Quick, what does the phrase "steep learning curve" mean? Is a game with a steep learning curve harder to learn and play than one with a gentle learning curve? How do you calculate LOS over the crest of a steep learning curve? "Steep learning curve" just sounds more difficult, doesn't it? Kind of like charging up a steep hill (and meeting the 20th Maine on the way). As you have probably guessed, a learning curve is the graph of user proficiency on the y-axis plotted against time on the x-axis. A steep curve, then, indicates a relatively quick increase in user skill. The learning curve is steeper for SCS than for OCS.

Why my pedantic display? Are you afraid I'm about to launch into a treatise on fonts, picas, and the difference between legibility and readability? No, my point is just that dumb is fashionable.

Pronouncements

A couple years ago, I read in one publication the pronouncement that hobby needs to have a new approach to operational-level games that avoids the emphasis on ZOC-socking that distorts the model in games like (are you ready?) Battle of the Bulge. The evidence was that the writer got clobbered playing original-edition Bulge (at least he reached the end of the game before drawing his conclusion about the state of the art in operational games in the mid '90s). Even acknowledging various ZOC-free designs didn't stop the writer from generalizing about "most operation level games."

Another instance I came across may never have reached print. I got a look at a draft review of EatG in which the writer pronounced that the intention of the surprise rule is to make combat results more unpredictable and random (that is, less closely correlated with the raw combat odds). From this premise, he concluded that action ratings should be assigned to units randomly. Dean must have been unduly influenced by that rhetoric class he probably took in college, where he learned about the fallacy of reasoning from a faulty premise. Otherwise, he might have hit on the elegant design solution of rolling a die, subtracting one, and typing the result onto the counter for each unit in the game.

Based on what I've seen of these two writers' work on published games, I can't consider them idiots. The question, then, is what tempted them into printing dumb remarks. For that matter, why do guys set themselves up for an immediate flaming by posting to Internet news groups and list servers declarations about how some particular strategem guarantees a win for one side or the other and renders a game completely unbalanced?

Cripes, I saw such a notion about Budapest '45, a Command magazine game, gain currency with reviewers. If you ever hear such a theory, don't abandon the game unpunched. Instead, take sucker bets, play the "losing" side, and stretch the other guy's gaming dollar further. Why is it some players seriously believe that, in only a couple hours of play (maybe solitaire, maybe against one opponent) they can uncover some obvious and game-busting flaw that slipped past all the playtesters? My guess is that being just plain dumb is not enough; such remarks require also a dollop of arrogance.

I mean the attitude behind remarks that start like, "I've been wargaming since back when Tactics II was just Tactics 0.1 (alpha) . . ." My guess is that we're vulnerable to putting too much emphasis in ourselves as veteran and therefore expert wargamers. We imagine that, as experts, we can spot a turkey after pushing a few counters. Thinking we have paid our dues, we overlook the fact that, while we're still stripping off the shrinkwrap, we have logged exactly zero hours with the game in hand.

Deflected Egos

A little later, when we're getting our asses kicked sideways, we deflect the ego damage with: "This game is totally unbalanced. Didn't those idiots even bother to playtest it?" When good play is a nothing more than a matter of rolling a retreat against one unit so you can surround another with a ZOC and kill it with a retreat result, then yes, it's easy to crab against the design's failings. But what about when the game presents harder questions, like GS or interdict? Move or combat mode? Overrun or wait for regular combat? Bombard or save supply? Pull units back or run supply forward? How many units, SPs, and phases do I need to clobber such and such enemy position? How will I recover if he breaks my trace at point A? or B? or C? The possibility of screwing up, getting whacked, and having our self-images as gaming geniuses refuted can motivate us to some pretty dumb reactions.

You noticed I started using "we." I'm guessing at the reason for our bouts of dumbness partly from what I've seen and read, and partly from my own reactions to games. Yeah, I'm dumb too. Take, for example, MiH's Ring of Fire The rules are short, the mechanics are conventional, and the whole experience feels familiar right out of the box.

So maybe I was lulled into thinking I knew how to play the Soviets properly just because I felt comfortable with the flow of play. I got exactly nowhere with the Red Army in my first attempt, and not much further in my second. I figured I had discovered a big pro-German play imbalance, an impression reinforced by the German armor's dominant tank ratings. Still, word of mouth and reviews of the game all being favorable, I entertained the possibility that I might be wrong. Turns out I was making some dumb choices in those early games; being willing to admit as much let me go on to discover a fun and subtle game.

Similarly, I thought the play balance of XTR's Cortes was seriously out of whack the first time I played it. I tried to have the Aztecs hold the causeways like Horatio on the bridge, only to discover that by doing so, instead of fighting the Spaniard within the city, I was committing suicide by Alcyoneus principle. That is, I chose to fight on ground that suited the enemy's strength and negated my own. Sometimes we gamers discover genuine play-balance flaws; my initial playing of Cortes wasn't one of those times. I was just playing wrong.

Playing wrong doesn't mean not following the rules properly. It means making ineffective use of your forces because you chose perfectly legal but unwise moves. Playing wrong in this sense, at least when you're first starting out with a game, is not in itself dumb. What's dumb is assuming that the problems you have are the game's fault, not your own. Conversely, playing right doesn't mean successfully guessing the designer's intentions; rather, it's a matter of evaluating your options, experimenting with them, and learning from the results. And one of the results, for players humble enough to learn something, is increased skill. Then, when you start whuppin' the other guy, you'll forget those play-balance problems you thought everybody else was too dumb to notice.