"Wargames are NOT FUN" Topic

I did say I prefer multi player games because of the added realism and added challenge over 1v1 games.

etotheipi:
They can add realism and challenge over 1v1 games depending on the players and the game system/scenario. On the other hand they can be boring and unrealistic as …. depending on the players and game system. Then, that is true of any wargame regardless of the number of players.

McLaddie
No they aren't [realistic?] as I said it then becomes about tbe rules designer to make something that allows the player to have something that replicates the experience… that's what I try to do. Friction and FoW… BUt in a way that allows tbe the players some agency… but not full agency…

Gamesman6:
Well, that is what a number of wargame designers try to do, but you say that what they /you produce isn't realistic, though it obviously a stab at it?.

…so they are not just being them at different levels of the CoC… but are affected by the "personality" of the sub commander… while still being enjoyable (fun)

Though they are unrealistic. in anything beyond a 1v1 duel we are factoring in others in to the rules… that's unrealistic.. as all rules are..

Well, yes, but that is true in ANY level game: a designer is 'factoring in' the behaviors of a number of NPCs OR the playing piece they are representing. [Your cowboy can draw at a '2' speed.]

It isn't unrealistic, [depending on what the rules do], it is a valid or invalid approximation of reality.

Pick a level of command and what you think they would know and do, and we can talk about it.

Every simulation, every rule--traffic laws, assembling a bike, including scientific laws-- like Relativity and Quantum Mechanics, are approximations, not 100% realistic. Relativity doesn't describe what happens in a Black Hole or at the 'Big Bang'--and maybe more, it's incomplete, and Quantum Mechanics only works with 'Renormalization', which is nothing but averaging out all the possible events that occur between particles producing workable approximations. Very useful approximations, but that is true for any rules, including wargame rules.

Point being, you are generally setting 'unrealistic' expectations on rules describing reality in any form. That is what a wargame is doing in part with a game system: attempting to describe reality.

You seem to be saying that wargame rules don't [or can't] do what you want them to do. So, the question is what part of battle reality do you want to describe/circumscribe with wargame rules?

I know I am at least in part telling you what you already know. You've identified what you believe is a problem or an impossibility with wargames, and I am willing to noodle it to see if we can circumscribe more.

I just need to know what you have in mind as realistic.

etotheipi You do talk some rubbish. As a Proffsional in engineer in an design team we have to get on. If we get a new guy even a bright graduate, he cannot be left to do much for the first year, they come to all the design meetings often taking the notes. That familiarises them with the desighn being worked on and as they progress we give them more and more responsibility, but they will not be key players with any reasonable scope untill they have gained considerable experience. many wargamers are not starting out as very bright, I never conted as that even in professional circles so I look longer, in both, to get to grips with it. You are suggesting I take a complete beginer and give him control well beyond his abilities, how daft is that. If you suggest compromising the game to give him a bit he can cope with you have again failed to grasp the point. You are then coach not player.

etotheipi You do talk some rubbish.

UshCha,
It seems you have a different opinion and different experience than etotheipi. Still, I can assure you that his background, and experience – including in the military with high-level real-world simulation, game design, and knowledge of game theory make him probably the most qualified and knowledgeable poster on TMP. That includes more qualified than you and I.

If you have your Band of Brothers group you game with and have a high bar for making the team, so be it. No governing body in the gaming world forces players to conform to a single method. Also, the world of historical miniatures wargaming is populated with militarily inexperienced gamers and new people entering the hobby who are clueless until someone takes the time to introduce/coach them to the hobby.

Don't delude yourself about being a "professional". We are all amateur gamers (unless maybe someone pays you full-time to play games) and no military in their right mind would seriously use any of our game rules. Maybe to train them in overall tactical training and strategy thinking but not to plan or predict a real military operation. Real combat is Time Competitive, determining random initiative, IGYG, card, and unit activations are not.

Also, there are many player/coaches even in professional sports.

Wolfhag

Wolfhag we should all play as we like. However "professional" you are does not make you perfect that there is only one desighn solution. For you to even suggest my rules could be used for military solutions is somewhat dissapointing in that it assumes I don't understand the limitations of my own simulation and that its design objevtive align with thoise of the military. While modelling the same things, simulations have diffrent objecyives so may only be of real use if the objectives of the design align. In many ways Maneouvre Group is not designed to align with a military where far more practical training and theory is taught by dirrent means.

I do find it irritating that some folk seem to believe it's anti-social not to have begginers ine every game, when this is as far as I can see not the case in any other game. To be honest I belive it brings the game into disrepute as being only for folk who cannot manage to play at any decent level, unlike any othert sport. our own group coaches a lot of the time but in the end we are players, so want to play the game. Beginners need to be some minimum standard befoire they can play in a "proprt game".

I see how Wolfhag even implied there was only one design solution.
You just wrote off all Etotheipi's input as rubbish?

You seem inclined to leap to negative interpretations of whatever others write.
Maybe that explains why you feel it's ok to write off the opinions of others.

I'm going to have words with my editor!
Seem to have somehow missed off a Don't.

I DON'T see how Wolfhag even implied there was only one design solution.

The person issuing the order does not (and by military best practice should not want to) precisely position each person in the unit in a specific spot on the hill. Beyond that, in interpreting commander's intent, the lower level decision makers might move off the hill in order to sustain suppressive fire. And, again the strategist would hopefully not need to explicitly tell them to move or which specific units should or should not move to a different location.

etotheipi:
Sorry, I missed your response. I've been traveling. All you write is true. So, the issue is constraining the decision-making ability of the player[s]. I am sure you have seen military studies on the odds of particular behaviors under particular orders based on circumstances. Group behaviors do have constraints too. That is why it is hard for professionals to deal with amateurs at times. No methods or anticipated actions of trained troops.

Players have different spans of control than commanders.

Only if 1. the rules are designed that way, and 2. if the players want that kind of game, particularly with miniatures. That doesn't make wargames with whatever number of players inherently unrealistic. It is as you say, a design challenge. Of course, black powder commanders at all levels work under some different constraints, system, and abilities compared modern commanders.

In a wargame, it is extremely difficult to design it so that every player has something very close to the actual span of control of different decision makers. With a 1 v 1 set up, you're talking about a very limited span of control.

Yep, difficult, and possibly doable, but problematic as an interesting wargame. Longstreet and Marmont both noted that Corp commanders had only 3 decisions to make during a battle. Napoleon didn't issue any orders for the first two hours of Austerlitz after releasing Soult. I am thinking of the 45 minute 2 player board game of 1815 Waterloo. Few decisions condensed into a simple corps level game. The players commit a corp, but the outcomes are outside their control: diced. I think Compass Games has come up with a paper version of the system for Waterloo.

To play the game moving figures around, the players pretty much have to reach outside a commander's span of control.

True, so the issue is the control the players have in moving units outside a commander's control hierarchy. [I think that is what you mean by span.] A while back Piquet attempted to weaken this control with lots of card and dice mechanisms. It was chaotic, but missed a lot.

In our TMP link OXI Day game, three players collaborating on the disposition of forces is not very close to realistic. But it is closer to realistic. As people described above, friction of war is an essential part for a military commander. And it is a part I like to have in wargames.

I am all for getting 'closer' to realistic. I enjoy that aspect of multi-player games too. When you say "not very close to realistic." What would be 'closer?' How many factors are we talking about here?

The issues of difficulty, the medium used to portray battle and what is enjoyable all play into the question. However, I think it is a question of 'how close' we can get to realistic. That is only done through designing the game system visa vie reality. Certainly there are a lot of periphery issues that constrain or direct that creativity.

I just think it isn't a linear or can't do it proposition. It is just a matter of work and what we want to achieve.

My experience in designing games and simulations was in Education and Business. The idea was to provide experiences that transferred knowledge, awareness of environmental dynamics/behaviors, and any attendant skills. I had to prove that the simulation games did just that: Made the participants more effective in the targeted areas. It did teach me to be very focused on what 'realism' was being portrayed and how.

The power of simulations/wargames is that they can provide a section of the real world/real history without all the expense and gore. What is the point of a simulation that is a totally realistic battle? It is a real battle. Simulations are never intended to be nor capable of providing all reality at once.

So the question is what part of reality does the designer want to capture and what does he/she want the participants to experience?

I was lucky in that I wasn't constrained by the medium I could employ, from computers to paper and pencil. And these simulations could be, or had to be as short as a few minutes to hours/and days long.

So, that is how I look at wargame design: What part of reality do you want to portray and how? Then determine how close to that reality you got by testing it. It's difficult at times, but not complicated in concept. It works.

The problem is. If you command say a company of Modern British or even modern Ukrainians taught for a decent time by the Brits you can reasonable expect to predict there behaviors most of the time. Some may be slower than others but they will have a common set of strategies in there play books and understand the basic limitations of there weapons systems and at least make the best of a bad job.

Now in those cases you can give a player with similar skills you can delegate that task and expect and get a reasonable response. Give it to a guy who last fought a Battle with Romans and he is not going to have a clue how to deploy his modern troops that is definitely massively unrealistic. Far more unrealistic than a single player game with some element of friction built in so not all platoons depoly at exactly the same rate. Yes a multi player game in some circumstances can be better. However in my experience is that it is very rare to get that level of skill in multi player games, many players have little or no experience of the period and in many cases have not even bothered to read the rules, which helps a bit. In addition some players will inevitably be in reserve, they can't have two command structures in many cases, as that would be well beyond their capability, if an when the reserves are called.
Now for some games, where the idea is to line up two sides and do little more than advance (many games only last 4 to 6 bounds and don't move fast) it may be possible. Our games last the equivalent of perhaps 10 bounds so stuff can get tricky very fast.

So multi player games can have their moments but they most certainly are not universally more realistic, depending on the players skill and experience of the period.

UshCha:

I agree with you that multi-player games are not universally more realistic. It all depends on the realism targeted.

This experienced vs inexperienced player has been a theme with you. While I understand that as a very experienced player with your rules, it can be a brake on enjoyment to have a less experienced/knowledgeable player in the game.

However, this seems to leave out providing any kind of learning curve for players. Either you are in or you are out. Even someone well-versed in modern combat tactics and operations would still have to learn how your rules portray all that. I believe that IF the rules do capture something of reality, then new players, by trial and error, will learn 'proper' tactics. After all, that is what military men often do in reality. The idea is that simulations/wargames mitigate some of that learning curve.

Your approach just seems very, very insular. Outside participants not wanted. Certainly your prerogative, but geese!

Not all our games are of that standard, we do have beginners and we do train them. We don't run every game at the top level. Such games require a lot from the players so they do not outnumber the more simple games we can train begginers in. As to the rules they are in reality more simple than many, there are none of the huge check lists of many rules, we achieve the effects of those by other more elegant systems. We have an ex-service man who does not understand the rules. He simply tells us what wants doing, he beats us or gives a very good run for our money. He is however very good at tactics and can often read the terrain faster and better than we do.

Not all our games are of that standard, we do have beginners and we do train them. We don't run every game at the top level. Such games require a lot from the players so they do not outnumber the more simple games we can train begginers in.

Why didn't you say that in the first place? <grin>

However you do it is up to you. Ideally, we want to get as many new people into the hobby as we can by making it an enjoyable and fun (oh the horror) experience so they'll come back.

Wolfhag

UshCha:

Well, that is good to hear. You have sounded a bit severe and exclusionary considering inexperienced gamers.

He simply tells us what wants doing, he beats us or gives a very good run for our money.

That's a vote in the validity process for your rules.

UghChow: See I can condescendingly misspell a name that appears in print too.

You are coming across as pedantic, condescending, and "one true way" here.

Are you interested in a discussion with others who may have differing points of view or do you just want to preach to the unwashed?

It is good to read that your group does train new players. How else will we grow the hobby?