"Are rpgs war games?" Topic

I've seen a lot of ink (electrons?) spilled over this question. Not trying to start a fight, just curious what people think. There is no right or wrong answer.

For me, war gaming is about gaming physical conflict, pure and simple, whether that conflict is between armies or individual men (or other creatures) and whether it is historical or fantastic in nature.

Now, as most rpgs center around combat, I think it is difficult to say that they are not war games.

Of course, I may be begging the question here.

I have been around since the 1970s in gaming and no I do not.

It has it place. The motivation needed and the imagination needed are great to get the youth brain activated

I picture it as a Venn diagram. There are RPGs that have no aspect of wargaming, and there are Wargames with no part of RP. Then there are a few in the middle who encompass both.

Skirmish games can be RPG

Are you thinking about the pen and paper kind or the miniatures with stats kind?

RPGs focusing on combat and warfare strike me as just one extreme in a spectrum. They can focus on all sorts of non-combat aspects, but so can wargames. They focus on campaigns, but so can wargames. I'd only worry about the distinction if playing a game that doesn't have conflict as its basis.

If you're determined to define what is or isn't a proper wargame, you might want to look up some earlier posts by Supergrover6868. Otherwise, just enjoy your game, whatever you call it. :)

- Bob

Rocket propelled grenades, of course, are frequently used in wargames--oh, never mind, you meant the OTHER RPG.

I agree with Waco JOe--some RPGs are and some aren't. Two examples, playing the Mechwarrior RPG usually tends to be war-centric. Playing the Star Trek RPG, not so much. At least for the bunch I used to play with.

Rob

It's gaming. Haven't RPGed in a while but they are fun, and can have wargame aspects. I'm with Waco Joe on this one.

Supergrover6868 had some very definite ideas as to what a true wargame was!!!

It depends on the game and the set of players.

I to am old:

Old enough to recall when RPGs were invented. I to do not call them wargames.

The point is really quite different. In RPGs you are suppose to take on the character you are playing and do things like that person would do. In wargames you are suppose to manage your assets so that your side wins.

In fact, in "True" RPG playing, there is not meant to be any such thing as "Winning". Now, of course, some wargames have some role playing and some RPGs have some large combats. But just as I would not call an auto race or train building game a "wargame" I do not think of RGGs as wargames.

DyeHard

No.

Wargames, RPGs etc are all different, but part of the same "gaming" area, for me it is anyway. I never put one above the other as some people like to do.

RPG's do overlap a bit with miniature wargames with the use of minis and certain game mechanics.

Ghostbusters: no. MobileSuit Gundam (One Year War): easily. Like Zyphyr said, it depends on the type of game, the rules used, and the players. YMMV.

For me they're mostly the same.
But I'll tend to roleplay in whatever game I'm playing… and prefer games that facilitate that… which is probably why I prefer skirmish-level games vs. big battles… though some of my favorite characters have come from games of Ogre/GEV and Epic/Dirtside.

Nope.

Sometimes, but since the spectrum of RPGs is wider than that of wargames, it might be easier to argue that all wargames are at some level, RPGs.

I'm also old enough to remember when RPG's were invented. They were derived from Skirmish level war-games & mechanisms. They have since branched out from there so that depending on the game & the players they may or may not be in the realm of Wargaming during certain parts. Even classic Skirmish games such as TSATF have a certain element of RPG in them in that you often keep track of your individual figures progression within a unit. So Waco Joes suggestion of a Venn-diagram is probably the most accurate way of thinking about it. However all in all it doesn't really matter except to intolerant-snobs on both sides of the fence.

yes. RPG's grew out of wargames, and are a subset of the genre. Wargames are conflict resolution simulations, at various styles of abstraction, and degrees of resolution and imagination. DBA, for example, abstracts the conflicts of the ancients at a low resolution with a moderate degree of imagination. Chess does the same with less imagination. A typical RPG uses a common format of abstraction to simulate a high resolution, high imagination model of a conflict. The resolution is so high that it is immersive, since no quatity of charts will cover the detail, and the abstraction of Role playing is employed to handle it. If you play DBA as a campaign, and model in abstractions that bring the destruction back to the players, it picks up more role playing aspects. I knew of some gamers once who, because they objected to on players tendency to win by sacrificing troops, agreed to a game where every eliminated figure went in the melting pot. This was an abstraction, but it worked to model the sense of loss that the players sides would have felt, when sacrificing real peoples lives to gain real objectives in war.

Melting your figures when they loose. What a concept!

I tend to agree with the venn diagram description. In general, I feel they are different, but there are a more than a few instances at which they may be one in the same. At the point at which a RPG becomes a simulation of war, then perhaps it could be considered a wargame. However, I would not call an RPG a wargame just because the meliu of the RPG happens to reference war, or have war somewhere in it's "history".

That said, it all depends on the definitions you are using. Taking Role-Play in it's loosest definition, every time you play a war game, you are playing the role of a general, commander, or sgt. depending on the scale of the game. So -taking the devil's advocate here- perhaps every war game is a RPG, but not every RPG is a wargame…

Probably not. They CAN be, but their focus is on character interaction and telling a story, whereas wargames focus on battles that move independently of the "story."

At least in general, of course. There are major exceptions. For example, we've run lots of Gutshot games that felt more like an RPG than a wargame.

As mmitchell says, there is some overlap, an RPG can be a wargame and a wargame can be an RPG, but equally there are situations when they don't overlap. In some cases techniques used in one are applicable to the other, but not the whole shebang.

Depends what the focus of the situation is what you are trying to simulate. I often use the 'players as a team vs the umpire' technique in tactical and operational games as it is an easy way to manage hidden movement and command hierarchies, but to my mind it would only be an RPG if there was also some character interaction and progression.

I recall that a gestalt moment for me was when we ran an assault against a position defended by numerous orcs in a long running D&D campaign (proper D&D on bits of paper), and the reactions of the participants, narrative flow of the combat etc seemed vastly more rasltic than any of the pure wargames rules we playing at the time. Post-hoc rationalisation maybe, but that was when I realised there was more to designing wargames rules than gun/armour stats.

The point is really quite different. In RPGs you are suppose to take on the character you are playing and do things like that person would do. In wargames you are suppose to manage your assets so that your side wins.

Says who?

Certainly not me when I'm playing with my WWII Japanese.

Banzai!

The Black Tower "Are you thinking about the pen and paper kind or the miniatures with stats kind?"

I never play the pure pen and paper kind, so its the minis kind for me. The answer there, however, I think would probably be the same.

DyeHard "The point is really quite different. In RPGs you are suppose to take on the character you are playing and do things like that person would do. In wargames you are suppose to manage your assets so that your side wins."

I don't really think so. In each case, the player is trying to maximize his "side's" position in the world, whether it be the Lost Labyrinth of the Lizard Lord or Stalingrad. In the one, you're killing lizardmen, and in the other, Soviets. What's the dif?

I can see your point, but I think that most rpgs center around physical conflict in any case, and usually with the weapons and tactics of the era. To me, that spells war game.

Broadsword "Ghostbusters: no."

Okay, but why? Where is the difference between trying to destroy the ghost and trying to destroy the mech?

venusboys3 "For me they're mostly the same. But I'll tend to roleplay in whatever game I'm playing… and prefer games that facilitate that… which is probably why I prefer skirmish-level games vs. big battles… though some of my favorite characters have come from games of Ogre/GEV and Epic/Dirtside."

I love GURPS Ogre, especially when played with Ogre Minis.

Sven Lugar "However all in all it doesn't really matter except to intolerant-snobs on both sides of the fence."

I'm certainly not trying to be that. I would be happy to game with you, regardless of your opinion on this question.

kokigami "yes. RPG's grew out of wargames, and are a subset of the genre. Wargames are conflict resolution simulations, at various styles of abstraction, and degrees of resolution and imagination."

My position exactly.

ordinarybass "Melting your figures when they loose. What a concept!"

[shudders]

mmitchell "Probably not. They CAN be, but their focus is on character interaction and telling a story, whereas wargames focus on battles that move independently of the "story.""

But aren't the battles the whole point of the story?

Martin Rapier "I recall that a gestalt moment for me was when we ran an assault against a position defended by numerous orcs in a long running D&D campaign (proper D&D on bits of paper), and the reactions of the participants, narrative flow of the combat etc seemed vastly more rasltic than any of the pure wargames rules we playing at the time."

I've been there.

Derek H "Banzai!"

When you say "Wargame" I think of a boardgame with all of those little cardboard chits on them.

If I want to rpg (talk talk talk, some shooty), I call it an RPG.
If I want to do a battle with minis (RPG or not), I call it a MINIS game.

There it is.

That would be a war themed game. Or maybe not. Greater minds than mine have wrestled with this very issue. :)

Strange one to nail this when you can face 12 WW2 miniature germans V 12 russians its a skirmish wargame,but then the following week dress up as a WW2 soldier with 23 like minded renactment people with the same scenario it is then a roleplay?
How many of us have played a miniatures wargame and one or two of the rank and file becomes a bit of a hero? some of us use him and lose him during the rest of the game .Some may protect him till the end.Some of us will name him or even paint something extra or convert him.This is surely a bit of Roleplay?
I do remember a game in my yoof where we explored space stations (RPG) then done space combat (wargame).

Melting your figures when they loose. What a concept!

With my win/loss ratio, I wouldn't have any minis left if I did that!

I tend to place RPGs as "games that center on conflicts, oftentimes violent physical ones, but not primarily dealing with war as a theme."

I mean, how many RPGs put you into the military and throw you into massed battles *as one of the line troopers*?

There are GURPS WW2 source books, but they provide more of a game setting than an actual larger-scale game. But then again, neither do most skirmish rule sets.

- Bob

Definitely not.

RPGs are wargames inasmuch as wargames started out as "kriegspiel." So are paintball, computer games and running around in plastic chainmail yelling "backstab!" in the woods somewhere. The crucial element in wargames is a map and unit counters, without those you don't really have a wargame.

The Venn Diagram description is accurate, but in terms of applying aspects of wargaming to a RPG would fall more under DM discretion and how involved they would want to make it. An effective way that I've found to integrate wargaming into DnD is to make a battle in which the players are key combatants is to make it some sort of skill challenge. Naturally, it would be possible for it to become even mroe of a comlex wargame, but that would all depend on the commitment and experience of the DM. Keep in mind that I'm applying the general tabletop ideas of wargaming and RPing.

No. RPG's are about developing and portraying a character – Now that character may often enter into combat, and some games have highly detailed combat systems, but in the end, it is still about the characters.

Wargames on the other hand are about the battles, and while there may be some heroes in the wargame, it is about the whole battle rather than just the individual.

After reading through Korns' SUTC and Modern War In Miniature, I have shifted my opinion firmly to Yes, RPGs are a subset of wargames. He clearly describes RPG mechanics in both, first in 1966. The role of a judge was akin to a Ref/GM in a double-blind game, and both sides very much role-played the situation. The GM took care of all the equipment data and mechanics.

Thinking on this, I've decided that the only difference is the level of focus, or role of the players: The individual soldier rather than others (squad, platoon, company and so forth). And there's no reason you can't blur the lines between any two of these levels. Two Hour Wargames and I'm sure others do this frequently.

- Bob
(co-conspirator in thread necromancy)

What about RPG's which contain no combat whatsoever ? I regularly play and run many such games.

Some RPG's can contain an element of wargaming when combat occurs. But in themselves, they are not a wargame, nor a subset of wargaming.

I firmly maintain my statement that RPG's are NOT wargames.

Z