I want to preface the heretical statements I'm about to make by saying that I still love a good war movie, like a good battle game and have no intention of dropping out of the hobby. Okay, now that I've piqued your interest. here's the heresy. Battle is really boring when you get right down to it.
WHAT!'?! BORING!?! BURN HIM!!!
Wait a minute! Let me finish. I say boring because it is repetitive and the same. After a while one just gets tired of crossing the same ground without knowing why.
BATTLE IS A RITUAL DANCE
Humans have been fighting battle for about 5,000 years (give or take a millennium). And in that time there is a remarkable consistency to it. The dance goes like this...
- 1. Preliminary Dueling (or the modern equivalent of air and artillery bombardment).
2. Massing for the attack.
3. The advance (vhich is cither repelled or breaks through).
4. If repelled the defender pursues/Counter-attacks.
5. If it breaks through the attacker pursues the broken enemy to prevent a counterattack!
6. The wounded are gathered and the dead are buried.
The dance continues till one side has lost enough people and decides to give up. I hey stop shooting. They enemy comes forward, disarms them, humiliates them, certainly takes advantage of them and so forth till the next war starts.
In a way, battle is like human sacrifice. Each side tests how many of their children they are willing to sacrifice to Marduk to determine who wins. This is certainly dramatic but as ritual dances go it is lacking. One can add in pretty feathers, fancy uniforms or spiffy automatic weapons but it remains the same dance. "Can I get my young men to kill or be killed?"
SAVE ME FROM THIS REPETITION!
I have a way out of this dilemma that does not involve taking up "Black Wargaming" or getting too philosophical. The answer is the scenario.
For me a game is not satisfying if it lacks context. DBA battles between Aztecs and Romans seem foolish. Maybe in a tournament setting it works but it has no story behind it. The same is true for Warhammer stuff. Space Orcs? Imperial guard who took like football players? The story just doesn't work for me.
Scenarios that work give back ground information that explain where we are and why we are Fighting. Things that key one into the ideals that caused the war. It may be sheer greed (I like a good pirate raid!) It may be the fight against/for communism (I like playing the VC in games at the Conflict Simulations Club - my little shot against colonialism). Scenario also suggests what happens after the war. Which I like because I don't want to stay locked in the "Dance".
For instance: I ran a WWI trench battle once where the Americans pushed the front forward for a mile. They took 30% casualties doing so. I felt it was a great victory. WWI was senseless and stupid in retrospect but it seemed like it meant something at the time.
Another time I played in a Vietnam Game (my first and only for many years) in which we opened up a road for a supply column. Took 30% casualties and my younger companions really wanted to shoot every civilian they saw and burn every hooch. It was a terrible defeat. In iny mind I was thinking "What will the 6 O'clock news say about this? We've lost this war. Our boys died so a general could have a cold beer for supper!" The scenario told me what victory was - and gave me an idea of what I was fighting for.
I try to bring greater context into all my games now. Even Science Fiction ones.
AN EXAMPLE OF MEANINGFUL CONTEXT IN A SCI FI GAME
I attend one science fiction convention a year to visit friends. At this con I generally run a game. My nephews invariable play (and commit war crimes). Since I like context, I string several battle games together into a mini-campaign. Each game has a not so hidden historical parallel. This year the history was Vietnam.
The players all run people in a Star Ship Trooper like squad fighting a war against the "Chigs" (Space Above and Beyond) on a desert planet (Star Wars) where they have made a landing (WWII Island hopping). The troopers are stuck in a small bridgehead, surrounded by Chigs. The war is at a stand still at the moment. Both sides probing one another for weaknesses.
THE SQUAD: The players get a character description. The LT. is experienced but most of his good men are dead. There is one trigger happy corporal, a battle fatigued sergeant and a green replacement guy. They have godlike fire power (ala Vietnam). The squad also has a little green guy local guide (a 10mm goblin).
SCOUTING: In the first game the players are in a outlying fire base (Firebase LadyBird). Last night the Chigs did a probing attack. The players' job is to go out and see if they have left. As the players move out from the base they encounter alien plants (that move and eat people) animals and eventually wounded Chigs. It is a skirmish. At its end the players are pulled to the rear.
RESCUE: In the next game the players learn that all contact has been lost with their fire base. They are pulled out of R+R and sent forward to find out what happened. They have to cross four terrain boards to get to the base. Along the way, they encounter more plants and animals (I've found that bug figures give any board an alien feel.) They also meet some of the guide's relatives who join them. They reach the base to find it full of dead humans and dead chigs. What is odd is that they seem to have been fighting together right at the end! This is when the guide's people spring their trap. They conduct a wave attack on the fire base, hoping to repeat last night's exploits (when they followed the Chig attack in and took both sides out). If the players survive, then night falls. They get to decide what to do -- which determines the next battle.
In the game I ran, the players could not decide and so called for orders. I gleefully told them to "Hold the base!"
DEFENSE: The little green men are not finished. The last battle is their second attack on the base. Again it starts with a human wave attack. But this time they bring along great beasties to soak up some of the fire they receive coming in (Dinosaur figures). In the game I ran, the players were overwhelmed because they did not begin retreating when it became clear that they were going to be overrun. I tried to save them by landing a shuttle with marines (a helicopter by another name) but the player landed too close to the natives and was overrun. My nephew tried to "frag" the LT. but ended up on a native lance instead! The LT. was the only one to get away. He ran!
AFTERMATH: This game follows the same dance I described above, but for some reason I find it interesting. I told a complete story with it. I knew why the humans and chigs were fighting and why the little green guys turned on them. It pulled on themes from WWII, Vietnam, and colonial wargames. It was not just one more mindless charge.
Now when I play games I always look for the story before I commit. Often I end up playing irregular games. Recently I played a German Police vs French Resistance using Battle Ground rules (finally my long collected figures of men and women without guns was useful)! When I run a game, I build in a story. It is not enough to merely fight. I want human goals and motivations. Greed, love, lust, fear, pride, arrogance etc. They all provide a more compelling backdrop for any game played. Without them one might as well be playing chess.
BURN THE HERETIC!
I said I was bored with war and I meant it. War that is all rah rah fantasies of over adequacy is foolish. It's not real and it's bad literature. It is like reading John Carter on Mars where every woman he ineets is "The most beautiful ever" and the next fight is "The hardest fight ever." Hype and Balderdash! We are all adults and can handle more than this. So burn me if you wish but do so knowing that I expect more of us rather than settling for less!
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© Copyright 2001 Hal Thinglum
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