Whether it's "realism" v "playability" or "historical" v "fantasy" or "simple, introductory games" v " more interesting complex games", the arguments swirling about these items and others are more than a quarter century old--and there's still no good solution. Marc Canu handled Fantasy and Historical games, with a short comparison of the two, intimating that Historical games, as we know them, are at a disadvantage with regards to younger players. But they have always been at a disadvantage. Historical games have the three defects:
- 1. That the more realistic the game becomes, it must become less playable (something like medicine is supposed to taste bad).
2. That of the well-researched and well-designed games, the best ones available today or in the past, are historical, to distinguish them from the overt fantasy games of dwarves, vampires and spaceships.
3. That a simple introductory game cannot put enough realism into it to make it very historical and that these introductory games cannot hold the player's interest as he advances up the scale to more complex games.
These arguments from historical wargame tradition are mostly bunk and hocus pocus. Frank Chadwick has produced a boardgame series about tactical combat in the twentieth century, First Battle, as well as his WWII miniatures game, Command Decision. It is interesting to note that the scales of the two are nearly the same. However the game mechanics in the boardgame are far simpler, and the data charts much shorter, than those in the miniatures game. Chadwick's data charts are similar to those in the Battle Front game.
For example, of the various versions of the Panzer IV in Chadwick's games, there are three or four version in his boardgame, but there are eight or ten in his miniatures game. Of infantry types in his boardgame there are perhaps a half dozen, but in his miniatures game, when you throw in the variety of training levels and nationalities, there are a score or more. Yet it would be very difficult, if not impossible to claim that the miniatures game with its voluminous data is more realistic than the boardgame--I have asked Chadwick that question and he replied by saying that he preferred the boardgame for tank actions, but the miniatures game for infantry actions! And he isn't alone.
The purported realism in CD (Command Decision) bogs the game down, and it has no historical advantage over the supposedly less historical First Battle (Sands of War, Blood and Iron, etc).
The best games of past and present are not really that much more complex than the overtly fantasy games. Marc mentioned that historical games have a kind of baggage. Oh, yes! That baggage is very large. The gamer/ "historical commander" knows too much from the start. All too many of the "great battles" were ambushes, in which the winner was almost preordained to win. But the knowledge about the "great battle" that the gamer takes to a refight of the battle voids the real historical surprise, crucial to the reason why, or outcome of, the battle that was fought. The historical loser would never have fought the battle or fought it in the same manner if he were armed with perfect hindsight! Whether it was Napoleon's clever use of reinforcement, changing of his LOC (Line of Communication ... the editor) and his concealing of his troops at Austerlitz, or the Mongol "Indian" tactic of the feigned retreat at Liegnitz, or the three cruiser game of bluff against the Graf Spee, or the Carthaginian ambush of the Romans at Lake Trasimene, imagine if the real historical commanders had only known as much as the gamer refighting the action!
And to the consternation of the historical gaming crowd, unless certain artificial restrictions are imposed (AKA idiot rules), the chance that the refight will in any way replicate the actual event is less than zero. The gamer knows the Order of Battle, the various armies capabilities in command, morale and logistics, simply because he is refighting the historical event. But real soldiers never really know the other side's OOB, capabilities or commanders. Indeed, they sometimes do not know their own! In all too many games, a unit is all too easily identified--its particulars known from the readily available data chart, when in actual combat, that moving house with a big gun is either a tank or a Tiger, but not a Panzer Mark 3 and 7/8ths with a 75.345mm gun and 223 1/2 mm of armor.
And then there's the knowledge that you actually did or did not inflict losses on your opponent in combat. The markers go down on the table like penalty flags in a football game. That regiment lost two stands and is now "spent." That Battalion has lost twenty percent of its strength and must now check on chart 3. That tank platoon has taken two hits and must now retire. This company has rolled a "disorganized" result and therefore cannot move or fire--Happy days for the other side! But the real soldier or commander rarely knows this much information.
It is hard to defend, beyond uniforms and OOB's, the historical aspects of the historical games if these items are added into the "Great Debate."
Finally, those simple games
Miniatures games have an advantage over boardgames. Miniatures rules are written for eras or periods of historical time, such as Napoleonics, Ancients etc. Most boardgames are more like scenarios, with scenario specific details. A simple set of rules can, if the scenario writer has a mind for it, produce most interesting scenarios that can be played to a conclusion. However, the more complex game is not only almost too complicated to play to any conclusion, it also bedevils the game designer to develop scenarios because of the complexities. Chadwick developed a scenario generator for his First Battle game, he never made one for Command Decision--it was too complex for similar treatment.
Tradition is always there to foul things up, and so, we shall always have simple games that are immediately ginned up into complex nightmares. They become gigantic games using complex rules fought to the player's exhaustion (but not even to a critical point in the battle) and typically end with a Scotch verdict, or worse!.
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