"On the Psycology of Seeing and Not Seeing" Topic

Traditional miniatures, by which I mean no umpire and no off table or hidden figures, usually involves placing all figures and models for both sides on the table, clearly marked or painted, in known terrain, meaning the entire terrain for the game is also known to both sides. This is chess, where the only terrain is the alternating colored squares and all your pieces are in your color and the other side is a known color. quantity and quality
And it is playbalanced
What happens to players who dont get ghis level of info, who cannot not only spot the opposition but cannot see the unslotted figures on tge table
I have seen their reaction and it isnt pretty and that is why the game with a fairly empty table, umpired, wont sell

This would have been more effective if I hadn't been forced to re-read it several times, trying to figure out what you meant to type. You come off as a crank instead of someone with a serious argument. Again, this is a comment about the garbled writing, I am not attacking you as a person.

In any case, I'm not sure why you wrote this. Are you trying to connect psychology theory with sales, but you forgot to actually put the content of the title into the post to connect the whole thing together?

Is part of your argument that games with blinds, like Too Fat Lardies' "I Ain't Been Shot, Mum!" will never sell or be popular?

One of the problems inherent to gaming with miniatures is the miniatures themselves. Miniatures are oversized for nearly all conflict simulations, and intrinsically require physical movement and orientation, which imposes some minimums and maximums in terms of space, time, and abstractions.

I've toyed with substituting blocks or "bogie" markers for the miniatures until some sort of "sighting" happens. It can be great fun, as long as a referee is careful to manage everything. OTOH, it can also be taken too far and overcomplicate the game or obviate the need for miniatures altogether. Most miniatures gamers want to play with the pretty toys, not abstract blocks and markers, so if the game stops needing or benefiting from miniatures, it might be time to switch to a board game or computer game.

Board games are freed of the need to have elaborately modeled toys and terrain, so can be much more abstract and better streamlined, while computer games can completely customize the gaming experience to as many players as can afford computers.

- Ix

I rather like hidden deployments and movement, though I agree, once that gets added into the mix it can sometimes slow things down considerably, especially since players on both sides no longer have a god-like view of the battlefield and foreknowledge.

Having an umpire is best, though with reasonably honest players, and a little ingenuity, maps, chits, or photos can be substituted instead for the GM.

I'm surprised the wonders of today's iPhones and other tech, like small tablets, etc., aren't utilized more for standing in, and/or aiding in hidden deployments, movement, etc..

With the latter, no longer do you need to draw up detailed maps, and mark positions accordingly.

One photo of the units on the tabletop can be used instead. If they move, just put them in their new positions and snap another pic.

Works very well indeed, eliminates most arguments, and takes mere seconds to accomplish. Just get your opponent(s) to leave the room, or turn their backs on the game while the photo(s) are taken.

I also like multiple miniatures for fake units too, so they appear to be more numerous, and virtually everywhere, until actually spotted. Again, in this case, a GM is usually helpful, but not always needed, if you put "real" and "fake" cardboard chits under them, or stickers on the undersides of the minis, and then reveal, when needed.

I've tried different systems and finally came to realize that the perfect system to model fog of war is an impossibility. In the past few years, my son and I have developed our own model: out of sight units are represented by a single base -we use the command base- and some small token face down describing the formation (line, square, column.. the works) in which the unit is deployed. Some of them might be dummies; I've found that dummies that are represented by actual miniatures are more probable to be used by its owner, and considered by his opponent, as real units than when using cards or other means.

It's not perfect but it works for us.

I agree with much of the above. I enjoy a variety of styles of game, and some of them work to increase the fog of war.

But.

I like seeing miniatures on the table; for me, it's a lot of the fun of the hobby. I appreciate that this means removing a degree of accuracy and therefore makes it more of a game than a simulation. But then it is a war-GAME.

Some compromise is possible with a map campaign: you don't necessarily know what is going to appear on the enemy's side of the table (or even on your flank), but it takes a bit of work and usually an umpire who is happy to run, but not play in, the game.

A reasonable compromise which I have found works well is to have the defenders hidden, and only revealed when they move or fire.

The attacker is faced with the problem of planning for an empty battlefield, the defender has the opportunity for deception and ambushes, recce has a role, but everyones toys end up on the table at some point too.

I sort of lean towards the 2HW approach: The player is always going to know they are there, so any figure placed on the table is now known and can be interacted with.

We use a simple "blinds" approach with very basic sighting rules, and dummies to create fog of war. Sighting takes time so you either spend action points moving or sighting.

We use playing cards for unknown units.

They're cheap and ubiquitous. People are already familiar with them as objects. People are also familiar with their distributions (ranks, suits). This enables some additional "fogging" through controlled randomization.

That includes canards both ways – usually a joker on the board is a false unit and there may be units off the board "in waiting" that have no corresponding card. Which way (or ways) depends on the scenario.

We have also used sticky notes for things like an opponent noting that unit X moved further than infantry can move. Ostensibly, this is to notate the intel for the opponent, but functionally it also helps keep an honest person honest when different unknown units have different capabilities.

I haven't seen people have a problem with them not being miniatures since the intent is to have them all revealed eventually. (Usually this happens in the first quarter of the game.) And nowadays especially, you can get cheap decks of playing cards with all kinds of backs to match the timbre of the game. Or print your own pretty cheap, too.

Again, which aspects of fog are implemented are a function of what the scenario is intended to represent.

I subscribe to Mako's appropach. It gets better in campaigns over a single road. You may have an idea what he has in total but no idea whre along the route it is. When do you know if its a platoon in defence or really a company. You have only found a platoon so far. Commiting troops to early can mean they are cold, tired and out of gass jut when you need them. Adds hugely to the fun if you want a brain teaser. but some like it real simple ahter a hard day at work.

I don't think Rick Don Burnette is being cranky or obtuse. He's talking not so much about what goes on IN the game as what goes on AROUND the game. That is the attitude of the players as to the "seen" and the "unseen." This is not only a problem IN the game with regard to the forensics of use and procedure, but a psychological attitude of players. It is a problem most virulent and exigent in modern games where the hankering for players to commit cold blooded murder ( in an ambush in complete open mouthed surprise where the targets have essentially no chance of returning fire and thus are simply killed swiftly and with the least danger) is not the same as in previous ages, where one side marches boldly up and blazes away with a bunch of fellows across the way. The other problem is the natural human attitude that "one has been had," and having an umpire handle it is far more likely to engender that "the umpire is in on the fix" than that he is simply doing his job.

The problem is that it IS a game, and that as in any game certain conventions carry over into specifically war games from the general idea of "games" and this includes the obvious more "chess-like" format. The second part is that hidden movement or hidden units convey an obvious and unfair advantage to those who are. Hidden units can't be fired on, meleed, or even known and stealthily lie in wait like muggers in an alleyway. But why? Why should they be any more hidden than any other unit. The temptation therefore is for both sides to "go dark" and the game slows down to not a crawl, but to nothing at all, as to move, once hidden is to throw away the most powerful advantage one could have. The game then becomes static and players attempt to discern what is out there without any action at all. Thus, once hidden no one moves and no one therefore is revealed.

My own rules handle hidden movement quite simply. All troops off the table are hidden. They are assumed to be in some theoretical rear area and can enter the field at any time, or leave the field at any time, (though not on the same turn). Anything ON the table top is seen and marked out by the miniatures of the unit. Whether it can be fired on or not is problematic due to terrain, distance etc. Further in my pre-modern rules the side with initiative can, if he makes a movement roll for a unit move that unit as far as his "leedle ole' heart desires" from one corner to the entirely diagonally opposite corner so long as he doesn't come within the zone of control of an enemy unit, or enter rough or very rough terrain. The other side without initiative can move only one measure for infantry and two measures for cavalry.

No need for hidden movement. If you are incautious in your deployment then be prepared to be flanked. In my modern game the movement system is different, but there, it is an "Army" level game and we don't worry about such folderol as overwatch or ambush. there we are interested mass slaughter.

Frankly hidden movement isn't worth the work required

This is all part of the question I am dealing with in my rules design at the moment, which I call "The problem of the gaze." What I mean by that is this. You, I, everyone has a "gaze" which is how we perceive the world, our Weltanschaung, and also our theory of how the universe works. This is for all of us the "gaze" determined by what we see and feel of the world around us, and the things we have learned in school, all of which go to explain the images, symbols, words, and concepts that we see. The gaze makes us able to internalize and explain these things, words, scenes, symbols and ideas which if we did not have would seem mere unconnected phenomenon.

But we have the gaze of 21st century persons. The "Gaze" of a person in the 20th, 19th, 18th, 17th -1 BC etc., is different and they had a different way of explaining the universe than we did, and when we "game" in those periods the challenge in the rules is to FORCE the player to think in those terms regardless of what his 21st century gaze it. That is the rules must reward behavior in accordance with the gaze being modelled. Thus in my between the wars game the rules are written that if a player attempts to use "blitzkrieg" tactics or a modern approach he is crushed quickly and brutally. Success in the game comes with using the methods of the game. The aim is thus to win not with a Napoleonic idea in the 7 years war, but with a 7 years war approach in the 7 years war.

I have seen their reaction and it isn't pretty and that is why the game with a fairly empty table, umpired, wont sell.

Rick:
I am sure that there are gamers who react/feel that way. It is understandable. You want the visual grandeur of troops you've spent a great deal of time painting to be seen.

Howsomever, there are a number of games that have hidden movement of different kinds that are popular.

Hidden movement changes the game dynamics significantly, for the better as far as modeling actual 19th Century engagements. If a game is scales to @50 yards or more to the inch/Cm, then clear visibility--where units can be identified as friend or foe/type and size, not counting LOS obstacles is around a mile, or 3 feet or less. Until then there are dust and dark masses maybe moving to indicate that *something* is there according to various military men from 1800 to 1917.

For my rules, with 75 yards per inch, you have a sighting limit of 26 inches. That leaves better than 1.5 feet of table on both sides unseen. There is a reason that all 19th Century artillery manuals had 1000 to 15000 yards as the maximum 'effective range' for cannon when they could fire much farther. It is visibility and seeing where the shots landed. At one mile, a battalion in line can appear as a speck in the distance. Include dummy units, and suddenly cavalry and infantry skirmishers become important, guessing where the main attack will come a real skill as well as surprising your opponent.

But each to his own.

Include dummy units, and suddenly cavalry and infantry skirmishers become important, guessing where the main attack will come a real skill as well as surprising your opponent.

Agreed. That is our experience too.

The game then becomes static and players attempt to discern what is out there without any action at all. Thus, once hidden no one moves and no one therefore is revealed.

Depends on how you design the game being played. In my group (well, "group" is not an accurate description for my son and I plus the occasional friend that join us) we assume that our game represents just a part of a bigger battle and therefore model into the game a set of "orders" in the form of a briefing, that is the goal of the game. That gets the things moving. Of course, neither of us is as interested in "winning" as in having a good day and telling a story in the tabletop, which keeps the things going as standing still would defeat the purpose of the game!

Instead of cardboard markers I use skirmishers to mark the position of the blind. It still looks pretty.

In the case of my Sudan games I use rocks to represent the blind.

One aspect of FoW simulation I use is random event tables. Occasionally units are increased in strength, reduced in strength, moved, engage friendly units and are repositioned by the opponent. Delays, rerouting of destinations and entries and order changes for off board units help create confusion for both sides. Friendly troops outside of the LOS of a Cdr were subject to as much fog of war and friction as any enemy unit.

Having hidden deployment will allow one side to use ambush and hit and run tactics. I think that gives a better historical portrayal of what happens in smaller tactical engagements.

However, that is not much fun for the attacking player. Reality sucks.

If you give one side hidden deployment you should give the other side a chance to use a pre-assault suppressive bombardment before he puts his units on the table.

So how do you perform bombardment against hidden units? Any ideas?

Wolfhag

The game then becomes static and players attempt to discern what is out there without any action at all.

Sound like some historical commanders? The game becomes static because the players do. In other words, from all the other games they played with perfect knowledge of the enemy, they don't want to move until they have perfect knowledge again. Of course, that is not a luxury that actual commanders ever enjoyed unless they found three cigars and all the enemy's dispositions.

Yes McLaddie, that's true. But they are not actual commanders and they are free, unlike actual commanders, to walk away at any time and not play, and, not come back. There once was a player in one group I was in who did all this folderol with hidden movement, and reactions and sightings etc., and a game with him consisted of 8 hours of him dashing around doing all sorts of calculations behind a screen in another room and emerging once or twice an hour to put two figures here and one figure there which was all each side could see, and having those which could not see something trooping out of the room while the other side which could got to see it. He became an institutions. Let's call him "Fred". We would when describing some other game say "It's a Fred Game." It wound up being 8 hours of pleasant socializing and talking with friends interrupted by occasional distractions involving a toy soldier or two and being told what happened-- an hour ago in the game.

No use blaming the players McLaddie. Gamers want to have fun and enjoy playing with toys, not go through C&GS school exercise.

Dear wolfhag

If you can perform a bombardment against hidden units… they aren't really hidden are they?

Otto

One of the first and most serious casualties of hidden movement games is that you don't get to be a general. It becomes a mere game of "Concentration" like the old tv game show. In the games that we have as a result of the Imagi-Nation Campaign, players get to talk tactics and what they wish to do out in the open and even across the field with the other guy. Before the movement, which is timed (2 minutes to actually move the troops) they can have as much time as they wish to talk and discuss tactics. They take advantage of this with abandon and it's one of the most fun things. With hidden movement people stop being generals and start being hunters, trying to read tracks and spoor and not spook the prey.

Never worked that way in my Hidden Movement games.

With hidden movement people stop being generals and start being hunters, trying to read tracks and spoor and not spook the prey.

Gonna have to blame that one on your players or the GM.

In our group, players openly table talk about hidden units about the same as units on the table.

Also, it is unlikely your players are "being generals." Very few wargames give a player an experience (decisions and information) that is commensurate with that of a warfighing commander. Generally the experience meanders about from things above the strategic level to things beneath the tactical level, focusing on the exciting (hopefully) dynamics and occasionally diverting to necessary ones.

Gamers want to have fun and enjoy playing with toys, not go through C&GS school exercise.

Some people find C&GS school exercises fun. One man's trash is another scratchbuilder's argument with his wife.

He became an institutions.

I think you found the problem. Not in the nature of hidden movement, but in the way this specific person implemented it and …

Gamers want to have fun and enjoy playing with toys, not go through C&GS school exercise.

… not aligning the game to the gamers' preferences.

One of the things we learned early on is that players are often far less capable than they think. Dummy markers help poor players think where the enemy may be. Even at that level players putting them down do not think too hard about where there dummy markers go. You can in those instances soon work out where the majority of the real ones are by their placement. As time and experience moves on even with a map you only search certain areas. Even if you have a pre-game bombardment you hit those area that are critical. If he is not there who cares you have got a key area anyway.

On our sort of "normal" tabletop games a few well placed dummies is all that are needed as putting them in a stupid place is obvious. Putting a real unit in a stupid place is just that. No amount of surprise accounts for stupid placement unless the opposing general is very poor. But even than a better deployment would eliminate him faster.

On a really deep board then reconnaissance is necessary but that takes a game into multi evening not possible for some folk.

Not be a modellers first and formoast, not having the real thing on the table all the timer is not an issue. Again everybody to their own.

The real to life empty field can be experienced on computer game. Still not truly real as pre 20 th century at least, they also often had foggy knowledge of the lay of the ground.

As for games and not seeing the minis, I often do with counters / cards/ dummies and what not but put on minis, units , that are not necessarily the right ones. For show.

Actually use a system where you see nothing if too far, ( ok you have dummies and counters plus if static on it can be written say an arrow and 25 cm) then you can i.d infantry or cavalry type but not know if they are cossacks or guards!
Just the real ones, then closer the full thing.

Believe me it changes the games. Sometime might also add semi hidden counters which change the terrain ( idea from S Bowden ), even unseen villages. Depending on recon/ intel.

It is quite easy to do. Till actively engaged it speeds up play as if not the full deployment , we have less figs to move and nearly no fiddly positionning of minis.. You can put units that seldom go out on the table.
You can use the real ones at time to be lazy, but the other side cannot totally believe it. As I have a recording of actual strength, you only also have and idea of numbers but not totally precise till in combat.
It works fine and makes you in pretty much close to the real decision, the only harm though might come from lance poles sneaking under nails.

Putting a real unit in a stupid place is just that.

Yeah. Nobody in their right mind would send tanks through a forest…

I don't mind dummies too much mostly for being an easily playable option and we figure the commanders on the ground have a reasonable suspicion of where troops might be.

Not a favourite rule or anything but passable.

No use blaming the players McLaddie. Gamers want to have fun and enjoy playing with toys, not go through C&GS school exercise.

Otto:
I wasn't 'blaming' anyone, only pointing out why that 'zero event' could and does happen because of the players' adverse reaction--avoiding action--to 'not knowing'.

Your example is the other extreme, a complicated sighting system that generates little but administrative tasks. Don't give bad game design as the only alternative either.

Yeah. Nobody in their right mind would send tanks through a forest…

Certainly not TWICE in the same war. Oh, wait…..

Ottoathome,
This assumes that there is some way to mark on the table where the unit is. Artillery rounds dropping from the sky that land on your head do not care if you are hidden or out of LOS. Neither does recon by fire.

A prep-barrage by a battery would cover a box about 200x400 yards to suppress all of the defenders (hidden or on the table) in the box to give the attackers a chance to close with the objective so the attacker does not need to know the exact location. Eventually the defender does need to make some type of mark or location of where units are.

I'd abstract the bombardment with some type of formula for number of rounds and size to determine causalities. If defenders have overhead cover it needs an almost direct hit to cause causalities. There are formulas that the allies used in WWII to predict causalities.

I'd think that the defenders would remain in cover/suppressed until the bombardment lifted. The timing between the bombardment and the assault infantry is vital. Lifting too early gives the defenders time to recover. Too late and you can be caught in your own bombardment.

So hidden units would only be placed on the table after they make their recovery from suppression of the bombardment. Units not under the bombardment would not be effected of course. This means a well timed bombardment with a mechanized assault could end up bypassing defenders before the become unsuppressed.

Abstracting the bombardment is easier and more playable than attempting to plot every artillery round and checking to see if it hits a hidden unit.

Wolfhag

Observations on some players. In the double blind 20th century skirmish game SUTC that I have played in and umpired, I have seen those who think that tgeres a million of the enemy as rhey dont see any figures on the table, a few who hid out in a corner of the table, fearing everything and at the other end of the scale rhose who move about knowing that the enemy side is probably overcautious, looking for those figures that they use as crutches, with the platyer used to hidden stuff less cautious yet not rash.
And yes the 1 to 1 skirmish game is, just like in all small unit combat, like hunting. Avoiding the mines, watching out for snipers, etc

Dear Wolfhag

Artillery rounds dropping down on your head don't care if you're hidden or not. True. Artillery rounds dropping down on an area where no unit is are not of concern to a hidden unit. Marking a unit on the table top still "unhides' the unit. My own methodology is much simpler. There are no hidden units. Units that can be seen by the firing unit are hit at the best rate. Units that cannot be seen directly by the firing unit but can be seen by another unit of your army (observed fire_)hit at a lesser rate. Units that cannot be seen by any friendly unit hit at the worst rate of all (Harassing fire).

The US has planning charts, you decide the area you want to hit and what condition the target troops are in, open, fighting position etc. You then look up there area per round divide it into the area and that is how many rounds you use. You would hit a key piece of terrain with a high density to hit trenches if the enemy had time to dig them. We use a short form of this in our games.

It should be noted that in many ways the magnitude of the damage IS NOT PROPORTIONAL TO THE CALIBRE OF USED. It's by weight (sort of). For a given explosive weight you send in lots of 81 mm mortar rounds so even though you have to be close to get a damaging near miss you get more chances. For a 155mm you get very few chances although the impacted area of each one is bigger. Net effect is generally similar.

Therefore players should be able to decide on what target area, define what weigh of fire to put down, whether a speculative target or not. The limit should be primarily the available total ammunition load however you define it.

In IABSM we use Hidden and Blinds.

Attackers start on Blinds, as per the rules.
Defenders tend to be hidden. If they move or shoot they go onto Blind.

Any unit (attack or defence) shooting from Blind is spotted.

Recce becomes important, just like real life. A smaller defending force has a real chance, and gets to use hit and run tactics, starting a fair way across the table and forcing the attackers off blinds early. Especially good if you are playing one of those people who feels they have to win every firefight, rather than advance on the objectives!

Hidden movement in tabletop games is often very difficult because movement isn't really regulated in any way. There is an unlimited number of spots where any unit could be, facing any number of directions.

Area or gridded movement helps a lot. If units must be in specific spots, with only a limited number of possible facings, then it's MUCH much easier to determine who can see what. And you can also use blinds a lot more effectively and simply.

We all need a refresher on how we get info on the "other side of the hill". Some games, such as Command Decision, start at what Chadwick called "the middle game" assuming a lot of recon having been done. If that is your idea for a game, ok, yet dont think that a game that focuses on the opening moves, which would include the "empty battlefield" is any less interesting to the minority of us who play it. It is still true that miniatures games that dont put the miniatures first do not sell well, indeed any game that breaks witb traditional miniatures wont sell well, if at all.
So a game of infantry in a large city fight or against a fortress, such as Caen or Metz or Stalingrad wont be as accepted as Sedan or the Russian encircalment battles.
So how is battlefield intelligence gathered? Through things that cannot be addressed with miniatures such as radio traffic analysis, air recon or higher level intelligence. Some can be miniature gamed, such as patrols or recon, yet here the miniature is not foremost. And there is deception, that T34 leading the column of Germans, which means an umpire as if the German player is moving the T34, well, it cant be Soviet.
So, for a game without ambushes, where everything about the figures on the table is known, CD or similar is ok. Yet I like uncertainty