Truly Machiavelian Renaissance Games

Elvish Civil Wars

By Otto Schmidt

One of the biggest problems in any game on the Renaissance is that we don’t get to use Renaissance people to play it. Unfortunately the modern gamer, suffering from the benefit of historical hindsight has had his consciousness so corrupted by Marxist materialistic structuralism and the Napoleonic idea of war that any renaissance game will suffer because the people cannot ever think, perceive the world, or be motivated by those things that impelled their historic counterparts.

This is very evident with even a transitory reading of Renaissance literature in such well known sources as The Decameron, The Courtier and such songs as L’homme Armee’ (in all its versions and renditions). Even the words mean different things. All too often we read Machiavelli’s The Prince, which really anticipates the modern world- better than, say, the Ricordi of his contemporary Guicciardini, which while they agree with Machiavelli in some points, disagree in many other important ones, and are far more typical and revealing of the attitudes of the Renaissance as they were, rather than as Machiavelli wished to remodel them. Let us, in passing remember that Machiavelli was little more than a failed ambassador and a small-time clerk while Guicciardini was a successful ambassador and always in the center of political affairs of early cinquecento Florence.

The scenario designer thus has a difficult task. In attempting to remedy this I composed a game where each individual player would have victory conditions that may be conflicting with the others and the general idea of his side, in fact they may be directly antithetical to it! Of course each player’s victory conditions were kept secret from all others. The “game problem” can be presented only once in its verbatim form as given below, but I offer it as an illustration of “method” that may be of use to other gamers, and of course it could be modified slightly and played again. I presented the game four times, one at a game at my house, once at Historicon, once at Cold Wars, and once at an “away game” at another gamers house. All of them were successful, though the degree to which they were (from moderate to wildly so) will be dealt with anon.

THE ENVIRONMENT OF THE GAME

The game was presented as a part of the “Elvish Civil Wars” theme in a mythical Renaissance world in which I do my gaming. In spite of the allusion to Elves, there was no magic, no monsters, and nothing more than a straight late-medieval Renaissance contest. The actual scenario behind the battle is presented in differing versions in each player’s victory conditions as that character saw them, but generally the “generic version” is as follows.

The Kingdom of Atholl is no stranger to the travails of war. Its ruler, Beltelephon (Styled by his courtiers The Perfect Atholl) must again defend his throne against ambitious and greedy neighbors. Prince Legolam, prince of The Lorna Dunes has once again laid claim to the throne and styled himself king, and raised the standard of revolt. Fighting rages in The Lorna Dunes, in Lavalier, and the Evelyn Wood. While the main armies are struggling in the north, in the south, Shah Na-Na of Salacia (called The Nattering Nabob of Negativism) has gathered an army and hit Beltelephon right in the Labanza. The Labanza however, is Beltelephon’s (The Big Atholl as he is sometimes called) home province, and his manors, estates, mistresses, and record collection are there so it is expected that he will take prompt action in response to Shah-Na-Na’s stab in the backside. Thus he has gathered a hodge-podge army of mercenaries and marched south to meet the threat, entrenching in a strong position behind the Rattitoulie river, in front of the town of Mortadella.

The Atholli forces consisted of four contingents. The Elvish troops consisting of a few old-style medieval “battles”(poor troops) and a large force of Gendarmes (very good at high speeds). The second contingent was a large force of mercenary units, almost all infantry, of medium quality. The third contingent was a force of two regiments of landsknechts and three guns, and the last contingent was that of The Black Legion, essentially another regiment of landsknechts, which as in real history, was the bitter enemy of the former. The opposing forces were in three contingents. The first were the forces of Sha Na-Na which was very large, and army of primarily “oriental scum” (think of Turks or Mameluks on a very, very bad day and no Jannisaries or cannon).

About a third of these have been released to Benelux, one of the Salacian generals as his command. The Horse archers of the army (half with Benelux) are very, very good indeed. Also of use are the fanatical Bashi-Bazooks (pretty much highly motivated javelin catchers) and the rest of the army isn’t worth putting on the table. The third contingent is the Zwiss, a powerful force of four regiments who could pretty much clean Godzilla’s clock and never break a sweat. Basically if charged by the Zwiss or charging the Zwiss (Except for the Landsknechts and Black Legion) the guy charging or charged has to roll a 1 on a six sided dice. Anything else and they’re pretty much churned into kibbles n’bits.

The battle was fought on a 6x12’ table the long way, that is, with the troops aligned on the 6’ axis. The Ahtollis were squished between the left edge and a “difficult to cross” (well for now...) river in front of formidable entrenchments, with the only means across being a single bridge on the right flank of the Atholli line. The Salacians of Sha Na-Na had the bulk of their army all the way on the other end of the table similarly “squished” up against the right edge. The Zwiss, and the troops of Bene-Lux were deployed in the middle and somewhat nearer the Atholli’s.

Now, what follows are the individual and secret conditions of each player, and after that a general commentary, so if you want to UMPIRE this game read on. However if you want to PLAY this game you should read no further - however you probably will because you are no doubt a well trained Napoleonic Serial Killer - and see no problem if in cheating you can win. On the other hand if you are a TRUE Renaissance gamer and can act as a Renaissance gamer, you should be able to read the rest of this article in its entirely and play your victory conditions even better! I’m betting you won’t though (can’t resist looking, and if you do look, play better).

One note. You may no doubt wonder why I have chosen a mythical environment and why I use puns and “silly” names for my characters and countries. The reason is simple. Long ago I became tired with endless arguments about what was or could be done in “history.” I found that it got in the way of the “fun” of the game. I don’t know why YOU are in wargames, but I am in it for the fun. As will become clear, in my opinion, what makes the Renaissance “The Renaissance” was the fashioning of the individual, and I found that gamers were more likely to allow their individual imaginations to soar when not encumbered by the weight of history, where they felt they had to fulfill a more “historical role.” As for the argument of verity to history, or realism, my answer is simple. Wargames are not history and little is to be learned from them. Rules are merely a recording of our prejudices, predispositions, and opinion and nothing else. Besides - the odds that I will ever command an army vary between slim and none. If talk about armies that use pikes and arquebus we can add that slim was last seen leaving town in a hurry.

I also feel that all games should be like Grand Opera. A slowly developing plot where each character gets a few arias, a few patter songs, the intervention now and then of a glorious chorus, and then a free-for-all at the end, and if we’re lucky, an extravagant death scene.

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