Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell: Improvise, Adapt and Overcome!

Posted by on Jul 13, 2010 in Columns, Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Features, Geek World | 27 comments

Due to the amazing feedback from my first venture into exploring gamers in the military, I have decided to explore how forward deployed Military folks have dealt with a lack of gaming materials. This installment was inspired by a comment from the first Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell article I wrote. One of the readers, Nick, related a story about his ex-girlfriend’s cousin who was an Army gamer that played Warhammer 40K in the field with rocks and pebbles. This is a wonderful example of the concept of “improvise, adapt and overcome,” henceforth referred to as IAO. In this installment, we will look at what it means to IAO, give some real world examples, and finally I will ask the readers to post comments relating to their experiences or stories they’ve heard of involving IAO in gaming.

The first time I heard the phrase “improvise, adapt and overcome” was from the gnarled cigar chewing mouth of Gunny Highway in the movie Heartbreak Ridge. While the movie had some crap-tastic moments, no one can deny its sheer deliciousness. The Marine Corps, however, has used this phrase for a long time. There are hundreds of Marines who after not accomplishing some task were told that they failed to “improvise, adapt and overcome.” IAO is more than just words to Marines and members of the other services, it is a way of thinking — and for many a way of life. IAO is being able to look at a problem and to use whatever you have on hand to solve that problem. We have to understand that IAO is a form of creativity.

Let’s face it: most people don’t think of military folks as creative but IAO shows us otherwise. In the military they call it an operation, in gaming we call it a dungeon crawl. For those of you who have had the honor to game with military folks, you have seen just how adept at IAO some military gamers can be. At the table, military gamers often come up with what some like to call “game-breaking solutions” to solve in game problems. But what if the problem is that you are a service member deployed to support operations in Iraq or Afghanistan and you want to game? You are tired of real bullets being shot at you and you’d rather swing a “sword” for a while. What if Private Joey Bag O’ Doughnuts wants to control a squad of Skaven sappers in Warhammer 40? What do they do?

IAO, that’s what they do! They do it because as military gamers, that is how they roll (pun intended). So here are our brave men and women of the armed forces without a FLGS (Friendly Local Gaming Store) to turn to. Well, most people would turn on their computers and settle for the video game versions of some table top RPGs or even decide to join the rest of the world in Warcraft. Not Military Gamers. Not IAOers. They find a way to game anytime, anyplace!

What do you do when you have no miniatures, no dice — and oh yeah, no rule books? Come on kids, what do we do? Those of you who didn’t say IAO, DROP AND ROLL ME 20′s! Let’s start with the story Nick relayed to us (Thanks, Nick). For those of you who are not familiar with it, Warhammer 40K is a highly addictive and highly expensive futuristic tactical war game. Armies take a long time to build and even longer to paint. 40kers tend to travel to cons with footlockers full of their miniatures. Taking footlockers full of miniatures (if I call them minis no self respecting 40ker will ever read any of my stuff) isn’t practical when you are headed to the desert and the only thing Uncle Sugar (AKA Uncle Sam) will let you take is a rucksack and a duffel bag.

I can almost see it now: here are a few guys who play Warhammer 40K on Saturday afternoons. They’ve been deployed for about a month and so far they have been surviving on the Warhammer 40K video games and gamer stories that they were all there for. One of the guys, an IAOer says, “This is BS! I miss those amazing Saturday games! What can I do? I’m in the middle of Afghanistan and want to play ‘real world’ Warhammer 40K.”

Improvise: We’ll use rocks and pebbles to represent the miniatures. I bet we can talk to the contractors who do all of the construction and see if we can get some paint. Now the rocks are sporting proper unit colors. Wait, we don’t have a table to game on! Right, but we do have the terrain model we use to plan operations! Okay, so we have miniatures and terrain now. Now we need something to measure distances with. Wait, aren’t there tape measures in the unit construction kit? Score!

Overcome: Guys, it isn’t quite like home but we have Warhammer 40K (IAO style!).
Another example was given to me by David G. in the comments of my last article. David is an Army Soldier deployed to Iraq who has been forced to IAO with his gaming group. In his comment he described his group and his current adventures as a Minotaur Barbarian/ Sorcerer. I asked David via Facebook what books their group had, his response was D&D 3.5 Players Handbook, Monster Manual and The Book of Vile Darkness (Random Book for a “basic” set, but one of Dave’s favorites).

None of the guys brought dice with them so they use electronic rollers that can download the software easily. The rest of the books or materials they use are PDFs that are mined from different web sites like Crystal Keep, a site that is full o’ D20 goodness. While they didn’t need to go to the lengths the other guys did, they IAOed and have been able to game. I heard another story of some guys who were deployed to a remote location and ended up carving dice out of wood on hand, using the backs of policy letters for character sheets and an MRE box for a game table. Talk about IAO!

These are just a few examples of military gamers who used IAO to continue a hobby that they love. In this day of online ordering and Big Box Bookstores, we forget that there are still gamers out there who have to IAO every day to enjoy the hobby. I would ask that the next time the readers find themselves in a situation where the in game answer isn’t obvious, remember: Improvise, Adapt and Overcome.

Now I would like to challenge the readers to comment on this article with their stories of IAO as military gamers or otherwise. I would like to close by reminding you that the people who are out there dying for your freedoms get to enjoy those freedoms less than you do. The military protects democracy, they don’t practice it. In their world if they fail to Improvise, Adapt and Overcome, there are no limited wish or resurrection spells. Support the troops and leave a special place in your hearts for the Geeky ones!

About Cape Rust


Cape Rust is an international man of thespionage. Born and raised in San Antonio Texas, he joined the U.S. Army where he served 12 years six as a Military Policeman and six as an all source Military Intelligence Analyst. Being a fat, bald version of James Bond, his geek interests are wide (like his belly) and varied. His collection of gadgets (electronic and travel related) are only rivaled by the amount of pockets found on most items of clothing he wears.

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  • David G

    Well Cape, I am happy to read yet another of your articles (And even happier to be mentioned, gawrsh!), and I must say, please continue the good work. I enjoyed reading the bit about the Warhammer 40K gamers. I have never been a player myself, but it did remind me of some of the other geeky examples of IAOs I have witnessed out here (Such as former club-goers using battery-operated chem lights to fashion all sorts of night-time light goodies to spin).

  • Stygian Jim

    Another great article Cape! I’ve never really had to IAO in any of my games, in fact, while I support the mindset, and utilize it in many other aspects of my life, I’m unfortunately rigid in my gaming mindset. That said, I do have one friend who went to jail and told me about how prisoners used that same IAO mindset in order to game. Using playing cards and other means to simulate the randomness of die rolls. I did something similar when I was a kid in school, bored and making characters during class. Without access to dice I would use number grids that would look similar to soduku to come up with stats for each of my character ideas.

  • Hope C.

    Wonderful article, Cape. Looking forward to more.

  • neb

    yet a nother great article cape!

  • KenKen

    IAO huh……truth be told I never knew when you employed that in any of our games back in the day which is a good thing! Of course you never had to considering J always had a trunk(as in car trunk) full of MINIATURES and books. As far as using IAO myself in game related scenarios…..maybe the most I ever did was use an over sized d6 to represent one of my characters who had a 10ft reach and I fought spare change as bad guys #1, 2, and 3. lol I suppose that’s the same thing on a smaller level. I think it’s fantastic that Nick used pebbles like that for Warhammer 40k, very creative indeed! I can’t wait to see what new facets of gaming you’re going to reveal to us in your next article. Keep up the good work sir and much love to the family!

  • Mallie

    I’m so proud to be your daughter and editor! Nicely done.

  • Laurie

    It’s amazing what we’ll do when the stars are not aligned…though I do not game, it does not suprise me the lengths that some will take to do so. I think a more experienced gamer would be able to overcome some obstacles, for a beginner it would be more difficult (unless the DM was experienced? That may help). Okay…now write something that I know about! I know your geek tendencies spread much further than just gaming!!!

  • M B

    The article is indeed another great one, keep em flowing.

  • Pedro

    I would use IAO for RPG’s but not necessarily in the field. On car trip vacations with the kids when they were still low teens and pre teens. I would take them on dungeon crawls of the mind to make time pass. I would present situations to them and they would role play responses. Magic and combat would be handled with no dice but a simple difficutly system Easy is a pick a number from 1 to 5 and you get 3 or 4 chances depending. Difficult was pick a number between 1 and 10 with 5 to 7 chances depending on percieved difficulty, and Hard was 1 to 10 with 3 chances. Extreme was 1 to 12 with 2 to 4 chances depending. Needless to say the system was easy to use, consitent and worked very well to keep the completely verbal game going. Nice article Cape.

  • Cape

    What amazing Ideas! Jim love hearing about the guys in prison. Ken Ken I did most of my IAO when I was running games most of my stuff was unplanned, the players were driving the train. Laurie you are right I need to branch out and Pedro I had never thought of doing that. That is also a great way to start your kids down the gamer road at an early age. There would be no article if you guys were not willing to read what we write. Stygian Jims next article should drop soon! Thanks for your support and thanks for supporting Geek-Life.

  • Mango

    Great article! Don’t forget to explain your geekishly hilarious i-pod love in an article in the near future. Now if I could only insure that you wouldn’t eat the pudding…

  • Stygian Jim

    Thanks for the plug amigo, yeah everybody, read my articles too! J/K, I think that your work has a broader appeal, and a much more engaging style. As usual Cape, I’ve got a good role model to imitate to bring my stuff up to snuff. :)

  • Buff

    One time, I showed up for a game and forgot my dice. I had to borrow some. Does that count?

  • Pedro

    If I were a charitable easy going mellow guy…then I believe I would say “Yes”. However, since I’m not that nice…then “no dude, not even close” is really close to true respose to that one. It’s a funny tho’, props for that.

  • melissa

    Great article Cape! IAO is definitely something to think about. It works for any type of situation and with it you can do almost anything. Looking forward to the next article!

  • Benji

    IAO? I did that all the time as a kid, and I still do! My cousin and I still, to this day, play rps. When we were younger, we did that every time we went outside. And now that I’m older, I find that I still do that. Except now I’ve joined a trading card game. I haven’t quite gotten “good” at it yet, but I’m learning to use the good ol’ IAO. I also love to write, and trust me on this, IAO is very good for that. Whenever I sit down and start typing, one of the biggest questions going through my mind is, “I wonder how this situation will affect this or that.” IAO is an excellent tool that helps get past writer’s block. Whenever I get stuck on one of my updates, I immediately begin thinking of ways around it.

  • Ken

    Another fine article from the Cape. I truly enjoy hearing how those who protect our freedoms enjoy those things we think are important—even geeky hobbies. It provides a connection for us with those brave people behind the weapons, especially for those of us who don’t have any family or friends in active service. Keep bringing these little slices of military life to us Cape.

  • Scott

    Hey cape. Again, a good read. I’ve not played anything more than Risk. And even with modified rules, the game still went on for over 8 hours. Lol

  • Carey

    Three am in my former college’s design lab. Power goes out. No power means no computers to read/roll from. (We got yelled at for noisy dice rolls). Lazy animation students that we are, we’d rather sit around using random toothpick props, student art projects and other bits of equipment to finish our game than go down the stairwell. Best was the coconut d6. Why we had a coconut up there, dunno, but it worked out rather well.

  • Arlene

    it was a nice read and i had no idea that there were gamers in the military lol. Now i learned something new thanks cape keep them coming

  • Matthew

    I like your connections between gaming and the military! Nice!

  • http://juste-mailabove Joe Rust

    Cape has presented to us another thoughtful and well-written article. It appears he may turn out to be the real author in the family, as opposed to his old newspaper editor dad. I am quite proud of Cape and I know his mother is looking down from heaven and adding her pride for him, also. I hope he keeps up the good work, in writing and community service, especially since he and his brother are going to have to take care of me in my old (correction, older) age. Love Cape and his family every number.

    Joe Rust, proud dad

  • Josh Sickler

    Cape, awesome article. As a non-military person I can tell you that I have had to employ IAO in my gaming sessions with you. Whether as a player or a DM you challenge us to think outside the box and not just do you average boring dungeon crawl. Case and point: A barn is being held by hostile forces with friendlies inside. How do we overcome this obstacle. Burning chickens. That’s right, not magic, not stealth, BURNING CHICKENS!! How’s that for IAO. We dropped flaming chickens through the roof and proceed to cause havoc on the enemy forces. In short we utilized IAO and overcame a potentially “hairy” situation. Thanks for all you do Cape. Write Hard!!

  • Jim V

    This is an interesting and enlightening research topic, one that reminds all of us that soldiers are a cross section of the population; even the geeky hobbyist is represented.

  • Nick

    Nick here again. I’m glad I could be of service. Here is a nice in-game sample of IAO. Our party was underground for a long time and it was tough. At one point, my character was falling down a chasm to his ultimate demise (just like the last 3 characters I had played). So, my buddy Tom the Cleric decided to save me by shooting a grappling-hook-equipped-crossbow right into my chest, while I was falling. Direct hit, tons of damage. I was saved and almost died, but, he healed me up once I got dragged back to the top of the cliff. Tom’s quick thinking turned a certain death into an almost dead situation. That’s what friends are for, yes?

  • Cape Rust

    Amazing, Great examples! Here is some food for thought and it might be a good topic for another article, How would you have felt if your Gm had let you die after Toms quick thinking?

  • Roberto H.

    All these IAO scenarios by quick thinking soldier gamers is great. They never fail to amaze. Good article Cape, I look forward to future geek/gamer filled topics. By the way I believe gaming is more main-stream than ever, many of my friends enjoy the collecting and painting, (personalizing), as much as the game itself. They are definitely addicted.