"Are we looking in all the wrong places in our game designs?" Topic

THE CASE:

I recently finished a book by Thomas Buell "Warrior Generals" a study in command in the American Civil War which spent time evaluating the combat effectiveness of the generals George Thomas, Francis Barlow, John Gordon, Robert E, Lee, John Bell Hood, and Ulysses S Grant. This book I found to be quite excellent, though I think he was a bit partisan about Thomas, but no matter.

Aside from detailing the military shortcomings and strengths of the principals named above, and several other commanders in less fulsome fashion, he also detailed the degree to which personal rivalries, animosities, old grudges, and irrational prejudices had in making attitudes and a mind set that was the background against which decisions were made. This includes instances where in the middle of Crisis at Chickamagua union officers were comparing seniority dates to see who was in charge of whom rather than submerging all these things to the idea of immediately survival and winning the battle.

This is between those we usually think are free of these things and whom are "the greats" in our estimation. He's not talking here about Davis, Bragg, Cheatem, Polk, Hardee Hooker, Halleck, McClellan, and Johnston and Johnston (both of them A.S. and Joe E, who are well known for their invidious nature and prickliness.

This problem is not limited to the American Civil War but is apparently so in all armies at all times. But to be fair, it is no different in business where exactly the same attitudes of cronyism, empire building, back-biting etc. holds sway. One must not that THAT is business and not the venue of the fates of nations and the lives of thousands.

THE QUESTION. If this is the case then are we as games designers looking in completely the wrong place when we strain at gnats about trivial differences in technology, drill, formation, supply etc? Are we looking at the trivial minutia that has far less a role in determining what went right and what went wrong in the battle, and that the interpersonal relationships of the top level officers of the army are far more causal. What does it matter if the Union had more or less artillery or 10,000 more men if one side or the other won't obey the orders of its superiors? In the specific case of Bragg, regardless of what you think of the man, apparently his corps commanders had the belief that they were under no compunction whatsoever to obey his orders.

Would it not be better then to concentrate first and foremost on the interpersonal rivalries and forget all the folderol like command and control and the minutia we cram into a game?

are you suggesting we play war games with people we don't like?

[grin]

I have always wondered why, since ACW generals were exactly as described (and so many books discuss this feature) nobody has written a crossover RPG/miniatures game focussing on this.

Back in the '80s I wrote a game called 'Science versus Pluck', where all the players are British officers in the Sudan. The enemy are played by the umpire/GM. The tactical stuff is fairly loose, with a flexible time scale so it's about your orders rather than what happens in formal chunks of time. What it's really about is players with different personal briefings and objectives.

The players then spend the game cooperating, or not. Often not, often hilariously so. Players either love it or -- don't.

I can't think of a reason why a similar game based around the ambitions, quirks and enmities of ACW generals wouldn't work.

Not my era, though, so I'm not going to write it.

As with all these things, it depend what you want to model, however C3 is a perennial problem, particularly for higher level commanders. As Patton observed 'Giving orders is easy, getting them obeyed is hard'. Whether deliberately or by incompetence/misunderstanding.

For large ninteenth century battles I sometimes think that the best model would be to deploy the toys and then just throw dice to see what they actually do as the CinC has so little control.

Dear Mexican Jack.

I know of what you speak. I have your rules. Great stuff.

In my own game of OGABAS I reflect this in a small way through an event deck, four cards in the deck of 144 allow the enemy to move one to a few units of your army. No need for a table or complicated charts or abstract blunders. Your enemy will be a far better source of disasterous moves for you than any game rules could ever be. I'm thinking of adding a significant number more.

Dear Martin

Yes I hate to even consider that idea, but I find that I am finding it far more credible. The CIC has very little control of the battle. It's almost like those old magnetic football games we had when we were a kid. The football players were on magnets on a metal sheet representing the football field. A vibrator was turned on when the play began and the little players randomly moved around. The magnetism drew them together, and the vibration gave them movement.

No, I'm not going to do that, but that seems more realistic than anything we've been able to do.

Otto

I remember a classic game of Guilford Courthouse I ran where the Hessian and Highland commanders DID NOT GET ALONG. The first line of militia beat off both attacks because oof their tital lack of cooperaton. The rest of Greene's army did not get involved at all, and several political careers were made post war on that field.

In group games I've noticed the persona of players is often reflected in how their troops are handled. Generally there is no need to write it into the rules.
We generally think that there is really only one rational way troops can be used, then your Admiral thinks is a good idea to de-cloak in the mist of the enemy Star Fleet. ( I know, different era, but you get the idea.)
I frequently annoy my opponents, by not giving my opposing General a stand up fight, often marching off to the otherside of the table.
I've often set up games, thinking there can only be one way to play this scenario, then have players totally miss the point of the scenario.

In games with multiple commanders/players on a side this can happen pretty easily.

I used to play Star Fleet battles with a small group of friends and we would pair up for sides. It never failed that on both sides we would form a plan and when we started fighting someone on either side would go "off plan."

In games with the one omnipotent overseer on a side, you need to put in some kind of mechanic like a morale check for every move.

Charlie Co has a mechanic where if a soldier is out of LOS from a Sgt. he roles an expertise roll. if he fails, the GM/Vietnamese gets to say what happens to him.

I just published a free Battle of Tannenberg 1914, called Allenstein, on WGV. It had zero focus on the nits and gnats of the particulars of combat. It was really about what I thought were the three key issues in the battle: (1) the two Russian commanders hated each other, (2) The Russians ran out of rail support for logistics, and (3) The Germans were intercepting and translating all the Russian orders before they executed them.

So, are we looking in the wrong place? Not necessarily. If you want to play a game that is about the essential differences between the Springfield and Enfield rifles (Guns and Ammo did a great comparison a few years back) and how they dictated the tactical action in the ACW, then play it. But if you want to play Gods and Generals, play that instead.

Dear List

I am not suggesting that these things come because of PLAYER disagreement. I think it might have to be hard-wired into the rules. For example.

1. Each turn you, as Braxton Bragg must roll one die for each corps commander.

1- General is feeling entirely ed, peved and angry at you. Enemy moves the corps as he wishes.

2- General is peeved and angry at you, and decides to obey maliciously- You tell the orders for the corps, the enemy implents these orders.

3-General is angry at you. ENEMY tells you what orders he has for the corp and you implement them.

4- Corps does nothing.

5-6 Corps follows your orders.

Otto

I have 16+ years in the US Army and I now work in leader development with Cadets. I can think of plenty of examples where decisions were made based more on clashing personalities and less on the mission at hand. For the most part, years of experience and professionalism teach you how to push those differences aside and work to accomplish the mission even when the enemy you hate the most is working on your team. However, on occasion, personality conflicts still happen. None that I witnessed ever really produced unacceptable mission results, but the incidents sure frustrated the efforts of subordinates to get things done.

Try playing DBA with a allied general or two. There is a ACW version of DBA that works pretty much the same way. You have Arty, Cav, and Inf. No real difference between the size of guns or muskets. You, as the general only worry about plugging holes and using whatever is available. You don't sit around wondering whetheer rifled muskets or smoothbores would be more appropriate to the situation, you just grab what is handy.

That's exactly the kind of thing Real Time Wargames tried to model in their ACW rules:

link

Players play Union commanders who are really just doing it so they get a shot at becoming a big shot in Washington, pull rank on each other, backstab, politick… Sounds really fun if you can get a few dedicated players.

I'm partisan because I love their games, but I think the card-driven turn activation systems used in Too Fat Lardies games capture that 'lack of control' in the C3 process really well. The players know what they want to do – they know who is supposed to execute the orders – they have no idea when their subordinates (represented by Big Man cards) will actually do anything. As well, by tailoring the card mix in the deck to the command strengths/failings of the different armies each force has a different flavour to play even when they use identical equipment.

The down-sides are the greater set-up time putting together the scenarios and the game decks tailored to them. In my opinion it is well worth the effort.

I haven't played the Lardies ACW rules (I think the title is 'They Couldn't Hit an Elephant') but for other settings that approach works.

A much different use of cards, but I think Sam Mustafa's recent game "Longstreet" also moves in the direction you've described. Some of the cards explicitly represent rivalries between officers on the same side, and introduce some fog of war regarding command effectiveness. ACW isn't my usual period but I really enjoyed the Longstreet games I played.

Never played them, but the Piquet systems might also have some of the command ambiguity built in.

So, in response to the OP – I think the point you bring up is a very good one and that including it in the games somehow can really add enjoyment to games. I'm very interested in the other posts above as well – there are a lot of ways to make those personality conflicts parts of games!

I have experienced the problem in a business environment. My former boss (Design, in a ad company) hated the guts of Marketing division boss. We were bidding for a contract with a big client. We, at Design, prepared a presentation for the client, that was gutted by Marketing. My boss went so nuts that he actually sabotaged the deal. Not only did he lost his job, but the rest of Design were fired in the following weeks. Luckily for me, I had a job offer so I wasn't particularly affected: I collected my severance check and went to work for other company.

Was a Union General in a PBEM game of Chancellorsville. After sitting in my position for one game day without orders from the commanding general I said to H with this and ordered my Corp to advance. I was in the woods and never saw a Reb. The game ended with a Union defeat. My commander was so ed at me for not following his orders that he never sent me an AAR so that I could see what had happened. I doubt that my advance had anything to do with his defeat. He never sent me an order and I suspect that his placement of my Corp was so out of line with the location of the battle that I was of no use to him. Too bad that I could not hear the sound of the guns which would have given me a direction for my advance.

The problem is how would you model it. The truth is you can't. You may as well do what rules do and roll a dice. If it succeeds it cones off, if not then it doesn't for some unknown reason.

basileus66;

That sounds like something straight out of a Dilbert cartoon

They already have this built into systems like Black Powder.

When you roll to see if you pass a command test you may or may not succeed. Sometimes that might be because the general didn't want to follow your orders.

Plus they have grades for commanders so you can rate them as being overly aggressive, timid or a number of other things.

I agree that is what people/generals are like. But no need to put this in the rules – that's what the players are for :-)

The easiest way to fix this is to assign individual victory conditions (kept secret of course). So for example if A and B are rivals, victory for A is advancing further or causing more casualties or getting to the ridge before B….

I've never understood why ACW games are so interested in personality clashes, Napoleonic somewhat interested, and WWII games generally ignore them altogether.

BTW, The Gamers' Civil War Brigade series link has some great rules on getting orders accepted, including the dreaded "loose cannon" rule …

OSchmidt's mechanic would work very nicely for a one player per side game though and keep both parties involved.

Sometimes you can't get two or three players per side to give that command team friction.

No question when you get to multiple players. The fog of war descends even when gamers are the best of friends.

I have seen this phenomenon all the time. Once a year a friend of mine used to give a war game weekend. At the weekend everyone would come and play and bring something.

One year a gamer brought a naval game he had and he fought the "Battle of Cape Matapan." I had played this over my house a few months before. I was on the British side, and I told everyone you will follow in line, you will do whatever my ship does. You will not fire your light AA it's useless and wastes time. You will fire on opposites. You will not mass your fire. you will stay rigidly in formation. ou will not firo torpedoes- it's a waste of time. You will not break formation in case of enemy torpedo attack the odds are too small and the destroyers will take a torpedo for you. If you do not obey these orders I will knock your block off with this 2 x 4 and I laid it on the table by my chair.

All game I heard whining and moaning from people who I wouldn't allow to take their two cruisers and work their way around the flank this way, or try and feint with their destroyers this way, or do all sorts of screwy maneuvers all of which involved aimless wandering around the board in penny packets.

The Italians of course proceeded to do just that. They constantly sought to close the range while I opened it to presever my gunnery advantage.

By the end of the game all the Italian Battleships were on the bottom and so were most of the Italian cruisers. We lost only one light cruiser and a few destroyers.

For three years the gamer put on the same battle. For three years I gave the speech and the players on my side were crestfallen they couldn't make all these "do-se-do, now promenade, promenade" with their cruisers and destroyers and the result was always the same. The Italians wound up on the bottom.

One year I could not attend but I heard the gamer had given it again. I asked the guys on the British side how it went. Immediately I got all sorts of excited tales of how I went this way and Vince went this way and we fired torpedoes and I did this and the Battleships struck out on their own…" When I asked what happened, they got a little crestfallen and said "Oh-- well-- we got the crap kicked out of us. The other guy never broke his line stayed in formation and kept opening the range… " "One funny thing" one guy brightened up to say "Jeff had his warspite sunk by torpedoes, but they were from his own cruisers!" The smiled.."You fired torpedoes huh?… " I absent mindedly looked around for the 2 by 4.

Otto

.

That sounds like something straight out of a Dilbert cartoon

It was a case of reality imitating art! Back then I didn't knew Dilbert cartoons, but when I discovered them I felt that they were right on target regarding corporative infighting.

Actually, my former boss was an a'hole. I think he was a little bit unhinged. I remember one day I went to his office to deliver some papers and he was smoking weed and drinking cognac… he was so stoned that he didn't remembered that I had delivered the papers and next day he asked why on Jupiter's name I hadn't given them to him! I know I should have said something to HR, but to be honest I couldn't force myself to rat out a co-worker, even if he was my boss and a .

ear Basileus 66

Yuppers.

At a former job If I want to get ANTYHING out of the big boss I have to get the old coot before 9:30 am. At that time his secretary Kathy came in and all he wanted to talk about for the rest of the day was how good Kathy's @ss looked. (It actually didn't look good but he though it was."

To there I am saying, Ron,, Ron… you have to sign these contracts so we can start ordering the parts fo the Super66 Interociter…" and all I got was talk about how good it looked and what he'd like to do to it..

I can really feel for some historical personalities.

Here's the Duc De Choiseul talking to Louiz XV in the morning and all he wants to talk about is Madamme de Pompadour;s @ss.. I can see it now.. "Your majesty, your majesty, you must sign these edicts so we can get the ships together to ship supplies and reinforcements to the Marquise de Montcalm and save Canada…" "MAN, Monseieu Le Duc, have you seen her rear guard this morning, it's so pert and hard, I tell you… I'd lke to..""

Such my children is the effect of sex upon history.

But perhaps the best story aoubt corporate boughaha's is this one.

One year, in the 1970's my wife and I worked in the same place. I was production manager and she was personell manager. One day she comes into my office and said "I need you to sign these time cards for the Saturday overtime. I looked at her like she had three heads. "What overtime on Saturday, there was no overtime on Saturday." Dot sez, "Yes there was. Here are the time cards. " So I take the cards and go out to Rosalvina and ask if she worked Saturday. Yes she did. I check all the cards. They all worked. I go to the plant manager. "Umm howcum there was an overtime shift on Saturday? He mumbles something confusing about an emergency run that came up after I left on Friday. "I left a 8 pm. I knew he left at 3 pm, so how could he get the shift together.

WELL! I lay low for a few weeks as does Dot and we slowlyf ound out that the President of the company, the VP of operations, the Sales manager and the Plant engineer had set up their own private company dealing in the same business the company did and were using company equipment, sjupplies personell etc to run their own secret business taking contracts from the company's customers and doing it on the side. Dot and I got all the goods, the paper trail, and we got the company accountant in on it who had noticed some anomalies of his own, and we built up the whole casse against them, then presented it to Corporate Accounting, (we were a subsidiary of them. What happened was astounding. All of the principal crooks were not seen for a day, then they all came back. The corporate accountant was fired and the whole thing was hushed up. corporate was too embarrassed to admit they had not caught this themselves. Everyone continued in place. They never found out who got the goods on them, though one would have to be rather stupid to not figure it out.

That was when both the accountant, Dot and I decided it was best to ease ourselves out and started looking for a better job.

But we did have our revenge.

The head boss, in this case the head of the team of the phantom business, would post inspirational sayings on the billboard in the conference room. Each day the production meeting would come in and we would go over the plans for the day. They were really stupid things and even the VP of operations, (crook #2) his good buddy and close friend thought they were assanine.

Well one day he puts up this saying "If you can't teach an old dog new tricks, fire the dog!" Well I had had a snotfull at this time and wrote underneath "Arf sez Sandy." And other started adding other things and graffiti as well.
This became a standard thing and each new saying he put up others would come in and write their own comments. This started to bug the bib boss and he wanted to know who did it. Well he had Warren, the head of building maintenance lock the room, but the sayings kept accumulating. He couldn't figure out how these things were getting in. (Never occurred to the idiot that Warren was in on it.) He had the secretary watch the room when it was open to make sure no one went in. (she was in on it too and was one of the posters). Anyway, one day I went in and put on it…

Son vijalay N'yabi trantina Jaba." Or something like that which was what the insectoid hit-man says to Han solo in the bar just before Solo blows him away." Well the guy is now really bugged on this and he's asking everyone in the plant (we had people from all over the world working in the plant, one guy from Romania knew 14 languages. He didn't know. " He's sending letters to the Museum of Art, Columbia university, the UN, trying to find out what language it is. Nada, nitz, nothing, zip, zilch. Well this goes on for about a month and he's getting more and more paranoid. We figure he's sure to find out soon so we stopped. Well in December of that year it's decided we're going to have a Christmas party and we decide to have a "Secret Santa" party. Dot, as head of personnel organizes it. Of course she takes the big-bosses name, (it's supposed to be a random draw) and what she gets for him is a large book of Bartlett's quotations and a new set of markers. (Remember, Secret Santa gifts are anonymous) So the Christmas party comes around and the gifts are distributed and the boss's eyes light up and he's overjoyed with the gift until he opens the cover of the book and there in the dedication it says.

"Son vijalay N'yabi trantina Jaba."

The guy sees it and explodes, goes ballistic goes on a tear trying to figure out who it was.

Two weeks later I got an offer and left.

Three weeks after that Dot left.

For years we would amuse ourselves by sending out Christmas cards to him with a phony return address. These we would mail to various war game friends around the country in an over-envelope and just ask them to drop the addressed envelope in the mail.

You're an evil sumgun, Otto. Remind me not to cross you.

Yur frend, zippybert

The third (last of the free) edition of Father Tilly had a pre-game events system that could generate situations like that, even when it's one player per side. I've adapted it to use for some other rule systems easily enough.

So along with things like morale dropping because the troops weren't getting paid, some units would be removed because they were off foraging or looting, or would already be in contact with the enemy when the CinC arrived on the battlefield, or there was a rivalry between commanders so that their forces couldn't support each other, etc.

Drunken commanders and coups could even unfold.

What about Maurice? Doesn't it feature commanders with different personalities and agendas?

This includes instances where in the middle of Crisis at Chickamagua union officers were comparing seniority dates to see who was in charge of whom rather than submerging all these things to the idea of immediately survival and winning the battle.

Seniority was a survival issue on a whole lot of levels…

C-in-Cs had lots of control… at their level of command. Control was parsed out to each level of command because no one command could do it all. With wargamers moving every toy soldier [and thus making decisions for every unit on the table], anything resembling the real divisions of 'control' feels close to no control for the wargamer.

What we are talking about here is attempting to create AI systems for non-player subordinates. In the real world, people can act irrationally, or rationally for their own personal reasons and the system be damned, but people are often predictable, particularly when you work with them, particularly when you have chosen them for the positions they're in. That is often the tough part of command: Attempting to anticipate and negate the counter-productive behaviors.

I had a boss that would suddenly appear and trash weeks worth of work with 'new ideas' that had to be implemented immediately. It was only surprising and unexpected until we saw the pattern. After that, we weren't surprised--and took pre-emptive steps to contain the damage.

"Yes I hate to even consider that idea, but I find that I am finding it far more credible. The CIC has very little control of the battle. It's almost like those old magnetic football games we had when we were a kid. The football players were on magnets on a metal sheet representing the football field. A vibrator was turned on when the play began and the little players randomly moved around. The magnetism drew them together, and the vibration gave them movement.

No, I'm not going to do that, but that seems more realistic than anything we've been able to do."

I could imagine a battle level game where the CinC deploys the troops, but once they are committed to action has very little control over what happens to them. They do still retain control of reserves though.

Makes that second line a whole lot more sensible, and you could shore up defences, reinforce success etc.

Let me try and redirect a few things after had a hand in semi-sidetracking the thread.

I posted this thread only as an object for consideration and thought. This may be one of the things in war games we can't do anything about. One of the reasons we get interested in these things is that we often don't hear about it and the sources we read assume an unselfish unselfinterested mind set on the part of the soldiers.

Another thing is to have fun in games. We want to have fun in games, and I don't know if some mechanism, whatever that might be, would be "fun" for gamers to play. WORSE, it might actually ruin friendships and strain relationships in a group, not because it is unrealistic, but because it is TOO realistic!

One of the interesting things I've noticed in games I've designed where I had individual victory conditions which often amounted to "sandbagging" the CIC, it was the players who had to do the sand-bagging and not the sand-bagee who were upset. Curiously gamers were quite happy sand-bagging the CIC all on their own.

Don't ask me for an explanation I'm only reporting what I saw.

Martin,

Isn't Armati kind of like that? I don't remember being able to maneuver very much in that game. I think it was basically "hey, that's how we're set up--let's go get'em."

Rob

The wargames community IS definitely looking in the wrong places for its rules designs. And look at what that did for Leisure Suit Larry.

I am interested in understanding how games work, not in new design that much as rules I am happy with have already been invented.

I think it would be most interesting and revealing to ask wargamers to write a short essay on how command and control actually worked in the real world. I reckon that less than 20% would actually know how the military in their chosen era actually operated in anything more than superficial detail.

Agree or disagree?

But if gamers know nothing about real military practice, can a game including it be interesting? Or will they prefer familiar territory such as card hand management games? And then justify that type of game as being realistic? As long as the game has a few killer moves will they be satisfied? A similar question was raised in a research paper I recently read.

Whenever a wargamer says he has written a ruleset that captures real military practice, I always asks him whether he can design a game that captures his real-life job in a realistic manner. The answer usually is that it can't be done …

Btw, I totally agree that most wargamers have no idea how a real military staff – current or historical – actually works.

I reckon that less than 20% would actually know how the military in their chosen era actually operated in anything more than superficial detail.

Agree or disagree?

But if gamers know nothing about real military practice, can a game including it be interesting? Or will they prefer familiar territory such as card hand management games? And then justify that type of game as being realistic? As long as the game has a few killer moves will they be satisfied?

I think that both 'types' of wargame rules have been created and you pretty much can tell how each designer[s] answered that question by looking at the promotion and then the designs. It seems the more important question many wargame producers ask is simply which type of game will sell more?

I think that just about anything can be made interesting as a game with the right approach. [and yes, easier for some things, tougher for others.] And from the extensive wargame survey posted on the TMP, there seems to be a good many gamers interested in history and play games in part to learn about it…regardless of how much they do or don't know.

Whenever a wargamer says he has written a ruleset that captures real military practice, I always asks him whether he can design a game that captures his real-life job in a realistic manner. The answer usually is that it can't be done.

That is kind of an unfair question. Kind of like asking a housewife how to build a washing machine. Most wargamers don't know much about game design and even less about simulation design, let alone military practice.

Certainly a simulation game can capture chosen aspects of most any real-life job. I made a career of it--or at least part of my career.

Which brings us back to the original thread question:
"the degree to which personal rivalries, animosities, old grudges, and irrational prejudices had in making attitudes and a mind set that was the background against which decisions were made."

Those kinds of things could certainly be elements in a game of command. Whether creating rules for AI actions or setting up Role Playing venues, it can be done and has been done in different games. Even simplest games like Diplomacy allow for such influences between even the friendliest players. It is just a matter of what kinds of issues the designer wants to include and how much of a focus it will be in the over-all design.

Or what about the Coat of Steel rules from the Perfect Captain?

link

Some rule sets, like Piquet and the Lardies, have been doing this stuff for years. If not decades now.

When the Lardies first went big on "friction" in games with their card driven rules they were met with a storm of protest. Now even games like Bolt Action use a card driven system, just with the cards replaced by dice from a bag rather than cards from a deck. It looks like the idea of friction is becoming much more mainstream.

Yes, friction has become mainstream in tabletop rules, but it was present with Empire, TSTF and others long ago. Cards, dice and random event charts inflicting friction have been around a long time too.

Now, the next step will be to create friction systems that have some specific relationship to historical events.

It is the difference between modeling road traffic with an equal chance of accidents anywhere on a stretch of highway and recognizing that the majority of the accidents happen at specific points on the roadway, while others don't have any accidents at all.

In organizations, they all have those pressure points in the system where the screw-up happen most often and thus a lot of the effort at systems building is to mitigate those.
The military are past-masters at that kind of thinking. And of course, that includes the personality issues raised here.