The Reason Why

by Jim Getz

Many of you have probably read The Reason Why by Cecil Woodham-Smith. It was one of the first military history books that I read when I became interested in wargaming. The book is about the charge of the Light Brigade at Balaclava, but goes beyond the "usual" presentation of facts and events to explore the personal relationships between Raglan, Cardigan, and Nolen (the order issuer, the order executor, and the order deliverer). The authors point was that there are many factors that can impact the course of a battle and true understanding of a battle's events can not be achieved until one has explored all the major factors-including the interpersonal relationships of the key commanders. The book, besides being a "good read," had, I think, a great impact on me, for I became very interested in knowing the reason why things happened as they did in battles.

This came to me as I was reading the article "???" by my long time friend and favorite killer of sacred cows, Bob Jones. Bob's article touched a sensitive spot in my wargaming conscience and got me to wondering why wargame rules are the way they are. I thought I would jot down my observations and share them. This is not because I feel that there are any profound truths here, but that they might stimulate some thought in this area by us all that we might gain some insights and perhaps advance the art of our hobby a bit. So here are my four "reasons why." The need to explain why.

Each of us probably enjoys this hobby for a different set of reasons. Each of us probably finds different aspects of the hobby more fascinating or more interesting than other aspects. For me it is the rule creation that is the major fascination. I love the creative challenge of building the model that will replicate a specific historical period's mode of combat. In a certain sense, I would rather design a game than play a game, which is probably why I can not play a game without changing the rules continuously! (It is also why I can never answer a question about a rule set I've published, because I have probably never played them as published more than once or twice!).

This aspect of wargaming is so fascinating to me because I want to know the reason why things happened as they did. Building a model of the event through the development of a rule set acts as my vehicle for gaining this understanding. If I can successfully construct this model, I feel that I have successfully gained at least some understanding. I have a feeling that most rules developers share this need to know why.

Wargamers who are players more than designers also need to know why, but usually in a less abstract sense. The gamer's need to know why is focused more on why did the event that just happened on the tabletop happen. Why did they not activate the order? Why did they not withstand the enemy's fire? Why did they react to that move? We have all asked these questions, as well as many others, as we have played our games.

There is nothing at all wrong with this, except it does have an impact on the way we design games; and we need to understand what that is because we may want to do something different. I would contend that the need to know the reason why is the major reason wargame rules are complicated. The better the job the author has done in designing a rule set that explains why the events on the table are happening, the more complex that rule set is. The corollary to this statement is that the more we as gamers will accept not knowing why something happened, the simpler the designer can make the rule mechanics.

Let's take an example. Suppose you are going to charge an infantry formation in square with your cavalry. Most rule sets will take you through a series of mechanics involving movement, firing, morale and elan, and finally melee to resolve the outcome. Each of these steps is there for the purpose of constructing a piece of the final result because we tend to believe that the whole is equal to the sum of the parts. But now suppose that we could construct a mechanic that gave exactly the same outcome for the same situation but did it in a single step. What would your reaction be? Would you like it? Would you believe it? Would you consider it fun?

When using our traditional rule concept, we are, in effect. defining all the elements and interactions that the author considered to be important in the action called a cavalry charge. The result of this effort is not only the outcome of the charge, but the reason why that outcome was achieved. The mechanic is having to provide two pieces of information and the reason why is far more complicated to provide than the result.

If we could live with less information about "why" we could have simpler mechanics. I might point out that living with less information is really more realistic from the commander's perspective. No commander in the real world ever had the amount of information that the wargamer has about why things happen. The real world commander was lucky if he even knew some things happened, let alone why they happened! Think about it, how bad do we need to know the reason why?

The joy of arcane knowledge

Everyone likes to feel that they are an expert in something. In a sense, I think that the more complex and obscure the subject is the greater the pride and joy of mastery because it is simply harder to become an expert in the arcane than in the trivial. Unfortunately, this gives us, both authors and players, an excuse for making things more complicated rather than less complicated.

We take pride, sometimes inordinate pride, in being able to quote chapter and verse of rule set minutia. Perhaps even worse, we all have at one time or another tried to skewer our opponent on a fine point of the rules and felt rather proud of the accomplishment.

This pride of mastery not only encourages complexity and rules lawyering, but acts as a terrible barrier to bringing new people into the hobby. Complexity requires commitment to overcome and can with dedication be surmounted. It can in fact provide pride of accomplishment as we have noted, so perhaps this has some redeeming value. Unfortunately rules lawyering is seemingly not able to be surmounted. Who wants to play a game in which you are continuously done in by the fine print? Will the new player ever come back for a second try? Will the experienced player continue to enjoy the hobby in the face of a barrage of rules trivia?

Why can the arcane knowledge we enjoy not be history? Why can the mastery we love to display not be using a simple rule set to recreate an historically accurate wargame? A wargame that is accurate not by weight of rules, but by pride of craftsmanship and personal discipline. This is a far more challenging undertaking than merely learning a set of rules.

Think about it, can we take responsibility for providing the historical accuracy and detail in the game we play; and, can we put aside the killer instinct to do it?

Anecdotal design

There can be a danger in trying to put too much history into a rule set, even a simple rule set (perhaps especially a simple rule set). This is what I call the anecdotal design problem. One of the rule sets I cut my teeth on many years ago had this problem. It exhibits itself by having a different rule to reflect each of the popular anecdotes from the history of the period.

While this proves we have read our history, it usually does not add much to the rules. With simple rule systems, it just junks up the play and with complex rule systems it can destroy the game entirely. Regardless of the base game complexity, the effect is usually not what was intended.

A rule was added to the game I mentioned that dealt with the loss of the musicians attached to a formation. If the musicians were killed, the formation maneuvered at half speed. This was based on an incident in which a formation was thrown into disorder when all the drummers of the formation were cut down by a blast of case and the commander could not effectively communicate orders. The result in the playing of the game of the new rule was, of course, that everyone started gunning for musicians. Not a very historic mode of play. This required further rules to define when musicians could be eligible targets. By the time all was said and done nothing had been added to the game but complexity.

Think about it, can we resist adding trivia to our games? Can we be satisfied with getting the big pieces right and ignoring the small?

Tradition

Bob Coggins says that the most widely played wargame in the world is Empire 2 because every year someone releases a new version of it-different author, different name, and different cover but the same old game mechanics and concepts. While imitation is the most sincere form of flattery, I am sure that Scotty would be just as happy to see people build upon Empire 2 and not just remodel it.

Much of what we do in wargame rule sets is done because it has always been done that way. We look at a rule system and if it does not have rule 'X' or mechanic 'Y' then it must not be done correctly. This keeps the art of game design from advancing. There will never be new breakthroughs in game design if we never let new game designs succeed.

This is not to say that if it is new, it is automatically good. New games can be bad games, but old games are, well, old games! We have no right to criticize the state of affairs in game mechanics if we do not give new ideas a chance. This means we should be focusing on what is new and exciting in rule sets, not on what does not work like it always has.

We should not be judging rule sets based upon how we are used to playing wargames. I have seen numerous rule reviews that basically run like this: "This is not a picture of an orange, this is a picture of an apple. I like oranges. This is a rotten picture of an orange. Therefore this must be a rotten picture." This ignores the fact that the author wanted to describe an apple and that he may have done an excellent job at it. Because it did not fit our traditional view of a wargame, it is therefore a bad wargame.

Think about it, can we judge wargames on what they add to the hobby not whether they conform to our traditions and prejudices?

So there you have it-my four reasons why wargame rules are they way they are. Funny how they all depend on us isn't it?

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