"Rules Critics - 'History', or 'Wargaming History'? " Topic

"Until then no one gave a damn, they simply played the wargames which appealed to them, based on their concept of history and their desire to have fun and be entertained."

I'd say that's still true for 98% of gamers. Very few people really get worked up about this sort of thing.

CCB:
I'd say if it was true, as you have repeatly suggested…for years, I would think that we'd see that in what game designers say they are doing, what topics don't crop up on the TMP and wargaming magazines. We don't.

I think there are a good number of gamers who do feel that way, but how many is anyone's guess. I am certain it isn't anywhere close to 98%. And of course, that 'getting worked up' is a continuum of caring, not black or white.

That's not to say I would mind if 98% of all gamers felt that way, I just don't see it when you look at the hobby. I certainly haven't started any such thread on TMP, but they keep popping up, and you keep popping up to insist that no one cares.

Sam- if you are including all wargamers and not just historical ones then you are probably wrong. In that case its 99.8 percent don't care.

"if you are including all wargamers and not just historical ones then you are probably wrong. In that case its 99.8 percent don't care."

99.85. You forgot What's-His-Name… the guy with the ponytail. Ach, I can never remember his name. He's the one with the 1940 French tank company that he's always bringing to tournaments.

He doesn't care, either.

* *

In all seriousness, though: I'm answerable to my customers. Some of them might play my game and think: "What a great simulation!" Some might play it and think, "Not much of a simulation, but what a great game!" Some might think: "The perfect balance that I've been looking for!" Some of them might think, "Well, I'll never play this thing, but I enjoy looking at it on the shelf."

I don't care why or how they enjoy the game, as long as they enjoy it.

And I'm sure that none of them care what I intended with this or that rule or mechanism. Nor do they care how I think about the game, myself. It doesn't matter. The only thing that matters is their own experience of game play, which is going to be idiosyncratic and unique to their own perspectives and their own sense of fun.

To expect any more is unrealistic. It presumes that an author could control the reactions of people to his work.

These theoretical discussions about the applicability of simulation theory to wargaming often miss the point that wargamers are not a single client, nor purpose-driven for a similar outcome. Many scientific or corporate simulations are commissioned by a company, laboratory, university, etc, with a very clear problem in mind: how to manage traffic flow, how better to blend paint colors in a factory. My father-in-law did a couple of those when he worked for DuPont. One of our neighbors did industrial simulations for assembly lines, to determine things like the utility and longevity of machines.

Of course people in those situations want to know exactly what the simulation designer intends, and how he will do it. Of course, in those situations, it's very important for the designer to communicate his intentions clearly to his clients, so that everybody is clear about what is being simulated, and how.

Wargaming is different. There is no single client with a clear goal. Wargamers are a herd of cats on the best of days. Every one has a different idea of what he wants from a game. And he's not going to ask you in advance to design that game for him. The wargamer is a busy, and frequently distracted guy, who will pick up your game on a whim, or a friend's recommendation, and maybe fill a few hours of his precious leisure time with it.

So you make the best product you can, in the way that you feel is right. You try to undrstand your audience as best you can, in order to give them something that is familiar enough for them to recognize it, but novel enough to get them interested. You put it out there for sale, and you let the customers do with it, as they please.

I used to have all sorts of ideas about games that I no longer hold, having been disabused by the hard experience of having to put thousands of my own dollars on the line. That tends to clarify and simplify one's thinking!

Bill,

1. NBs is a Napoleonic miniatures wargame which presumes to simulate Napoleonic warfare.
2. All Napoleonic miniatures wargames presume to simulate Napoleonic warfare.
3. Ergo, NBs is a Napoleonic miniatures wargame.

Whatever v.Riesswitz knew is only relevant to this discussion to the extent the he designed what he thought was a training exercise which proved to be a game. I only know he could have titled his rules a training exercise (Germans are devilish clever when it comes to putting words together) but he called it Wargame or Kreigspiel. My copy rates units differently for different activities and uses dice to resolve outcomes beyond the control of the players. Thus, I can only conclude he was simulating events and the simulation was based on his knowledge and understanding of war.

Bob Coggins

One should always play by the rules as written, for the very reason that Sparker brings up – differing views of what represents the truth. One of my favourite rules authors starts his rules with the statement "if there is a disagreement during a game, roll two dice and the high scorer makes their point".

Sam:

Okay, to reply in kind…in all seriousness, I have no problems with your games as games, or what you see as your audience and what they care about, or your take on the business of selling games, or your position that fun with games is your primary focus. You do a number of things very well and as someone who had run his own business for twenty years I applaud your efforts to know your audience and be as effective as possible in serving them. That's what effective business people do. I wish you all possible success.

However, I have been designing simulations and simulations games as part of my business for more than those two decades, an activity that I depended on for my livelihood, not as a side business. Simulation design is something I enjoy and have derived great satisfaction from. I have created designs that had to simulate, had to be entertaining, had to train and teach about the real world, or I didn't get paid.

Your conclusions about what simulations are and are not, your very, very narrow view of game design and your insistence that table top miniatures can't possibly simulate is where we disagree, and have for a long time.

And you hold those views still having a very limited understanding of simulations. Let me give you examples of what I mean from your last post.

The only thing that matters is their own experience of game play, which is going to be idiosyncratic and unique to their own perspectives and their own sense of fun. To expect any more is unrealistic. It presumes that an author could control the reactions of people to his work.

Yes, all art and crafts presumes that. How do you possibly entertain without the ability to control the reactions of the audience??? For a book author, a painter, or a game designer, a major element of their art is to communicate specific things, to create specific reactions in their audience. Whether it is to have them laugh in the middle of chapter 5, feel the despair of the painter through his work, or have a fun experience playing the game, you are trying to manipulate, control and influence the gamer reactions.

Raph Koster, A Theory of Fun for Game Design Page 152

Games, at their best, are not prescriptive. They demand that the user create a response given the tools at hand. It is a lot easier to fail to respond to a painting than to fail to respond to a game.

No other artistic medium defines itself around an intended effect on the user, such as ‘fun.' [or learning, or understanding for that matter. BH]

Every designer creates their games to do certain things, all of which are focused on creating a fun experience for the gamers… how can you do that without trying to control their reactions to the game? I am surprised you do not see that. How the designer does that, and whether he is successful in that effort, are other issues altogether.

These theoretical discussions about the applicability of simulation theory to wargaming often miss the point that wargamers are not a single client, nor purpose-driven for a similar outcome.

There is nothing ‘theoretical' about the discussions… nor have there been. You ask practical design questions and I answer them. Your decision is to ignore the practical examples provided and continue to call them theoretical. If you need to see simulation games in action, you don't have to look very far outside the hobby--and I'm not talking about computer games. Simulation ‘theory' has been applied to all manner of wargames for a long time.

And who has missed that point? You are the one who continues to insist that 98% of all gamers are purpose-driven for the same outcome, rather than the hobby containing wargamers with a multiplicity of desires. More on that non-issue later.

Many scientific or corporate simulations are commissioned by a company, laboratory, university, etc, with a very clear problem in mind: how to manage traffic flow, how better to blend paint colors in a factory. My father-in-law did a couple of those when he worked for DuPont. One of our neighbors did industrial simulations for assembly lines, to determine things like the utility and longevity of machines.

Actually, many, many corporate simulations ‘commissioned', developed or purchased by companies like DuPont are not created with "very clear problems in mind." They are created to simulate something specific, and different clients, internal and external to the company, use those simulations to create and address a wide variety of questions, depending on the needs of the moment.

A simulation is just a tool, and that is how folks use it. DuPont has a large suite of simulations tools that they use to create products, manage manufacturing and distribution etc. etc. A simulation can be a tool for research, training and/or entertainment…

Wargaming is different. There is no single client with a clear goal.

As I said, that situation is no different from DuPont or other businesses using simulations. What gave you that idea? Most all companies have multiple clients with a shifting variety of goals. Most all companies have no single client and or purpose for many of the simulations they use, and no ‘clear purpose' for the simulation other than to simulate something particular.

Clients and the company use the simulation as a tool to achieve any number of goals, solve problems etc. Of course, without the data basis and design methods for such simulations being overt, they couldn't possibly be used in such a flexible manner. Other simulations are on-off, single purpose simulations, but they are in the minority in most companies.

Wargamers are a herd of cats on the best of days. Every one has a different idea of what he wants from a game. And he's not going to ask you in advance to design that game for him. The wargamer is a busy, and frequently distracted guy, who will pick up your game on a whim, or a friend's recommendation, and maybe fill a few hours of his precious leisure time with it.

While this it very true for many gamers, it changes nothing. We aren't talking about your intentions, but about what is actually created. For instance, you state many things about your games, such as:

Maurice is a delightful combination of tabletop miniatures rules for historical and fictional battles, a limitless campaign system that requires virtually no math or paperwork, and a role-playing game in which the "characters" are officers, units, and armies, whose personalities you create, and whose fates you manage from battle to battle across wars and decades.

That is a specific statement of what the game provides, what the game is capable of. That is what the wargamer is buying… Looks like very clear, very specific goals to me. And specific game mechanics too…

Lasalle is the first game in the HONOUR series. Players take the role of a brigade or division commander in the Napoleonic Wars.

The game is small-scale and tactical in nature, focusing on the movement of individual battalions and regiments of cavalry. The player will manage a small force of roughly a dozen units as he tries to complete some specific mission assigned to him, such as "Hold the village and our bridgehead at all costs!" or: "Drive the French from Plancenoit!"

Lasalle is ideal for a small gaming table, and it plays in real-time with most battles lasting 2-3 hours. It is perfect for pick-up games or tournament play. It therefore includes sample army lists enabling players to collect and paint typical small forces from a large number of possible nationalities.

If you have a club, or a larger collection and gaming area, Lasalle can also be used to simulate historical battles of the Napoleonic Wars, such as Quatre Bras, Albuera, Saalfeld, or Eggmühl.

Now, that is what you say your game can do. You are obviously writing this to your chosen audience of wargamers. And just as obviously, you wouldn't have written this unless you believed that a good portion of that herd of cats cared about such things. After all, you want to sell lots of games, right?

And it doesn't matter if gamers end up liking, disliking, disbelieving, or simply not caring about the things you've stated Lasalle can do, because NONE of that changes what the game was designed to do according to you, the designer--and sold on that basis.

If gamers decide to use the rules as a door stop or the basis for a WWII variant, it does not affect what you have designed the game to do.

So you make the best product you can, in the way that you feel is right. You try to understand your audience as best you can, in order to give them something that is familiar enough for them to recognize it, but novel enough to get them interested. You put it out there for sale, and you let the customers do with it, as they please.

I used to have all sorts of ideas about games that I no longer hold, having been disabused by the hard experience of having to put thousands of my own dollars on the line. That tends to clarify and simplify one's thinking!

And I respect that. I have had that same experience of clarity and simplified thinking with my business, more than once….

And I'm sure that none of them care what I intended with this or that rule or mechanism. Nor do they care how I think about the game, myself. It doesn't matter.

If that were true Sam, you wouldn't have written what you did about your games… because you are writing about what you think about your game and certainly what you believe your games can do for the gamer.

And you wouldn't have chosen and clearly identified those game traits as provided by your design unless you felt they were something that your audience DID care about. After all, you are a businessman.

thehawk,

I am a big fan of settling rule disputes that way during a game.

McLaddie,

If I understand you correctly, I think I largely agree at least conceptually if not practically. That said, at this point I think mostly people are talking past each other as reading through the thread I am seeing a lot of replies that refer but do not respond to other posts (not you specifically, the thread in general).

From a conceptual standpoint building a game and building a model to simulate specific circumstances and concerns are very different. The two things can be used interchangeably but use is different from intention as you've correctly pointed out.

Both attempts have to address practical concerns but will value different things. That was where this thread started.

Cheers,

The Bandit

From a conceptual standpoint building a game and building a model to simulate specific circumstances and concerns are very different. The two things can be used interchangeably but use is different from intention as you've correctly pointed out.

Both attempts have to address practical concerns but will value different things. That was where this thread started.

Bandit:
Actually, the differences aren't as great as folks may believe. I think some clarity about the practical sames and differences would really help the hobby.

If you are using game mechanics to simulate, then there isn't much practical difference in their operation, their play. That is one reason why von Riesswitz can design a training exercise and then be surprised when officers find it 'entertaining'. He would be even more surprised that his 'game' as originally designed has continued to provide 'fun' for gamers over the last two hundred years. That isn't some unique accident. There are several current game companies that exist by taking military and business simulations and selling them as games. And of course, the military returns the favor with different commercial games.

And just to be clear, when von Riesswitz called his design Kriegspiel, he was using the term 'game' in the sense that it wasn't real, not that it was to be an entertaining game.

As battles are competitions with winners and losers, it isn't all that difficult to design a simulation which has all the dynamics of a game. The challenge is to make it fun to play.

"A game is a series of interesting decisions."
--Sid Meiers, Designer of Civilization I-IV

"A game is one or more causally linked challenges in a simulated environment"
--Ernest Adams and Andrew Rollings, On Game Design.

All a simulation game does differently is to have those decisions, those challenges mimic specific ones found in reality, whether past or present.

"A simulation allows players to safely make real-world decisions and develop skills in an unreal environment."
--David Bartlett, former chief of
operations, Defense Modeling and
Simulation Office.

A a game system creates an 'unreal environment'. A simulation game creates that unreal environment to act in specific ways like the real world.

Both simulations and games are procudural systems that can and do use the very same mechanics, creating 'artifical' environments where players make decisions with 'artifical' consequences. The game question is whether those decisions and challenges are entertaining. Simulations can be and many are entertaining, even when they weren't designed to be, partly because they are simular in construction, partly because real life challenges can be entertaining too.

So while there are some differences, there are also some fundamental similarities, far more similarities than differences in practical design terms. There is nothing to say fun, simple game mechanics can't also simulate. Certainly a real complication to game design, but supposedly that is what historical wargames are all about… that 'fun' combination.

The question is 'how' to do that. Simulating does another add layer to the game design challenges, not a different system or set of mechanics or purposes.

1. NBs is a Napoleonic miniatures wargame which presumes to simulate Napoleonic warfare.
2. All Napoleonic miniatures wargames presume to simulate Napoleonic warfare.
3. Ergo, NBs is a Napoleonic miniatures wargame.

Bob:

And 4. As NB 'presumes' to simulate, ergo it is 'presumed' to be a simulation.

Now was that so hard?

How does one, after all, define a real life result? Show me a set of rules which can predict real life outcomes and I'll show you rules which have nothing to do with life, which while mildly predictable all too often careers beyond prediction or control.

As you haven't answered, I have to assume that this judgement includes NB?

Bill H.

Bill,

In Logic a syllogism can only have 3 steps.

All wargames which simulate rather than predict events, will, based on the decisions of the players, career out of control. It's called chaos.

So how do games predict events? They do so with the use of event cards or initiative die rolls, which control the gamer, giving a preordained result based on the decision of the designer. Neither does the argument that the random draw of cards or roll of the dice prevent prediction hold up. The events or whatever is on the cards are determined by the designer and the dice will, in the end skew towards the norm.

Many gamers enjoy this type of game. Afterall its not their fault if they drew the wrong card at the wrong time or had a bad die roll. Its fate not the gamer who lost the game.

Certainly the use of dice to determine outcomes beyond the control for the player at the command level he plays the game is justified. But, when systems are used to prevent the gamer from exercising his own free will, the rules become predictive though to a small extent random.

The fault after all is in ourselves not our stars, except in some games, especially wargames, where designers play God for forcing the player to do what he wants.

Bob Coggins

Bill & Bob,

At the outset, the premises of a syllogism must be established as factual.
I`m not sure about this being so with the following:
"All Napoleonic miniatures wargames presume to simulate Napoleonic warfare."

Does "presume" mean to make a claim here? It is a matter of interpretation, because not all writers appear to make claims that their rules "simulate" because the term is often given a very limited and literal meaning.

The conclusion; "NBs is a Napoleonic miniatures wargame", is only part of the first premise repeated again; "NBs is a Napoleonic miniatures wargame which presumes to simulate Napoleonic warfare." It does not follow logically then.

MichaelCollinsHimself,

40 years since Rhetoric and Logic.

Is this better?

1. All Napoleonic miniatures wargames presume to simulate Napoleonic warfare.
2. NBs presumes to simulate Napoleonic warfare.
3. Ergo, NBs is a Napoleonic miniatures wargame.

Bob Coggins

No, Bob i`m still not sure that the premises are factual, they refer to presumptions.

I don`t think that you need to limit your reasoning to two premises – it is possible to use more.

All wargames which simulate rather than predict events, will, based on the decisions of the players, career out of control. It's called chaos.

Bob: When you give a combat event a 60% chance of one side winning, you are predicting. It can't be avoided in a simulation. And the decisions of the players are carried out within a closed system, so if something 'careers' out of control… that has something to do with the system.

So how do games predict events? They do so with the use of event cards or initiative die rolls, which control the gamer, giving a preordained result based on the decision of the designer.

EVERY result in a game is a 'preordained' result because the system is already created and establishes the possible results. One thing playtesting does is discover those results that the designer hadn't anticipated…which can happen in a complex system, but those results are still contained within the design.

In Logic a syllogism can only have 3 steps.

If you insist:

1. NBs presumes to simulate Napoleonic warfare.
2. Systems that simulate are called simulations
3. Ergo, NBs presumes to be a simulation.

But, when systems are used to prevent the gamer from exercising his own free will, the rules become predictive though to a small extent random. The fault after all is in ourselves not our stars, except in some games, especially wargames, where designers play God for forcing the player to do what he wants.

Uh, I think you are confusing the predictive qualities inherent in a simulation game design with Static Simulations, ones that dictate a particular outcome, like a movie script or a reinactment of a battle. There isn't any prediction going on there, and no decisions affecting the scripted events. Simulation games and those that allow for the player or user to change or dictate events within the simulation process are called Dynamic Simulations, though you can find other terms for them.

In a simulation game, dictating the choices of a player wrecks the process as a game.

Bill

Bill,

Preventing or controlling a gamer's decisions with event cards or whatever has nothing to do with using dice to determine the results beyond the control of the gamer, such as fire or combat. To the extent that the outcomes are predecided by the designer, nothing can happen lest it is allowed by the card or die roll, even were he the most knowledgeable person of the Napoleonic era, the outcome is preordained.

Dynamic is a fancy term but it will do.

Bob Coggins

MichaelCollinsHimself,

Thanks. You may very well be correct, but I don't want to widen the discussion lest it career out of control.

Bob Coggins

Maybe you don`t want it to widen and wander too far Bob, but see how far we have come from the OP`s question.
It was simply about gamers` "wargaming experiences" !
Sparker set up a monstrous straw-man here and an obvious target for ridicule.
Still, we can not avoid having our expectations of wargames being modified by historical research and the growth, or transmission of knowledge relating to the subject.
I noted just recently, here in a discussion on TMP that there was more acceptance for the practice of "regulation" in our wargames, whereas before there was much prejudiced criticism of it.
We needed to think clearly about this, but the syllogisms expressed here all looked confused and based on interested opinion and presumptions.

Preventing or controlling a gamer's decisions with event cards or whatever has nothing to do with using dice to determine the results beyond the control of the gamer, such as fire or combat. To the extent that the outcomes are predecided by the designer, nothing can happen lest it is allowed by the card or die roll, even were he the most knowledgeable person of the Napoleonic era, the outcome is preordained.

Bob:
In terms of practical game function, a die roll is just as much beyond the control of the gamer as a event card etc. and depending on the game design may 'control' the outcome of the very same events.

It is just a matter of what a particular game mechanic is asked to do. Cards can be used for the very same purposes as dice, and with the exact same 'control' in the game system.

If I create a set of outcomes of combat on a die roll, I am 'controlling' the player's decisions as readily as an event card. No matter how many times he makes what I as the designer decide is an impossible attack, his decision will result in failure.

Dynamic is a fancy term but it will do.

Well, I didn't make it up, but as long as you see the distinction, then it works.

Bill

Michael C.:

It is something to remember, new information about the Napoleonic wars is being added all the time, if only because the internet has made sources so easily available. In the 1960s Dr. Chandler wrote his Campaigns of Napoleon. He referenced some 400 books IIRC, both primary and secondary sources. He had to find each of those books, either buying them, inter library loan or go to where the sources were housed.

Right now I have all of the books Dr. Chandler listed, plus nearly eight thousand more at my fingertips, primary and secondary sources, all downloaded off of Google, Gale and other sources in PDF.

That doesn't make me a better scholar than Dr. Chandler, but it sure is a game changer when it comes to referencing and discovering information…

Any history written or historical wargames created before the advent of computers and the internet faces being outdated by better sources. But being outdated has always been a fact of life for authors and scholars--and historical wargame designers. Very few scholarly works stand the test the time in all areas, and many don't at all. That's life, as annoying as it is.

Yet, even if the history that a wargame is based is shown to be in need of an update, the wargame can still be a valid simulation of what information was available.

Best Regards,

Bill H.

I recently started taking some university classes for interest (as it's affordable enough to do that at many schools in Canada) and found that the electronic sources I gained access to as a student were incredible. Scans of original period documents, modern papers normally published in obscure journals and more. People can subscribe to these services for a fee, but it was a nice surprise to see just how much Napoleonic information I'm getting included in my tuition fees in terms of general library resources online.

From a conceptual standpoint building a game and building a model to simulate specific circumstances and concerns are very different.

Bandit:
I wanted to make it clear that building a game and building a simulation aren't all that different, particularly when the goal is to do both. It simply means you are asking a game mechanic to do more than one thing in the system…be fun and model something else. Even 'Shutes and Ladders' has this kind of issue, just on a very simple, undemanding level.

Best Regards,
Bill

Second, every simulation has the same 'playability' issues faced by a game or wargame. Too much information destroys the system functions.

Third, all simulations have to be 'user friendly', which means even the most complicated simulation for research faces the same 'make it easy to use' kinds of questions and have to deal with similar kinds of compromises in simulation performance and the user interface.

So, like most designs, both games and simulations, there are
conflicting goals requiring compromises between them.

I should have specified: the priorities are different.

Cheers,

The Bandit

I should have specified: the priorities are different.

Bandit:
And I think I should have been clearer too. It is hard at times for me to see what others see as the separate priorities of simulations compared to fun games, when I have been focused on building both as a single design for a long time, and know so many that have been doing the same for even longer.

The designer sets the priorities for a design. If the designer says he wants a simulation game that is fun to play, that's the priority. The same game mechanics that are fun also have to simulate. For a number of reasons, some unexamined and others real, but held up as unsolvable rather than problems to be solved… or at least check out how others outside the hobby have solved them. Many feel that any combination of simulation and entertaining game has to be more of one and less of another.

Building a hammer and building a nail claw are certainly different goals, different priorities, but that doesn't make them incompatible as a single design or a single goal: Claw hammers do exist, and so do simulation games.

Certainly such combinations create complications not found in simulations or games alone, but they are hardly insolvable problems.

I think as long as hobby designers don't know much about simulations, but continue to design games, they will end up knowing a good deal about games, but very little about simualtions and continue to believe that because simulations are 'different'. They will continue to believe they are incompatible, where one has to be sacrificed for the other, rather than a sysnthesis where both goals are achieved.

Best Regards,

Bill H.

MichaelCollinsHimself,

I tend to agree, especially regarding Sparker. I think of him as being enthusiastically precocious.

Alas, I am aware of all too many gamers who place their historical assumptions beyond being modified by historical research.

Bob Coggins