"Speed vs Accuracy?" Topic

Writing in Battlegames magazine, David C.R. Brown observed:

…I find that all too often, these new fast-play rules, though written with the best of motives and producing some fun games, fail to appreciate that it's not the end result of combats or battles that is important within a wargame, but how we arrive at that result. These new rule systems seem to have gone too far the other way and have simply reversed the 1980s ruleset equation by introducing speed at the expense of accuracy…

Do you agree?

Sometime speed is necessary for accuracy. At lower levels of combat, quick decision making is a key part of combat. If the game doesn't require that, then it's not going to be very accurate. In regards to the quote you offer. I'd also say that if the means by which the result is arrived is out of the control of the historical individual, you should also be out of the control and knowledge of the player.

Yes I agree to the OP. I have noticed how some rule sets brag about how they have nothing to do with historical fact. If I'm playing a game about battle then I want the rules to reflect what happened in those battles to one degree or another.

And yet we can't forget that the purpose of these games is not to simulate warfare so we can learn from it, we play for fun. The rule sets of the 80s may have looked like they forgot this, but that viewpoint comes from what we like today. Back then game designers wrote for what gamers liked back then. It just got old really quickly.

So I'm in the middle – I want a fun fast game, but one that at least tries to portray the events of the battlefield. I believe to be a good wargame -

"a game needs to accurately reproduce the range and probability of outcomes from the actual situation, and the game mechanics should try to give the illusion of modelling the real events in miniature".

It's a balancing act.

But there is also a not-so-fine line between "historical simulation" and "historically-themed".

I want to have some fun and go from setup to finish within my one-hour attention span. I remember day long games when I was younger, but I am not that guy any more.

Chief Bill and Rich:

Designer Sid Meier said that "a game is a series of interesting decisions." Fun games have interesting decisions for the players. I would think that a wargame--as opposed to just a game--has interesting decisions that mirror at least some of those faced by actual decision-makers. The fun of the game is the journey, the process, and a wargame has a journey that mimics war and combat decision-making in some way… or it isn't a wargame, is it? We all have our ideas of what those decisions are, whether quick or considered, tactical or operational, logistical or psychological.

So I agree with you both, even though we all have our own ideas of those those wargame decisions can and should entail…there is a lot we can portray with a game system.

II find that an number of wargame designers have consigned any history or 'realistic' game decisions to fantasy and just design 'fun' games with 'flavor' and 'reasonable' results. Getting there easily and fast also are seen as far more important.

Gamers don't necessarily understand that. I just read a TMP poster state a particular wargame was 'more of a simulation' than other designs by the designer when the designer doesn't believe simulations are even possible. He categorically designs games. At times, we get fooled by the flavor and miss the lack of substance.

Wargames can be fun games, speed and ease of play and still offer real historical challenges and decision-making. The word "accuracy" has no particular meaning in wargame design at the moment, so to state that accuracy is sacrificed for speed doesn't mean much--which is why gamers can be confused about what makes a wargame more or less of a simulation….

This idea that a designer *must* sacrifice accuracy for ease and speed of play is the premise at the heart of so much of all the non-starter issues in wargame design.

Neil Thomas has recently published a book called One Hour wargames. A collection of rules that could perhaps be viewed as being as light as could possibly be whilst still retaining the notion of being a wargame.

He write (Quote) "'Readers should always bear in mind that simple rules are not necessarily unrealistic, which all too common misconception has resulted in some monstrously turgid and hideously complex rule books being produced in the name of realism'. "

The point is well made and as already said, balance is needed, but that point of balance is different to each of us. If Neil Thomas has got people blowing dust off figures, playing a mid week game and getting their children around the table, then they are in their own right a success and there was a market gap for his book.

I got an OK game out of his ACW rules, but the WWII rules (my favourite period) are simply too generic for me, another player will disagree, so I think the truth is that we need a spread of systems so that we can go with our own preferences – and that might mean playing something light mid-week on the kitchen table and then doing something meatier for our main gaming session.

A rules writer / producer is going to want to shift copies and so at the back of their mind must surely be that a not insignificant proportion of todays gamers lack time, gaming space and large figure collections, perhaps this more than anything else is what is forming the modern approach to commercial rule writing.

The idea that speed and accuracy are mutually exclusive (and by inference that slowness and complexity are more accurate) is a complete fallacy. I have seen incredibly simple set of rules, both commercial and professional, that accurately model the situation being considered. I have also seen horrendously complex rules that have totally missed the point and have produced results that were wildly off.

I found the comment above regarding "flavour" instead of realism and historical results – to me achieving historical results is an essential aspect of achieving "flavour". Its capturing those essential elements that make one genre different from another (so for instance I'd like my pre-dreadnought naval surface action rules to not be the same as my WW2 naval rules, despite the apparent similarity in technology – the operating environment, command and control etc. were significantly different, as were the challenges faced by the commanders so I'd like the game to reflect that, and thats what I see as "flavour" – if you were writing an AAR of the game would it read as though it was a pre-dread action, or just some amorphous naval gunnery duel that could have happened at any time between 1890 and 1950)

The "game" vs. "simulation" aspect has always interested me. Again, I've seen very simple "games" used professionally that are very accurate "simulations" of the situations they are recreating. In fact I sat in on one game recently that was attended by two of the commanders who actually fought the battle many years previously and they said it was the most accurate simulation of the command and control aspects of the campaign they'd ever encountered (as well as being the best "debrief" on the events). And that was using a set of rules that were extremely simple. Once again, complexity doesn't equal simulation. It can do, but so can elegant simplicity.

Out of interest, did David Brown give any examples?

30 years ago, people also billed their rules as "fast play".

Sometimes a heavy game is fun, sometimes a light game is fun.

Some complex, dense games are not very "realistic", some quick playing, simple games are.

More often than not, a game can be "realistic" in one or two areas it chooses to be, while it will fail elsewhere.

Whatever rule set YOU prefer, is guaranteed to be fast, simple and realistic, while the rules that the other guy prefers are slow, clunky and produce abject nonsense, of course.

No

It has been said before many, many times. I'll say it again here. No rules set is realistic. We are playing with toy soldiers. It is a game with the back drop of whatever historical period we choose. So, the #1 thing we should be asking our selves as gamers is did we have fun? The #2 question we should be asking our selves is did it make sense within the historical back drop we were playing? Other than that, we as gamers should collectively get over ourselves and stop pretending that what we do is "realistic."

There's a whole spectrum of wargaming rules available, and that's a good thing.

People should learn to understand there is no ultimate set of rules, because people look for different things when playing a wargame. Some look for historical realism at all costs, others look for a fun game with toy soldiers vaguely inspired by military history. Some want complex mathematical procedures, others want to thrown pingpong balls at their soldiers. Some want exquisite dioramas to play in, others want a traditional toy soldier look. Some want decision-making akin to what real commanders did, others just want throw as much dice as possible.

So, to each their own …

What I do agree with though, is that the designer of a set of rules should state what his intent and goal is. Then we can evaluate a set of rules towards its intended use.

" No rules set is realistic." Depends on how you assess realism

Nothing worse then hearing "but the end results are plausible", what matters to me is the steps needed to get to that result. Rolling a single die for an entire battle can give "plausible results" but I think we can all agree that there is no fun in that.

Rolling a single – but modified to reflect various significant factors – die for an entire battle could be appropriate if gaming a long period of time, such as the Napoleonic Wars, and the emphasis was on strategy and politics, rather than battlefield tactics.

The idea that speed and accuracy are mutually exclusive (and by inference that slowness and complexity are more accurate) is a complete fallacy.

David:
Yep. I've been singing that song for years. I also agree with your assessment of the 'game vs simulation' myth.

To me achieving historical results is an essential aspect of achieving "flavour". Its capturing those essential elements that make one genre different from another (so for instance I'd like my pre-dreadnought naval surface action rules to not be the same as my WW2 naval rules, despite the apparent similarity in technology – the operating environment, command and control etc. were significantly different, as were the challenges faced by the commanders so I'd like the game to reflect that, and thats what I see as "flavour" – if you were writing an AAR of the game would it read as though it was a pre-dread action, or just some amorphous naval gunnery duel that could have happened at any time between 1890 and 1950)

Everyone can have a view of what constitutes 'flavor' and how it might or might not be linked to realism and accuracy, which is everyone preogrative and certainly the designer's…but that's the problem in discussing game design.

A term like 'flavor', 'feel' or even 'accuracy that can and does mean a wide variety of game traits and mechanics is fairly meaningless when talking about 'how to design for it'. Everyone's design goals, techniques and game experience of that 'flavor' will be different… so the word technically means 'whatever I personally like.'

That's fine, but the only person that can purposely design for that is me. If we talk about 'flavor', then it is simply what you and I like and point to as 'flavor.'

Yes.

"If we talk about 'flavor', then it is simply what you and I like and point to as 'flavor.'"

But isnt there a common sense about historical flavor?

Example: In Saga, if two fatigue units go in close combat most of the times both will use the fatigue to get a better result. So at the the end of the combt bot units have lost their fatigue.

It is a game mechanic. I would even agree, that it works gamewise. But is there really anybody, who says, that has historical flavor?

Simple and accurate is perfectly possible.

Simple and detailed is not.

People confuse detail and accuracy.

If you look at say the interaction between a French column and a British in the Napoleonic wars then the encounter would have a limited number of possible outcomes. The line holds and the column is sent packing in rout, the line holds and the column retires, the line is forced to retire and the line is sent packing or something along those lines.

How you get to those outcomes could be through a very simple mechanism and the odds of each outcome could be accurate.

Simple and accurate is not easy but is is not automatically impossible.

But isnt there a common sense about historical flavor?

Example: In Saga, if two fatigue units go in close combat most of the times both will use the fatigue to get a better result. So at the the end of the combt bot units have lost their fatigue.

It is a game mechanic. I would even agree, that it works gamewise. But is there really anybody, who says, that has historical flavor?

Decebalus:
Compared to what history? How much of those mechanics is necessary to be 'flavorful?' How do you design for it?

Or is any wargame mechanic someone believes relates to some history somewhere automatically 'flavor?' That would make such 'flavor' easy for individuals to see, but hard for any group to agree on. We are talking about common sense here.

Give me a definition of historical 'flavor' for wargame design, so I can recognize it the next time I see it. I know something of history and wargame design, and I know what I like, but that isn't what you are talking about. You're talking about something every gamer sees as 'flavor' when they all look at the same thing… something that can be purposely designed for.

I find ancient commands and colors to be my favorite game for simulation of the period as well as ease of play…. The napoleonic itineratiation however requires a minimal amount of ticketing (simply save throw) for infantry, I find this works well, not convinced grand battle card set will enhance. Play enjoyment

DEPENDING ON WHAT LEVEL HE IS TALKING ABOUT It is near impossible to overestimate the contempt with which this statement should be held:

it's not the end result of combats or battles that is important within a wargame, but how we arrive at that result.

I REITERATE – DEPENDING ON THE LEVEL. His problem is he has conflated too much.

This Statement is true for the Patent Last Hussar ACW Battle simulator.
Roll D10 – 1,2,3, attacker wins, any other result Defender wins.
This is COMPLETELY accurate, and also Not A Good Game.

However if Tank A has a x% chance of hitting Tank B, and a y% chance of destroying it, and x * y is usually in the region of 15-25%, why not just d10 – 1 or 2 kills?

If the end result of 2 units coming together can be reasonable shown with one simple die roll, then why go through an 'accurate' process.

Wargaming has too many people in it who want to command divisions but count rivets.

"Red. No, Blue!"…

The 80's rules weren't that accurate by the way. One problem was that they tended to focus on attritional casualty mechanisms anf forgot about tactical advantage.

For example, the Viking wedge was designed to maximise casualties at a location and so cause the defender's line to break. 10 casualties caused by a wedge could have a completely different result to 10 casualties spread along the line. Ditto for breaking a square.

One company concurrently published two different sets of ACW rules that had widely differing combat results.

I've been running into this problem in my game design. I'm not doing history — unless you count hard sci fi as "future history" — but I am leveraging real physics.

The game that's currently available is all about movement in space, and I'm pleased that it handles inertia and gravity cleanly and quickly.

However, because of that focus, I've abstracted some other things. I expect historical games to go through the same trade-offs: what are you putting your design effort into, and what are you hand-waving away with a single die roll?

However, because of that focus, I've abstracted some other things. I expect historical games to go through the same trade-offs: what are you putting your design effort into, and what are you hand-waving away with a single die roll?

That trade-off is part of the design issues of every game, every simulation ever designed and will be regardless of how much detail computers can provide a game/simulation system. Too much detail destroys any system.

So, the question is whether what you have focused on with your Sci-Fi game and included--'real physics'. Is their representation 'accurate?' That is, it's the quality of what your game purposely includes, not how much, that determines accuracy. In this case, the physics you chose to build into your game.

Accuracy, but they are not mutually exclusive.

I've played games that are so simple that they fail to engage my interest.

Often this is a symptom of too much to play and too little time. Complex games take too long to learn well enough to play at full speed.

But my preference is for more complex 'richer' games with more detail and more realistic [to my mind] results.

The game is a story – with many twists and turns and a lot of sweating over details it holds our interest and we enjoy it even if we lose the game.

Some of the simpler modern sets jump to the result too fast for me.

Also – a lot of complexity is clumsy rule writing. There is a happy medium but it seems to be hard to find.