"Do "good guys" and "bad guys" matter?" Topic

Some wars we want, as Kissinger said of Iran vs Iraq, both sides to lose. Hitler vs Stalin is the biggest example. We all play the Russian front.

And one can find wars in which both sides were fighting honorably for values they held and that we might share: 1775-1783, 1861-1865 are examples.

I am now working within CYNTHIA ANN'S WAR on white rangers and later US cavalry attacking Comanche villages. Nasty stuff, but then the Comanche raids on white settlements were as nasty, and turnabout is fair play. No one who is willing to game the one has any logical basis for objecting to gaming the other. Raids on settlements can be challenging tactical problems and can make good games.

So, to what extent do you, do we as a hobby community, care about who is a good guy or a bad guy or (frequently) a very human mixture of both?

I've put on Darkest African games where one side were Arab slavers and the other African cannibals… I told the players to take your pick.

As for honorable you might consider the War of 1912, a war both sides won… unless you were first nations of course…

you might consider the War of 1912, a war both sides won

Since the war started by the US invading Canada 3 times and getting beaten every time, I would say its a winning draw for the British.
It is better considered a war both sides claimed they won!

We're about zero for seven invading Canada, but I have no idea how our relations with Great Britain would have gone if we'd rolled over on their impressment of American seamen and their contention of inalienable nationality. For that matter, no telling how long the "Virginia Dynasty" might have continued without smoke rising from the District of Columbia.

To the basic question, I don't do atrocities. Open field battles with sides distinguishable and usually in uniforms. One of the many advantages of miniature warfare, after all is that it doesn't create miniature widows and orphans.

Fooling around with skirmish/RPG, which might involve a little more moral ambiguity. But to make a game of it, "soft targets" would have to have guards, at least, and might well be competent combatants.

As an example, raids on Comanche villages depended on surprise and speed, as reinforcements for the camp often appeared. There would be some warriors present, and their priorities seem to have been get the horse herd out, and get the women and children to safety. Tipis offer concealment if not much cover, and are also obstacles to cavalry. Confusion would reign. So tactically challenging, and also strategically if the attackers get over-extended and more warriors arrive. There is definitely a historical simulation to be set up, and one can define victory conditions for both sides to make it an interesting game.

I am struggling a bit to muster enthusiasm for it, but I HAVE ALREADY ENJOYED gaming a Comanche sacking of a Texan town. And I'll bet many of us have played Vikings hitting a settlement. What do we think the Norsemen DID with the captive women? If it makes an enjoyable game with Vikings, and Comanche, then why not also Texas rangers?

But as I say, it does give me pause . . .

glengarry, yes, and not morally much different from Nazis versus Commies.

When I played Flames of War, I refused to play Bad Guys.
Then I got Russians. 🙄 Mainly because Nazis were worse than Commies.
I got Finns to fight the Commies.
I got Hungarians to fight the Commies.

Only once did I play the Fascist Scum™️, and that was under protest and I hated myself.
I would NEVER play SS.

Now, I am rid of my Flames of War junk.

Traditionally people have tended to see their own side as morally virtuous and the other as villains. Modern western culture's self-hate leads it to bemoan our own failings with little regard for the sins of the other guys. Does John McBride somehow expect Texas rangers or US cavalry to have more restraint than Comanche and Sioux? or take it back to Cortez versus the Aztecs with their massive human sacrifice. No one lives up to their own standards completely, but we can presumably judge comparative standards.

John, I don't know how you figure Ns were worse than Cs. Stalin murdered way more people than Hitler, though of course he had more years in which to do it.

John on Nazi worse than Communists see Democide
hawaii.edu/powerkills

They just got on winning side in WWII

Though in my usual games, no one seems worse than the others, in my American Revolutionary games have yet to play the American side, no reason not to continue that if I can.
But say in a game I wanted to a few times but never had a chance, Dien Bien Phu, would play either side, can't have a game without someone being the bad guys.
And many French captured didn't live.

So who would you consider the bad guys at DBP?

Classic "Tu quoque" logical fallacies. The "Yeah, but what about…" fallacy. What it really means is that you are acknowledging evil, but trying to deflect that somehow someone else is worse.
We see it in our own presidential "debates". "Yeah, but what about….!"
Why are you demanding that I take sides in the great "lesser of two evils" debate?
The stated purpose of the Nazis was to conquer other nations and murder their racially inferior people.

I'm not defending the Commies. I'm despising the Nazis. Frankly, I'm astounded that people who claim to be intelligent and educated base this on numbers.

The OP asks about "good guys vs bad guys", pretending to be reasonable, and then gets bent out of shape when I answer it.

When I play Plains Indians vs Palefaces, I know that both sides committed atrocities.
When I run a Pirate game, I expect treachery, bloodshed and criminal acts. And I love it.
Prussia vs Austria? Who is the Good Guy? Who is the Bad Guy?
I've painted both sides in the AWI since way back in the previous century. Whichever side wins, I'll still be speaking English. Well, technically…

Please do not suggest propaganda links, which I will not bother to read.
Go ahead and call me close minded. I don't care what you think. So there.

So, to what extent do you, do we as a hobby community, care about who is a good guy or a bad guy or (frequently) a very human mixture of both?

The only extent that I care about that is how it affects their doctrine, which should have strategic framing effect in a scenario.

The majority of soldiers in the Wehrmacht were conscripted by a dictatorship (structured societal fear). Auxiliaries were direclty or indirectly "recruited" under threat to their family/community (individual fear). While the inage of a comissar standing behind the lines and personally shooting people who retreated is poetic license, execution for what we would consider minor- or non-offenses (like "not fighting hard enough") was common (institutional fear).

My grandfather fought in resistance movements against the Nazis and then the Soviets. The Nazis would have called him a Communist collaborator for resisting their occupation and the Sovs would have called him a Nazi collaborator for resisting their occuption.

Who were the clear "bad guys"? The Brits, because of the Cambridge Five.

Then the Allies. When my grandfather, mother, and two aunts were in a displaced people's camp in Germany, the Sovs came around to "repatriate", per agreement with the Allies, it was a British officer who told them the document they had said they could repatriate "Russians". No Czechs, Poles, Latvians, Lithuanianns, Estonians, Ukranians, and others.

There may not be good guys and bad guys, but there are some really bad and good people.

Point: The ideology of the people represented on the board is not a single, unified thing. Playing a force does not mean you are adopting some cartoon-level simplified ideology associated with it. It means you are taking on a specific military challenge within a strategic framework.

Last Point: Devil's River

I have Memoir ‘44. Somebody has to play the Germans, otherwise you can't have a game. Same for Wings of Glory or some other aircraft combat game, either in WWI or WWII— somebody has to play the Germans/Japanese.

If you game Cowpens, somebody has to be Tarleton, who was a vicious, bloodthirsty killer, no matter how you look at him.

And then we have ancients and medieval— I *like* the roots of Western Civilization to win out, even if the combatants on "my" side were brutal, cruel, and capricious.

The distance of time helps. Who was nastier— Alexander or Darius? Who cares— put ‘em on the table and duke it out.

It's also easier when one has no connection to the fight (at least that one knows of). An American can be Wellington or Napoleon without likely caring at all, whereas perhaps an Englishman or a Frenchman might insist on playing "his" side, so as to be the "good" side.

But at some point it becomes as ridiculous as having qualms about chess because the pieces are white and black.

eto, yes, you can't always tell the good guys but the bad guys are often pretty obvious.

The moral choice is often the lesser evil. And sometimes that (which is the lesser) is something upon which reasonable men of good character may disagree.

Parz, yes, that seems to be the bottom line.

But at some point it becomes as ridiculous as having qualms about chess because the pieces are white and black.

Something like that actually happened a few years ago.
"There were those" who argued that Chess was racist because White always made the first move, and Black was FORCED to move second.
This controversy didn't last more than a week, if that. But, people have to be allowed to speak nonsense. But I am not forced to listen.
I blame the internet. 😄🍺

History is rarely as simple as goodies and baddies, so why should historical wargamers view it that way?

In Warhammer 40,000, the famous tagline states that there are "no goodies"—every faction is flawed and pursuing its own interests.

While some historical figures and regimes deserve condemnation, most conflicts are far more complex than a simple morality play. I'd suggest the 40K approach is often closer to reality than viewing one side as heroes and the other as villains.

John, my Lewis chess set is in red & white.

link

What does this make me? A fan of the sun-burnt?

Glad I missed that chess nonsense. Yes, have a quartz set from Mexico that are clear vs green