" Fun or Historically accurate?can we have both?" Topic

What type of rules do you like?
Ones that are fun or ones that are Historically accurate?
are out there any rules that have both? you like more dice and less modifiers or vice versa?
I personally like less dice and more modifiers (armor,weapon..etc..)
although i enjoyed also rules with too much dice like HC.

I think that 'historical accuracy' is in the eye of the beholder. I am happy with a set of rules if they seem reasonably accurate to me. Other peoples' definition of accurate may differ, though!

Other people's definitions of fun may differ, as well.

Why play a game if it is not fun?

Am American wargamer (I have unfortunately forgotten his name) once said: "The best wargame rules are those that create your own prejudices about the period on the table".

;-))

How can that then not be fun ?

Accurate? … well, there are a wealth of opinions … plausible is what I aim for – a plausible game that illustrates the narrative.

Can it also be fun? Yes. Otherwise I wouldn't bother.

Phil

What I want from a set of rules differs from period to period and also in the size of forces employed.

I'm much more tolerant of 'gamey' mechanisms in smaller games that are not my 'mainstream' interests and less tolerant of perceived errors or misunderstanding in larger scale and main interests.

I'm also with Phil in that I don't expect anything better than a plausible result that I can agree a contemporary explanation of with the other players.

My big thing is to have the decisions I need to make as a player have a strong relationship with those that my 'on-table' self would have had to make.

What Cerdic said: Historical accuracy requires them not to be a game, surely?

Back in the day, I remember the kerfuffle after a COW event where – to recreate the 'actual' unpleasantness of Arctic convoys – players were shot in the face with water pistols…

Fun? It's the only thing that's important and – I would argue – without it, I'd rather be riding my bike* I also think that, the more 'historically accurate' the game is** the less fun it is to play.

John T

* feel free to substitute your own version of "things I'd rather do instead…"

** Most warfare seems to be won or lost on logistics (or so I've read). Who wants to get together with their mates for an evening's 'bean counting'? er… not me

FOR EXAMPLE THE movement of medieval armies (men at arms-heavy infantry-knights) in Tactica medieval maybe more accurate than the movement lets say in Impetus (rules i used for a long time)..
But is it fun having your armies move like a turtle even if it is accurate for the particular type of units

This is a false choice.

First prove your point that rules can't be bioth fun and accurate.

See also – Game vs. Simulation

Fun first, and then as a reasonable/believable model of combat at the time.

why play a game that is so historically accurate that there can be no other outcome than what history has recorded?

> why play a game that is so historically accurate that there can be no other outcome than what history has recorded?

Why does someone always have to make this statement, you KNOW it is not what was meant.

LOL, it didn't take long for that strawman to turn up.

Any, for me, making my games historically plausible is what makes them fun.

(accuracy is a little too much to aim for in pre-nineteenth century warfare where we can't even agree how maniples or interpenetration of lines work).

I want plausible outcomes and a fun game, and believe this to be achievable. Taking the example of medieval armies moving, as was given in above, the game must then not focus on movement, but on another element of a medieval battle. In Poleaxed 2 which I consider to be fairly accurate and fun the focus in the game is predominantly on command. It's about giving orders at the right time to try to make your army move when you want it to. While this style of game may not appeal to everyone, I find it fun in a way that the micromanagement of some other rules is not.

I quite like being put in the role of general/overall commander and make the decisions appropriate to his level of command. There are however many limits on how a game works that cannot be avoided. You need to move all the on table items without the ability to delegate. You are often playing the game in isolation from other campaign concerns and future considerations. Such things make a game more historical. If the rules bring say 4 or 5 characteristics of that period to the fore then that makes the gameplay more immersible. As Phil says, fun is essential. So my view is that you can have both to some extent, but fun must take the lead. Not convinced by rule sets that claim "it's like being there". Not desirable at all.
I think RC might be referring to rule sets wherein the outcomes are scripted. "these will always beat those". It was often the commanders who went outside of the conventions that did well. There must be suspense in the game which is lost if you play scenarios with a scripted outcome?
Only thoughts.

martin

Pretty much everything that needed to be said about this was up by the third post, and yet . . .

The only reasonable measure of a historical wargame's accuracy is how closely the mechanics and outcomes mimic the aspects of the historical record which the designer has chosen for his subject. I'm completely at a loss to understand the reasoning of those who think that has anything to do with how "fun" the game is to play, since the "fun" derives from the frequency and relevance of the decision points and the immersiveness of the presentation, and has nothing whatsoever to do with its accuracy.

Likewise, the logic of assuming that because you don't find something fun, therefore no one will find it fun completely escapes me. I've had wargaming acquaintances that derived hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of intense enjoyment from playing Advanced Squad Leader . . . a game which I find pointless and mind-numbingly boring, but which I cannot, in light of their enjoyment, claim to be "not fun".

Porthos: that was a common (and pretty much self-evident) theme in many of Bob Jones' posts here, and elsewhere on the net.

Ah, thank you, War Artisan !

If you don't eat your historical accuracy then you'll have to go to bed without any fun!

Good shot vtsao.
I've had a good many games that were neither historically plausible or fun.

Fun. Seeking historical plausibility IS fun. And a game that achieves that while being pretty and efficient (not wasting my time with useless trivia and time consuming details) is proceeding in the right direction. Injecting a sense of period and aesthetics is important. Mechanics are of course essential in working for that: a clunky or too abstract of a game ruins the quest for an aesthetic, period feel….