Back in issue number 6, I promised a deeper look at role-playing as a function of game design but I was sidetracked by movement system. Now seems like as good a time as any to get back on track. For the benefit of those of you who haven't read issue 5 (and for those of you with deteriorating memories) I'll summarize my original argument.

All historical games are essentially role-playing games in that they cast the player in the role of a historical figure and confront him with decision options roughly comparable to those experienced by his historical counterpart. In Avalon Hill's classic Afrika Korps the Axis player is clearly cast as Rommel, as he has complete control over the actions of troops in Africa and under his command but has no control over events outside his theater (i.e. he is dependent on the OA for new troops and the luck of the die roll for supplies). This is an example of good role modeling.

A good example of poor role modeling is the Fletcher Pratt naval miniatures rules. For those of you who haven't played, you crawl around on the floor and guess the range to an enemy ship, write it down, and turn your back. The referee measures the distance and puts splash marks (usually inverted white golf tees, a nice visual effect) where your rounds hit. You turn around and get a quick look and they are removed. Your ship moves, the enemy ship moves, and then you get to estimate a correction.

This makes for a jolly good time but not much of a simulation, primarily due to faulty role modeling. The most important game decisions you make have nothing to do with the important decisions a ship captain makes. Actually, you are cast as a mechanical range finder - a faulty one at that.

One major mistake I made in my first column on the subject was that I assumed everyone knew what I meant and as a result was fairly sloppy in my terminology. Before going any further it might be a good idea to clear some of this up.

Terms

First off, when I use the term role playing, I don't mean it to carry around with it all the built-up assumptions people have about games clearly labeled as "role-playing games". I do not mean that all games are D&D under the skin, nor do I mean that the play of an Europa game is some sort of elaborate psychodrama exploring how people would behave if they woke up one morning as Hitler. I am not suggesting that the major enjoyment players derive from wargaming is the vicarious thrill of roleassumption, and this is in stark contrast to recognized role-playing games where role-assumption is everything. I am not even suggesting that a player need or ought to be aware he is role-playing.

What the hell am I saying? Well, look at it this way. The products we design are labeled "game-simulations" which clearly indicates that they are both game and simulation. Some players are more competitive-oriented than others and thus tend more toward appreciating game-related characteristics in a product, such as balance, game length, etc. Others are history buffs and care about accurate maps and OBs, detailed mechanical systems, etc. The majority are concerned with a mix of the two.

To design just a game does not require the insertion of any role-playing elements for success. The classic example of a "pure" game is poker. No role-playing, no element of simulation, but one of the best games around. By the same token, a pure simulation requires no role-playing.

For an extreme example, consider margarine - a near perfect simulation of butter. A little closer to home, imagine reading an account of a campaign and finding it difficult to follow all the operations in progress. As an aid to comprehension you pull out the map and counters from a game on the subject and use it as a constant visual display. It is not being played as a game, nor does role-playing have anything to do with it, yet it serves as a useful simulation.

It's only when game and simulation come together that role- playing becomes essential. For the product to be a game, two or more players must compete within the limits of the rules, but for it to be a simulation they must do so in ways available to their historical counterparts.

As I said before, it's not important that the players be particularly aware of their roles, but it is very important that the designer be conscious of roles when designing the game. Otherwise you end up with some very strange results, as in the Fletcher Pratt rules. Perhaps much of the confusion my original column caused would have been avoided if I had emphasized rolemodeling by the designer instead of role-playing by the player. Role-modeling is what I'm concerned with anyway, so consider the emphasis changed.

Having explained what I mean by role-modeling and why it's important, this brings me to my main argument. Given all of the above, I don't think it's possible to do a good job of designing either a grand strategic or a tactical game-simulation given the more common constraints we operate under. (In these constraints I include a desire to have between two and four players or thereabouts and no referee. Either a referee or a whole shit-load of players can correct most of the problems I see.)

To recapitulate the argument, it's my position that in an operational level game the important decision points can be covered by the rules. The situation a corps, army, or army group commander finds himself in can, with admittedly varying degrees of faithfulness, be at least crudely duplicated. Some areas, such as limited intelligence, need much more work, but I think most people agree that they are essentially soluble.

Grand Strategic and Tactical Levels

This is not true on either a grand strategic or a tactical level, however. On an operational level a commander generally knows the "rules" and the struggle is to see which side can be most clever in applying them. On a tactical or grand strategic level the real trick is figuring out what the rules are.

Take the example of Napoleon's Ulm-Austerlitz campaign. Napoleon was able to move the Grand Armee from the English Channel to the Danube to cut off Mack's Austrian army and do so both in less time than anyone then thought possible and with no security leaks about the march progress. Ho-ho, you say, what a silly- billy Mack was. All he would have had to do was read the movement rules, examine the movement factors of the French units, and read the special rule on seizing newspaper offices in traversed neutral territory.

How in the world do you do a game simulation of that event? Well, you can sort of do it by freezing Mack's army in place and letting Napoleon waltz around it. That may give you a simulation of the campaign itself. (Still, this sort of heavy handed straight- jacketing bothers me a bit. It's often unavoidable, but I get the feeling that it's sometimes carried so far that the players are cast in the role of giant croupiers.)

What it doesn't do is give you a way of integrating that campaign into an overall grand strategic game-simulation of the Napoleonic wars, does it? No, because the critical decisions being made in the war are related to "discovering the rules". Napoleon does so well because he's the better player, not because the rules give him in particular any special advantages.

Another example is the American Civil War. Winfield Scott's original "Anaconda" plan called for seizure of the Mississippi River valley and a naval blockade which would together strangle the South economically. Lincoln didn't think that would be sufficient to win the war, and he was correct. But he wasn't absolutely certain.

How do you build that in? A die roll, maybe, to see if the Anaconda plan works once it's implemented. The problems with that are a) it wouldn't have worked and to allow it to is to distort reality, and b) it reduces commanders to gamblers who know the odds. Knowing the odds, however, is in this case as good a definition of a "good player" as you can come up with.

Much the same thing is true on the tactical level. The critical decisions a commander of very small units makes have to do with character analysis. Who in the platoon can be trusted to keep his head under fire and who needs to be watched? Which platoon leader is best suited to be the separate arm of the pincer? Will Lieutenant A stop if he runs into any resistance? Lieutenant B follows orders, but does he have the initiative to act by himself should the situation change? Lieutenant C shows initiative, but he's green and tends to be too reckless. In this situation, a good company commander is not someone who thinks of the pincer move; he's the one who best assesses the capabilities of his subordinates to carry out the action.

Now, it has been suggested that this can be solved by rating commanders on their ability to evaluate things like this, and I find in considering this solution that I have been hoisted on my own petard. That's not my idea of how to approach designing a game-simulation, as the players are not competing as actual commanders would - the most critical elements of their qualities as "players" have already been fixed and they are just going through the motions.

I am forced to admit that it is certainly an example of role-playing. One player plays the role of a good commander; one plays the role of a mediocre commander. Personally, I prefer a referee for this sort of thing, but it's proven impossible so far to enlist any who are willing to get in those little game boxes.

I will go so far as to admit that my opinion on tactical games has been modified somewhat from my original column. After some consideration I think it's at least possible to design something which is both an enjoyable game and a partial simulation of tactical combat. The simulation end would of course deal with relative weapons effectiveness and the game end would deal with planning and execution of operations - nothing radically different from the tactical games now available.

These games are often both enjoyable and informative, and I guess that's enough to make it worthwhile. It does bother me somewhat that they can not achieve the same level of faithfulness as an operational game does. It appalls me that many designers and players seem unaware of this.