"What is a wargame" Topic

John wrote:
OK, so that seems different again from the distinction I thought was intended. Whether or not a simulation permits interaction with the user is a classification axis I would label "interactive/batch", whereas getting the same result or different results from each run because of (pseudo-)random effects interval to the simulation is the "determinsitic/stochastic" difference I originally thought you meant.

John:
I can see where the communication issues lay, *I think.*

The Static Simulation definition is a more general, less specific than yours, which reference specific parts of the simulation. This is understandable as my experience was of designers from many fields, computers and not, discussing simulation issues. As I came in on these discussions as a newbie at conferences and such, there may have been some agreed-upon definitions made to span those different disciplines which I assumed were universal. However, in reading simulation literature since then, I haven't gotten that idea--I still see the same descriptors.

The two conversations I had with Jerry Green included other designers, so…

The Static designator references two things: One, the simulation has a set progression, simulating only one event. While time can be represented within the simulation process, there is no variation or mechanism for 'timing' any new activities interjected by a user, providing a progression of time for what will be a variety of events. The user starts the Static Simulation and it runs to a predetermined end. Deterministic to be sure.

And, weirdly, neither of these is particularly to do with time. It's possible to have (using my classification here) a static representation of time, at least for steady-state systems, using techniques such as finding the balance equations of Markov chains. It's also possible to have a dynamic representation of a system where time is not represented, as in a basic Petri net. Which of these would you class as static and which dynamic using your classification scheme?

See my definition above. I have always understood Time to be a cardinal issue, a core concern for any simulation. Both Static and Dynamic simulations can have time elements. It is that the Dynamic simulation will have to some way to monitor time as the user interacts [and changes the process] with the simulation as it runs.

It would seem that both your examples would be Static under my definition. I would assume for instance that your "a dynamic representation of a system where time is not represented" will not have a user interface with the system while it is running.

I ask merely out of idle curiosity, of course. Over the years I have come to realise that simple-minded classifications like this don't get you very far. They are like the Royal Navy's classification of all birds as sparrows, Bleeped textehawks, or arse-up ducks, which isn't too helpful to the serious birder. There are a whole bunch of different levels of statis to be recognised -- most people would count a stochastic discrete-event simulation using Poisson arrivals as pretty dynamic, but if it uses a stationary Poisson process it isn't as dynamic as it could be.

Yes, classifications are tools for the user, and they change as the needs change. The Royal Navy really didn't need a wide set of bird classifications. ;-j

And of course, that is true for simulation design. Even so, I would count a stochastic discrete-event simulation using Poisson arrivals as pretty dynamic too. As the user can change processes during the discrete-event simulation run, even if it is only with Poisson arrivals, then that is a dynamic simulation by my lights, or stochastic if you will.

For me, in a training design venue, there were two ways of presenting information in a simulation form. I could either create an event, or an environment. If I created an event, then the trainee could experience it, but there were no decisions to be made--Static. You ran them through it once and that was it. The dynamic simulation provided an environment were they could interact with it during the simulation, make decisions and thus created the events within the simulation.

That distinction helped me design more effectively, and that distinction and many others I learned in numerous discussions on simulation design at conferences, emails and actually collaborating on some. And Jerry Banks and others were there too sharing.

I hope that is clear.

The question is how all this can help simulation design?

Best Regards,

Bill

Rich:
I'm sorry it has taken so long to get back to you. I have been traveling on business, running an on-line class and generally doing a good imitation of the Red Queen.

I'm sorry you think that was hair splitting. It was not intended to be. If we start to call both the system and the model "processing", it presents yet another communications problem. That's all I was saying. I don't play "gotcha" games.

I'm glad to hear it. I wasn't suggesting 'gotcha' games. It's just your insistence on clarifying what I see as obvious and accepted by both parties in our conversation. It seems to be unnecessary unless it has already caused some confusion. I can't see where it had until you insisted on pushing the distinction.

Rich: To be more accurate one makes a model of the real world process. If I have created a model of a real world process then by definition the process exists. Otherwise, I cannot make a model of it.
Bill: Well, hello circular reasoning. And this gets us where?
What I meant by that was, if I have a model of a process this presupposes that the process itself exists.

Rich: Yes…unless that process existed in the past, but not at the moment, or it is a process in the planning and someone wants to test it before they go to the trouble of creating the real thing, so they build a model of it. Or maybe they want to do some predictive work. If you are saying that these uses aren't possible, then we do have a point of disagreement.

So, if it is a 'real world' process, Am I safe in assuming the environment IS germane to the process?

If the model is a mathematical model, the fact that the process is under one roof is irrelevant.

So no one designs simulations of weather patterns for 2050 or crowd flow patterns for building that do not exist, or simulations of biological functions that haven't been determined yet, or the movement and musculature of animals that haven't existed for millions of years, etc. etc. etc.? So no one does 'what if' scenarios concerning anything but "an existing real world process?"

All those are real world processes. As I said previously, they don't have to physically exist to be a real world process.

Okay, then we are on the same page here.

Well, once again we are speaking of game processes not being actual processes, but only models of processes which then model with processes. Hope that is clear.

Well, no. It is not clear. What is a game processes from which a model is created?

Yep, I did fail to make that distinction. I always found that the model of a process usually ends up being a process too. Silly me.

Again, this is not a "gotcha". I think for the sake of our discussion it is important to make the distinction between those who design processes and those that design models of that process, even if it is the same person. They are two distinctly different functions.

Okay. Here might be a point of divergence. I don't see game processes [or mechanics or subsystems] being inherently distinct from any other artificial processes used to create a model. Whether a computer, paper and pencil or table-top game rules, they can all be used to create processes that model real world processes in some respect.

As I have said, a real world process does not have to exist physically. It can exist on paper or, more likely, in a computer. It doesn't even have to exist there. It can be as simple as the laws that pertain to man's interactions with nature given the tools he has to work with.

Then we can agree that if the real world process doesn't have to exist physically, the same is true of any artificial process designed to model it?

Right. No History A. I just heard the A and B history description repeated by Dr. Elizabeth Vandiver of the University of Maryland in a lecture on Herodotus. I'll update her and my history professors as long as we can agree that "the historical record" is separate from historians' narratives using that record.

Feel free to send my comments to her and my email address to she can point out where I am wrong: rwknap(at)comcast(dot)net. In the mean time, let me quote M.C. Lemon, University of Ulster in Philosophy of History to the question of what is history: "what historians actually do, today" Implied in the answer was there must be a historian in order to have history. If we accept Herodotus as the first historian then prior to him there was no history. There were certainly records upon which historians draw in order to create history. Those we can call the historical record. (i.e. the things historians can draw upon in order to create history.)

The idea that there must be an historian in order to have history is really open to interpretation. Page Smith in his "History and the Historian" [note, the two being distinct] suggests that all people are 'historians' in the sense that they create narratives of the events of their lives and those around them. That isn't the issue. As I doubt whether Dr. Vandiver would care one way or another what you called the two, as long as we all agreed that the historical record is separate from what historians create.

Do we agree? If not I will give you her email address… and you can explain it to her.

Now, about designing simulation games

Not so fast. Trying to get a fast one by me, are we? Lets talk a bit about what a game is.

The words "game" and "model" clearly mean different things; but that does not make them mutually exclusive categories, and nothing in the definitions you've given states or implies that they are. I see no reason that something can't be both a game and a simulation, which would be why there are hundreds of boxes on my shelves with the words "A conflict simulation game" written on them.

I'm glad to hear you say it, as I don't see games and models as mutually exclusive. I was really under the impression you felt they were.

Unfortunately, I know from personal experience, many of the designers of those 'conflict simulation games' board games and table top games have very little idea what a simulation is or how to actually create one.

Let me ask you, of those ‘conflict simulation games', how many are for the computer? Those are not what we are discussing. I've already admitted that games played on computers are simulation games.

Why? What is so special about a computer 'simulation game'? There are many board and table top game designers claiming the same thing [and a few have been designed by computer simulation designers.]

So, I see no reason why a game cannot be a simulation. But that's not the discussion. What we are discussing is wargames (written set of rules, figures, model terrain). Are wargames simulations? In other words, wargame = simulation.

They can be IF the intention of the designer is to create one, and he is in fact successful.

We can define a game as "as a set of players, a set of moves [as defined by the environment or conditions of the game] and a payoff. A wargame is that plus the environment is a military environment and it is played for entertainment. We can then define a simulation as a model of a real world process. These are created as decision-making tools. As you pointed out ‘game' and ‘model' mean different things.

They are, but a game can be a model too, if designed that way. As you say, they are not mutually exclusive.

Therefore we cannot say wargame = simulation (damn, I couldn't find the key stroke that has an equal sign with the line through it.) Therefore, we can say a wargame is not a simulation although there maybe some common aspects to both.

? Rich, you said " I see no reason why a game cannot be a simulation. But that's not the discussion." Really? So by placing 'war' in front of 'game', a wargame can't be a simulation? Is that true of 'economic' games? 'Management' games, etc. etc.? Or is it just 'war' that renders games incapable of simulating?

A wargame can be a simulation IF it is meant to simulate some aspect of war using a game as the model for the simulated conflict. The Department of Defense wargames simulate all the time with Computer games and table top games.

Back in 1823 von Riesswitz's Kriegsspiel was call a war 'game' for a reason, even though the intent was to simulate real world processes on the battlefield. Table top games can do it too if that is the designer's goal and he is successful in achieving it.

Wargames = simulations all the time, both in the eyes of the designers and users. I fail to see why they are mutually exclusive. I will agree they don't HAVE TO be. There is no requirement that they equal each other. It all depends on how the designer creates his game. It can be a simulation of war.

Best Regards,

Bill

A wargame can be a simulation IF it is meant to simulate some aspect of war using a game as the model for the simulated conflict. The Department of Defense wargames simulate all the time with Computer games and table top games.

Come on Bill, I thought I had made myself clear that when I mentioned wargame I was referencing the hobby of wargaming, not the Department of Defense.

Okay. Here might be a point of divergence.

I don't think so. What I'm saying here is not very controversial. One man comes along and builds a process like an assembly line. Another comes along and builds a model of that assembly line. That's all I was saying.

artificial process designed to model it [the process]

What is an artificial process designed to model the original process?

Do we agree?

If by that you mean that anyone who creates history is a historian, whether he has a PhD or not, then we agree. But it takes that person to create history.

I'm glad to hear you say it, as I don't see games and models as mutually exclusive.

Ah Bill, those aren't my words. They're yours.

Back in 1823 von Riesswitz's Kriegsspiel was call a war 'game' for a reason, even though the intent was to simulate real world processes on the battlefield. Table top games can do it too if that is the designer's goal and he is successful in achieving it.

This is where you and I differ. Father and son did not create a model of anything. Their intent, with their map, playing pieces and rules, was to create a military environment which would allow officers to make military decisions and see, in some measure, what the consequences of their decisions might be. Contemporaries heavily criticized von Riesswitz, the younger. They claimed his "wargame" did not reflect real war. An environment is not a model.

But that is not to say that simulations have nothing to teach rule writers. When thinking about simultaneous or sequential moves, I learned from Game Theory that sequential movement allows perfect knowledge of the opponents intent (for that move and for that unit). Simultaneous movement, on the other hand, forces one to commit one's units with incomplete knowledge of the opponent's intent. For that reason, I believe simultaneous movement is able to create a better military environment than does sequential movement. One commits units ahead of time by assigning them orders. Now they are committed without knowing ahead of time what exactly the enemy is going to do. So wargaming can be enriched by simulation studies without itself being a simulation.

Rich

Are we there yet?

Are we there yet?

I wish…

Bill

Perhaps we are.

We still don't have a definition for wargaming which everybody can agree on, but it seems that people can now agree that techniques used in simulation design and game design in general could also be applied to wargaming. In my view that's the whole point of this discussion; role-playing games, board games, computer games and all kinds of simulations have so much in common with wargames that we can "enrich" our designs by using knowledge produced by these other fields.

I really wouldn't like to insult anyone, but at the moment it seems that wargaming is the most… well, retarded field of all of those. For example, when someone mentions that it might be nice to know what historical wargamers actually consider to be fun, it is immediately deemed to be "pointless" and "not worth the effort". We also have no definitions about anything, which make threads like "Games for Engineers vs Games for Novelists" unnecessary hard to follow and too prone to misunderstandings.

Bill wrote:
Back in 1823 von Riesswitz's Kriegsspiel was call a war 'game' for a reason, even though the intent was to simulate real world processes on the battlefield. Table top games can do it too if that is the designer's goal and he is successful in achieving it.

Rich commented:
This is where you and I differ. Father and son did not create a model of anything. Their intent, with their map, playing pieces and rules, was to create a military environment which would allow officers to make military decisions and see, in some measure, what the consequences of their decisions might be. Contemporaries heavily criticized von Riesswitz, the younger. They claimed his "wargame" did not reflect real war. An environment is not a model.

Did not Von Muffling say that Kriegsspiel was not merely a game, but a training for war, and order copies to be distributed to the Prussian Army? And Kriegsspiel continued to be used by the Prussians for training and planning, and was also translated, adopted and adapted by the military of other countries, so it obviously was regarded as having some merit. Von Reisswitz's critics (please give names and references if you have them – I would genuinely like to know more, I'm not making a debating point) would thus seem not to have gained much support.

Surely the methods for calculating the casualties and effects of musketry and artillery fire in Kriegsspiel were a mathematical model of those aspects of warfare?

What distinguishes Kriegsspiel from the majority of hobby wargames is its umpire-resolution of fire and combat and the fact it is a 'closed' game in which players do not have total knowledge of their own and/or the enemy's troops, in the way that they do in a traditional toy soldier wargame.

But one could easily use the von Reisswitz rules to control a face to face tabletop game with three-dimensional terrain and model soldiers instead of troop counters and maps, and it would be at least as playable and 'realistic' – if not more so – than many modern rulesets. Kriegsspiel attempted to portray exactly the same things – rates of movement, fire effect and close combat – as today's wargame rules.

One last point: although designed as a military training game for professional officers (so no explanations of what a dragoon is, or how to paint voltigeurs &c., &c.), Kriegsspiel can be played for pleasure today. I know, I've done so for years. You can buy Bill Leeson's translation of von Reisswitz and other Kriegsspiel material from the Too Fat Lardies.

A wargame can be a simulation IF it is meant to simulate some aspect of war using a game as the model for the simulated conflict. The Department of Defense wargames simulate all the time with Computer games and table top games.

Come on Bill, I thought I had made myself clear that when I mentioned wargame I was referencing the hobby of wargaming, not the Department of Defense.

Rich:
You did--I just don't see much difference if the intentions, tools and results look much the same. "Entertainment" seems to be the bugaboo.

I see those two hobby and DOD products as very mutable, and so do both the wargame hobby, both board and table top games as well as the DOD. They trade designs all the time and have for a long time--without much translation.

Okay. Here might be a point of divergence.

I don't think so. What I'm saying here is not very controversial. One man comes along and builds a process like an assembly line. Another comes along and builds a model of that assembly line. That's all I was saying.

Terrific. I agree, and whether that man is a toymaker or a military model maker, if they both build a model of that assembly line, they are both models. Right?

What is an artificial process designed to model the original process?

Artificial, as in not real, usually made of physically different components from the 'real thing'. And all the products of the [artificial] model are also not 'real'. It is artificial because it isn't the real thing. A computer program of a chemical process as opposed to the actual chemical process. A tabletop battle as opposed to real battle… A military wargame as opposed to a real war.

Do we agree?

I think so, I hope so.

If by that you mean that anyone who creates history is a historian, whether he has a PhD or not, then we agree. But it takes that person to create history.

As I said, if you agree that the historical record is different than the narratives that anyone creates from it, we can move on, whatever the two components are called.

I'm glad to hear you say it, as I don't see games and models as mutually exclusive.

Ah Bill, those aren't my words. They're yours.

Rich, you wrote: "So, I see no reason why a game cannot be a simulation. But that's not the discussion."

I assumed if a simulation is a model of a process, and a game can be a simulation…

Back in 1823 von Riesswitz's Kriegsspiel was call a war 'game' for a reason, even though the intent was to simulate real world processes on the battlefield. Table top games can do it too if that is the designer's goal and he is successful in achieving it.

This is where you and I differ. Father and son did not create a model of anything. Their intent, with their map, playing pieces and rules, was to create a military environment which would allow officers to make military decisions and see, in some measure, what the consequences of their decisions might be. Contemporaries heavily criticized von Riesswitz, the younger. They claimed his "wargame" did not reflect real war. An environment is not a model.

Yes, they modeled a battlefield environment. Not my words, theirs. And yes, there were criticisms of the wargame, but no one said wargames as models of the battlefield environment couldn't be done.

Heavily criticized is a bit overstated since the Riesswitz wargame was used by Continental and American Military men for the rest of the century. In fact those critics went on to 'change' what they thought was wrong about it, in a myriad of editions and variants.

But that is not to say that simulations have nothing to teach rule writers. When thinking about simultaneous or sequential moves, I learned from Game Theory that sequential movement allows perfect knowledge of the opponents intent (for that move and for that unit). Simultaneous movement, on the other hand, forces one to commit one's units with incomplete knowledge of the opponent's intent. For that reason, I believe simultaneous movement is able to create a better military environment than does sequential movement. One commits units ahead of time by assigning them orders. Now they are committed without knowing ahead of time what exactly the enemy is going to do. So wargaming can be enriched by simulation studies without itself being a simulation.

It all depends on what the designer wants to capture/model of the military environment. And simulation design can tell you why it is so difficult to create a workable simultaneous
system, on the computer or particularly the table top.

I am not clear why you believe that:
1. An environment can't be modeled,
2. An environment can't be simulated, and
3. A game isn't an artificial environment which can model a
real one.

It is difficult to see how simulation design can apply to 'wargame rules writing' if those three points are in the negative.

Bill H.

I am not clear why you believe that:


1. An environment can't be modeled, 

2. An environment can't be simulated, and

3. A game isn't an artificial environment which can model a
real one.

It is difficult to see how simulation design can apply to 'wargame rules writing' if those three points are in the negative.

1. After the rule writer has created the game environment by which the gamer plays the game, why would he then model it?
2. Same question as #1. A simulation is a model of a process, event, or an action.
3. The gaming environment is a real gaming environment not an artificial environment.

Rich

Rich wrote:

1. After the rule writer has created the game environment by which the gamer plays the game, why would he then model it?
2. Same question as #1. A simulation is a model of a process, event, or an action.
3. The gaming environment is a real gaming environment not an artificial environment.

Rich:
Sorry to take so long, but June is my busy month. A simulation can be a model of an environment, which is nothing more than a collection of processes where events and actions occur.

If the game designer wants to model a battlefield environment, then that gaming environment is designed to represent *something else*, ostensibly the real world past or present. When you say "The gaming environment is a real gaming environment not an artificial environment", you seem to be saying that a game environment can't 1. simulate 2. be a model of a real environment, and 3. be an artificial representation of something else at all.

Now, if you somehow believe that a wargame environment can't represent another real environment, however you with define it, then we really don't have much to talk about.

You keep defining things out of the realm of possibility, which is rather frustrating when I know simulations and game designers are doing it anyway--besides the fact that it doesn't get us to discussing designing wargames or simulations and how they model history. If fact, if I understand you correctly, you believe it isn't possible.

If a game designer wants to represent, recreate, or model a Napoleonic battlefield environment, providing the same decisions, dynamics and possible events of the real battle, he is going to have use simulation concepts and methods.

Many of those concepts and methods are universally applicable. I have already provided one set, which I didn't see you comment on.

Every time I think we are coming to some understanding, you say something like "The gaming environment is a real gaming environment not an artificial environment" which returns us to square one. So, is this a discussion or are your definitions and my understandings mutually exclusive?

Best Regards,

Bill H.

Bill will you please quit apologizing for responding a bit late. Whether we agree to disagree or not, we've gone back and forth on this issue so long that I now consider you a friend. Friends don't need to apologize because life takes them away for a time. You have pushed me to refine my ideas and I'm grateful for that.

A simulation can be a model of an environment, which is nothing more than a collection of processes where events and actions occur.

Again, we are using the word differently. When I use the term ‘environment' I mean the gaming environment not the battlefield environment. From game theory I learned that a game must have four elements (I added one for consumer games):

1. A formal set of rules
2. Opposing players (even solo playing implies an invisible opponent
3. A strategy for playing the game
4. A payoff: win, loose or draw.
5. Entertainment

A good consumer game has all 5 elements. But it also has something else. It has a theme. For example, Monopoly's theme is real estate. Clue the theme is a murder mystery. Neither is a simulation of the real estate market nor murder investigations. Clue would not be improved by making the game model real murder investigations. Most would find such changes unentertaining.

When a game designer creates a gaming environment he is choosing a theme to guide in the development of all five elements of what makes a good game. If you look at points 2-5 you will notice that the focus is on the gamers and their gaming experience. We can say that the challenge for consumer game designer is to create a challenging and fun gaming environment for the gamers given the theme they have chosen to build their game around.

Look at Flames of War. The designers have take battle as their theme to guide them as they meet all 5 gaming elements. You may not like how they designed the game but many do. It is successful. This gets to my objection of looking to simulation as a basis for the creation of consumer games. By definition, a simulation creates a model of a process, environment, or an action. By necessity the focus of the simulation is on processes, environments, and actions. It is not focused on the players of the game and their gaming experience. It is not the function of simulations to create consumer games. I think a lot of game designers lose focus of the gamer in his attempts to more ‘accurately' portray battle. In their effort to create more accurate (read that as technical) elements, which they believe to represent events of battle, they fail to stop and ask is the game they are creating entertaining to the players. In a true simulation the designer would be so focused on modeling processes, events, and actions that the player comes in a distant second. These generally end up being very poor games. This doesn't mean that consumer game designers have nothing to learn from simulation designers but they are not the same thing. A game is not a simulation.

If a game designer wants to represent, recreate, or model a Napoleonic battlefield environment, providing the same decisions, dynamics and possible events of the real battle, he is going to have use simulation concepts and methods. Many of those concepts and methods are universally applicable. I have already provided one set, which I didn't see you comment on.

First off, Bill would you quit being so damn cryptic (I say affectionately). If I missed something, which I do all the time, please restate it. Second, just because consumer game designers can use elements of modeling this doesn't mean a game is a simulation. Thirdly, all games require making decisions (strategy). That is one of the requirements of being a game. I don't need a simulation to build decision making into a game. The focus of the simulation creator is the processes, events, and actions and not on the player.

So, is this a discussion or are your definitions and my understandings mutually exclusive?

I don't think so. We've been careful to define our terms. I just don't see how consumer wargaming can be anything except a game.

Rich

Bill will you please quit apologizing for responding a bit late. Whether we agree to disagree or not, we've gone back and forth on this issue so long that I now consider you a friend. Friends don't need to apologize because life takes them away for a time. You have pushed me to refine my ideas and I'm grateful for that.

Rich:
Well, thanks. I get into the habit because I am gone a lot. And yes, this is a forum for refining ideas as well as expressing them among friends.

I wrote: "A simulation can be a model of an environment, which is nothing more than a collection of processes where events and actions occur."

Again, we are using the word differently. When I use the term ‘environment' I mean the gaming environment not the battlefield environment.

And they can't be both in a game environment? A game design can mimic aspects of a historical battlefield environment with a game environment.

From game theory I learned that a game must have four elements (I added one for consumer games):
1. A formal set of rules
2. Opposing players (even solo playing implies an invisible opponent
3. A strategy for playing the game
4. A payoff: win, loose or draw.
5. Entertainment

A good consumer game has all 5 elements. But it also has something else. It has a theme. For example, Monopoly's theme is real estate. Clue the theme is a murder mystery. Neither is a simulation of the real estate market nor murder investigations. Clue would not be improved by making the game model real murder investigations. Most would find such changes unentertaining.

What do you do with all the Game Theory researchers and game designers who create simulations to prove 'game theory', or use game theory to recreate historical environments—i.e. simulations?

Those game elements are certainly reasonable and aspects of Game Theory, however, your conclusions about at least Monopoly not only misrepresents the intent of the designer[s], but also assumes that any new rules added could not improve the game, only destroy the entertainment value. I would think that would solely depend on the quality of the additions, not the designer's purpose for adding them.

Why can't a simulation cover all five of those elements? [In fact, any number of simulations do. ] A wargame can have all five of those elements. There is no discernable line between a game and a simulation in concrete, practical function, and those five elements hardly define all possible game designs or traits.

For example, Monopoly was rejected three times by Parker Brothers because the game failed to have at least two of the Game Elements you list. It didn't have any victory conditions and from the Parker Brother's thirty years of game publishing, they concluded the game would not be entertaining because it could often take longer than four hours to play. They rejected the game as "too complicated, too technical [too much 'real' economics involved'], and it took too long to play." In the rejection letter, the designer, Charles Darrow was told that his game had "fifty-two fundamental playing errors" fatal to entertaining games.

The actual design of Monopoly was a developmental process with several designers, individual designs being combined to create what we know as "Monopoly". The major forerunners, The Landlord's Game and Finance , were designed between 1900 and 1930. Each designer was quite clear about their design intentions. Quaker Lizzie Magie applied for a patent on a game called The Landlord's Game with the object of showing that rents enriched property owners and impoverished tenants—both an educational and simulation goal. Layman, the 'last' designer of Finance, meant the game to portray the dynamics of commerce and high finance. Again, a simulation goal.

Darrow touted Monopoly as a way of learning the system and skills of Free Enterprise, as the game demonstrated real economic processes. The game rules repeated this claim for decades—and still do as far as I know. Obviously, the game was entertaining, but I would say that all three of the designers had intentions for their games that went far beyond any 'theme' aspect that you describe. Wikipedia has a decent overview of the history of Monopoly's development:

link

My two conclusions here are:

1. The elements that you list, while certainly valid, are not hard and fast, nor in some way exclusionary with regards to simulation purposes and mechanics.

2. Entertainment is a very subjective reality, one that even experienced game designers can't simply target with any confidence, let alone clearly define and identify what is, and isn't, entertaining.

When a game designer creates a gaming environment he is choosing a theme to guide in the development of all five elements of what makes a good game. If you look at points 2-5 you will notice that the focus is on the gamers and their gaming experience. We can say that the challenge for consumer game designer is to create a challenging and fun gaming environment for the gamers given the theme they have chosen to build their game around.

Simulations often also focus on the gamer experience. They have to, to be simulations. And the challenges and fun are in recreating real environments the designer has chosen to build his game around.

Again, entertainment is in the eye/gut of the player. Prussian officer von Riesswitz had no intentions of creating an entertaining game when he developed Kriegsspiel. It was to be used as a serious training exercise—period. He expressed surprise that people found the wargame entertaining. So, two hundred years later, gamers are playing his rules as an entertaining game. Why? Because designer intentions can not exclude OR include any certainty as to what is entertaining or who will find it so.

Industry Experience can identify some common qualities that tend to be in most entertaining games, but that is all. As Parker Brothers discovered. And all of those qualities can and are found in many simulations.

Look at Flames of War. The designers have take battle as their theme to guide them as they meet all 5 gaming elements. You may not like how they designed the game but many do. It is successful. This gets to my objection of looking to simulation as a basis for the creation of consumer games. By definition, a simulation creates a model of a process, environment, or an action. By necessity the focus of the simulation is on processes, environments, and actions.

It is not focused on the players of the game and their gaming experience. It is not the function of simulations to create consumer games. I think a lot of game designers lose focus of the gamer in his attempts to more ‘accurately' portray battle. In their effort to create more accurate (read that as technical) elements, which they believe to represent events of battle, they fail to stop and ask is the game they are creating entertaining to the players. In a true simulation the designer would be so focused on modeling processes, events, and actions that the player comes in a distant second. These generally end up being very poor games. This doesn't mean that consumer game designers have nothing to learn from simulation designers but they are not the same thing. A game is not a simulation.

Really? An number of simulations ARE focused on the players and their experience, both in research and training. That is the entire point of many simulations. They would be useless if they didn't. This is true of any number of research and training simulations, let alone those designed as games. As for Flames of War. Here are the designers' words about Flames of War and note what they have focused on:

Flames Of War is a games that allows you to recreate the battles of World War II using miniatures figurines, and so experience the war from the point of view of a front-line company commander. Your miniatures troops will move about the tabletop battlefield, taking cover from enemy fire and then blasting back in return. Sometimes they will abandon you as soon as the going gets tough. But by using the sort of tactics and cunning that a real-life commander would, you and your miniatures soldiers will fight their way to victory after victory!

Whatever you think of FOW, that is not the description of a 'theme' or simply a game, but the claim that players will have to use 'the sort of tactics and cunning that a real-life commander would.'

Rich, you say "It is not the function of simulations to create consumer games." It isn't the function of game theory to create consumer entertainment either—so what? Both game theory and simulation methodologies are simply tools. Designers determine the 'function' of game/simulation mechanics with their goals, with their design—which can include simulating entertaining environments with all the five elements of a game you list.

I think a lot of game designers lose focus of the gamer in his attempts to more ‘accurately' portray battle. In their effort to create more accurate (read that as technical) elements, which they believe to represent events of battle, they fail to stop and ask is the game they are creating entertaining to the players.

I can agree whole-heartedly, but that is a failure on the part of the designers, not some inherent weakness in combining games and simulations. There are those wargame designers who wouldn't know a simulation if it bit them, but still claim to be creating one…and any number don't know game theory either. Our hobby takes a very amateurish, tinkering approach to wargame design. That is just fine until designers make grandiose claims for their creations.

For instance, I have absolutely no idea what makes the designers of FOW believe what they say vis-a-vie military history, for instance, or whether they know anything about creating mechanics which would provide a game environment that reward players for "using the sort of tactics and cunning of a real-life commander…" What I DO know is that their claims for FOW as a game stray quite dramatically into the realm of simulation design. They can't offer a game experience "using the sort of tactics and cunning of a real-life commander" without simulating. That is a technical distinction, not opinion.

Many designers, even a few in our hobby, have successfully combined simulations and games in successful designs. Don't use what you see in our wargaming hobby as some meaningful cross-section of what game designers can and are doing in general. Our little neck of the woods is quite provincial. Remember that game design is now a major and master's program at MIT, it is a $10 USD Billion industry just in the U.S. And that is not counting the simulations industry, which generates another $1.5 USD Billion. That doesn't make our game designers stupid, but they sure aren't in the mainstream. You read the "Fun in Game Design." That author designed both simulations and games for entertainment, and most all of the definitions of "games" from game designers included the words 'artificial environment' or/and simulated.

If a game designer wants to represent, recreate, or model a Napoleonic battlefield environment, providing the same decisions, dynamics and possible events of the real battle, he is going to have use simulation concepts and methods. Many of those concepts and methods are universally applicable. I have already provided one set, which I didn't see you comment on.

I didn't comment on it because I didn't know what to say.;-j

If many of the concepts and methods are universally applicable, I fail to see why simulations and games can't do the same things. To use an analogy, I feel like you are arguing that parachutes used for the military [designed to be serious tools of war] can't be parachutes if used for an entertainment like skydiving. Two different pieces of equipment, even though many of the concepts and methods are universally applicable. [Let alone the shared equipment and traded innovations between the military and the sport.]

If a designer means to create a simulation that neither entertains or presents any entertainment value, that certainly means the creation isn't a game—but if it uses game mechanics and others find it entertaining as a game, can you still draw the line and say that simulations can't be games?

First off, Bill would you quit being so damn cryptic (I say affectionately). If I missed something, which I do all the time, please restate it. Second, just because consumer game designers can use elements of modeling this doesn't mean a game is a simulation. Thirdly, all games require making decisions (strategy). That is one of the requirements of being a game. I don't need a simulation to build decision making into a game. The focus of the simulation creator is the processes, events, and actions and not on the player.

Okay. Let me know where I am being cryptic. It certainly isn't my intention. It certainly doesn't help. ;-J

Second, that is very true. Using some modeling elements doesn't make a game design a simulation. IF the designer set a goal for a game to simulate something, and using elements of modeling to do that successfully, then it is a simulation—by designer intent, by methodology, by mechanics, but results—and none of that excludes the possibility that it is a fun game too—if that was a goal of the designer. And to avoid being cryptic, there are many games, computer, board, and wargames that do just that.

Third, no you don't need a simulation to build a game. I simulation can be a game. A simulation can and is often designed to present players with [realistic] decisions through simulated processes, events, and actions—just as a game does. I designed simulations to present participants with decisions that mimicked those in real events, processes and actions for training purposes. Any number were entertaining games too, all depending on my design goals, mechanisms used, including the elements you mentions, and finally whether I actually pulled it off.

I wrote: "So, is this a discussion or are your definitions and my understandings mutually exclusive?"

I don't think so. We've been careful to define our terms. I just don't see how consumer wargaming can be anything except a game.

Okay, I agree. Except what the last sentence. A consumer wargame can be a simulation and a game, and a success in both spheres. The two products in play are not mutually exclusive. They can be both if the designer knows what he is doing.

Best Regards,

Bill H.

And they can't be both in a game environment? A game design can mimic aspects of a historical battlefield environment with a game environment.

Nevertheless, a consumer wargame designer does not create a historical battlefield environment. That is left to the gamers to build.

Why can't a simulation cover all five of those elements?

If it could it would then be a game not a simulation.

My two conclusions here are:
1. The elements that you list, while certainly valid, are not hard and fast, nor in some way exclusionary with regards to simulation purposes and mechanics.

Show me specifically how that would be done.

2. Entertainment is a very subjective reality, one that even experienced game designers can't simply target with any confidence, let alone clearly define and identify what is, and isn't, entertaining.

Nevertheless, it is conditio sine qua non of consumer wargame rules that they be entertaining. This is not the case with Game Theory as a whole.

Really? A number of simulations ARE focused on the players and their experience, both in research and training. That is the entire point of many simulations.

I had always heard it was focused on the interaction of the players and not with the satisfaction of the players. In other words, they are not focusing on the players but the processes that go on between the players. Remember, simulations model processes.

Whatever you think of FOW, that is not the description of a 'theme' or simply a game, but the claim that players will have to use 'the sort of tactics and cunning that a real-life commander would.'

If you believe FOW "[uses] the sort of tactics and cunning that a real-life commander would" I suggest you these comments on FOW. Don't believe everything marketing tells you.

TMP link

Many designers, even a few in our hobby, have successfully combined simulations and games in successful designs. Don't use what you see in our wargaming hobby as some meaningful cross-section of what game designers can and are doing in general.

I'm not concerned with what game designers are doing in general. I'm only concerned with our wargaming hobby. I believe it was you who said our hobby wargames are simulations. Are you now saying they are not simulations but they could be?

IF the designer set a goal for a game to simulate something, and using elements of modeling to do that successfully, then it is a simulation—by designer intent, by methodology, by mechanics, but results—and none of that excludes the possibility that it is a fun game too—if that was a goal of the designer. And to avoid being cryptic, there are many games, computer, board, and wargames that do just that.

However, I don't see where much of that is relevant to consumer wargames that we play with in our hobby.

Third, no you don't need a simulation to build a game. I simulation can be a game. A simulation can and is often designed to present players with [realistic] decisions through simulated processes, events, and actions—just as a game does. I designed simulations to present participants with decisions that mimicked those in real events, processes and actions for training purposes. Any number were entertaining games too, all depending on my design goals, mechanisms used, including the elements you mentions, and finally whether I actually pulled it off.

I have no doubt you are good at it. In addition, I have already admitted that Game Theory involves simulations. They model the processes, events, or actions that occur between people. However, your simulation was for training purposes. And while it was entertaining, I doubt it could be sold as a consumer game like our wargame rules are.

Rich

Rich:

I didn't say the description for FOW was true, I said the designers state that as what the game design is *supposed* to do. Their goals are well within the realm of simulation design. Whether they succeeded or not is not the question, but rather their stated intentions for the game.

As I said, designers make all sorts of claims for their creations. The question is whether they succeed in delivering.

Best Regards,

Bill H.

I wrote:

Why can't a simulation cover all five of those elements?

Rich wrote:

If it could it would then be a game not a simulation.

Rich:
So something like Microsoft's Flight Simulator, even though it meets all your game criteria, can't be a simulation? I know it is a game because I have won and lost, and I know that it is a simulator because it actually had enhanced my skills when I began my training as a real pilot.

If a wargame, like the flight simulator, recreates aspects of a historical period, tactics, battlefield etc. for the purposes of entertainment in a competitive fashion, why can't it be both a simulation and a game?

Best Regards,

Bill H.

Rich wrote:
I had always heard it was focused on the interaction of the players and not with the satisfaction of the players. In other words, they are not focusing on the players but the processes that go on between the players. Remember, simulations model processes.

Rich:
In reading this again, I am surprised you draw such a distinction. How could you possibly focus on the satisfaction of the players, but not on their interactions in the game? Those aren't mutually exclusive focii.

Rich wrote:
I'm not concerned with what game designers are doing in general. I'm only concerned with our wargaming hobby.

Right, there is no connection?

I believe it was you who said our hobby wargames are simulations. Are you now saying they are not simulations but they could be?

No, I said three things:
1. Many game designers claim that their designs are simulation games.
2. Many gamers want, expect their games to simulate, and criticize them when they feel they don't.
3. While it is questionable as to whether they have successfully designed a simulation, they certainly could design an entertaining simulation game.

There are any number of designers that avoid using the word 'simulation' while claiming all the qualities of a simulation for their design. Even so, many designers state they design simulation games and the following list is hardly exhaustive:

John Hill--Johnny Reb
Bob Jones--Piquet
Frank Chadwick--several game sets like Command Decision
William Keyser--Valmy to Waterloo
Scott Bowden--Empires I-V
Bruce Weigle--1870
Arty Conliffe--Armata
David Waxtel, developer of Shako, voted the Best Rules Set of 2008 wrote in the rules:

"The greatest joy of our hobby is to recreate the history, the glory and the intricacies of combat through a game simulation."

Now, he is under the impression that the hobby and game simulations are linked…

Wargames can be simulations. They don't have to be, but there are a lot of hobby designers claiming their designs are simulations, and others who claim their design act like simulations without every saying it is a simulation.

Best Regards,

Bill H.

Here are some others:

"Whichever physical form a wargame takes, it is two things: a competitive game, and a simulation of an actual of hypothetical 'real-life' situation."

A Guide to Wargaming by George Gush, Andrew Finch (1980), p.13
link

"Where military interests intersect with gaming we can place games which have a military theme but which make little attempt at accurate simulation, such as primitive toy soldier games, board games or 'shoot-em-up' arcade games of childhood, or the live combat games such as 'Paintball'…"

"War games involve aspects of all three contributory activities ['Miltary Affairs', 'Gaming', and 'Simulation'], and may be defined accordingly as 'military simulation games' (Dunnigan 1992:13; Grant 1974b:vii)."

"Playing at War: the Modern Hobby of Wargaming" by Philip G. Sabin, from
War and Games by Tim Cornell, Thomas B. Allen (2002), p.195-196
link

"A more restricted and more useful definition is that a wargame is a warfare model or simulation whose operation does not involve the activities of actual military forces, and whose sequence of events affects and is, in turn, affected by the decisions made by players representing the opposing side."

The Art of Wargaming by Peter P. Perla (1990), p.164
link

James:

Those are great quotes. Obviously, any number of folks in the hobby believe that wargames are simulations.

The questions are:

1. How do games simulate?

2. How do you know when you have been successful?

These are both technical questions, not some 'feeling'. Whether folks like a wargame or think it produces reasonable results doesn't mean much in answering those two questions.

Thanks,

Bill H.

Hi Ive followed this on and off through the thread. Id like to remark on MS Flight Simulator. It was being sold at the EAA fly and at least in the USA it is used to help get a Pilots License. Now I have played it and can go buy it. Theres been good ideas by both sides. But, MS Flight Simulator is a Simulator. IN contrast a game like Chuck Yeager's Flight Simulator, is a game that the PC industry classifies as simulator. Same word different definition.

But, MS Flight Simulator is a Simulator. IN contrast a game like Chuck Yeager's Flight Simulator, is a game that the PC industry classifies as simulator.

SuperG:

And the definition is different in what way? Both had scoring processes, accomplished mission etc. I would say that more is simulated in one than the other, but that is in quality rather than intent.

Best Regards,

Bill H.

PC game wont get your a pilots license. I think the game industry has mutated the term. Lots of words of course receive such treatment. Because MS FS is done to such a degree it can simulate flying well enough to be used to help get a license it has exceeded a game like Luftwaffe Commander.

You are all very very very wrong.

A wargame is a device to get away from the wife for a few hours and drink beer with your mates.

End of.

Geoff

Geoff wrote:

You are all very very very wrong. A wargame is a device to get away from the wife for a few hours and drink beer with your mates. End of.

Geoff:
Ah, definition by utility. Then the last Irish wake I attended was a wargame. I always wondered.

Bill

SuperG wrote:

PC game wont get your a pilots license. I think the game industry has mutated the term. Lots of words of course receive such treatment. Because MS FS is done to such a degree it can simulate flying well enough to be used to help get a license it has exceeded a game like Luftwaffe Commander.

SuperG:
Having experienced that help in learning to fly, I think you have ask two questions:

1. What was Luftwaffe designed to simulate. I doesn't have to simulate the same things MS FS did to be a simulation, only chosen aspects of flying.

2. Neither game was designed to help folks get their license.

The term hasn't mutated at all. Both games were attempts to simulate aspects of flying a plane. They say as much. They may have chosen to simulate different things, or a different number of characteristics of flight, or it may be that Luftwaffe simply wasn't as successful a design as MS FS, but they were both designed to be simulations--without any mutated definitions. Both designers used the same definition.

The PC game industry does a better job of knowing what a simulation is compared to tabletop wargame designers. It may be the close relationship many PC designers have to the simulation industry that also are heavy into computers.

Best Regards,

Bill H.