"Wargames as mythbusters/mythbuilders" Topic

A big part of wargaming for me is learning and teaching history. If the history is bad/wrong or absent I do not want to play the game.

Now – my question is how much do our/your games add to the myths or debunk the myths of the period portrayed? And does it matter?

I'll hold back my own opinion FWIW until others have had a chance to have their say.

This topic has been in my mind to post for a while – but the current thread on myths inspired me to start a parallel thread. I could have just posted this there but as that thread is now quite mature I though a fresh start was best.

I would say that in general wargames tend to emphasise the mythic rather than debunk it. 'National Characteristics' are, at best, caricatures but they are frequently present. Many rules add period character based on what people expect and historical anecdotes rather than deep insights into the period.

And for me – though I consider myself an historian – I play warGAMES and hope to have fun doing so. I've lost count of the history books I've read and started out thinking "what a great period/scenario to play" and ended thinking "but it wouldn't be much of a game". And myths and expectations about a period can add to that.

I don't expect great revelations to come from my games: I'm happy to have the colour and save my studies (such as they are, now) for other environments.

Most wargamers' historical sources seem to derive from Hollywood. So you can judge from that how much might be 'mythical'.

Well for what its worth wargaming can force you to revisit your preconceptions. I was utterly convinced the Regular Spanish Army was good for nothing during the Peninsular War, until I did the research for a refight of Albuera. Not only did they fight like lions, their General was the only one who understood what the French were up to….

For starters, yes: bad history = a bad game. Mind you, and especially as we go further back into history (the multiple millennia generically referred to as 'ancients'), I'm much less likely to say something is definitely 'bad history'.

But I think myths can add to the average game. For instance, for decades, I've used the truism 'every guns an 88 and every tanks a tiger' as an excuse in WW2 games from Tunisia to the fall of Berlin to label everything from a PzIII to Panther a 'tiger', while the hight of my artillery exuberance once had me declare a battery of 15cm howitzers to be '88's!

I've taken a lot of lumps for this attitude over the years, mostly from people who can tell me the number of rivets on an Italian CV 33, but for me it added to the atmosphere, and I hoped it would for others.

Interesting, since Band of Brothers came out, and the assault on Brecourt Manor is clearly done to destroy the '88's firing on the beaches, or in a Market Garden scene where one of the paras sees a Jagdpanther and says 'Tiger!' the derision of my ignorance has declined a bit…

And then, it filled me with delight to read Zamulin's book "Demolishing the Myth" about the battle of Kursk to see him reproduce a Russian reference to a 'Tiger Mk IV' (probably a Mk IV with shurtzen, but we'll never know I guess).

I guess I'm trying to say that history is the starting point and the thing that I love to study, but mythology offers its own insights into what the people (trying) to live through it were thinking.

I'm forced to agree with Boudin Noir. Hollywood takes too much license with rewriting history and people mostly don't know the difference. One of the most common myth Hollywood forces people to believe is that cannon balls don't bounce, they just explode. Looks great for the cameras but is largely incorrect.

Western society has had much history omitted do to prejudice, pride and sheer ignorance. Wargames try to capture certain aspects of national advantages and it becomes necessary due to the all knowing players. Generals in history had no way of knowing the exact position of every man on the field as we do by just standing up. We can use different tactics than a specific general at a specific time.

There's nothing wrong with relying upon myth if THAT is the subject of the game: could one wargame the Trojan War or Robin Hood without giving special bonuses to characters like Achilles, Hector and Robin, Little John, Friar Tuck et al? Otherwise, one would just be portraying Bronze Age warfare or post-Norman Conquest skirmishing between peasants and men at arms, and the outcome would bear little relation to the stories.

Similarly, I'm fine with Holloywood-inspired games, provided that it is made clear from the outset that that is what is being portrayed.

Wargames of Napoleonic battles have tended to portray the accepted historical interpretations of their time; when I started gaming, that meant Napier, Oman and Weller; now it may mean Griffith, Nosworthy and Esdaile.

There might be considerable merit in devising games that modelled individual historians' interpretations/theories and comparing the results when refighting an historical battle. But one would have to be completely clear which historian/theory was being portrayed in a particular game.

The biggest culprits in "fantasy history" are (probably) naval wargames and air wargames.

People like to see boats sink in their wargames – but reality suggests a higher incidence of "damaged and fell out of the fight".

people like to see planes crash and burn – again reality suggests a higher incidence of "ran away damaged" or just "ran away".

Yes, twentieth century warfare in particular is a tedious process of gradual attrition with most people spending most of their time hiding from each other, and even 'dangerous' things like air warfare actually resulting in very few planes shot down in each individual encounter.

Over the space of days, weeks, months, all very unpleasant for all involved, but in a typical tabletop game covering minutes or hours, somewhat dull.

Similarly we all want small arms fire to hit things, whereas in reality in high intensity warfare conducted by conscript armies it is mostly sprayed in the vague direction of the enemy and the chances of someone in cover actually being hit by a bullet are miniscule. It does keep their heads down though. Games which involve non lethal exchanges of fire for hours on end are a little dull.

What 20thmaine said.

And the same applies to land wargames, really. No one wants to command the corp that stood in reserve all day and never engaged. No one wants to command the corps that starved, or got wiped out by typhus.

To make a good war*game*, there has to be dramatic, colorful action within a short period of time, and the players must have enough control over events for their own inputs to decide the game. There's only a very limited set of actual history that fits those criteria.

And we wargame those few entertaining battles over and over. Storming the Alamo, not Two Weeks On The Petersburg Lines.

Thought of another one – few medieval siege games play out the full three or six months of typhoid, trench digging, mining/counter-mining, slow starvation, endless foraging etc etc.

Usually it's just the assault – the defenders are still at full fighting strength and the attackers aren't hindered by dysentery !

I dunno Peninsula…if I'm in the back row, I'm kinda pullin' for that explode thing over the bounce…

But you could game "Two Weeks Before Petersburg," it would just be a construction and hygiene and disease-control game, and not a war game.

A typical cycle might run as follows:

"Army X had rifles instead of muskets. So they probably had a higher kill ratio."

"Hey, let's give army X a +1 when firing"

"Great idea. Let's play this out in a game."

… game being played …

"See? Army X kills more troops than their opponents. Rifles really must have been much better than muskets."

In other words, wargames are self-fulfilling prophecies of perceived myths.

Other example:

some units – through sheer luck or simply statistics – have an exceptional behaviour in the historical record.

That behaviour is then modeled in the rules, although there might not be a solid reason for them being better. But from now on, in every wargame, that particular type of unit will now behave better than everyone else.

Any wargame is just a major abstraction of the many factors at work during a battle, and how each game chooses to model those abstractions is different. Those 'myths' themselves are historiographical attempts to abstractly explain the many factors at work. It all comes down to thoroughness of research, sound conclusions and knowing when to hand wave.

And since this is all done for entertainment, it doesn't really matter one wit. :)

-Will

^^^ What he said.

And since this is all done for entertainment, it doesn't really matter one wit. :)

The bottom line to most game designs. 'Entertainment'
is used for perpetuating myths or 'bad history.'

The real issue for desginers is selling a lot of games, so they feel that catering to the 'lowest common denominator' when it comes to historical understanding and current myths is what their games need to target. In the end, if it is all about how the gamer 'feels' about the game, when that feeling is a mishmash of myth and hollywood, that is what the games will attempt to reflect back to the average gamer.

And if that sounds cynical, there are a number of designers on the TMP that have said this very thing in a variety of ways.

But it is true. Our wargames do make players revisit their preconceptions and look into history too.

For my taste the wargame must explore the history in some useful way. There is no entertainment for me in a game that gets the history wrong (just as there is no entertainment for me in non-historical genres).

Often, these days, I use wargames and wargame style layouts to illustrate military events to visitors at heritage events. The wargame is supremely good at that but you need to be careful not to put error, myth and wargamerly oversimplification into the design (or you risk people picking up inaccuracies from the game and it will be your fault*)

Phil
*as in, e.g. we know this was fought on a ridge but we don't think it affected the combat so we've simplified it and played it on the flat … I've seen that argument used re Naseby … now I seriously disagree with the inane idea that the ridge didn't affect the battle (but, somewhere, that has crept into one line of mythology on the battle) – but even so, Naseby was fought on a ridge, fact so if you can't be bothered to build a ridge, and you are putting the game on in a public place (not just at home, for yourself), by all means play way, but don't call it Naseby.

Heisenberg taught us that there are no observations which remain unaffected by the act of observing. The act of observation changes the thing being observed, making its true nature unknowable. Sure, there is a Queen Elizabeth II but the act of studying her changes her. A person like the Queen who is interviewed is different from a person in their private life. Thus there are no facts, only variations on facts or psuedo-facts which have been either subtly or grossly distorted by the act of observation. The accretion of these psudo-facts create myths. Thus, History is a collection of myths which a society embraces and agrees to support and which may change as the society changes. These widely accepted myths inform and guide wargamers just like anybody else. Wargames give an opportunity to the participants to discuss and analyze the myths and psuedo-facts surrounding them and may cause people to learn something new. But to some extent the "something new" is just a new variation on the commonly held myth that existed before the game began. We live in a quantum universe where everything is fuzzy and uncertain – past, present and future. Wargames are not immune from the Uncertainty Principle and nor is our History.

I definitely steer more towards the Hollywood/national myth side of the equation.

I would rather have a good story well told via the game than to play through Pickett's charge and watch half my troops die.

In fact, when playing Infinity (yeah, scifi, but still a wargame), my way of deciding what to do is defined as "If this was an action movie, what would look coolest?"

It really depends on the gamers.
I came in about the history, then the game. Most gamers go for games first, if they happen to be historical, just as well. Most also don't do research enough to have a real clue as if what they play has much to do with history.

It goes as "far" as planting infantry landwher flags on Prussian cavalry.

It is especially true with tactics and army doctrines. Mind me, it is more often than not, the game creator's fault than the gamers/ users. He is to one to do the research.

Unchallenged old time history, repeating the same old mistakes/ ready made ideas, still clings about in this business.
Examples: the Napoleonic British line doing firelight…
the WW2 "Russian masses" (in 44 there are 1.3 soviets for 1 axis on the whole front., in personnel)
As for many books, even more in games, new rules tend to take over stuff already in "fashion" again and again.

So unchallenged games without research might just extend the myths.
On the other hand, historical gaming is one sure way to test stuff, and have to look into history, even with a different vision than the average university type, half way through to a professional soldier,(who too often has no clue as to military history whatsoever).
Functions a bit like reenactment does for many other things.

Isn't a major part of the problem simply that today's 'historical interpretation' may well become tomorrow's 'myth'?

Well, on WGV, I had one of my free scenarios dissed by a reviewer because I didn't go into the detail of the combat effectiveness of this unit and that and how to tweak this or that stat to your liking.

Those statements are factually correct. The intent of the game was not to look at the combat effectiveness of unit on unit engagements. The intent was to look at (what I thought to be) the major operational issues that allowed a much larger force to defeat a smaller, similarly armed force, and to see if you could reasonably game those types of effects.

So WRT myth and fact, you have to consider the intent of the portrayal. There is no "right" (though there is "wrong), but just a degree of appropriateness for its intended purpose.

Rod I Robertson while I appreciate what you are saying for the purposes of what historians are trying to do it is irrelevant. From a philosophical point of view what we collectively construct is by definition reality and the facts established in that reality are verifiable within that context. What is important is to to distinguish between facts and opinion, particularly opinion masquerading as fact. So for example:-
Rod I Robertson is a man – fact.
Rod I Robertson is a good man – opinion (an opinion shared by many people I'm sure).
And finally for a mind numbing philosophical paradox as Heisenburg's uncertainty principle is based on observation it is as susceptible to observation bias, which means that Heisenburg's principle might not be "true" therefore what we observe is correct. But if what we observe is correct that means Heisenburg's principle is true which means…………

Fred:
If "what we collectively construct is by definition reality" then reality shifts as "we" change over time and through experience (both personal and societal). If you are saying that "we" determine reality then logically myths are as real and valid as anything based on empirical evidence and reason. Therefore there is no difference between reality (fact/pseudo-fact) and myth (fiction) if "we" choose to "collectively construct" it so. The implication is that we live in a "fiat reality" imposed by some consensus arrived at by an unclear collective. That might be true but it is also further than I am willing to go.
My point above was that no one can "know" history, all we can do is debate it and try to improve our understanding and view point and identify our biases. Wargames are an opportunity to do just that so in my opinion they are a useful tool for the teaching and learning of at least some types of history. To use a nautical metaphor, we should all be more humble and accepting of other points of view and seek to "tack" indirectly towards a better understanding of History, as definitive knowledge is an unattainable goal. It is arrogance and hubris to say otherwise IMHO.
Myths are explanations of the universe around us based on fictions or incomplete/incorrect facts (pseudo-facts). They are created through a process of faith or superstition and this process limits or denies the importance of reason and observable data in the creation process. History should be based on observed data and reason but must always take into account the biases of the observer and the writer and the corruption of the observable facts by the observer, the society in which the observer lives and the gestalts of all involved in the study of history. History should be a string of gentle suggestions through an ongoing "conversation" between peers which is society-wide rather than the loud pronouncements of self-appointed or ordained experts who may be corrupted and blinded by their convictions and biases (even if such preconceptions are socially accepted by some part or even the majority of the society).
Yes I am a man but I have been told on many occasions to "be a man" so my manhood is a conditional characteristic dependent on outside factors such as other's opinions of my behaviour. Am I a good man? Yes that is an opinion which may or may not be true. Is Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principal subject to its own biases and errors. Yes but if so the facts May Be correct. They are not necessarily correct however, so the paradox is on shaky foundations.
Cheers.
Rod Robertson.

Rod:

If you are saying that "we" determine reality then logically myths are as real and valid as anything based on empirical evidence and reason.

Well no, because the reality we construct has some internal consistency. Thus what is myth and what is fact is defined within the reality. How that relates to the ultimate reality, if such a thing exists, is a moot point. So within the reality that we construct having X and Y chromosomes makes you a man and someone telling you to be a man isn't a plea to change your genetic makeup, I would suggest it is more about how you behave and how they and you perceive yourself. Thus although your concept of manhood may change over time your chromosomes won't.

Fred:
The crux of the matter is whether the "internal consistency" you say exists in our reality is valid or whether it is a source of bias or something which alters perception to the point where it reduces the chance of approaching some absolute truth. If that internal consistency is flawed then the reality created becomes more mythic and less rooted in truth the longer the internal consistency is maintained. Diversity and not consistency is the foundation for healthy intellectual development. In nature the higher the genetic diversity of a population or an ecosystem, the healthier it is. And speaking of genetics, there are men with more than one X chromosome and there are women with Y chromosomes, so chromosomal structure is not a perfect determining factor is sex.
Rod Robertson.

I think wargmes has taught me to suspect the competence of many authors. As soon as you "play" any sort of even halfway credible game you realise the 2000 mile Russian fron is just SUPID. It was fundamentaly battles based within a reasonable horse distance from rail heads. Writers of history particularly commecially driven, write rubbish that sells not authoritive documents. While this is not completely true they sell what sells not what is right. The standard complaints for example about Rommel foolishly stopping before Dunkirk are based on Myth rather than actual data about how close they were to being out of supply. Again that is a myth that sells rather than an analytical analysis of the arteries of war that does not sell well. Many Wargames at higher level convieniently forget even basic timescale and hence are just that GAMES. I have no problem with that but do worry when they are sold as representative. Even MG is aimed only at certain very basic items and like all simulations is "wrong" but "usefull".

Some Wargames model some aspects of warfare and as such can help debunk myths. Games are not likely to contribute in that way. However there are few of us that want simulation. Even with simple rules the real world needs complex solutions that concentrate in time and space. So does a chess game, but not many what that level of intensity of concentration

Rod:

The crux of the matter is whether the "internal consistency" you say exists in our reality is valid or whether it is a source of bias or something which alters perception to the point where it reduces the chance of approaching some absolute truth.

That depends on whether you believe there is such a thing as absolute truth. Some philosophers contend that the only reality is the one we construct. Therefore the only validity that a concept like absolute truth would have is that which it is given in the constructed reality.
I'm not sure how you could judge that diversity is better than internal consistency as any such conclusion is subject to the same bias.

My head hurts! Will this be on the exam?

Some great posts here.

Flow Theory says that an activity has to be personally worthwhile to be enjoyable. So being a history teacher it makes sense that you won't want to play games that don't have history.

The key question is "what is genuine history". As others have said, it doesn't really exist. There are absolute facts, but they have usually been lost in the past and are now undiscoverable. So what anyone views as "history" is just a derived "story" based on the person's "world view". (read up on Soft Systems Methodology and CATWOE).

About 30% of men aged 24 or younger in some major powers died in WW1. That's history. Scary stuff to a soldier on the front line. In a game, a few pieces of plastic might get removed from the table. Not very scary. But put a few pieces of badly modelled terrain on a table, add a card deck and hey you get "this game accurately reflects combat. You have the same decisions that real commanders and troops had … blah blah blah". What a load of garbage.

Another example is kamikaze pilots. One side views them as heroes trying to defend their country. The other views them as trying to defend an evil empire. Different world view = different history book.

Russia used ethnic cleansing in WW1 (pre-communism). Yet popular history is that only Commies and Nazis did this stuff. Whose history?

Wargames aren't history. They are a system dressed up to look like worthwhile activity. Did a panzer division really have a combat factor of 10, which was doubled to 20 when in a woods. Of course not but they look scarier. Was combat outcome determined randomly in history? No. So why use a dice? These are simple examples.

Then apply a designer's personal world view and a game even more becomes a work of fiction.

And the big one – games are rated on their enjoyment score. Take a look at boardgamegeek. The game rating has nothing to do with historical accuracy.

Take a look at tabletop wargame rules. Do any actually try to reproduce realistic command and control? Did Frederick The Great or Napoleon check his card deck and wait for a "lucky card" in any of his battles before attacking? No, they evaluated the situation, devised a plan and relied on subordinates to execute it. Was there ever a battle where sides took it in turns?

The key point in all this is games are merely designed to be worthwhile activities. Adding historical flavor adds to the level of perception of worthiness. Actresses are more appealing with make-up on. It's illusion.

So when you say that you won't play games that don't have history, all you are saying is that you need a game with a more convincing illusion to make you feel that playing is a worthwhile. OK – you need sugar in your coffee before you'll drink it.

And the same goes with real war. Bush used the convincing illusion to make war seem worthwhile as did countless leaders before him.