"What Historical Games Do Better Than Fantasy" Topic

What do historical games do better than fantasy?

Obvious candidates:

Command friction and control
Morale and cohesion over time
Asymmetry and scenario-driven play

Where do fantasy rules fall short when it comes to modelling how battles actually work?

I'm curious to hear from both sides.

TMP link

I think a connection to real events and what those involved might have gone through, so scenario driven.

I think you could sum it up as "nuance." A fantasy game doesn't have to worry about anything it doesn't want to. It certainly doesn't have to concern itself with whether William the Conqueror had late slingers or early crossbowmen at Hastings, or that a historical battle of this or that would be an "unfair" one. The historical rulesmith and scenarist have to work under serious restraints.

Mind you, they sometimes fail. But when they succeed, you can say, "Yes, if that different decision had been made, it might have changed subsequent history."

Historical does WW2 much better than fantasy. :)

So why are the WWII boards--and miniatures manufacturers--infested with walkers and zombies these days, Grattan? This is not to mention shapeshifters and such in the Old West and all manner of supernatural entities showing up in 28m Napoleonics.

Should Bill be changing the traps more often? Is there no effective biodegradable zombiecide?

This is something I read in a John Carter of Mars novel, which I read right after reading something about troop movements. We've all seen a variant of this in movies and TV, though.
John Carter and a hundred or so followers find an unguarded tunnel and go down it to attack the enemy. They come pouring out the tunnel (variants: blow a hole in the wall and charge in, break down the gate and charge) The movies have hordes of people fighting all over the place. In actuality, it would have taken an hour or so for the warriors to sortie from the tunnel. But it looks so dramatic, and we can all picture the attackers swarming out.
Fantasy can go for the visuals like this we all picture in our minds and ignore actual calculations. One of those things I liked about The Return of the King was the scene where Ghan-buri-Ghan tells the Rohirrim about the forgotten road, and Eomer calculates how long it will take their army to pass along the road and come out near Minas Tirith.

Grelber

So is the real divide that historical games prioritise process, while fantasy tends to prioritise effect?

I THINK (??) I disagree. Seems to me that a good fantasy mass combat rules set (my old PRIDE OF LIONS, for example, he said humbly) can model anything that an historical rules set can. Command and control, morale, weapons characteristic, fatigue, etc. -- why not? If the orcs are equipped and fight like Germanic tribesmen, the same rules work (or not) for both. What fantasy adds, obviously, is magic and such, as well as monsters.

But I do agree that history sets limits on the imagination, although that is overrated sometimes!

I am working very hard to make CYNTHIA ANN'S WAR a solidly historical treatment of Texans vs Comanche pre-Civil War. But it will ALSO have a Weird West package as an optional add-on because I enjoy that sometimes, and some others do too. You pays your money and you takes your pick.

robert, anyone else, remember the comics from the 1950s that had the WWII US guys running into dinosaurs and such? Not sure how extensive that was a thing, and maybe I'll ask Grok.

You know, you can't cross-post comments. But here goes:

I remember "The War that Time Forgot" from my youth, though I wasn't a big fan. And something much later--maybe that 2008 miniseries?--which somehow brought Deathstroke the Terminator to Dinosaur Island. In the end, seeing what the Marines have for weapons and the size of the local fauna, the Great Assassin feels obliged to give them his personal weapon--roughly the size of an office photocopier--and accept a loss on the assignment. You wouldn't see Lex Luthor doing that, and I have my doubts about Victor von Doom. For a cold-blooded killer, Deathstroke is a pretty nice guy.

I think historical gaming for the most part, has to introduce elements of friction be it command and control, morale, logistics or simply some irksome elements be it doofus commanders or bad communications that represent real life Murphy and his law. Fantasy can include that but is free to discard the bits that don't entertain.

I view Fantasy as being relative to Ancient and Medieval historical rather than rifle and mechanized.I do not regard horror as fantasy. SciFy is not fantasy either.

Sci-fi isn't fantasy? Really? It's all made up too. 🙄🍺

Well, we "all" played WRG "ancients" and fought battles between opponents a thousand years and a continent away from one another in real history. So what?

The great constant is human nature. Including human conflict.

And also STORY.

So history/scifi/fantasy/horror? Mox nix to me.

@ McKinstry
That's a good way of putting it—historical games have to include friction because it's inherent in the subject.

Reading this alongside the fantasy thread, though, it's interesting that those same elements (command issues, delays, imperfect info) are often the first things to get stripped out in favour of clearer battlefield roles and outcomes.

At the same time, a lot of the narrative emphasis we now see in historical gaming—scenario-driven play, "what if" decisions, player experience—feels like it's moved closer to what fantasy gamers have been doing for years.

So it's not just "real vs made up". It's which elements are treated as essential (like friction) and which are there to serve the story of the game.

That might be why the two approaches feel different, but are perhaps not as far apart as they used to be.

@ John – historical*, fantasy/sci-fi: it's all made up.But not all made up to the same constraints.

That's where the differences start to matter.

* Oooer! Controversial!

In the big picture, sometimes historical rules get caught up in the designers' rigid intent to replicate the results of certain battles, and skew mechanics in a results-oriented manner that is actually ahistorical in its details. Fantasy games aren't trying to necessarily reproduce specific results, so can be more agnostic mechanically and thereby blunder into better simulational feel.

I think of all the games that introduce layer upon layer of chrome to enable Roman legionnaires, or high water mark French Napoleonic infantry, to win every encounter, dismissing an interpretation that the historical contexts created the victories not the inherent super-scores or fiddly chrome.

A good game is a good game. In 'Fantasy games' the toilets work and you get the occasional fire ball-but that doesn't make it a write off. You also don't need rules for flaming roman pigs or unbreakable squares. Historical fiction is still fiction, but you need a lot of fun facts to make it plausible. Good fantasy must lay down their own fun 'facts'
to make a believable world.

Rules for magic are annoying. Historical rules have no magic rules. That is a plus.

The "original" Brown Box DnD used Chainmail, a "historical" skirmish game, and grafted in magic and other fantasy stuff.
I came in later with White Box. We were not "Advanced". 😄
Take that. For what it's worth.

Where do fantasy rules fall short when it comes to modelling how battles actually work?

Where the authors thought it would be more fun than "succeeding".

Well, sometimes they also just screw up without meaning to, but that goes equally for writers of historical rules.

John in 1977 I had TSR Chainmail. When I saw the brown box D&D I considered the box as a supplement just to cover magic and fantasy creatures.

Rudy, that was kind of our attitude too.
Then, we started naming ourselves after Conan and LOTR figures.

Heritage and the yellow LotR range and the Maroon John Carter range. The ranges used color to designate a range based on package and spin rack color. Historical was black and Star Trek was silver. I cannot remember if they used white.

I am currently using Age of Hannibal for my 2mm fantasy figures. It works just fine. I have been able to model giants, trolls, and even a dragon using nothing but the standard rules. At the level of battle that Tolkien wrote there is not a lot of difference between Men, Orcs, and Elves.