It was a battle in one of our big game scenarios. On one end of the huge wall map the dwarves controlled the North-East, while the Samurai held the South-East. There was an unspoken truce as both factions extended their lands westward.

Unspoken truces always end, don’t they? It seems our species is a warlike one; always fighting for one reason or another. In our big game the factions have personalities. It’s what the person playing them thinks that faction would do.

My son was playing the dwarves. There were carefully building a strong empire and had decided it was time to head south into Samurai lands. After all, there was no official agreement, so they weren’t violating anything.

I was playing the samurai. We were outraged. We’d considered the dwarves allies, and felt betrayed. Most of our points were in the West so they immediately turned around and headed home. We had very few points available in our homeland. We withdrew and...