop game designer who wanted to know more about GHQ after learning of its existence — told the New York Times he reached out to IU for help.
- But the university said the Vonnegut estate would need to give permission before it could release any information about the game.
- After securing a blessing from the attorney representing Vonnegut's works, the Lilly Library gave Engelstein a box containing dozens of notes and instructions that he used to revive, and revise, GHQ for retail.
What he's saying: Engelstein told the NYT he largely stuck to Vonnegut's handwritten instructions and only made tweaks when things were unclear.
- "It's all his scribbles and doodles and you can just kind of see the way he was working on it," Engelstein said. "There's like five different versions of the rules, there's his letters that he sent to publishers to try to get them to accept it, the rejection letters that came back."
- He added that placing the military game in the context of Vonnegut's life in 1956 — when he created the game — was difficult. Engelstein did not want the product to glorify war, considering the powerful anti-war sentiment present in Vonnegut's most influential works.
How it works: Described as fast and strategic, General Headquarters is played on a standard 8-by-8 checkerboard.
- Setup time is listed as five minutes, while game length clocks in at 20–40 minutes.
- Players command infantry, armored vehicles, artillery and airborne regiment during the game.
- As in chess, each class has its own rules for movement and capturing opposing pieces. The GHQ essentially serves as the king. Take it out and you win.
The intrigue: Among the writings kept at IU is an unsuccessful pitch letter Vonnegut wrote to the Saalfield Publishing Company in November 1956 that shows how much confidence he had in the game, saying it has "enough dignity and interest" to become a third checkerboard game alongside chess and checkers.
- "The counters are pretty as they can be. Plenty of sales appeal there — particularly for veterans itching to show how much they know about tactics," Vonnegut wrote in the pitch. "A nine-year-old can learn it. All the neighborhood kids can play it and love to play it."
Reality check: Vonnegut developed GHQ at a time when he was strapped for cash and searching for a way to supplement his income as he worked on his next novel.
Fun fact: This first edition of GHQ being sold by Barnes & Noble packs in deluxe wooden pieces and a 24-page commentary booklet with Vonnegut's design notes.
How to buy: General Headquarters retails for $35.