Topic: Wargame Design Musings
What Was I Trying To Simulate?
There are many things that can be simulated in a game and no game that I am aware of handles all of the details of conflict at the same level of detail in a user entertaining manner. A good simulation is one that picks out the key variables with easy to implement systems that let the player(s) manipulate them within an historical context. Additionally, the historical outcome and decisions should in some manner be within the set of game outcomes. In the end all simulations are wrong, but some are useful and hopefully entertaining.
But first a story, way back in the late seventies when I was designing what became RDF I got a chance to play the game with Jim Dunnigan. At the conclusion of the game Jim said it was interesting, but it felt it played like panzer chess. The comment referred to the fact that each maneuver he made was matched by a similar maneuver on my part resulting in two armored firing lines. I redesigned the game, but the point of the story is most games allow for near perfect information with lots of detail on a variety of force and spatial factors ala chess.
My continuing study of warfare both for game design purposes and professionally have convinced me that real combat is chaos because senior decision makers lack perfect knowledge. This has been the case for all wars including recent ones where people got killed because the real information was absent or not believed. The more successful commanders were those who were able to succeed in this constant environment of imperfect information. Consequently I have come to the view that the most important variable to simulate in a wargame is uncertainty.
I have tackled this problem in a variety of systems. In Pacific War I used hidden die rolls that integrated uncertainty as to the enemy reaction based on the intelligence condition. My most successful system has been my card driven design as embodied in We The People and For The People and copied by POG, 30YW, WW to name a few. What the cards accomplish is to create enourmous uncertainty about what the enemy can accomplish and how one's decisions might be impacted by the range of enemy reactions. By incorporating this imperfect information overlay into the more traditional force, space, and time factors interesting things happen. In addtion the cards allowed me to bring a range of soft factors (e.g., politics) into the simulation, which has ever been the original purpose of most wars. More importantly it appears that the entertainment value and replayability of the games have also been enhanced.
What is a good simulation of conflict? Is it one that develops systems for tactical trees, but misses the strategic forest. I submit that my card driven system is my attempt to simulate decision maker uncertainty in an imperfect information environment. From where I stand a game that ignores this set of variables has a harder time proving its simulation bona fides. This last point is definately a minority view in our hobby.
It is interesting that there is a perception that there is a flood of WTP/FTP derivative wargames out there, but there are less than 10 by my last count in ten years. During this same period of time there have been at least several hundred traditional wargames published. I am hard pressed to understand how this niche set of games is causing such a furor.
Just one man's view,
Mark
