"The Cinematic History principle" Topic

I sometimes think that historical wargaming is rather like a good historical film.

Consider films such as 'Waterloo', 'Gettysburg' or 'A Bridge Too Far'. Historians can point to numerous inaccuracies. Timelines are compressed. Personalities are simplified or amalgamated. Units are left out. Certain events are omitted altogether. Yet, despite these liberties, many viewers come away with a genuine sense of the battle's character.

'Waterloo' feels like Waterloo.

'Gettysburg' feels like Gettysburg.

'A Bridge Too Far' feels like Market Garden.

The films convey something deeper than mere factual accuracy: they capture the atmosphere, the dilemmas, the tension and, above all, the essence of the events.

Good wargames should aspire to do the same.

After all, every set of rules is a compromise. We distort ground scales, compress time, simplify command structures and reduce thousands of men to a handful of figures on a table. Absolute accuracy is impossible.

The question, therefore, is not:

"Is the game perfectly accurate?"

but rather:

"Does the game create an experience that feels historically authentic?"

When playing Waterloo, for example, do I feel the growing pressure of the Prussian approach? Does committing the Guard feel like a desperate gamble? Does the battlefield create the same command problems that Wellington and Napoleon faced?

If the answer is yes, then perhaps the game has succeeded, even if the artillery ranges are mathematically incorrect or the battalion frontages are distorted.

Likewise, a game may be perfectly scaled in every measurable respect and yet somehow fail to evoke the battle. It can become an exercise in geometry rather than history.

I would therefore suggest a "Cinematic History" principle:

A good historical wargame need not reproduce every detail with scientific precision; it should instead recreate the essential experience and command challenges of the historical event.

In other words, I'd rather play a game that feels like Waterloo than one that merely measures Waterloo.

Am I guilty of rank heresy, or do others think that the "feel" of a battle is ultimately more important than perfect technical accuracy?

I completely agree with the OP. What we do necessarily simplifies reality, but we still want to have an enjoyable experience. Wargames design is as much an art as a science.

I've designed some games or scenarios I thought were well researched and accurate, but we're just turkeys to play. Other times I'd sling something together and it just works.

Being an art means that one person's idea of a good game will be different from someone else's.

I totally agree. I want my Waterloo terrain look like pictures of the 19th century. I want my troops look colorful and not drab, like it was raining since three days. I want the rules give a dramatic account not the feel of the 2nd Nassau standing five hours behind the ridge waiting.

No, I'd agree. I've taken part in "bathtubbed" battles which still caught the essence of the battle they portrayed, and most of the time, that's the objective.

Well said, and I completely agree!

"Real life as seen in the movies!" has long been my wargaming motto.
=^,^=

Spot on. If a game "feels right" that goes a lot farther than claiming it's 100% "accurate" (which is an impossibility anyway).

This principle applies to HISTORY as well as to gaming. Everything is ALWATS more complex than the historian says it is.

Great thread and totally agree

Totally Agree

Larry Brom with The Sword and the Flame was the first set of rules I found that embodied this concept

In some ways is also part of the discussion regarding Simulations versus Gaming

Worth remembering Paul Koch of "On to Richmond" in this context. His scenarios were always good at capturing the essence of a battle rather than obsessing over unit strengths.

Gratifying that there seems to be broad agreement.

Here's a thought to stir the pot a little.

Where does tournament gaming fit into the "Cinematic History" principle?

Tournament games usually require balanced forces, equal chances of victory, standardised terrain and scenarios that can be completed in a set time. Yet history is almost never balanced, symmetrical or fair.

So is tournament gaming a different hobby altogether? Is it a competitive game using historical miniatures rather than an attempt to recreate historical command problems?

Or can a tournament game still capture the essence of history despite its necessary abstractions?

I confess I'm not entirely sure where I stand on this. I've never competitively gamed. It feels to me that tournament gaming often falls somewhere between chess and historical simulation—neither fish nor fowl.

Thoughts?

Feels like is a VERY questionable approach. I have no idea how a Napoleonic army really fights, I might feel it was a good fight but without a thorough understanding to somebody who is interested in that period it may be an excruciating experience. Many WW 2 rules make for excruciating play, weapons are incorrectly deployed an so it degenerates into an unpleasant farce.

Cinemar is not a good reference to history so you get something, unreal and uninteresting. I guess it's down to what you define as a good interesting battle.

A fair point, UshCha and perhaps "cinematic history" wasn't my best choice of phrase, as it can imply Hollywood fantasy rather than historical authenticity.eg the recent "Napoleon" movie.

Perhaps the better analogy is portrait painting.

A good portrait is not a photograph. It emphasises certain features and suppresses others yet somehow captures the sitter more truthfully than a mechanically exact image.

Likewise, I wouldn't defend poorly researched rules that produce absurd results or misuse historical weapons and tactics. Research matters enormously.

My point is simply that, since every wargame is inevitably a compromise, perhaps our aim should be to capture the essence of an event—the command problems, the dilemmas and the atmosphere—rather than every literal detail.

A game can be technically precise and yet somehow not feel like the battle it purports to represent. Equally, a game with certain abstractions may nevertheless evoke the character of the event remarkably well.

Perhaps the real question is this:

Should a historical wargame strive to be a photograph of history, or a portrait of it?

Should a historical wargame strive to be a photograph of history, or a portrait of it?

In fact, I prefer my wargames to look like the portraits of famous battles. Some paintings look like wargames, and make me want to put them on the table.

I agree with the original post, and note that Doc McB makes a good point about all of history being more complex than historians might say.

Full disclosure: I have a BA in history. A big part of our study was comparing various accounts about the same event, and comparing various history books about the same event. You come to see the decisions authors had to make to tell the story, whether they were there or whether they were putting it together from original source material.

Ober, yes, I was about to say, and you preempted it: it is about the STORY. Ambrose Bierce in THE DEVIL'S DICIONARY defines a historian as "a broad gauge gossip." Technology and weapons and tactics and all of that is interesting, yes, but it comes down to the humans who use and do and are also subjected to all of those things.

There is much to know about Agincourt, and much omitted by Shakespeare in HENRY V, including the(necessary) slaughter of the French prisoners. But while it is entirely appropriate to teach the gristly reality, we also not only want but NEED the "band of brothers" and 'a little touch of Harry in the night."

I love Henry V as play but to me it has little to say Abu history or wargaming to me wargaming is about
T technical issues and how they impact tactics and command and control and the flow of dsrs supporting it
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I sometimes think that historical wargaming is rather like a good historical film.

Yes, somewhat, especially the visuals and graphics which is pretty much what miniatures gaming emphasizes. Remember, films are "based on a true story" mainly for entertainment.

Documentary films are more "historical" communicating the facts without using special effects to fool you. I've never seen a historical Hollywood movie that pleased the historical minds of players but then it was not supposed to as it is a movie for entertainment and needs to make money and not please the less than 5% of the people watching that know what really happened.

This is why I consider most of the hobby to be entertainment which is not a bad thing. The less knowledge a player has about a battle or period of history the easier it is to create the visuals to fool them into thinking it is historically authentic.

I've played games at conventions where the setup for a historical battle I was totally familiar with had hundreds of figures and excellent terrain appears totally historical until I started playing it. I acknowledge that's a personal problem I have in processing information (or lack of imagination?) because most IGYG and activation rules are a buzz kill for me.

Years ago at a convention in CA I played an Iwo Jima scenario in 28mm with a realistic looking Mount Suribachi that was at the end of the table 2.5 feet high with levels built inside and the terrain was excellent. The rules were super simple you could play for any period of history which is good for conventions.

I landed my Marine platoon with my Amtrack moving inland. The terrain was not very flat so I moved my Amtrack onto a small bunker which was knocked out. The two GMs had a book on the battle and started getting all excited. They came over and showed me a picture in the book from the real battle of an Amtrack atop a bunker almost identical to on the table and declared how accurate and historical the game is because they visually recreated something which happened in the battle.

Personally, I was shocked as both of them were very knowledgeable of the history, as was I. The visuals were great, the game was fun for all but unfortunately for me the rules were too simple to reflect what occurred at the tactical level of the battle. The main thing is that it works for you.

Wolfhag

I think there's a distinction worth mentioning and maintaining between what I think of as a historical wargame--the terrain and forces are right, and I have only the options open to the historical commander--and what I sometimes have heard called a "scripted" wargame, in which the tabletop commanders have much less discretion. A scripted game is a good test of the rules, or, if you're satisfied with the rules, a good way of analyzing a historical battle, as in "the deployment of both armies only makes sense if both commanders regarded the terrain to the immediate east to be impassable." For that sort of thing, nothing but the most rigid adherence to history works.

But the vast majority of the time, we're not that precise, and often can't be. And in those cases, Ochoin is spot on. A good Waterloo battle is one in which the French commander has to balance drying mud against advancing Prussians, and a stubborn British army with which he's unfamiliar. In a good Antietam, the Confederate commander has just enough troops--so long as the Union commander doesn't coordinate his attacks. Those concerns are much more important for capturing the essence of the battles than the exact depth of either sunken road. And done right, they can be great games.

The premise that Henry V or literary drama in general has nothing to offer history or wargaming is flawed – at least for the way I see military history.

Narrative accounts and theatrical works provide indispensable insights into the human factors of warfare and while "technical issues" and command and control etc remain just as vital in medieval wargaming as they do in modern military simulations,you ignore The Human Dimension.

Wars are fought by people, not just statistics. Drama and historical records help simulate the psychology of fatigued, sick, and heavily outnumbered armies taking massive risks, such as Henry V's decision to break traditional formations at Agincourt.

In a successful wargame of Agincourt, I would want the player in the role of Henry V to feel he has his back against the wall & the desperation of the situation as well as the fear the arrows might run out.

Yes. A teacher has to decide "who am I talking to" (from moment to moment sometimes, but in a lecture from the first sentence to the last) because the best student and the poorest rarely get equal benefit from any lesson. So in a game. Whose perspective? What level of decision?

In BLOODY DAWN I deliberately made the game from the perspective of the Mexican column commanders. (Which let five kids play that side in the game.) I did not concern myself with a Mexican corporal managing his squad and their ladder. That meant a whole bunch of things -- important things -- got rolled together into a few dice. The column commanders didn't control much -- but they were the ONLY ones who had any degree of control at all.

You can game the Alamo a lot of other ways, and be maybe as historical, and for sure have as much fun. But you have to pick a way, and cannot do them all.