"gweirda hassle - it's been awhile" Topic

inspiration = TMP link

As much as I love/appreciate Sven(et al)'s rules/contributions to the genre, I really have to wonder if anyone really thinks that the decisions made by gamers in many/most of today's games reflect/mimic those made by their miniature counterparts.

I know it's just a game, and the fun had in playing such cannot be disputed, but…

…could it be that a game could be played that reflected/contained a set of decisions that more closely resembled those faced by the young men at the time?

Not better. Not worse.

Just different.

Maybe fun?

In an aerial combat game it's almost definitionally a no – the moment you play with more than one aircraft, you've broken the paradigm, as unlike land and naval games, you can't play the role of the c-in-c overseeing things, but rather are attempting to be multiple pilots simultaneously – the lack of a single real-life individual co-ordinating the action means the wargamer has no role to mimic.

Agree wih Dom..

Also i do not see it as a design goal for aerial wargames. They create a (more or less abstract) representation of some specific aspects of the real thing. This could be tactical challenges, plane performance or the tactical choices a pilot would face. but not from a Pilots POV.

One of the games i have most fond memories of playing was umpired, double blind Flat Top (Avalon Hill, Pacific carrier operations 1942) because of the very restricted POV only giving you acces to information that could be had by a Commander in Chief of that given carrier operation. You move your plane formations where you think they are, but perhaps they have aborted the mission and are on their way home due to bad weather (no weather sattelites either) or perhaps they have been intercepted and shot down. You do not know unless you give the orders to break radio silence.. And then their calls can be intercepted.

The key in this game is immersion. Immersion from an individual pilot perspective can in my opinion best be experienced in a flight simulation such as Rise of Flight, coupled with a set of pedals, a big screen and a head tracking device.. RoF has a very, very good flight physics model according to a pilot friend. But even then you do not get the wind in your face, the deafening engine, the cold, the terror…

This POV is not available in a minis game.. but you get to explore tactical choices that represents something that happened almost 100 years ago.. And personally i really love games that look good and has enough tactical depth to tell a story while and that does it for me…

Did the flight leader play a role ?

Yes, but a flight leader/player should not be operating any other than his personal aircraft. If you are a flight leader and operate an entire flight, then the game has become extremely abstract and cannot draw the players into the same intimacy with the aircraft as a single pilot of a single airplane….

"…the lack of a single real-life individual co-ordinating the action means the wargamer has no role to mimic."

Agreed, though I would say that -even if they have specific 'real-life' roles to mimic- players in other genres still end up controlling their forces as automatons (the odd morale check aside), so that the action on the tabletop is as abstract (or unreal?) a representation of 'reality' as that portrayed in an aircombat game where a player takes on the role of more than one pilot.

My emphasis, however, is on the decisions made by the players when acting as a single pilot -whether he/she is controlling only a single aircraft or many: those "tactical choices that represents something that happened almost 100 years ago". What are some of those choices/decisions?

It seems to me that the nuts-and-bolts issues of flying/maneuvering the aircraft are the most common (if not only) questions asked of players. However fun a game can be had in answering those questions, I think that they are not ones addressed by pilots themselves – at least not in a conscious, deliberate manner in the heat of battle with ones life on the line.

So: Any suggestions/opinions on choices/decisions made by players to mimic those of the pilots that would capture a facet of the 'immersion' within a game?

Dunno, really…just rambling, as usual.

Hi again..

I actually think that the "nuts and bolts" part is integral to the meaningful tactical choices in a proper designed game. The ability and gutso of the individual pilot seen in relation to the abilities and weaknesses of the plane matched against the opponents ditto and interpreted in the context of relative position, speed, attitude, altitude and so forth gives these tactical choises… But you need to have a mechanism that represents different pilot abilities and also provides a detailed enough picture of the flight characteristics of a given plane type .. and you need a tracking of planes speeds This leaves out a game like WoG in my opinion (also because it does not have a rule for deflection difficulty = important tactical aspect left out).

"The ability and gutso of the individual pilot seen in relation to the abilities and weaknesses of the plane matched against the opponents ditto and interpreted in the context of relative position, speed, attitude, altitude and so forth gives these tactical choices."

I agree – and not a single one of those elements (aside from altitude, I suppose…) requires the physical movement/positioning of the little models by the players to be included in a game.

If addressing those type of tactical decisions is desired, then the specific movement/maneuvering of the models on the tabletop is not necessary, and including them(placement/positioning of models) is perhaps a waste of gametime?

A similar case, IMO, is seen all the time with hand-to-hand combat figures: The specific movement/positioning of a swordsman, for example, is rarely controlled by the player nor displayed on the tabletop – yet games that leave such details to the players' imaginations are fun/successful.

It seems to me that everyone that wants to play an aircombat game wants to fly the airplane, and yet no one who wants to play a swordfighting game wants to swing the sword.

The games that ignore the swordswinging requirement flourish, and any suggestion that the flying element be discarded is dismissed out of hand.

Why is that?

They're no different, really.

Gweirda, would you like to describe how your rules are intended to work? Perhaps more than the philosophical discussions in your Nov 2008 and April 2010 tmp postings this would demonstrate how playable your ideas are, and what they hold in common with flight simulation games?

1. Aircraft characteristics--to what degree do they provide an advantage in combat?

2. Pilot skill rating--more influential than the aircraft, or less so?

3. Spotting the enemy and maintaining a target. Initiative in the turn sequence.

4. Player's options for maneuvering against his targets, to gain an advantageous situation (positive Combat Value CV, or "the Edge
" as you once called it) before firing, or to shake off a disadvantage to escape attack or turn the tables on him?

5 The interplay of risk v reward in the combat maneuvering

6. Erosion of aircraft performance or pilot ability after damage or wounds.

7 effect of morale.

Respectfully

"…would you like to describe how your rules are intended to work? Perhaps more than the philosophical discussions…?"

Yes and no. A specific forum already exists for such discussion if a person is interested – not that I wish to diminish participation here (and perhaps be seen as 'stealing' business from Bill) – but I don't think this is the proper place for it. I'll go where the cart takes it, but know from past behavior that my ability to communicate well (if at all…) in this medium doesn't lend such a project much hope. ; )

Also – while I would welcome commentary/help in the development of my specific efforts in attempting to construct a game – it is the general concept (or 'philosophical' facet) that I'm more interested in and feel belongs here.

Thanks.

Why not on TMP? This is where you are.

In the documented discussion of your premise to represent air combat without detailed representation of the aircraft movement, there has been frequent objection that neglecting the "physics of flight" removes the essential premise of air miniatures gaming. But your rules actually do deal with the physics of flight; the climb, speed and dive characteristics of different aircraft ; the increasing difficulty to maneuver at high speed; stalling at low speed, structural failure beyond maximum speed. So the above was partially a prompt for you to clarify this feature of your game, and demonstrate the invalidity of the "physics" objection.

The other and more central objection has related to the particular pleasure in visualizing or following the graceful flight of the aircraft, and the spatial challenge for the player to gain an advantageous position to attack the enemy, or to make a direct slashing attack without dogfighting.

The questions enumerated above were meant to prompt specific examples of how you wish to create the decisions and drama of combat in the mind of the player, and forego the explicit representation of aircraft movement.

"… to clarify this feature of your game…to prompt specific examples of how you wish to…"

Again, while I'll go down that road if there are others who wish to do so, I feel that the forum dedicated to my game(s) is the place for that.

"… the particular pleasure in visualizing or following the graceful flight of the aircraft, and the spatial challenge for the player to gain an advantageous position to attack the enemy…"

That issue (the time-motion challenge) is, imo, addressed well enough by the many games on the market that have players moving/pointing the models – there's already fun enough to be had in meeting that particular challenge.

It is the concept of another type of challenge (not better/more fun – just different, and perhaps also fun?), the one to "create the decisions and drama of combat in the mind of the player, and forego the explicit representation of aircraft movement that I feel is general enough to warrant time/space here on TMP, and the one I hoped to prompt by the OP (however clumsily it -as most/all of my postings are- was done).

Games that deal with hand-to-hand combat are, imo, the models/examples to view because of the similarity (in my mind) of both the mindset and decisions made by the warriors involved – be they swordsmen or pilots.

In the HtH gaming world, there are few rules that come close to the detail level of movement display/control common to the majority of aircombat games – the old 'En Garde' is the only one I know of – while the (seemingly, to my admittedly very limited point of view) most popular style of rules used for the sort of heroic, derring-do style of activity is that found in many RPGs wherein combat (and other suitably heroic actions such as leaping a chasm or what-have-you) is abstractly represented by dice rolls modified by character traits/abilities and the environment.

These seem to me to be the same sorts of actions that most players seek for their fighter-pilot-personas, are they not? If the imagination can successfully (ie: the player can have fun in the game) be used to represent the slaying of a dragon or the 'rescue' of a treasure while the figure that represents the heroic adventurer sits static on the tabletop, why can't the same be done in the sky?

Of course, the scope of the game would be different – more like a barroom brawl or a viking raid on a village – but the same concept of representation of intuitive/reactive actions that are based on a character's training/experience with abstract, modified dice rolls is possible.(?)

It all depends, I suppose, on the premise that what a martial artist does is the same as what a fighter pilot does, and that they can, therefore, share game mechanics to represent them on the tabletop. I believe they are the same – based on my (again, very limited) experience fencing (college) and flying (open cockpit biplanes).

There: it can't be said that I dodged, now…can it? ; )