"Realism in (WWII) Wargames Rules" Topic

Folks:

In playing some different WWII games recently, I have got caught up in discussions about which rules were realistic, and which weren't. You can see my thoughts here:

hmwrs.com/WWIIRealism.htm

While they are about WWII rules, the ideas apply to pretty much any period.

Just thought I'd put it out there – realism in miniatures wargaming can be a bit of a slippery fish!

Regards,

A. Gregory

Most real world simulations focus on one area and ignore or nerf the rest. So a simulation designed to look at logistics might use a super simple table for combat results, not caring of the results are very "realistic." They generate kills and retreats and that is all they need to know.

The same might be true for a game about command and control. It might treat logistics and technical details in a super simple way, while making C&C challenging.

I believe the mistake is wanting to simulate "all of it." I want C&C AND detailed tactical/techncial info AND logistics AND AND AND

Meanwhile, one of the most basic of military concepts – the order – is the most often ignored.

You order Unit A to march to hill 401. In most games they move, stop, veer as the 200 foot general watches the tabletop. In reality they should move full speed to the hill unless they get new orders or the local commander changes them on his own. Et Sans Resultat (Napoleonics) does a good job of this.

As long as miniatures do not act by themselves, you, the player will move them, so if they represent platoons and your game main decisions put you right and acurately into a division commnder shoes/OoDa loop, you still will be moving platoons, your way.

One of the first Strategy and Tactics magazine games was Bastogne.
It was a primitive production. You had to glue the counters to card, and then cut them out yourself.
The map was large, by the standards of the day.

The "realistic" premise of the game was that the Battle of the Bulge boiled down to traffic jams.
A division counter did not have enough movement points to … move. It had to break down into regiments or brigades. Once broken down, they did not have enough movement points to rejoin as a division.
All units took up space on a road. And so on.
It was very successful in portraying traffic jams, if that's what you thought the Bulge was all about.

Campaign for North Africa had the players almost have to count jerrycans. They did have to give Italian units a steeper water consumption rate due to cooking pasta. I hope that was a joke, but somehow I think not.

You can be as "realistic" as you wish. The problem will always be, are the factors you are obsessing over really that important?
How many such factors can you or the others tolerate?

If you want to obsess over how brittle the steel for Panther tanks was in 1945 as opposed to 1944, be my guest. I'll play Flames of War V3.

Unless you have bullets whizzing by you and plastering the walls around you, you're playing a wargame which is inherently unrealistic no matter what rules you're playing.

As long as players have a gods eye view of the battlefield it can't be very realistic. From bitter/funny experience "Where the f@£k are they" "How the f@£k have they ended up there" and "What the f@£k are they doing" are phrases uttered by commanders a lot.

Foxweasel:

What you say is true – it is one of the reasons I have experimented with writing computerized miniatures systems where there is a lot of chaos and confusion, and the players get to say those things! (But they don't seem to like that degree of chaos, for some reason…) ;-)

AGregory,

I say those things all the time when playing Starcraft and WH40k: Dawn of War series.

I say those things about my keys, lol!

None are realistic, they are just games.

@mjkerner. Lol! 😃

This year I finally gave up WW2 skirmishing and sold off all of my 28mm forces. I've played everything from WRG's old skirmish rules to IABSM, including Face of Battle, Battalions in Crisis, Disposable Heroes, and about 30 others. There just seems to be no way to do a decent job with hidden movement, orders, uncertainty, etc., with miniatures without getting into minutiae, which kills gameplay.

Face it, gamers want tanks in their WW2 games and a lot of them! The issue is that tanks weren't involved in most WW2 actions, but most rules focus on them and game companies are trying to sell armor. This creates the weird effect of having tanks dominate most ww2 skirmish games that I've either played in or seen played. That's not saying that you can't have fun with the period and if Bolt Action or other rules are the right fit for you, so be it. I just got tired of the Hollywood version of WW2 being played out on the table all the time.

OK – all wargames are inherently unrealistic to some degree – granted. I guess what I am looking for in a "realistic" (as opposed to a "Hollywood") wargame is plausibility. I don't want things to be radically unrealistic.

On top of that, I like games which help me to understand the kinds of decisions a commander was faced with, from some interesting perspective (this will depend on a game's focus).

When we say "realism" in wargame terms, we aren't talking about absolute simulation – we are talking about these more modest goals. Even "Hollywood" games make me angry if they do things which are completely implausible.

I was playing Warlord's "Pike & Shotte" recently, and a Spanish tercio under my command vaporized in a single round of combat (I rolled a 2). I was annoyed until I went home and did a little research – there was in fact an incident where that outcome effectively happened historically. (No way was it 2.7% likely, but it could and apparently did happen.) For a not-particularly realistic game, that's good enough. For a more-realistic game, I would perhaps expect a bit more.

To me, having a plausible experience in the role of an historical commander is what constitutes "reality". To me, there is still a meaningful distinction between pure fantasy and games which are based on history – these are the ones which need to have some semblance of reality.

I will happily play both Hollywood and more historical miniatures games, but I do like for the designers to let me know what they are doing with their rules. And, in the end, I guess I prefer the historical ones.

Why do these discussions always end up with historical wargamers giving up on the idea of applying history in our games?

Because history is often ambiguous and a game can't be.

I historian can quite validly say they don't know something, and then procede to speculate, maybe even form an opinion, but still with the provisio that nothing is known.

A set of wargames rules is like a novel. There has to be a naritive and things have to happen. You have to _decide_.

So you get to a point (often in Ancients sets) where from here on end it is simply speculation.

John

realistic does not mean real. I do love reading the fallacy that a game can not be realistic if it is not real.

I myself regard my hobby as playing with my toy soldiers. I also insist on enjoying myself when I get the chance to play with them. Look at enough famous battles and they were often very one-sided affairs – which make very poor games. I've always thought that the foundation for almost all of our related hobbies is chess – the perfect tactical game? I like to dabble in 'realism' I suppose but I'm probably kidding myself as I was never there and if I were I most likely wouldn't want to play a game about it afterwards. I agree … a slippery fish.

Dtnaman6789, has it, Simulation is not real. We have worked long and hard on our rules to get a simulation that is plausibel. Some things come out that to us are key. Hoever we see then as Vita but other may see as a downsidde.

1) Plausible scenary for your scale is right. Too many games I see make no pretence of getting reall terrain modelled. Get a real map or better a Google saterlihgre photo to the scale of the battlefiels, Use that to get an idea How much terrain is in the real world its a lot.
2) You have to have AT LEAST Dummies for the static enemy say 1 dummy for 1 real maker). few real battle are encountrer battles ane a moving enemy is easier to spot. Out terrain is easire to map than most so we just plot out on a map where the enemy is. Also for our game unitll a unit moves or shotts or is overun it is not placed on the tabble. Its fast and anechdotaly it doed sometimes happed. Its not perefect but way better tham most systems that allow far too much spotting.
3) Our rules have actaully very simple command and control. However the move system and its associated command sysetem lets you get in side the other guys decsion loop by a good way. However again the terrin is key, if its a flat board and the road system is meaingless then you can get unrealistic results.

No you say why have all rules not got this, a few anechdotes and saings may clarify.

"I have not paid all that money and spent XXX hrs painting to hide them posibly for most of the game".

" Dont want to be bothered with all that terrain and working out the fastest way to get to a point on the board its just not fun"

" No way am i going to turn the turrets on my tank, I've spent too long paintaing it to actaully touch it" Despite the fact that a tanks turret is both its boon and its weakness.

Simulations higest price is the thought it requires. However you do it, even withot written orders if responce is not immediate it needs continual thoughtful planning at whatever level you play. Things go wrong even withou random events. Most folk dont want rapid responce to an artillery call. Its less impact and less thought required if its random for both sides so no pre-planning needed.

Needlaess to say we ate not a gerat commecial success, simulation is not very popular.

Plus the demands on understanding meaning playing 4 times a year is not going to get you enywhere.

From your thoughts:

When designers create rules systems, they have to decide what aspects of combat will be the focus of play, which aspects will be abstracted, and which will be left out.

As others noted, rule sets are tradeoffs about the importance of various aspects, starting with the 4 Ms -- movement, musketry, melee, and morale -- and possibly including logistics and command and control kickers, while trying to represent 'logical' (yep, logical is in quotes :) ) outcomes roughly corresponding, hopefully, with historical outcomes.

Oftentimes, rules writer logic is at odds with gamer logic, or at least gamer-perceived logic.

Scale often decides the detail: ground scale, time scale, and unit scale. That balance affects our perception of the outcome, especially when we distill it all down to a few hours on a tabletop, with us as 200-foot-tall generals -- without the staff to implement any decisions we make.

The proverbial holodeck, or at least a group of internet-connected computers in a massive multiplayer online game, could provide all the detail, but you lose the social aspect of gamers around a tabletop. Great games offer that balance between streamlined mechanics and historically-tinged outcomes based on 'good' decision-making.

Russ;

Very well-put.

I would elaborate a bit on your comment about unit scale. Often, the level of "simulation" – that is, the command level players are supposed to operate at – can help determine the scale. If I am a divisional general, I want to see battalions as units on the tabletop, but not platoons or squads. If it is beneath the notice of the commander/player, then it should probably not be represented on the table as a primary unit of play.

In my experience, this is an important decision on the part of a game designer, since it drives a lot of other decisions about what can and cannot happen in the rules system. (Think about how Fire & Fury used brigades instead of regiments/battalions, and how that changed the role players were placed in.)

Some folks following this thread may find this recent, related thread interesting.

TMP link

Coopman, we generally game at the level of generals, or at least colonels. They don't have too many bullets flying about. And if they're the sort to be put off by local action then they don't keep their job very long anyway.

Real life agencies like the army, emergency services and police constantly ‘game' situations as part of their training. Several designers of historical board games and at least one writer of miniatures rules that I know of actually design these games/simulations for such agencies.

If these ‘games' bore no relation to real life we would have to say, what a phenomenal waste of time, money and resources.

TactPntr:

I saw a job posting recently for a position to do corporate wargaming, along the same lines. When I looked into it a bit I found that a guy from Booz-Allan-Hamilton (a big govt consulting firm) even wrote a book about it, titled "Wargaming". I won't say that all these corporate trends are completely worthwhile, but there is likely to be some merit in it.

Well I've participated in some very real military "simulations" done on map tables with couriers running orders to commanders in different rooms to represent order delay and the Fog of War. I've taught my "simulations" to the Delta Force and SWAT teams. And I've play tested them with Army Training Instructors.

And I always had to Dumb Them Down for the wargame market. Most gamers want chess played with Army Models, like FoW. Few want anything near a real simulation. Those that do end up writing their own rules, or endlessly editing some commercial rules with House Rule changes.

So the basic problem with this "realism" thread is that the Grognards (sp?) always complain about realism while what the vast majority of gamers want is Beer N Pretzels. If you want to sell 100 copies of your rules make em real. If you want to sell 1000s make them Beer N Pretzels. And if you're a miniatures company make sure your rules require a parking lot of tanks on the table!

Cheers!!!

When we ask "Is it realistic?" about any set of rules, we need to define what we mean by "realistic," and there is probably no single definition which will make everyone happy.

Hi A Gregory:
It's not a question about what makes everyone happy any more than defining what constitutes a game is about making anyone happy. It's a technical issue about what fits and what works. Regardless of what works, the meaning of ‘realism' is entirely dependent on how the DESIGNER defines ‘realism' as a goal for his game design…if realism by any definition remains an effort to simulate reality in some way.

However, I will take a stab at a working definition:
a "realistic" wargame is one where the players are asked to assume the role of historical commanders in such a way that the decisions they make in playing the game, and the issues which concern them, are appropriate to the role in which they are being cast.

That is pretty much the definition of ‘realism' for most all designers of ‘participatory simulations.' Sid Meiers of Civilization fame said that a game is a ‘series of interesting decisions' A simulation game is ‘a series of interesting decisions found in a particular environment modeled on reality.' In the end, the players are the ones who ‘simulate' because they are the ones enacting the decisions presented by the game/simulation system.

A realistic game should state what level of command it is simulating, and then allow players to get a sense of what it might have been like for their real-life counterparts.

Players should know the game level simulated, but that isn't enough to ‘get a sense of what it might have been like' in any meaningful way, as evidenced by your comments here.

So we now have to ask the question: "What were the issues and concerns historically for the officers who commanded battalions in WWII? What about companies? Platoons?" I do not claim to have the complete answers to these questions, but sometimes wargames rules seem to simultaneously place players at multiple levels of command without rhyme or reason. This may be fun, but it is not realistic.

How do you know it isn't realistic? We don't know the history that is the template for the rules. It may just be that in some situations a battalion commander had control of a platoon's decisions…particularly by radio. Maybe not.

I find this question to be of great interest because many years ago I started playing the Canadian Wargames Group's Canadians in Europe, where players command entire divisions at the operational level. I very much liked the rules, and ended up basing a computer-assisted system on them, known today as Active Armor WWII. The level of the game appealed to me as something different – you got to play whole battles, not just small actions. Many games promise on the cover blurb that you can "be Rommel" and then put you in command of a company. This game actually let you be Rommel! (OK – Rommel did command a company in the Alpenkorps, but if I remember right that was in the First World War…) This meant that you worried about higher-level formations (battalions) and logistics a lot, as well as making strategic and grand-tactical plans. Tactical combat was the purview of lower-level commanders. Battles could span days, and as a player you needed to think in those terms. This wargame was realistic according to my definition above.

Because it matched what you believed was ‘realistic'. What that the designer[s] of Canadians in Europe definition? Did they use or know of the same historical information you were using for your ‘realism' ‘template'?

When designers create rules systems, they have to decide what aspects of combat will be the focus of play, which aspects will be abstracted, and which will be left out. Some critical aspects such as ammunition and fuel supply often fall into the latter categories, being either heavily abstracted or left out altogether. This may be appropriate for a game where a player is asked to command a platoon – you either had the supplies or you didn't, and there wouldn't be a lot you could do about it. For a player commanding at the battalion level or above, this would be less true – allocating available supplies would become an important aspect of command.

Game designers may use the excuse that logistics is boring, or that the record-keeping slows play too much. Fair enough, but when these aspects are downplayed, they will render the game less realistic.

That is only true if you believe that realism is an issue of amount of information, not quality. I would suggest that saying that a game that doesn't portray logistics is less realistic is much like saying a Prius is less of an automobile because it can't go 100 in six seconds.
Game and simulation systems can only portray so much ‘reality'. It has always been that way and always will be. In fact, a simulation's ability to focus on specific aspects of reality in a wholly valid way is why they are valuable. So, the question about the quality of reality included is about what the simulation is designed to portray, not what it doesn't.

There is a joke about physicists. One is asked by a farmer to estimate how many chickens can occupy a particularly large chicken coop. The physicist comes back and says, ‘Well, assuming spherical chickens…'
The joke is that physicists have a real problem in including every detail in any physical calculation. The world is a complex place, so what they do is simplify by assuming the chicken is spherical to make the calculations easier. The value of this ‘cheating' is that it works in the real world in most cases. Most all sciences do that kind of ‘fudging' because the simplified versions still work to replicate reality in all the important—functional—ways.

It's the same way with simulations. They can simplify and still capture reality in very specific ways…testable ways.

Phil Sabin designed a tactical game, Block Busting which he included in his book Simulating War. It had a map of six by nine squares with twenty counters. In two hours a group of military officers completed two 18 turn games. Phil wrote:

"There could be no better illustration of the merits of simplicity in wargame design. Brigadier Andrew Sharpe [a veteran of urban combat in Iraq and Afghanistan], who masterminded the study day, was deeply impressed with the tactical realism of Block Busting, despite its relative simplicity, and he emphasized during the closing discussion session how well it captured the key dynamics of fighting in built-up areas." P. 256

Key dynamics The Brigadier didn't ask ‘what about logistics?' because 1. The game was realistic based on his experience for 2. what it was specifically designed to do—which of course, he needed to know before hand if he was going to make an accurate assessment.

Spherical chickens. Realism tested and achieved—it wasn't about how much was included but the quality of what was purposely achieved by the system.

Few want anything near a real simulation. Those that do end up writing their own rules, or endlessly editing some commercial rules with House Rule changes.

Lee494:
That is true of any hobby. How many RC airplane modelers build super-detailed True Scale planes and how many only want that off-the-shelf RC plane and never anything else?
That is the nature of hobbies. Folks move from one level to the next, but certainly not 'most' of the hobbests.

So the basic problem with this "realism" thread is that the Grognards (sp?) always complain about realism while what the vast majority of gamers want is Beer N Pretzels.

.

That isn't really a problem with 'realism'. The thread is about what it is and how to design for it, not how many 'like it.' The quality of realism isn't dependent on the number of folks who want it.

If you want to sell 100 copies of your rules make em real. If you want to sell 1000s make them Beer N Pretzels. And if you're a miniatures company make sure your rules require a parking lot of tanks on the table!

Questions:

1. Isn't that how we all moved through the hobby, simple, unrealistic into more expectations for realism? Some of it has to do with increased knowledge of what is real. I played a lot of Fire and Fury before I realized in reading more about the ACW tactics and game design that F&F wasn't all that 'realistic.'

2. That is true for off-the-shelf RC planes compared to the number of True Scale Kits sold…or set-up-on-the-floor Lionel train sets compared to scale HO trains and terrain for a full layout set in the 1890s?

If you want to sell 1000s make them Beer N Pretzels.

So it goes. Welcome to the world of hobbies, from golf to home-brewing beer. Get over it.

The question is about how to design for realism, which is a technical question, not how many do or don't want it.

I believe that if we could identify 'realism' in a meaningful way for gamers, that 'beer-and--pretzel' level games can be realistic, accurate simulations [see above Block Busting], gamers might develop a more 'discerning' pallet.

I have to agree with McLladdie, IF I wanted to make money in large quantities I would not have written my rules, I would have written a commecial set and thrown realism to the wind. Some of us write for our own enjojment and the few who are like minded.

Few want anything near a real simulation. Those that do end up writing their own rules, or endlessly editing some commercial rules with House Rule changes.

This is patently not true. We started from scratch having leant that may commecial games are fundamantaly flawed.

Our guestimate is that it took 2000 hrs to getit to published staandard. We are now, after 10 years playing perhaps 40 times a year putting togethet Issue 2. The published set has 2 sets of mainly additions, in that 10 years, some of which were to better represent the real world when the scope of the simulation moved to a larger scale with the addoption of 1/144 as well as 1/72 scle. Issue 2 has become about making the rules clearer, sheding a bit of colour with no real impact on the simulation.
Two changes in 10 years seems to me a VERY long way from enndless editing.

McLaddie:

I think you mistake my comment about logistics, perhaps. The Canadians Wargame Group did a good job of explaining what they were doing with the design as I recall, and – because of the unit level of the game – felt that logistics was a key part of their idea of realism. I'm not really arguing that all games must have it, actually, but that at some levels of game it is the kind of factor about which decisions are typically important, but often neglected. No doubt it could be abstracted (or even ignored) effectively by some designers, but I haven't seen many examples of that – it is typically just ignored, and the constraints it placed on commanders historically are dropped for the sake of playability. But when you think about WWII operational-level command, logistics was a big part of what commanders did worry about. Consider Rommel in North Africa, Patton pushing for the Rhine, any of the Allied commanders post-Normandy, etc.

I'm really just using it as an example (of which there are many) of something that gets ignored because it doesn't fit a beer-and-pretzel idea of fun, as well as one which helps describe how a definition of realism can be impacted by the level of command/decision-making.

My definition of "realism" is not my own, per se, but a synthesis of what I have heard in a number of different places, the one you quote among them. I like it because it's the one I generally use!

A beer and Pretzel game is just that, a game. It unfortunately is in the interests of commecial game manufactures to tell tall tails and claim that its really a simulation when it clearly fails to be one. That is unfortunateley one of those things. Like folk who claim that their figures are scale models when infact they are massively out of proportion a travesty of anatomy, that would never fit in a similar scaled vehicle.
Again the Simulation in may cases will have to address some issues like logistics in more detail than some folk would like. On another board serving soldiers noted that the swing from tactics to logistics increases rapidly above about company level. However many large scale Beer and Pretzel games do not reflect this swing in emphasis.

Simulation is for those who want to learn, not for those who want fuel there ego as great leaders without the nucence of reality being involved.

Each has there place, do you want Fantasy or non-fiction, they co-exsist but are miles appart.

Few want anything near a real simulation.

You can only want what you know. A 'real simulation' is a very fuzzy concept for most gamers, loaded with hobby baggage such as 'simulations aren't games, are loaded with detail, realism is in the eye of the beholder etc. etc. etc.

Most designers don't know how simulations work or 'realism' is captured by a game system, so how could they communicate that to gamers?

AGregory:

Thanks for the clarification. I wasn't trying to put words in your post or denigrate the Canadian design or yours. I agreed with most all of what you write. Your definition of 'realism' is pretty close to what most all simulation designers call 'realism.' I was simply reacting to your comment:

Game designers may use the excuse that logistics is boring, or that the record-keeping slows play too much. Fair enough, but when these aspects are downplayed, they will render the game less realistic.

The idea that they are 'less realistic' because the game doesn't portray X is a design trap and not true.

It's a trap because 1. it says amount, not quality is the measure of realism, and 2. runs afoul of the nature of any simulation: Lots always have to be 'left out' as there is too much reality to include everything…that limit is never going to change.

The question of realism quality is about how well the selected 'realism' is portrayed in the game, not about what was left out.

Block Busting has no real logistics rules. Ammo depletion was just as 'real' at the company level as campaign level. It is still very realistic…in what it targeted of combat.

It all depends on what the designer selects of war to portray… and then how well he does it…If realism was the target for his slice of combat/history, the the less or more realism is a question of how well the design captures it for that slice.

IF you see logistics as important in say the WWII Desert Campaigns, there certainly a lot of ways to portray its affects…from complex to very simple. Every one could be equally 'realistic' depending on how well they present the players with command decisions that mimic the real ones.

And it could be that a game design could realistically portray the logistic issues without any specific logistic mechanics or player decisions being part of the system.

Or it could be a failure…i.e. less realistic.

How many people are prepared to do the lengthy and sometimes annoying complicated research necessary to actually produce/approach a "realistic" wargame?

How many gamers not so inclined to do such research are prepared to accept things that run counter to their existing beliefs and assumptions?

It's complicated …..

B

It's complicated ….

B: +2 It shore is. And at the moment many wargamers and designers make if far more complicated than it has to be…

I think the most unrealistic aspect in most game designs (and computer games are much worse) is requiring the player to wear too many hats. If you're a corps commander, you don't worry about deploying skirmishers. The problem for designers is that players like some of that. A tank company commander doesn't pick the type of rounds a tank fires, but players may like to have control of that. One player's "really cool quirk" is another's "unnecessarily burdensome feature."

Mwinds:

I very much agree. I don't mind playing beer-and-pretzel games (I still eat a lot of pretzels, and I loved beer until my doctor told me no) but I like historical games more. And the too-many-hats problem always annoys me. It may be fun, but I find that it destroys the realism.

AG: The worst one was a Gary Grigsby WW2 Pacific game. I couldn't understand why land units were out of supply when I kept send supply ships. Turns out, I hadn't told them to unload their cargo. So I was everything from a five-star admiral to local harbor master. Uck!

If you're a corps commander, you don't worry about deploying skirmishers.

mwindsorfw:
Well, here is the problem. Napoleon often worried about it. At Jena he had specific army orders for skirmish deployments and directed brigade skirmishers at least twice… Other examples are ACW Corps commanders doing the same thing in their corps-wide and divisional orders through out the war.

The question about realism is "What history is being used as the template for the rules?" THAT evidence is what is modeled and thus defines what is 'real' for that design.

The two-many hats problem comes from two areas:

1. Players want to know what is happening, so grand tactical games will have players going through lots of levels of process to let them know.

2. Designers don't really know what the limits of the 'hats' are and even if they do, fail to let the players what they are.

Wow, what a hornet's nest this is. I have to agree with all sides here when they say its both complicated and very personal to the player. We are lucky these days to have a fair quantity of material produced by serving soldiers who describe (often quite graphically) the realism of front line warfare. Personally I would be scared stiff but I am not sure that I would want to play a game where this emotion was essential. I am not a fan of horror films as a means of entertainment and so would not want my games to send me to bed with nightmares. Nor would I want to play a game where I worried about the numbers of casualties my decisions had created and the letters I had to write to their families. We play a game and I am happy that it remains such. I get the realism thing but… In another life I am a railway modeller. In that world, we crave for realistic looking rolling stock, finely detailed scenery and realistic operation soas to simulate a real railway scene in miniature. However, the trains have electric motors in them and the passengers are glued to their seats. No one dies if we get a derailment and there is no paperwork to fill in if we pass a signal at red. Notwithstanding all of these omissions, we still produce realistic layouts – some of them are so good you find yourself thinking that its actually real not a photograph. The point I am trying to make is that realism comes in various colours and we all pick the shade that suits us.

Many if not most WW2 rules end up giving way too much care and details to armour and guns proven or theoretical piecing capacity (vs, vehicle operational or out of the fight) and too little to friction, delays, coordination and communications, and recon, not to speak of Brummbar shooting repeatedly for hours! fi of ammo loads.
Of course these aspects do immensely slow down any game.
We can much better approach pre 1900 limited scale battlefields, than later, given a bit of efforts to consolidate simulation (and research needed) and game structure to ensure interest/speed.

The point I am trying to make is that realism comes in various colours and we all pick the shade that suits us.

Solo General:

So, if someone colored a 2-6-6-2 engine pink and called it a realistic 1890 Union Pacific, that's just a personal shade of realism?

I think you are talking about what in the vast depth of reality is chosen to be modeled and how much, not that what is real or should be called real is simply someone's opinion.

We play a game and I am happy that it remains such.

Duh. Yes, and the average soldier and officer is happy that their Urban Tactical exercise remains a simulation exercise and not real war.

That is the beauty of simulation games: Less cost, time, effort and blood from the real thing.

So, the question is 'what is real about the gaming/simulation experience' now that we have avoided some of the nastier aspects of war?

That is neither a question about personal opinions or a shaded question. The designer chooses what he is attempting to simulate/copy/represent/model of the real world and the questions are:

1. What was chosen?
2. How well does the game mechanics model what was chosen?

The level and quality of the 'realism' is in the answer to question #2.

I enjoy playing a wide range of games, from Axis and Allies and Battle Cry, both specifically designed not to be realistic or simulations, as well as serious efforts to simulate like Chain of Command.

There is no wrong or right to what we enjoy [Axis and Allies and Zombies anyone?]. It is wrong to offer something like realism that then isn't provided. It's wrong to misrepresent what realism is or isn't in a simulation.

Jcfrog:
I agree about friction. But think of a game like Chain of Command. Some player see the difficulty getting their man on the board as friction. Others see it as frustratingly bad game design. I suppose I'm just glad that there seems to be something for everyone.

The two hats argument is not so simple as it's made out. A real general has loads of underlings to make (hopefully) a common sence decision to fill in the generals overall picture. To be honest I consider it ludicrous that a simple game can make those decisions with the same accuracy as a real person. Therefore to some extent the player has to interview at various levels.

If the general needed to know so little why does he need to ever visit the battlefield as the do in reality.

Also in some cases generals may even consider where as low as a platoon should be located.

Most commanders talk about thinking 3 levels down. We wargamers regrettably have to work a little lower.

Some parts of reality cannot be entirely to personal whim. Real weapons have ranges that a defined as linear length, abstracting to an exponential range system results in gross distortions of reality that can never be justified. Arguments about it making a better or acceptable as GAME may be personal preference but not the relationship to the real world.

It is wrong to offer something like realism that then isn't provided. It's wrong to misrepresent what realism is or isn't in a simulation.

I think that's it in a nutshell. Just because a set of rules describes itself as set during WWII and is played with scale miniatures of the armies and weapons of the period, it does not follow that it is an historical wargame about WWII. Yet that's what many rules appear to claim.

If I see a set of rules that says it's about platoon level combat in WWII, I'm entitled to ask, how well does it portray what I understand to be the key combat issues of the period and that level of command? It is irrelevant how popular it is, or how easy it is to play or what range of figures are supplied, they are simply matters of taste and bear no relation to the level of realism the rules achieve.

If we use real experience as a reference point then we have a measure to assess these. Take a simple example. During WWII all command at platoon level and below was by voice or hand signal. Any game trying to simulate command and control at this level would be unrealistic if this issue was not factored into the rules.

The challenge for rules writers is how best do I represent this in terms of game mechanics? What separates good rules designers from the rest is the ability to create elegant, yet simple mechanics that convey the essence of the issue. To be realistic rules don't have to be complex they just have to be true in spirit to their reference point in history.

Some player see the difficulty getting their man on the board as friction. Others see it as frustratingly bad game design.

mwindsorfw:

I would think regardless, it is only bad game design if it doesn't represent friction well OR didn't have any representative purpose and just frustrates players.

To say it is simply 'bad game design' ignores the representative aspects…particularly if such things WERE frustrating to the actual commanders and purposely designed that way--is it bad game design if they were supposed to be frustrated? Games aren't suppose to ever frustrate gamers?

You don't have to like it or want to play it, but to dismiss it as 'bad game design' is doing the issues of simulation and game design a crippling disservice.

The challenge for rules writers is how best do I represent this in terms of game mechanics? What separates good rules designers from the rest is the ability to create elegant, yet simple mechanics that convey the essence of the issue.

TacticalPainter01:

I certainly agree. And in talking wargame design, the question is how to create those "elegant, yet simple mechanics that convey the essence of the issue."

To be realistic rules don't have to be complex they just have to be true in spirit to their reference point in history.

To be a simulation, to be true to the 'spirit' is a technical question--how mechanics and play are 'true in spirit.' And technically, that 'spirit', that relationship between history/reality and the game play has to be shown, referenced, proven for the gamer.

simulations don't function for the players if they don't know specifically what they are and aren't simulating in play.

If anyone has been involved in military Urban Tactical exercises with laser tag equipment or seen videos of them, what you see are the instructors and umpires going into excruciating detail [the furniture is concrete and doesn't move, there will be no umpires on the battlefield, etc. ] of what is and isn't 'real' about the exercise for participants before they begin.

The desired connections between reality and the simulation don't work in ignorance.

That is a major reason that gamers 'guess' at what is realism and what is a bad design, let alone exactly what history and reality is--or isn't being represented. So much of any simulation quality--and designer efforts--is simply wasted because of this.

Any simulation will have lots of 'scaffolding' to support the simulation aspects which in and of themselves have little to do with simulating. What is simulation and what is simply supporting mechanisms has to be identified as well as specifically what is being represented from reality.

Another key issue in simulation is "fidelity," meaning how close that simulation is to real life, and how accurately it models (in terms of end effects) the aspects it's seeking to model. Some people simply use the term "realism" interchangeably here, but I think that's one of the things that clouds this discussion.

But an important thing to consider when assessing the fidelity of a simulation is "how close is close enough?" And further, "does additional detail buy a significant increase in fidelity?" It's all well and good to say that there are 20 factors that go into any one particular aspect of the simulation, but if 18 of those occupy less than 10% of the design space in terms of affecting the final outcome, a simulation that considers only the biggest 2 factors will probably suffice to satisfy all but the groggiest grognard (and be faster to play and easier to adjudicate to boot).

So the important design questions become a) what aspects of combat are we trying to simulate, and b) what mechanisms do the best job of capturing the bulk of likely outcomes one might encounter in an actual situation.

Further, there is a huge amount of subjectivity here, not just in terms of which aspects of combat players are interested in simulating, but in what those players feel is a "realistic" level of fidelity. And indeed, given how even eye-witness accounts offer only pieced-together anecdotal evidence that is often conflicting, the very definition of "realistic" is open to interpretation. For a perfect example, look no further than the term "Ronson."

Speaking for myself, I want games to present my with the kinds of challenges and difficult decisions that would be faced by commanders of the appropriate unit scale and time period. Further, if the game's mechanics reward the tactics and practices of the period or particular conflict, then so much the better. If the game plays smoothly and captures the above aspects, I'm not going to quibble as to whether the poor thickness of the MG-34 assistant-gunner's barrel-changing glove should mean it should get only 7 dice of firepower instead of 8 – but only if it's not raining.

" I'm not going to quibble as to whether the poor thickness of the MG-34 assistant-gunner's barrel-changing glove should mean it should get only 7 dice of firepower instead of 8 – but only if it's not raining."

I think you will find some units in late 44 had the thicker Italian pattern gloves, which were fully waterproof, there's a 20 page discussion about it on the Axis Forum. The big bone of contention is whether some of these were actually better suited to left handed individuals rather than right handed

@KeithTalent… laughed so hard I dislocated a rib!

Were they discussing the Italian gloves lined with sheepskin or goatskin?

Wolfhag