VLB A MISCONCEPTION OF HISTORY With regard to Courier No.85, the reason George Jeffrey’s VLB system failed to make any lasting impression on the wargaming scene was that it was based on a complete misconception of the history. Real battles are not a matter of continuous steady movement by both sides, but follow the familiar military practice of “hurry up and wait”. This is generally known by rule writers as the “Impulse” system. I note from the Survey results that Napoleonic rules popularity reduces as army size increases until Corps level gets 0%. On the face of it, this is bad news for my new Army level set “Horse, Foot & Guns”, covering 1700-1915! This will not be published until next year, but a monthly-updated test set and army lists can be downloaded from http://www.phil-barker.pwp.blueyonder.co.uk. - Phil Barker Phil, I asked several of the readers who are intimately involved with the generation of a VLB based set of rules to comment - DICK BRYANT FROM NED ZUPARKO I would never presume to question Phil Barker on either rules design or reading history. I have correspondence somewhere on my shelf from George describing some of his first demonstrations of his VLB at some Wargames Development conferences in England (back in the late 70’s, I believe), and Phil’s reaction to it at that time. So I know Phil had an early exposure to George’s ideas. However, it is my view that the reason VLB made no lasting impression is simply a case of George’s rules never being published and then being tried by those on the wargaming scene. Had that occurred, I firmly believe “Code Napoleon” WOULD have made a lasting impression, though whether that would have been a positive or a negative impression is a question I can’t answer! One reason the rules didn’t reach publication was because of playability problems when the VLB system didn’t forbid too many low-level activities at one time and tried to process them. It was a game intended for army vs army use, but allowed too much detail to be used at lower levels. I suspect that the popularity of other Corps and Army rules sets decline because wargamers haven’t found rules that suit their playability/length of game tastes at that level, or else find such rules to be too abstract for satisfaction. I certainly wish Phil success in overcoming that situation in his upcoming set. I’m not sure what Phil means by the “impulse” system. I know that Brent Nosworthy uses it in his books, and that different rules sets over the years have used the term, but I’m not sure they use it all in the same way. If it means “hurry up and wait”, though, then the VLB system can reflect exactly that. VLB does not require continuous steady movement by anyone. Instead, it looks for the “critical events” and then bounds the turn forward to those events. The “wait” part of the battle does not have to use up tabletop time while “turns” are gone through until the “wait” is over. Instead one can just calculate how much time got used up before the next critical event (the “hurry up” part) has to be dealt with by the players. One could ignore time all together, and just bound forward to each new critical if the actions of the battle bounced back and forth equally between sides, or if one side began and completed several actions before the other side did. The reason for the use of time in VLB is to have a tool available just in case there are simultaneous or continuous movements that do happen in a particular battle. Many rules create some sort of “equivalents” for use in a game. for example, one set might say that a change of formation is equal to two volleys or to half of a move. Thus, if some sort of “impulse” system were used perhaps one player would get to make a full move, with his opponent then having a chance to fire twice and change formation. Then maybe a third unit would get his chance to do something - but that third unit couldn’t make 9 full moves in a row because that would would not mesh with the amount of activity happening elsewhere on the field. Rather than force activity into such predetermined equivalent pieces, VLB just says measure battlefield activity as rates per minute. To determine how much activity occurs between critical events, just calculate it by rate. If much of the army is “waiting”, there need not be much calculation and players will handle critical events quickly. If there does happen to be some continuous or simultaneous activity going on, the VLB has a way to measure it and a way to make sure that an appropriate amount takes place. The beauty of it is that VLB does not mandate what the rates must be, nor does VLB mandate that continuous activity has to take place. Of course George chose numbers for the rates in his CN rules that he thought would reflect what he thought represented historical warfare, but he always said that if someone else thought the rates were wrong, it was easy for them to change them. VLB just said use rates; the numbers one plugged into the system could be a personal or designer choice. Likewise, VLB doesn’t mandate some amount of “continuous” activity based upon an historical interpretation. It is just a “computer” that will reflect the orders or playing style of the players who use it. Thus, if one player conceived “Napoleonic battles” to consist of giving 1000 orders and trying to make every unit move every minute, the VLB will give him a vehicle with which to calculate and compare activity between critical events. If, on the other hand, the player shares Phil’s interpretation that one side will try something, and then the other will react to it; or possibly anticipate it and have estimated how much time he has to get something done before an enemy can react, then the VLB “computer” will use rates to reflect that interpretation. As a matter of fact, George often expressed an “historical interpretation” similar to Phil’s; George saw many wargamers trying to give dozens or orders and trying to keep his whole army moving at once because in many games of the time there were only a limited number of “turns” that one could accomplish in an evening. If one didn’t move all of his units, he might not achieve anything before the game ended. George interpreted what he called “Napoleonic Battlehandling” differently, where the C-in-C had a plan which usually took place in stages, and which would require modification during the battle since the enemy probably wouldn’t cooperate and his own men might decide to flee rather than get shot at! A Corps or two might be active while others were waiting until those Corps succeeded or failed, or to obey changes ordered by the C-in-C, or to protect themselves. However, this is different from the “Variable Length Bound”, which is a game system. If one reads the discussions at the VLB discussion group (http://groups.yahoo.com/group/VLBRules) he’ll find that it is important to distinguish between the VLB system (the measurement system of using rates to bound activity or positions forward between critical events), players’ or designers’ historical interpretation (how to define a “critical event”, who gave orders to whom,how to “fight” a battle, etc), and the data (what numbers to use for movement or firing rates, how long to allow for different types of activity. etc.) The VLB system itself is a fairly “neutral” or objective entity. It is the historical interpretations and choice of data which can be very subjective. PHIL BARKER’S RESPONSE George was quite adamant that his rules required multiplying theoretical speed by time to find out when his critical event would occur. He could not accept that real battles consisted of actions, responses and a lot of waiting. Yes, I did join others in attempting to play with his rules at COW under his direction. I was impressed by the way he had mounted 6mm figures on transparent bases, but the rules were unplayable. - PHIL BARKER FROM HOWIE MUIR As I have thought about George’s quest (amidst other challenges of life here), I have come to appreciate more and more a wide variety of his idea. One in particular seems often to be overlooked by the historical game-oriented community: the wargame as role-playing. George sought not simply to model the flow and dynamics of how a battle unfolded in a particular era with all of the idiosyncrasies that defined the period, but to do so from a very particular perspective: that of the player as commander. It is from that conception that the fundamental notion of VLB springs. For the VLB construct, as you point out, permits the player-commander to move from decision-point to decision-point. The “waiting” is often compressed in the decision process of a player-commander’s choice of when to act. The “wait” is the “time” that separates the next point of decision from the previous one. In that way, George sought to focus the player’s experience on the activity of command, rather than the wait between decisions. Yet, notwithstanding that focus, the “wait” is inescapably captured in the time that separates the decisions and actions from one another. Phil’s comment about continuous steady movement seems possibly to confuse different levels of movement. A given command may certainly be put in motion and does proceed continuously until it encounters its next decision-point—which is like life. But not all commands are necessarily in motion. In fact, that is quite unlikely. Thus different commands are likely to be in motion, or at rest, at different times, depending upon what decisions have been made, and when, by their player-commanders. Which is natural. Thus, the force as a whole is rarely likely to all be in motion all the time; rather, quite like reality, parts of it are in motion, that is sustained, until they encounter changed circumstances. As much as I admire Phil Barker’s accomplishments with DBA, and other rules, DBA being a particularly elegant model, I have to acknowledge that these and most other games do not offer the player a chance to explore the deeper nature of the web and impulse of command and control, which receives its genesis from the formation and implementation of a plan. The vast majority of wargame frameworks do not impose this key element upon players: the need to have a plan. Instead, they are heavily opportunistic (not to say that opportunism isn’t an important element of battle and life!). Consequently, players are usually robbed of the pleasure and challenge of trying to implement, maintain, and adapt that plan over the course of a battle. Yet this is at the core of command and control, which comes back my opening remarks about George’s quest. A game of “CODE NAPOLEON” cannot happen without a plan, because nothing will move without an order! The issuance of that order creates the beginning of a plan, whether a player likes it or not, and one discovers rapidly that wisdom dictates the need for coherent thinking before the battle begins, or orchestrated action proves difficult to accomplish...just like real life. The absolute need to develop a plan, the experience of managing and adapting it to changing circumstances, of trouble-shooting the inevitable difficulties of sustained coordination of commands, are all an integral part of the battle-experience that George sought to capture for the player. And that meant putting the player into the role of commander and confronting him the the command and control challenges that echoed those of the period. This is one of the great hallmarks that distinguishes George’s quest from so many other rule-sets. Phil’s Response The proof of any set of rules has to be in the playing and the first criteria has to be that a game can be played. The first Napoleonic game I took part in (as Alten) was a huge multi-player Waterloo at Chelsea Barracks. I never got to move, as the game never got further than the attack on Hougamont. Still, let a 1,000 flowers bloom. - phil barker FROM HOWIE MUIR An unplayable game? The hardest part for me, so far, has been the management of the time flow of inter-related actions, which still seems tricky if players have chosen to employ many commands in independent action simultaneously. The difficulty, however, rests in part with the changing one’s own mental gears from the traditional time-management framework of war-gaming. I think Phil is correct that George did multiply speed by time to find the when. With respect to the speed being “theoretical,” I suspect some confusion. George was very interested in knowing what the actual practical speed limit for troops of the era was, not some mythical, war-game modified speed shaped to fit someone’s play-framework; but that is not to say that George wasn’t also interested in allowing for the hurdles of rough ground, defiles, and other terrain obstacles or training factors that hindered battlefield movement. There was scope for that as great as the players had interest and information to allow. Curiously, it would appear that Phil completely missed the thrust of George’s quest in the design of “CN” and the very purpose of VLB. The very heart of the design was that a plan engendered a player-commander’s order, which led to an action by a force on the battlefield; that action invariably prompted either a further action or an opponent’s action in response. All actions flow onwards through time until encountering a significant change of circumstances for that command, such as the accomplishment of its orders, a threat from an enemy, or the arrival of new orders from a superior. Waiting? Of course, no one plays a game to sit around waiting! The “battlefield wait” is implicit in the VLB architecture: it is the time for any particular force during which it is not undertaking an action, it is the time that it is not under orders to go do something. There is, in fact, a lot of battlefield waiting. The mercy of George’s design, is that players don’t have to sit around doing the waiting; instead, they are doing the playing between the waiting. After all, it’s a game to be enjoyed as well as being a tool to explore the peculiarities of an period’s warfare. Back to Table of Contents -- Courier #86 To Courier List of Issues To MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 2002 by The Courier Publishing Company. 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