"Defining Success--and Failure" Topic

As a follow-up to the current poll on why wargame projects fail, perhaps it's appropriate to decide what constitutes either success or failure. I would suggest
(1) that a wargame project is a success if you assemble at least two armies, suitable terrain and rules and fight battles. (How many battles? Good question.)
(2) I'd say it's a failure if you buy or build some of the necessary elements, but throw them out, give them away or sell them off without ever having what you need for a game.
(3) You can tell yourself the verdict is still out as long as you have pieces of the incomplete project, but after a time, you're just lying to yourself. (How much time? Good question.)
But there are interim states.
(4) You built it, but no one came. Is it a failure if the completed project attracts no gamers?
(5) You cannibalized the project. Is it a failure if the troops, terrain or whatever were folded into another project? (For example, my 28mm Tudor English condensed scale DBA project never played, but was rebased for Lion/Dragon Rampant.)

So we have four polls:
A. Which of those five states do you regard as a success?
B. Which of them do you regard as a failure?
C. How long must someone else's project go unfinished before you regard it as a failure?
D. How many games must we get out of a project to regard it as a success?

Or am I missing important criteria?

E. What satisfaction did I derive from learning about the period? What skills did I develop that I can apply to other things?

E(aug). What satisfaction did I derive from any of the other actions I took during the project? (painting, building, sculpting, modding, learning modeling techniques)

WRT C, Why am I to establish a failure criterion for someone else's hobby activities?

I would think that "success" is achieving whatever goal you set at the start of the project.

Enjoying a process of not achieving the goal, doesn't make the goal achieved. It just means the hobby is enjoyabe whether you achive your goals or not.

E. seems very reasonable, thank you both--though I would have called it (6)--another possible outcome and not another possible poll.

I phrased C as I did because of the immense capacity for self-deception. We all know that none of our own projects have crashed and burned: they're just something we'll get back to one of these days. But we can mostly see that Robert's 1/72 MAW project stalled long ago.

Was it Salamis? Some classical Greek naval action where a poll of ships' captains after the battle got as many different votes for "Most Important Captain" as there were surviving captains--everyone voting for himself. But they all settled on the same individual for second place.

Enjoying a process of not achieving the goal, doesn't make the goal achieved. It just means the hobby is enjoyabe whether you achive your goals or not.

Why would your goal not be enjoyment itself? Is that not what a hobby is – an activity you do for enjoyment?

the immense capacity for self-deception

Self deception is fairly common. Almost as common as telling other people they are not having fun the right way.

I don't know. Is enjoyment of the hobby, a hobby project with respect to the referenced poll?

My impression is that we each establish the scope/objectives/goals of our hobby projects, and only each of us can accurately qualify success or failure with respect to the scope/goals/objectives of our projects.

I have projects that don't involve needing rules, or two armies, or terrain, etc. Some projects are related to playing a single scenario one time, etc. Thus, many of Robert's attempts to qualify success or failure don't really relate to at least some of my projects.

A appreciate what Robert is asking, I just see it as a bit of an exercise in cat herding, as the way that we pursue our hobbies can be very different.

Good grief, eto are you having unauthorized, inappropriate fun? AGAIN? Report to the painting table for additional duty, and then to UshCha for retraining.

Actually, this post probably derives from watching too many politicians, generals and bureaucrats redefining "success" to avoid admitting they'd wasted time and money and achieved nothing. Add to that wargaming estates cleaned up, the inevitable flea market tables with five painted castings, ten more primed and 100 still in the original packaging, and my own guilt over time and money which might have been spent more productively, and you can get a bit cynical when people insist that none of their own projects have failed.

But Irishserb has a point, especially in defining "project" and that the journey can be pleasant without arriving at the destination. Not for me, of course. But that's me.

RE: How much time?

I'm painting the FASA Star Trek miniatures that I started collecting back in the '90s. I've been working on this exclusively for three years now, because I'm just a slow painter.

Hobby, or hobby not. There is no fail.

No game design will please everyone so I think games should be judged on whether the designer accomplishes the goals he set out for the game or not. Whether someone will like the game and play it again depends on their past gaming experience, expectations, historical knowledge, bias, and their ability to suspend belief and imagination.

Large publishing companies rate success based on the game or series' profitability.

Personally, I like or dislike games based on whether I am performing the same actions as real crews and commanders and whether the action is being realistically parsed.

The level of historical realism of the terrain and models can be more of a determining enjoyment factor than the rules and game system and influence the overall experience. Excellent terrain can makes up for poor rules.

Wolfhag

My father was a collector of many historical items, all of which were stored in a house full of boxes. In his twilight I asked him if he ever thought about selling his collections so other people could enjoy them. Answer: "No." I asked him how he enjoyed his collections when he couldn't even see them (other than all of the boxes). He said, "I enjoy them by knowing that I own them."

The key for any project is to ask yourself "what does success look like?" When you start.

My current project is an Age of Sigmar army for a local Path to Glory league. Success is ending with the 1500 point painted army and having played my 8 games.

I generally define success as everything necessary to play a game, and a gaming season (minimum of a game a month for 6-8 months) completed. Sadly, old age and illness have caught up with opponents, and the 2mm forces were only intended for my anticipated storage and portability problems. So now I have this bow wave of forces played with only solo--which I don't do well--or hanging at "almost ready" because there's no scheduled game to nudge me to finish stuff.

No doubt this will change. Or it will cease to be a concern.

Who was the famous military commander who said, "We will set a fixed, well-defined set of goals before we start, then ignore changing circumstances and stick to them no matter what … ahhhhh … success"? Oh, yeah … noone nowhere.

I do agree that redefining success can be abused. Then again, pretty much any activity worth doing can be abused. I think it comes down to case-by-case: Are you being intellectually honest (with yourself, sometimes) or not?

I would be loathe to tell the person with 5 painted figures, etc. that they "failed". NMB. Maybe they just made a poor decision (including the decision to cave to peer pressure) to initiate the project, and fixed it later. They could certainly decide that was a failure, but I would not.

Is enjoyment of the hobby, a hobby project with respect to the referenced poll?

I think if it is a hobby activity, one of your goals has to be to enjoy some part of it. Painting up 50 dark age axemen could be "I want to have a good time converting then painting up these figures in a different colour palette than my current ones. I'll probably use them in a game soon." for me and "I'll suffer through painting these figures up so I can get them on the table to rock the Vikings in America campaign we are playing JUL-AUG" for someone else.

Some projects are "no project is ever finished" and "every project is finished when you stop" at the same time. My modern civilians, for example. I already have enough modern civilians to play many, many games. Last week, I finished my "fans in Chelsea kit" (a nice new faction). I will probably do other groups sooner or later.

" I asked him how he enjoyed his collections when he couldn't even see them (other than all of the boxes). He said, "I enjoy them by knowing that I own them." "

Most times it is the hunt for the items themselves that is the enjoyment (the items being the trophies of success. Mostly speaking of myself here… ;-)

Nah. Just buying something in a store or on line is like shooting a tame animal. For sport and the sense of triumph, you want the hunt for the items which are in the garage--somewhere. I understand zoos have taken up hiding the food of foraging species, so trying to find lunch raises their activity level. My efforts to find my bases, my WWII TO&E, my X-acto knife and my 5/0 reading glasses make me one with my fellow primates.

I don't see why assembling two armies should be a criterion for success. I normally play against other people, so I don't particularly need to field both sides if someone else has the other one.

I explicitly think of 1 as the aim (then each additional army becomes a specific project based on that).

Fair question, Conformist. I always go for two because otherwise the whole thing crashes and burns when the "someone else" moves or loses interest. I figure the minimum is an unpainted opposition army because otherwise scale creep or the closing of manufacturers will leave you stranded.

I need all the sides for a game because I host.

That said, most projects anymore are not "two armies" (ignoring lots of scenarios that need more than two sides).

For example, when I started Plains Indians, I already had ACW Union, (which made US Army) and 19th Century civilians. i only needed to expand my collection with one force. Likewise, for some specific games, I only needed expand those three "sides" with some specific additional figures.