Axis & Allies & Everything Else: A Far-Ranging Talk With Justin Kramm

With the last year’s drift into more historical wargames, I wanted to know more when a new pal on LinkedIn — Justin Kramm of Shitshow Creative — told me he played Axis and Allies as a kid. This game always felt like a lacuna in my tabletop career.

It was an easy starting point. Keeping him there was not a possibility as I found myself on the line with an incurable raconteur with a mind even more restless than my own.

The act of games and play give way to wider themes as we rove from his childhood as a hotel brat to musings on whether or not we can rage quit 21st Century Capitalism’s End Game.

Following are four selections from a long and interesting ride.

Setting the Board

Hotel Brat

You’re Not Playing Right

End Game

Carving out an hour-plus of your busy day to talk to Breakup Gaming Society basically makes you a contributor, so Justin Kramm (L) shows off two pieces of swag I sent his way: Breakup Gaming Society’s cocktail booklet and an Adventure Comics from 1980something.