"What is more important in a game?" Topic

Historical or logical accuracy or excitement?

Excitement, then logical accuracy.

Historical accuracy is also important, but since a game by its nature can only get so close to that, I rank it last in importance.

Both

To crush your enemies and see them driven before you and hear the lamentations of the weemen! Sorry couldn't resist, I would have to say excitement/fun.

Phssthpok- same same

phssthpok +1 First thing I thought.

phssthpok for the win.

Someone give him or her some root of the Tree of Life.

Well painted figures and terrain. That is why we spend hours painting and sorting and basing 🤔🙂

Most important: a good group of lads to game with. Put 8 nimrods around a table and the game is immediately irrelevant. Put 8 good buds around a table and anything can be fun – just add booze if necessary.

Yes

I see you phrased the question to make it seem that Historical or logical accuracy means you can't have excitement.

Excitement and a decent scenario.

I find its easier to make an "exciting" game historical than to make a boring game "exciting".

Depends on context. If it's my usual game with my monthly opponent, then it's excitement--if by that you mean a rough balance, and lots of decisions to make.

But, as an example, I have hopes of putting together the various hypothesized armies of the Battle of Bosworth and fighting out from known positions the morning of the battle until I get a combination of forces and maneuvers which replicates the historical outcome. Balance and having enough decisions to make will not even be considerations.

Which is why it will probably be solo.

No reason why a game can't have both.

Historical or logical accuracy or excitement?

I find these are false dichotomies. It implies that both can't be provided in equal measure… OR that one has nothing to do with the other.

I find its easier to make an "exciting" game historical than to make a boring game "exciting."

That couldn't be possible if historical accuracy and excitement were diametrically opposed. If they aren't, then asking which is more important doesn't mean much, other than a design preference, not some inherent opposition in wargame design.

No reason why a game can't have both.

Yeah. In any measure desired.

False choice. I want a game with both and there are plenty of choices.

+1 Extra Crispy
Historical accuracy is almost impossible in a game. We can get close, but not that close.
A good looking game, that has some historical accuracy, with great friends, lots of laughs and kibitzing: that is what I have. I feel exceptionally fortunate.

They are not dichotomies at all McLaddie. They are design principles.

<q.They are not dichotomies at all McLaddie. They are design principles.

What is more important in a game?

Historical or logical accuracy or excitement?

Otto: If they aren't dichotomies, why are you setting the thread up as as an either/or question of which is more important… as though they can't be equally important design principles followed in the same wargame design? As though historical accuracy doesn't generate excitement.

Most important: a good group of lads to game with. Put 8 nimrods around a table and the game is immediately irrelevant. Put 8 good buds around a table and anything can be fun – just add booze if necessary.

The secret of effective wargame design: 8 good buds around the table and booze if necessary.

While I really appreciate the truth of that, it makes any discussion of wargame design rather irrelevant too--other than identifying what constitutes 'good buds' and booze as the primary ingredients of an effective wargame design.

To be a game, a set of rules has to compromise reality enough to be playable--which is to say that the rules cannot attempt to simulate every last detail that might have some relevance to the outcome of a battle. For example, in reality, modern artillery commanders have to take into consideration such factors as barometric pressure and the rotation of the earth during the time an artillery round is in flight. Who really wants to deal with that in a wargame? But having said that, I want my games to have a convincing feel of historical accuracy. Otherwise, I just cannot get all that excited about the game. If you want simple socializing, you do not have to have a wargame as an excuse.

excitement (fun). Only reason that people play.

Winning and grinding one's opponents figures to dust,

Tally Ho!

A historically accurate game *is* exciting.

- Ix

excitement

A historically accurate game *is* exciting.

Must never have played Air War
link

The people. Good people will always have a good time even with a "bad" game.

If you don't have logical consistency, you won't have excitement.

Dear Mc Laddie

Your problem is you do not read carefully. The term "more" does not mean one is important and the other is not. You are also always cruising for an argument. Both can be important, but the question of which is MORE important for a GAME, is obvious. Historical accuracy can be exciting, but only in passing. NO ONE is going to get any excitement from playing a game of Gettysburg which comes out EXACTLY as the real life battle did, and every action follows in lockstep with the accurate record. Beyond the term "historical accuracy" being an ambiguous and idiosyncratic one, what is accurate to one person is not necessarily accurate to another. Don't believe me? Go read the thread on Catton and Foote in the Civil War community here. Excitement however is not at all dependent on that. Excitemtnt is an emotional and physiological effect.

As many on this list have shown, excitement in a game is what they come for, and this excitement is always the simulacrum of danger. Oh they aren't in danger of getting shot or think they are, but the risking of resources or even outcome of imagination is what makes excitement, and THAT is why they are two different things and completely unconnected and NOT a dichotomy. Your problem is you are Looking for dichotomies to argue about rather than considering the two elements of your alleged dichotomy that most might be valid.

This is the case. A game designer can decide to make a beautifully elegant, internally consist, or a historically accurate game but if he doesn't plan for there to be some excitement in it, or allow for it, it will be dull as dishwater. Excitement isn't necessarily the only thing planned for but it has to be he the first thing you think of. Just as while people can get "excitement" from reading a historical account, the excitement isn't because of the reading of it, but from the peril, conflict or emotion built up by the historical actors in the historical account, and what they do as they march towards eventual triumph or defeat, that outcome being one we already know. We yearn in our heats to scream out "NO Don't do that..don't trust him…" but it is unavailing. In a novel where the author can make the characters and the world dance to his tune, it is different and we may not KNOW the outcome and therefore the excitement is somewhat greater as we may either identify or be repelled by the characters and the unknown gives us the additional danger that virtue in this case might not triumph. This is a different kind of excitement and in our war games is represented by the "hypothetical" battle which are the vast majority of games.

But in the end, if games were not in some sense exciting, they wouldn't be played at all. They would be as dull as dishwater as we simply moved troops and took them off as the historical reality of the real battle dictated. In short, once you bring in dice and free will, it ceases to be a game.

But far more important is what Don Manser said. The people. It relies on good people who will always have a good time even with a bad game. This is heavily dependent on what goes on AROUND the table top, not on it, but it also recognizes that "excitement" when shared with friends, is exponentiated. That is the shared experience of tension, excitement, the exhileration of victory the agony of defeat and all that. It's better when friends see it and experience it whichever way it goes. Historical accuracy not so much. It is what it is for one or a million.

Again this does not mean it is unimportant nor is internal logical consistency. But no one cares really about that. Those are things you EXECT in a game. Things you WANT are the exciting ones.

the rules cannot attempt to simulate every last detail that might have some relevance to the outcome of a battle.

. . . and shouldn't, but the aspects of history that the designer chooses to portray should conform to the historical record. It is possible for a simple, playable game system to be historically authentic. I'm amazed that so many gamers still conflate amount of detail with accuracy.

As for which is "more important" . . . friendship, visual appeal, historical authenticity, playability . . . that's like asking which leg of a table is more important. Remove any one of them, or make it shorter than the others, and the thing just doesn't work well any more.

The term "more" does not mean one is important and the other is not. You are also always cruising for an argument. Both can be important, but the question of which is MORE important for a GAME, is obvious.

Otto:
Yes, it is obvious. I'm not cruising for anything. I'm simply noting that you insist on creating an either/or, what is more important dichotomy when it isn't one for many wargamers and certainly isn't some inherent either/or issue for wargame design. You may think one is more important than the other. That is fine. You can design wargames with that in mind. That is fine.

As War Artisan says:

As for which is "more important" . . . friendship, visual appeal, historical authenticity, playability . . . that's like asking which leg of a table is more important. Remove any one of them, or make it shorter than the others, and the thing just doesn't work well any more.

Your question also implies there is only one kind of fun, one kind of excitement for some generic wargamer.

Folks come to the game table for all sorts of reasons and all sorts of excitement and fun… none are better or more important than others.

A game designer can decide to make a beautifully elegant, internally consist, or a historically accurate game but if he doesn't plan for there to be some excitement in it, or allow for it, it will be dull as dishwater.

That is quite true, but you are still arguing for which is more important and that the two approaches on that side of your "OR" are different in kind. They aren't technically, not in game design.

It is also true that if a Historical Wargame Designer goes for the excitement and fails to include a reasonable/accurate representation of history, it will be cheap thrills at best, and worst, will be shallow, misleading history that doesn't satisfy.

I play and enjoy wargames that are exciting and have no real relationship to history and I play and enjoy games that are exciting because the game mechanics have identifiable relationships to history. I enjoy both and do not bother attempting to establish which is 'more important', excitement or history. I think it is quite reasonable to want and expect that wargames can provide both.

The original premise is fundamentaly wrong. There can be no excitement in a game that is unhistoric. If it has no basis in reality within its design parameters it cannot be "exciting". Playing WW2 tanks that behaved like Space fighters would be UNBELIVEABLY BORING however written. You can have a boring historic game (prefer simulation myself) or an exciting simulation. A bad simultion is just that bad period.

For me, it very much depends on mood, time, space available….

If you have hours and hours of gaming time you play a game with a tome of a rule book. When you have an hour before bed at the kitchen table, you grab the two-page fun rule set.

I'm not snobbish about my games – I just love to play.

Furgie

both

Enjoying the company of those I game with. Usually spend just as much time talking as gaming.

The issue of what makes a game fun is also the issue that simulation designers for training games face: If it isn't fun, exciting and engaging, folks won't play it. Michael Bean of Folio training simulations wrote this twelve years ago:

What Makes a Simulation Fun?

Creating a memorable experience for users.

Twelve ways to make your simulation fun.

by Michael Bean
mailto:mbean@forio.com

Over the past week I've been thinking about explaining what makes a simulation fun without becoming too philosophical about what 'fun' is. Not that I wouldn't enjoy waxing philosophic, but since our subscriptions to 'Forio's Forum' are growing, I'm going to try to avoid treating the forum like a personal blog.

As I mentioned in my previous article, fun is one of the four critical elements of F.A.C.E. value (fun, accessible, clear, educational) that makes a successful simulation. While all four elements are important, fun probably deserves the most attention because fun is what turns just another training event into a memorable experience.

What is fun?

Fun is a subjective concept, but you can tell how fun a simulation is (or any game for that matter) in a non-subjective way by analyzing the how it's used. A fun business simulation is one that spreads via word-of-mouth and grows exponentially in popularity until it's saturated an audience. If the game peters-out after a few days, or people need to be compelled to play, then it isn't fun. If people play without being forced to, if they tell their friends about it and their friends play, then the simulation is fun.

This idea of people motivated to learn on their own explains why simulations aren't just another activity to embed into a workshop. They can literally change the way people learn. If a simulation is fun, the simulation takes on a life of its own.

This is the critical point: if the simulation is accessible and fun, nearly everyone in your company will play it outside of a traditional class. People will try the simulation and tell their friends and colleagues about it. People will talk about their high scores and strategies in the hallways. Instead of forcing people into training, you'll have trouble keeping people from playing the simulation.

So fun simulations are an efficient way to educate a lot of people about something because, once the sim gets going, you don't have to do very much to keep up the momentum. But, beyond efficiency, fun simulations change the quality of what is learned. This is a subtle point. When you're doing something fun, your performance isn't based on rules; consequently your performance improves almost automatically.[This is only the intro to the article.]

How to design a game and/or simulation that people want to play, enjoy playing and will continue to play is something that a lot of designers have been focusing on for a long time.

I think it would be more interesting for a 'game design' thread to ask what makes games fun/exciting/engaging. And we are talking about the game design. Stating that it is all in who you play with and how much beer is involved is all fine and good, but that isn't game design.

How do you design a wargame to be exciting? There has been a lot of discussion about how to make games exciting and fun, including simulations for training and education.

Playability trumps all.

As always in these discussions, we seem to pretend that science fiction and fantasy games don't exist, that nobody wants to play a "war movie" version of a historical setting and that pulp novels were never a thing and definitely didn't influence wargamers.

Since the question mentions "Historical accuracy" scifi, fantasy, and war movie versions of reality are out the window to begin with. That said if I were playing a game based on a fictional setting I would expect the game to evoke said setting.

I thought the OP was so flawed that it was impossible to answer seriously, but War Artisan sort of hit Bingo in two sentences:

As for which is "more important" . . . friendship, visual appeal, historical authenticity, playability . . . that's like asking which leg of a table is more important. Remove any one of them, or make it shorter than the others, and the thing just doesn't work well any more.

Clear the card, start a new topic. Why are you still reading this?

- Ix

It's a big hobby, and different people put their emphasis on different aspects of it and get different things out of it. There is no RIGHT way to enjoy the hobby.

There can be no excitement in a game that is unhistoric.

People seem to have enjoyed my VSF games that I have put on. And I really enjoy the GASLIGHT games put on by the HAWKS at the HMGS a cons. You may not and that's OK too.

As always in these discussions, we seem to pretend that science fiction and fantasy games don't exist, that nobody wants to play a "war movie" version of a historical setting and that pulp novels were never a thing and definitely didn't influence wargamers.

This gets at a deeper point that some historical gamers don't want to deal with. What we play is an executable model (a simulation, though many cringe at that word). What our game represents is a referent model. In a historical game, the referent model is not and cannot be complete and consistent with respect to the actual event from the past; in a fiction based game, the referent model can be 100% equivalent to cannon (though that is not particularly practical most of the time).

When we define the referent model for a historical game, we decide what is important from what we know, and leave other things out. Ultimately, what is or is not important for a designer or a player comes down to a personal choice, a reflection of who you are and how you think.

Well if the title of this folder is correct and we are talking about historial wargames then I'd have to say – an exciting game with an historically plausible narrative and outcome.

That is of course if you want to keep the 'war' in wargame. Otherwise we are just talking 'game' here and there is no point having this discussion in the, ahem, 'historical wargame' folder.

Problem is, a lot of designers don't understand that what makes for a plausible historical outcome or narrative doesn't have to be a table top simulation of reality.

That is of course if you want to keep the 'war' in wargame. Otherwise we are just talking 'game' here and there is no point having this discussion in the, ahem, 'historical wargame' folder.

Your points are appreciated, but to be fair, the topic is also in the Game Design message board and the original question does not implicitly disallow non-historical games. What about Imaginations gaming? Surely those armies are constrained by historical precedents but are still "unhistoric".

Problem is, a lot of designers don't understand that what makes for a plausible historical outcome or narrative doesn't have to be a table top simulation of reality.

Another problem is that a lot of designers don't understand that there is no difference in attempting to design a 'plausible historical outcome' and attempting to design a simulation of reality. [assuming that the processes that get players to a plausible outcome are also plausible]

Same goals, same game AND simulation design issues.

As etotheipi notes, both are referent models of *something*… in this case, history. That something could be fantasy or SF for that matter. In anycase, it is a game of something else that has 'plausibility' at its core.

Bowman is correct.

Logical or historical accuracy refers to the corpus of literature or myth the rules are based on. Sci-fi and fantasy are based on a body of work, either a novel, or the owners own creation. While not strictly "historical" as in real history, nevertheless it is "historical" with regard to Middle Earth, Erewhon, Tekkumel, hyperborean or Dune.

If a game is not exciting, no one will play it. The others are important certainly but the first thing that the game must do is be exciting either for a risk of loss, or for a desire to see what happens.

It depends on how you define 'game' and what you want from it. Excitement is not a pre-requisite for a game.

A game is often defined as a physical or mental competition conducted according to rules.

It can be exciting. Of course it can, but it doesn't 'have' to be. The satisfaction for players may come in other ways. One example is the use of a game as an educational tool. By playing the game we learn more about a particular activity. Large corporations and the military conduct a lot of games as learning exercises. Excitement is not a requirement and yet the game has much to offer the participants.

It doesn't follow that 'if a game is not exciting, no one will play it'. That's just someone's opinion. It is not a truism that applies for all games and all players of games.

The more interesting question in the historical wargames context is, is a player prepared to sacrifice some sense of plausible historical narrative and outcome in order to gain excitement? However that also begs the question are the two mutually incompatible? Surely there are exciting games with plausible historical narratives?

Heck, I know there are. I play them.

If a game is not exciting, no one will play it.

No one is disagreeing with that. However, there isn't just one kind of 'excitement.'

Here are some popular games:

Chess
Sudoku
Angry Birds
Chutes and Ladders
Poker
Monopoly
UNO
Qwerkle
Settlers of Catan
Flames of War
Scrabble
Backgammon

So, all of these games are played extensively, so they must all be exciting. Is anyone willing to argue that all of them have the same kind of excitement, let alone the same levels?

Surely there are exciting games with plausible historical narratives?
Heck, I know there are. I play them.

For a historical wargame, that is the goal. The design question is how to accomplish that with game mechanics rather than fuss over which is 'more important.' For a historical wargame the historical narrative is part and parcel with any excitement, even for an imagi-nation scenario.

The others are important certainly but the first thing that the game must do is be exciting either for a risk of loss, or for a desire to see what happens.

Assuming those are the two game qualities that produce excitement in a game, how is historical accuracy in any way detrimental to them?

I would think, considering how those two qualities, risk of loss and a desire to see what happens, are inherent in any battle or military engagement, historical plausibility/accuracy would be a real source of excitement.

All of it.

Michael Bean's article: As I mentioned in my previous article, fun is one of the four critical elements of F.A.C.E. value (fun, accessible, clear, educational) that makes a successful simulation. While all four elements are important, fun probably deserves the most attention because fun is what turns just another training event into a memorable experience.

I'd like to take a moment to apply this "F.A.C.E." idea to miniature wargaming.

Fun – the subject of the article at large. I recently got a copy of A Theory of Fun for Game Design by Raph Koster. Here's an excerpt:

Raph Koster's book: Nicole Lazzaro did some studies watching people play games, and she arrived at four clusters of emotion represented by the facial expressions of the players: hard fun, easy fun, altered states, and the people factor.

My personal breakdown would look a lot like Lazzaro's:

Fun is the act of mastering a problem mentally.
Aesthetic appreciation isn't always fun, but it's certainly enjoyable.
Visceral reactions are generally physical in nature and relate to physical mastery of a problem.
Social status maneuvers of various sorts are intrinsic to our self-image and our standing in a community.

All of these things make us feel good when we're successful at them, but lumping them all together as "fun" just renders the word meaningless. So throughout this book, when I have referred to "fun," I've meant only the first one: mentally mastering problems. Often, the problems mastered are aesthetic, physical, or social, so fun can appear in any of those settings. That's because all of these are feedback mechanisms the brain gives us for successfully exercising survival tactics.

Mentally mastering problems. As in, making decisions. About what you do with your forces, how you deploy them, what choices you make in terms of where to attack or defend. All the choice stuff that you do turn over turn.

So that means your decision points have best be meaningful. If you want your game to be fun, make the decision points meaningful and don't hide them in a convoluted game process. And don't nullify the decisions players might make further along in the game process. This is also where logical accuracy comes in. If you sacrifice the logic of your design, you won't provide a foundation for meaningful decision making.

Which brings us to A for accessible. While there have been incredibly complex wargames, they have largely fallen out of favor. The key here is to make things as complex as needed and no more. And that's not just as complex as needed to represent the warfare you are modelling, but complex as needed to make sure the decisions are meaningful to the players. I'm going to compare two RPGs here as examples. The first is Labyrinth Lord:

And the second is Pathfinder:

In an RPG, one participant describes a situation and then the others describe what they are doing in response. Labyrinth Lord has much fewer stats than Pathfinder and is complex enough for the purposes of representation.

So what does Pathfinder offer? Well, for those who are interested in offers an additional mental challenge of optimization. Of choosing the best possible character elements when making your character and the best possible actions during a given situation.

Labyrinth Lord is much, much more accessible. Pathfinder sacrifices that accessibility to offer an additional arena of decision making.

Another example of accessibility is X-Wing. You have a dial that you turn to choose a maneuver for your ship and then they are revealed in relation to pilot skill and executed:

It's a very simple process to select from a menu of options while maintaining an interesting and meaningful decision making that involves attempting to predict what the opponent will do before they do it.

C is for Clear. I already talked about obfuscating decision making and I think this is where we should concentrate on the translation of what is representing into clear decisions. A player might have an idea in their head, in entirely narrative terms, about what they want to do with a group of soldiers. They want that unit to go behind that ridge and defend it. Take cover there and shoot at the enemy. If a game is clear, then you'll have a direct expression of that narrative of taking cover onto the table top. Or possibly a direct expression of the troops failing to do the task.

E is for education. This applies to miniature wargames as well. For historicals, this is where the connection to history comes in. For those looking to experience a given fantasy or sci-fi universe, this is where that occurs.

Part of the act of doing history is communicating an interpretation to an audience. When you identify a historical element you want to include in your game, the game must communicate that element to the audience. Just like as if you did a lecture on the subject, but in a far more enjoyable way.

So let's say I take a particular interpretation of history in regards to a specific era or battle. Let's say I go with "The weapons of WW1 were so lethal that the soldiers of the time had to dig trenches to protect themselves." Now let's say I design a game where trenches offer great protection from attacks and units in the open that come under fire are incredibly vulnerable to destruction. Then someone plays that game and comes to an some appreciation of the danger faced by soldiers in the Great War and how they protected themselves.

I think it shows that statements like this:

wrgmr1 wrote: Historical accuracy is almost impossible in a game. We can get close, but not that close.

are simply not true. As soon as one realizes that it is not about somehow being accurate about all factors at all times. Historians don't do that either. They write books and papers about specific topics. They get really specific and narrow about an interpretation they want to communicate. All you have to do to be historically accurate in your game is identify your history and communicate that factor (or handful of factors) through your design.

The first step in getting your game to be historically accurate is to identify the specific historical interpretation you are trying to communicate and let go of this fantasy of historical accuracy being about a grand representation of reality and then pointing at how impossible such a task is.

Now let's say I decide that games where soldiers sit in their trenches aren't sufficiently fun. I decide that soldiers charging out of trenches are invulnerable to fire for a certain amount of time. I'm doing this for the sake of fun so that a player has a decision making process with more options. Attacking is fun, so I'm making sure it can happen more often.

The end result will be a total failure on my part to communicate an interpretation of history. Soldiers did not become invulnerable when they went over the top. For many this will not be fun at all. A broken promise (My claim that this is a game about WW1) will devalue the decision making experiences for many players. Given that fun is all about meaningful decision making, anything that detracts from what a player might find meaningful is going to detract from the fun.

It will probably also have negative effects on clarity as people's narratives will need to shift as well to thinking about trenches as not protection but as launch points where if you load your infantry into them, they can be fired out as invulnerable attackers. Though hopefully the clarity of the rules and the presentation won't also have to suffer (though I did add a problem of tracking which units are invulnerable and for how long so that might require counters or paperwork).

I'm sure I'm not getting into the real substance of what Bean meant with F.A.C.E.. There are probably deep implications that I haven't touched on in my simplistic application. I'm pretty sure though that going through a "F.A.C.E." evaluation of a given game would only help. It will also help in terms of historical accuracy (or accuracy to sci-fi or fantasy subject matter) as it will force the designer to define what they are trying to communicate. I also think that when you start seeing F and E as trade offs, things have gone off the rails. Designers should probably be looking for ways to have it all, not scuttle their design and give up on their subject matter (be it history or a fictional setting).

It should also help dispel the myth that accuracy (be it historical, logical, fictional) is an all or nothing totality when it is actually accomplished through focusing on narrow elements. When you evaluate based on E, you need to ask what exactly you are presenting, not "how do I present everything-- all factors at all times during this period so I can claim this game is historically accurate?" That's a pipe dream and a terrible way of evaluating accuracy.

You'll also find that if you get narrow in your history and actually define the target you are trying to get, then it will be far easier to make it fun, accessible and clear as you won't be trying to account for every factor you can imagine. In short, if historical or logical accuracy is being prioritized over an against excitement, you're doing it wrong.

Ottoathome:What is more important in a game? Historical or logical accuracy or excitement?

It's not which "is more important in a game?" but "how can we have it all?" How can we avoid pitfalls that force us to needlessly sacrifice one in the belief it will give us the other. There's simply no reason to settle.