"Do wargames tend to be caricatures of history? " Topic

So we get the whole '+1 for British infantry' / 'cowardly Italians' / 'dashing Highlanders' / 'ever-jamming Gatlings' etc.

Well I guess the thing turns on empirical considerations – what are the effect sizes of these things?

If the Gatling jammed 1% of the time (but what does that mean? – per battle? per firing instance? per round fired?) then it may well be worth leaving out. If British infantry seem to get the better of French infantry, all other things being equal, more than two times out of three then you may need the "British Infantry, +1" modifier.

Incidentally, that latter one shows that you need to be careful about the level of the game. If the British are worth "+1" in a game where units represent battalions, it does not necessarily follow that those same British are worth the same +1 when fighting lower or higher level games, since the forces will be employed in different ways.

A designer is only caricaturing if they knowingly radically distort (upwards) the effect sizes. One example I can think of is in the Mike Spick WW2 air combat rules, where the effect of recoil in slowing down an aircraft is doubled or something, so the player gets to appreciate the effect more.

Just to be clear, I intended to suggest that some wargames might exaggerate / over emphasise things 'for effect', largely based on historical reality, but a little distorted to make the point.

Whirlwind:

Might? Any number of wargame designers intentionally distort their representation of reality… for a variety of reasons. Personally, I hate those that do it 'to make a point' about some important part of reality, as if a more representative portrayal of reality wouldn't. It's like an artist who draws a nose too big so the viewer will really notice the nose… Movies and books have this element, emphasizing some element by information dumps or over-explaining particular facets of a story.

In general, it is seen as bad craftmanship. I see it as bad craftmanship in wargames. There is nothing wrong with creating a game that is a caricature of war, over-emphasizing somethings and not others for fun… but it can't claim to be representative of history or reality.

So we get the whole '+1 for British infantry' / 'cowardly Italians' / 'dashing Highlanders' / 'ever-jamming Gatlings' etc. Perhaps caricature is not quite the right word, but I think it was fairly clear what I meant?

You've clarified what you meant. Game design is a technology, and as such, it needs words that provide specific meanings to discuss it.

The basic issue behind +1's of dashing Higlanders or ever-jamming gatling guns is how that compares to the real thing, the relationships from past reality.

Those +1's etc are attempts to represent reality/history. The question is always: "Do they?" That requires some methods of testing, of comparing the game dynamics to what is understood of the reality they are attempting to mimic. There are methods for doing that.

@McLaddie,

I'm not sure you really mean me…I think Green Leader is your man

Good example of this is the ACW rules we play. Early in the SOP, before anyone shoots or moves, you have to roll to see if your general is hit by friendly fire.

This did happen, but very rarely. I am sure it is in there because Stonewall was shot by his own men. But historically it almost never happened. In fact I can't think of another example, but even if there are other instances I still say it was very rare.

Rallynow

Yup: that is an excellent example. I guess there is a tendency to latch onto something like that and then include it with the claim that it adds to 'realism' – a bit like the idea of including a (fairly likely) chance that a rocket will turn round in mid-air and return from whence it came to blow up its own launch team: something which seems to have been based entirely on one eye-witness account of a something similar that almost happened.

Good point Greenleader… Scottish medieval armies deployed in cast circular schiltroms are almost 'de riguer'. There's only one example of them; Falkirk in 1298…which rather explains why they were n't used again, but repetition has lent credibility. The new Bannockburn Visitor centre is a case in point.

Whirlwind:
Well, I was riffing on what you wrote, but you are right, it should have been addressed to Green Leader.

Many attempts to add 'historical flavor' means adding unique, uncommon occurrences or really minor events.

I remember two board games, Victory Games 'The Civil War', which was supposed to be more accurate because it included the fights for Arizona and New Mexico… as if that made a game of the Civil War more accurate. Then there was the board game of Antietam that was "highly realistic" because it included the artillery-damaged bee hives whose bees routed some companies of Union troops.

It all comes back to what the chances are of something happening in reality and how important those 'unique events' or sideshows are to the battles being represented.

More often than not, such additions skew the games ability to represent an event. One designer, doing a scenario of Mars-la-Tour, wanted to recreate Von Bredow's "Death Ride" by having a hidden Prussian cavalry brigade able to just magically appear and attack with bonus modifiers. It created a totally unrealistic mechanism that skewed the entire game, the Prussian, quite reasonably, designing his tactics around the magic cavalry brigade.

Wargames and simulations are based on probabilities of things happening under various conditions. Unique events naturally have very low probabilities.

The more I think about it the more I come to believe that we almost exclusively wargame exceptional events. Call them caricatures if you like.

Most of a soldier's life is excruciatingly boring. No one wants to wargame that. Most of a commander's life is taken up with things that we as wargamers wouldn't want to play out, things like reading the fine details of logistics and personnel reports.

There's a term that is used in model railroading, "selective compression." That is, model railroaders selectively omit things and concentrate on the interesting stuff. Their layouts generally focus on things like towns, scenic views, and rail yards. They don't model "a hundred miles of straight, flat track in North Dakota," even though that's a huge proportion of what a railroad is.

Similarly, no one sits down to wargame out "that time we marched through Virginia/Russia/Vietnam/Wherever and didn't see anything." No one sets up their army on one end of a table, moves it to the other end, and calls it a job well done. But that's the overwhelming majority of what a soldier or commander does.

Instead, we concentrate on the exciting events, on things like big battles or patrols where there was contact with the enemy. Even though these were rare exceptions, they are what we do.

Often there's a sort of reverse-elitism where we make fun of people who concentrate their attention on the elite exceptions, things like King Tiger tanks. But any wargame we play is already portraying an exception, that 1% of a soldier's life that contrasts to the other 99% that is boring, time spent marching or waiting to march.

As such, I have no problem with having exceptional events happen in a game. After all, what we are gaming is in itself a rare exception.

It's a reality vs Hollywood situation. Soldiering is 90% mind numbing boredom, 9% nervous anticipation and 1% filling your pants. Doesn't make for great games. Which is why I like rules with a touch of the Hollywood about them, TMWWBKs and En garde for example.

There's a term that is used in model railroading, "selective compression." That is, model railroaders selectively omit things and concentrate on the interesting stuff.

That's what every historical study ever written does. That is what soup operas do. That is what most all entertainment does. That's what we all do when we relate something that happened to us.

Wargames focus on command issues and let the rules mimic the nervous anticipation and filling pant legs with morale and combat rules. Or the games simply ignore most of that.

Yet, even playing a great wargame there is boredom and nervous anticipation… Just not the degree found on the battlefield.

"Selective compression" to use ScottS's term isn't the same as caricature any more than Ryan's A Bridge Too Far or Guelzo's Gettysburg is caricature because they don't have 90% of their studies mind-numbing boredom or spend any time on how headquarters were organized or the endless logistical details.

Wargames are about combat engagements, which in the scope of war can be called 'exceptional events.' That still doesn't make them caricatures of reality or history.

Part of the definition of the word 'caricature' is "purposely unreal." Certainly wargames can be designed to provide that… Hollywood movies do it all the time, but that isn't something ALL wargames do or have to do.

That's what every historical study ever written does.

Yes. I only have an MA in History, but that's enough for me to understand that you simply can not write about everything you find in your research – you have to edit.

With that said, I DO think wargames – yes, all of them – are purposely unreal. It is inherent to their nature. They must edit as well. You aren't moving real people in a life-and-death situation. Instead, you are moving models or counters across a map. That alone is enough of an abstraction to qualify a game as "purposely unreal."

With that said, I DO think wargames – yes, all of them – are purposely unreal. It is inherent to their nature. They must edit as well. You aren't moving real people in a life-and-death situation. Instead, you are moving models or counters across a map. That alone is enough of an abstraction to qualify a game as "purposely unreal."

ScottS:

Yes, that is true…to a point. ALL simulations are purposely unreal. A real benefit of flight simulators, for instance, is that for the most part they are unreal… you don't risk killing yourself or destroying a valuable plane with a bad decision. However, they are also purposely real--or purposely mimicking reality--at specific points, which is their primary purpose… if they didn't, they wouldn't be simulations of anything. The same is true for wargames, depending on the goals of the designer.

On the other hand, the whole point, the main purpose, of a caricature is to:

make or give a comically or grotesquely exaggerated representation of (someone or something)."

synonyms: parody, satirize, lampoon, make fun of, burlesque

That isn't the purpose of all wargames, let alone inherent to their nature.

That's entirely fair, yes.

I think I'm a bit stuck on "caricature," which admittedly becomes a debate about semantics.

Perhaps it is because "caricature" has some negative connotations. ("Comic," "grotesque," etc.) This implies that wargames are a deliberate misrepresentation, a sort of falsification.

Maybe we could look at a less loaded term. How about "are wargames an exaggeration of history?"

I think, to answer my own question, that if they are this is not necessarily a bad thing.

I think some continue (deliberately or otherwise?) to get hung up on the word 'caricature'. Perhaps my fault for using it in the first place, though I didn't think it would become such a big deal. Perhaps I should have said 'stereotype' or 'exaggeration'.

The point of the question was not to discuss the minutiae of the use of the word 'caricature', but more to discuss if wargames tend towards exaggerations / stereotypes:

"Highlanders were dashing, so let's make them recognisably different from a 'normal' regiment"
"rockets were inaccurate, so lets have them flying all over the place to illustrate this"
"Rifle 'A' was unreliable, so let's make a rule that it jams more often than not"

All these things (and others) might be historically true to a greater-or-lesser extent, but do we tend to over-emphasise them in our rules / games?

IIRC the first use of gatling guns by the British was the relief of Eshowe, but that was the RN. The army didn't use them till Ulundi…And I think I'm right in syaing the early rockets didnt actually have a warhead. Just Propellent.

If not a caricature then perhaps Wargaming is Art,as Hamlet might put it; it holds a mirror up to nature.

Which is why everything is back to front.

"are wargames an exaggeration of history?"

Greenleader and ScottS:

Is Ryan's A Bridge Too Far an exaggeration of history because it focuses on somethings and not others?

If the answer is yes, then Wargames are inherently an exaggeration.

If the answer is no, that a selective focus on some aspects of history and not others is not automatically an exaggeration of the subject, then no.

It all depends on what you are thinking of when using the word '"exaggeration."

The use of words are important in technical endeavors like wargame design [let alone historiography or simulations]. Caricature simply doesn't describe what is usually being attempted when a wargame is designed: It evokes the wrong idea about what is being done in game design and/or designer intent except in some instances:

Ever played "Junta" or "Flintique"? Those were caricatures. Fun, but the intent is comic.

It's probably a broadly drawn truth to say that young gamers and designers are less likely to caricaturize their wargaming. Older gamers and designers are probably going to deliberately caricaturize their gaming. Irony and humor will even dominate such a game. That doesn't mean that the outcome of the combat simulation will run counter to facts and history.

McLaddie-

Greenleader and ScottS:

Is Ryan's A Bridge Too Far an exaggeration of history because it focuses on somethings and not others?

If the answer is yes, then Wargames are inherently an exaggeration.

If the answer is no, that a selective focus on some aspects of history and not others is not automatically an exaggeration of the subject, then no.

I don't think that is a question that can be answered with a yes/no answer. In fact, I question the validity of that question. It presents a false dilemma.

As I said above, any work of history must be edited. You do your research, you write out what you have found – then you start mercilessly editing out the parts that aren't relevant to your thesis. This is true of any history, whether it is written or presented in a different format.

I suppose I could reverse this and ask, "does editing a work of history make it an exaggeration?"

I don't think it does, because that's not the point. The fact is that we must select what we wish to describe. That's not "exaggerating" or "making a caricature."

To return this to wargaming, do they present an edited view of history? Of course.

Do they exaggerate in order to either entertain or make a point (present a thesis)? I'd argue that again, yes, they do. That's not a negative assessment or judgment, it's a description.

Maybe we should think of Historical wargame rules as a book. I have always felt that historical board games as a kin to a book on the same subject. It is a body of work on a specific battle(s). It requires as much research. So maybe the same should be applied to miniature rules.

Absolutely. It is an interpretation of events. It is not presented in a narrative form – it is interactive – but the similarities are there nonetheless.

Absolutely. It is an interpretation of events. It is not presented in a narrative form – it is interactive – but the similarities are there nonetheless.

I agree. However, games and simulations are narratives, albeit ones that are designed to allow the players to be participants in that narrative. Most all participatory simulation designers, let alone most all game designers see the game processes of play as a narrative. I can provide lots of quotes to that effect:

"Simulations are a powerful way of thinking about narrative because procedural representation is an approach to storytelling that directly emphasizes the player's experience.' p.457
Rules of Play: Game Design Fundamentals Katie Salen & Eric Zimmerman. MIT Press.

All games have a narrative structure. Chapter 9: "Game Design Patterns for Narrative Structures, Predictability, and Immersion Patterns." Patterns in Game Design Staffan Bjork and Jussi Holopainen

These interacive forms--museums, galleries, real spaces, and life--should be our first touchstones as we search for narrative tools. These older forms address our most fundamental challenge: creating a story that flexes and reshapes itself around the player's choices, and deepens the meaning of everything the player does.
p. 83 Designing Games: A Guide to Engineering Experiences. Tynan Sylvester

All wargames have to be edited versions of history or reality. Most all descriptions of reality, stories, histories and any representation has to be edited, reduced and most of the events ignored or abstracted. That doesn't make them inherently exaggerations.

Certainly gamers and/or designers can exaggerate to their heart's content…. but that isn't some unavoidable trait of all wargame design.

I just can't resist saying this. Don't think twice, roll the dice. O what a fool am I.

I just can't resist saying this. Don't think twice, roll the dice. O what a fool am I.

Good saying for a player, not so much for the designer.

Hmmm…

Reminds me of a wargame designer who made a game on the 7 Years War…but he could not get it published…

Because the company said that the 7 Years War was not profitable…so he changed the name and it became a Napoleonic War Game ;-)

Best Regards
Art