How can a wargame be realistic?

[Belligerentparrot]

No offence taken, Fifteensaway, but I am afraid you missed the point of the comment. The "realism" point of the comment was that in reality, the larger the target is the easier it is to hit.

That holds regardless of the setting, I would have thought. Feel free to test it by throwing a pen across a room: is it easier to hit the door, or the door handle? 

[TacticalPainter]

I’d like to make an observation about the contributions to this thread. Several people have posted to the effect that they have no desire to see the violent reality of combat replicated on the table top, as if this was the primary thesis of the article. Frankly it’s clear they haven’t even read it and yet without doing so push their opinion as a counter to an argument that’s never made. That’s what you call a straw man.

I open the article saying this:

I've often heard it said that wargaming can never be realistic - no one is in danger, real bullets are not flying and there is no blood and gore. Well all I can say is, thank goodness. That's certainly not the realism I'm looking for in my games.

In other words, even the most cursory glance would have told you that’s not what the article is going to be about.

Second, the title of the article might also give a clue - “how can a wargame be realistic?”. It’s not ‘how to make a wargame realistic’, it poses a question that asks if it’s possible and if so in what ways. Replicating the extreme violence of combat is not one of them.

I make that point right from the very beginning but I suspect a few people haven’t come here for a discussion they’ve come to offer their opinions. In some cases as if those opinions were facts.

[Rickf]

Unfortunately mate, you've started a discussion about which quite a few people have very firm opinions.
Further to my other posts, I've been sat here thinking more about the realism most crave. I think another aspect I haven't  seen done really satisfactorily is the concept of time. Uber realistic skirmish games make 5 seconds of actions take 5 minutes of gaming, at the other end of the scale turning a huge formation that would take ages for real takes 5 minutes on the tabletop. Other scenarios that for real would require instant decisions, can allow far too much deliberation.
I'm quite inspired to have a go at writing some rules now, how hard can it be?

[TacticalPainter]

I think design of a historical game falls into two distinct parts. It needs the history and it needs the game.

I think a good starting point is to ask, what are you looking to recreate in your game? What role are you asking the gamer to take?

Then set up a table and assign two appropriate historical forces for the level of game you want to create, then without any preconceptions ask yourself, what happens next? Not in a game mechanic sense but historically - how does it all kick off? Who makes the decisions? What do they know? How do they get their subordinates to act etc etc

If you can map that out then I think you can begin to devise game mechanics to represent those activities and their responses.

To be honest I think the first part, the history, is quite straightforward and is really about researching the subject. The far harder part is creating streamlined and elegant mechanics that deliver a satisfactory playing experience that stay reasonably true to the history.

[Belligerentparrot]

I wonder, Tacticalpainter, if what you say about the mechanics - the 'far harder part' - is handled as much by the spirit the players play the game in.

E.g. suppose I could, within the rules, throw my small unit suicidally forward to tie up your much larger and more effective unit. Thinking of Carlos's point above about reluctance to engage, there are quite a lot of contexts in which this would be a very unrealistic move (though if you're the Marines and I'm the IJN maybe it makes perfect sense). Personally I'm OK with the rules leaving it a possibility, because if I want a realistic game I'll play with like-minded folk who won't try to exploit every advantage the rules allow.

Also, what you say about history strikes me as applying as much to sci-fi and other fiction settings: a well-built setting can add a lot to the design. 

[Dale Hurtt]

I haven’t read the article yet. That is next. Nonetheless, I had to reply about the comments. I find it interesting that the argument against realism is wargames is about blood and guts and how the individual soldier works. That might be a good argument if you always play skirmish games and each figure represents a single person, but let’s face it, looking at the posts in just this forum, that does not seem like the vast majority.

How many times have we heard about the higher level leaders being disengaged from reality when issuing down orders? They don’t smell the blood and guts. They likely are pushing models on a map (or computer screen) or only looking through a spyglass.

Stop trying to immediately crap on the idea and think a little bit.

[nicknorthstar]

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I don't want to remove this topic or close it down, so please think about what you're typing before posting.

[jon_1066]

I think design of a historical game falls into two distinct parts. It needs the history and it needs the game.

I think a good starting point is to ask, what are you looking to recreate in your game? What role are you asking the gamer to take?

Then set up a table and assign two appropriate historical forces for the level of game you want to create, then without any preconceptions ask yourself, what happens next? Not in a game mechanic sense but historically - how does it all kick off? Who makes the decisions? What do they know? How do they get their subordinates to act etc etc

If you can map that out then I think you can begin to devise game mechanics to represent those activities and their responses.

To be honest I think the first part, the history, is quite straightforward and is really about researching the subject. The far harder part is creating streamlined and elegant mechanics that deliver a satisfactory playing experience that stay reasonably true to the history.

I think you find the historical part is actually pretty hard as well!  Even just ww2 - one of the best documented wars in history has a multitude of things we aren't sure about, don't know, are contentious, etc.  The further back you go the more speculative the history becomes.

eg how many men were at the Battle of Shrewsbury in 1403?  How were they armed and armoured? How did they fight?  How were they organised?  Did they fight in mixed companies by lord, by type, some combination?  How was command and control exercised?  What constituted fighting in this period?  The popular version is two sides slaughtering each other in a grand melee.  Is the reality not far more likely that the two sides were loath to get within prodding range of a pike or sword for fear of death and disability? 

Now head back to ancients.  How on earth did they fight?  How did the Roman system work with the three lines?  Did they pass through each other?  How?  Were lines fed in to shore up the front line?  Again did the two sides simply batter each other or was combat far more circumspect?  I've not seen anything that reliably sets out how combat actually worked in both ancient and medieval times.

[Easy E]

Hard to design a realistic game when no one can agree on what is real!

[ithoriel]

The fact we don't know everything doesn't mean we know nothing!

For instance, we may not know the mechanics by which Roman legions rotated legionary lines but we have enough evidence to suggest they did. Unless we are reproducing legions at 1:1 figure scale we don't need to also reproduce the mechanism. However, we do need to reflect the ability of the legions to introduce fresh troops into the fight in a way other forces apparently could not, with a boost to Roman effectiveness in continuing fights or a reduction of the effectiveness of their opponents in the same circumstances.

Also, since ancient battles could last hours, it's a safe bet troops were not continuously hammering away at each other. Human Biology 101 should tell us that even if the relatively low reported casualties for the victors in many battles did not.

So, we can take the things we know, add our best guess at the things we only partly know and fill in the bits we don't know at all with inferences from other areas and come up with something that comes as close as we can get to the real thing or we can go,"It's only toy soldiers, what does it matter?"

Neither approach is inherently wrong but those approaches, and all the others in between will float some people's boats but not others.

Pick your poison.

I trust I can post this without needing to don my asbestos underwear 

[TheDilfy]

Unfortunately mate, you've started a discussion about which quite a few people have very firm opinions.
Further to my other posts, I've been sat here thinking more about the realism most crave. I think another aspect I haven't  seen done really satisfactorily is the concept of time. Uber realistic skirmish games make 5 seconds of actions take 5 minutes of gaming, at the other end of the scale turning a huge formation that would take ages for real takes 5 minutes on the tabletop. Other scenarios that for real would require instant decisions, can allow far too much deliberation.
I'm quite inspired to have a go at writing some rules now, how hard can it be?

True. The time aspect has come up before. There was an interesting series of articles in MW many decades ago that talked about telescoping time to make wargames more accurate. In terms of skirmish games - Steve Blease as come up with some interesting mechanisms in the past on this and Space Hulk weirdly uses telescoping time to reflect the slowness of humans versus the lightning speed and reflexes of the alien genestealers. Whether realistic or not, it feels accurate. Great interesting debate!

[Easy E]

Good stuff!  Go read it!

As long as a game has a point of view and sticks with it I am fine.  Whether that view is long, continuously engaged battle lines, the more dispersed node approach, or a battle with lots of movement I don't care. 

It is more important to me that the mechanics have a POV on how it worked and are internally consistent.  So if it thinks staying in battle line is critical, there should be positives and negatives for using the correct tactics.     

[jon_1066]

The fact we don't know everything doesn't mean we know nothing!

For instance, we may not know the mechanics by which Roman legions rotated legionary lines but we have enough evidence to suggest they did. Unless we are reproducing legions at 1:1 figure scale we don't need to also reproduce the mechanism. However, we do need to reflect the ability of the legions to introduce fresh troops into the fight in a way other forces apparently could not, with a boost to Roman effectiveness in continuing fights or a reduction of the effectiveness of their opponents in the same circumstances.

Also, since ancient battles could last hours, it's a safe bet troops were not continuously hammering away at each other. Human Biology 101 should tell us that even if the relatively low reported casualties for the victors in many battles did not.

So, we can take the things we know, add our best guess at the things we only partly know and fill in the bits we don't know at all with inferences from other areas and come up with something that comes as close as we can get to the real thing or we can go,"It's only toy soldiers, what does it matter?"

Neither approach is inherently wrong but those approaches, and all the others in between will float some people's boats but not others.

Pick your poison.

I trust I can post this without needing to don my asbestos underwear 

All good points, I guess I would go a little further and posit that a well designed wargame may be a crucible for testing some of these ideas about ancient combat.  eg if it was like X then how would that look, what are the implications for the game, what are the results of the wargame?  Can it produce historical results given those factors we're attempting to simulate?  If not, why not? 

This is where I see wargaming as an extension of history and not just fluffy pastime of going pew pew and pushing toys about.  I think wargames can give real insights into historical events. Likewise they can be very misleading as well.  eg no French player given a typical Waterloo game bothers to feed all those troops into Hougoumont and La Haye Saint as the French, just bypass them or bombard them with artillery. In reality they couldn't be seen by the artillery due to the lie of the land and Napoleonic commanders wouldn't dream of forming up a line in musket range of an enemy to their flank.

[Ray Rivers]

I read the article. 

I have served in the military and participated in many military "wargames." However, I'm very old dude now and sometimes get things very wrong because my brain box doesn't always work as intended.

Seems to me that the OP is struggling with 2 distinct issues.

The first is whether a wargame can accurately recreate a situation in which "known" variables are reflected in game play. Well, that is an easy one. Of course they can and most often depends on the rule set.

The second issue is whether a wargame can recreate the atmosphere in which opponents find themselves on the field of battle as this is far more abstract. Here again, most rule sets try to recreate the atmosphere using various mechanisms. For example, a "morale check" is such a mechanism.

When studying war, we find 2 very important concepts which are very difficult to apply to a wargame. The first is Fog of War. Many folks believe that Fog of War applies only to the enemy. That is, like many video games, we can't know where the enemy is until we are actually within range. But in true fact, as written by Clausewitz, Fog of War pervades the entire battlefield including your own forces. So, for example, a cavalry picket sights enemy troops.  He may then send his commander a message that he has encountered the main body, where in fact, it is not. As Clausewitz wrote "Great part of the information obtained in War is contradictory, a still greater part is false, and by far the greatest part is of doubtful character." In the Navy, we had a saying "The first report is always wrong." As we normally are God like creatures in our battles, these kinds of issues are normally not addressed.

The second issue about trying to accurately try to recreate the atmosphere of war is called "Friction." Friction is a concept in which things invariably are going to happen in which it is impossible to account for. For example, we order a portion of our army to attack the flank of the enemy and the Commander takes the wrong route. Or perhaps the messenger misinterprets the orders of his commander and sends a Brigade of Light Cavalry into a valley of death. As Clausewitz wrote, "Everything is very simple in War, but the simplest thing is difficult."

At the Navy War College I participated in a "wargame" in which various Command Staffs were placed into different rooms and had to communicate by "radio." The folks running the wargame had the ability to introduce all kinds of situations which replicated both the Fog of War and Friction. That was its purpose. In this kind of wargame, accurately reflecting weapons effects was far down the list in importance.

Overall, personally, I believe the best we can strive for is a rule set which reflects the realities of the period involved (fire ranges and effects) and at least attempts to replicate some of the variables of Fog of War and Friction. We shouldn't get too carried away though, because, given the myriad of human and accidental imperfections which actually define war, such an attempt would greatly reduce the fun factor and make the game almost unplayable.

[Easy E]

Excellent post Ray Rivers.  Thanks!