"Playing an alternate history-based game?" Topic

Not too long ago, I discovered author Harry Turtledove's "Southern Victory" series of alternate history novels, where the Confederacy won the American Civil War and changed the timeline that we know today. From that, I've become a fan of alternate history stories and authors. Some of the authors that have become my favorites are Eric Flint ("Trail of Glory" series), Robert Harris (his 1992 novel Fatherland), and the late Robert Conroy (1901).

So, on a scale of 0 to 10, 0 meaning "not at all" and 10 meaning "absolutely!", how likely are you to originate and/or participate in an alternate history-based wargame given the opportunity?

I say "10", as I find this twist of historical gaming a fresh and imaginative approach, not to mention the multitude of figures available to field the opposing armies.

The Game is the thing! If it gets me rolling dice and pushing lead, I'm for it

Like almost every such question, it depends. The popularity of VBCW seems indicate a taste for the genre, and I'd certainly play such a game. I favor alternate history/WWWhatever that cleave pretty close to reality, though.

I agree with Jeff, it depends. VBCW is something I'd very much like to play. It is history rewritten with tongue very firmly in cheek. I think there has to be a funny side to doing such things.

I'm not sure I'd like the thought of playing a game set "after the Nazis won World War 2". Couldn't think such a thing would have a funny side.

Saginaw,

I'm definitely a 10 on that scale.

I'm almost finished with a 'Cold War Gone Hot' campaign of ten battles, and I just finished a 33-battle campaign which was basically a re-fight of the Bay of Pigs invasion (this time Castro was overthrown).

V/R,
Jack

I'm not sure I'd like the thought of playing a game set "after the Nazis won World War 2".

And I definitely understand that. But, in Harris's novel, which is primarily set in Berlin, there is mention of the Nazis engaged in a nearly two-decades old "quagmire" of a war in and around the Ural Mountains against Soviet partisans, who are "unofficially" supported by the U.S. financially and materially.

I'm almost finished with a 'Cold War Gone Hot' campaign of ten battles, and I just finished a 33-battle campaign which was basically a re-fight of the Bay of Pigs invasion (this time Castro was overthrown).

That Bay of Pigs alternate scenario sounds like a winner!

8

Sounds like it would be a fun campaign. If I were actively gaming right now, I'd give it a shot.

10. I'm running one at Millennium Con in Nov.

10

Like a 5? It's not something that makes me go out and play a game but it doesn't make me not want to either.

10. Most of my naval games are 'what if' and several of the most enjoyable have been Bywater type stuff in the Pacific.

5. While I read alternate history fiction as well as "counterfactuals" (historian's term for alterate history), I have not made an effort to create a game setting or even use an existing property (like Fatherland or Man in the High Castle, both of which I've read). So interest is there, but not enough to do the work.

At one time, a friend introduced me to pre-Dreadnought ironclad warfare. We enjoyed the system, and I started to speculate about a alternate history where the Byzantines survived as a major power into the 19th century, whereupon we could fight Byzantines versus the Royal Navy (my friend is an Anglophile, at least when it comes to naval warfare). I started designing ships, but never fleshed out the actual setting, but that's the closest I've come to alt-history gaming.

It depends.

I've done Operation Sea lion, I do WW3 gone hot. Luckily neither actually happened, but were plausible.

Some stuff is just fantasy and doesn't appeal.

Unless so accurate in oob, terrain etc. most of our games qualify up to a point.

But otherwise, if not too off the plausible, it gives a lot of fun.

And I definitely understand that. But, in Harris's novel, which is primarily set in Berlin, there is mention of the Nazis engaged in a nearly two-decades old "quagmire" of a war in and around the Ural Mountains against Soviet partisans, who are "unofficially" supported by the U.S. financially and materially.

I have read the book of which you speak – "Fatherland". Having read it, it only turns me off the idea more.

I only have one theatre and time period for WW2: Western Desert late 1941 – mid 42. There are no SS units, very few civilians to speak of, and no Monty. From what I've read, there were very few war crimes committed in the Western Desert war.

My interest in this varies. If it is a hypothetical, and covers a short time span, I am probably interested, but alternate history, setting up long term events for gaming, or events that span long periods of time, not as much.

For example, if the Confederacy wins the ACW, I might play plains war games that follow the ACW, but wouldn't play a WWI game in that timeline. The span of time would allow for too many variations in politics, military planning/design/organization, and for tremendous changes in technological and design evolution. If a WW1 does happen on schedule, this means that in my mind, all of those figures, and models available for 1914-1918 as null and void, or at least a large number of them.

Similarly, in the world after Fatherland, there is no Soviet red menace and Cold War that drives the US military in the direction that it actually went, no domino effect, completely different nation building, maybe no space race, etc., etc. The weapons of the 1950s and the 1960s are never designed, giving way to totally different designs, it becomes a completely sci-fi on the game table as the years progress in that universe. This interest me much less than those plains war games in a much more predictable timeframe.

So, I'm hit and miss on the overall idea, some of it will suck me right in, and other portions of it would leave me cold. Surprisingly (to me anyway), I would vote a 5.

7.75

BTW, I can't stand that Turtledove series. The man has a genius for taking great ideas and bludgeoning them into boring and unlikeable protagonists.