"Historical" or "historical" war gaming

[Conquistador]

Based on the discussion from http://leadadventureforum.com/index.php?topic=62491.0 I started thinking about whether you try and play "Historical" reality (to the best of your understanding and as much as you can recreate in a miniatures environment)) or you prefer to play what I will call "Hollywood" (or "people's perceptions of historical") war games.  There is a Fantasy version (actually versions but I digress) of games and there is a Science Fiction version ("Hard" versus "Soft") too but I thought I would start with historical and if it wanders to the other areas of war gaming so be it.

So when you start a historical era of war gaming is your goal (on a scale of 1 to 5) to recreate the history of the war as far as possible while making the game enjoyable (a "1") or is your goal to play a war game that is enjoyable but has some tie (visual, technological, whatever works) to actual events even if they are skewed to popular/"Hollywood" tropes to a large degree? 

An example of the latter is the Old West Rules "Gutshot" which pretty much declares it is trying to evoke the "Old West" of TV fame.

Gracias,

Glenn

[Nord]

I play Saga, so which option do I choose? No idea who Sgt Rock is, guessing he's not from the Dark Ages.

[Dr. Zombie]

I mostly go for the Hollywood style these days.

I love me some good Swashbuckling and gunslinging. I want to have fun and my games to tell epic stories of heroics.

Not sure what option to chose in the pool though..

[LawnRanger]

Not sure about the voting wheres this going

[Blue in vt]

though I can't find anyone around here to play historical games with me...   If I could I would use historical troop types and perhaps campaign ideas but I would not be super anal about it being perfectly accurate.  I like the idea of pitting historical forces against one another in a setting of your won choice.

Cheers,

Blue

[Red Orc]

Well, I've never gamed WWII (not since 'playing soldiers' as a kid anyway) but if I did it would be Weird.

I'm not a fan of Historicals per se, I apply the VSF principle ('I know they're British because they're in red coats') but that's about it. French in green? No way. French, in their proper blue, with 'jambes vapeuretiques et chapeaux de galvaniques'? Mais oui, bien sur.

My guess is that would be the approach I'd take to WWII. Nazi Cultists trying to contact Deep Ones in Romania? Yeah, OK. Einsatzgruppen rounding up villagers in Romania? Not so much.I've been trying to find out the background to a historical campaign at the moment - the Malleson Mission into what's now Turkmenistan - but I'm not sure what the outcome will be. I'll probably end up with some 'what ifs' rather than actually gaming the events.

Other people will have different mileage, but my approach is that I'm quite uncomfortable gaming conflicts in which real people actually died, and the closer they are in history the more uncomfortable I am. I'd game VBCW and happily have my grandparents in it (because it's events that didn't happen) but I'd not be happy about gaming the war that did happen. OK, Wars of the Roses might be different, no-one is alive now that knew anyone who went through it; but that isn't the case for many wars in the last century or so.

So, in short, yeah more likely to have Werewolves and Hydra Superweapons and Ghost Patrols (and Sergeant Rock) than otherwise. But everyone would be wearing plausible uniforms.

[FramFramson]

I'll be playing Pulp Alley as my only non-fantasy game and it's full of ridiculous fantastical elements, so really I don't think I can answer anything other than 5 on the scale of ridiculousness. Well, I answered 5, but I do try to make things fit actual events, so maybe I should have picked a 4.

However, if I were playing a larger scale game (which I will probably never do because I am both lazy and space-starved), I might want to go with a more properly historical setup. Maybe Pike & Shotte era or 18th-century stuff.

Or maybe those would be ridiculous and pulpy too.

This is all sort of funny though, given how interested I am in the real history.

[King Tiger]

I'm inbetween, I like accuracy, but I like people to have the option to have some imagination with ideas, or artistic license when painting.

[Conquistador]

I play Saga, so which option do I choose? No idea who Sgt Rock is, guessing he's not from the Dark Ages.

Comic Book NCO in American Army in WW2.  I don't think he ever was wounded and it wouldn't matter because he would keep functioning if hit.  Since I don't know Saga I can't help you but I would guess from the title at least 3 or 4?

Gracias,

Glenn

[Conquistador]

I mostly go for the Hollywood style these days.

I love me some good Swashbuckling and gunslinging. I want to have fun and my games to tell epic stories of heroics.

Not sure what option to chose in the pool though..

At least 3rd choice, probably 4th choice, but if you really go into figures that can keep fighting after multiple rifle/SMG/MG hits regularly  I guess you would beshading into bottom/5th choice?

Gracias,

Glenn

[Conquistador]

Not sure about the voting wheres this going

I'm not sure I understand your implied question.

Gracias,

Glenn

[former user]

pure historical is impossible, unless you have a Photo album of the evnets in question....

so it is only an interpretation what can be - we have to accept that - and it doesn't hurt to try representing the facts one researches - if possible. But it stays contrafactual extrapolation (noone wants to attack Chateau Hougoumont knowing they will never get it), that's all we get.
But I would never ask from others to be historically correct, and people who nag about that really piss me off....
However, I like to nag people who claim to be historically correct (and nag others with that), so I can be kind of bitchy myself....

So everyone be happy with what they achieve, and I can also do a fun game with wikings with horned helmets...

[Doomhippie]

That's tricky.
I believe historical gaming is utter BS since one is a game the other is warfare. In one you try to have fun and I sincerly hope nobody is trying to do that in a real war.

I like what might be called historically accurate games but not to the point where the telling of a tale is impossible. I absolutely detest Weird War, as they work way too much with the good vs evil idea, which I find not fitting for history.

I don't need lots of Tiger tanks on the German side in a scenario but since the numbers of Sherman tanks blown up before they knocked out a Tiger was estimated to be around 10 I want the rules to reflect that somehow.

I don't mind using said Tiger tank as part of the 21st Panzer Division in Normandy 1944 even though the 21st didn't have any. I don't mind playing a scenario of a group of British marines trying to blow up the Kiel Canal even though that never happened and has probably never been planned. But it fits in a "might have happened" kind of story line as opposed to, say, a Russian landing operation in the back of the German El Alamein front in order to help the British. I don't know if These examples make any sense to you but that's how I feel about historical gaming.

[carlos13th]

I like it to be historically adjacent. So plausible rather than accurate. Kind of like the Spartacus tv show. Or any tv show covering history for that matter. Roman legionaries with light sabers is no longer historical to me.

[Mason]

I play a game to have fun.
If it is historically accurate, that would be sheer luck.

Game: Fun.
Historically accurate: Not worth worrying about too much.

You choose where that puts me on your scale.