I am sure the subject of having the hobby of wargaming adopt standardized rules for each period has taken up more space in wargaming publications through the years than any other topic, with the possible exception of editor's pleas for more article submissions. Despite everything that has been written over a long period of time on the subject, one could safely state that only one rules set, WRG Ancients, could be described as coming close to being widely accepted and there are still many who refuse to play this set. Why did many feel standardization of rules for periods would be advantageous to the hobby? From what I remember, the standardization rationale usually fell under the following: (1)It would allow for regional and national tournaments and eventually a national champion. This seemed to be a more important consideration in England than in the colonies. This, in my own mind, is the best rationale for not having standardization. (2)To allow wargamers who don't usually game together to meet on a common ground; the same set of rules. (3)To allow wargamers to use their armies against each other without having to rebase their figures as different rules sets utilize various base sizes, figures per base, etc. (4)To allow wargamers to play each other at conventions without having to learn a different rules system. (5)It would help the hobby grow if we had standardized rules such as in chess or checkers, etc. (6)It would result in faster, better-played games if everyone knew the rules well, thus, reducing the "teaching" time. The next question, perhaps, should be, why hasn't the concept of standardized rules been accepted? It is my opinion that the answer is part simple, part complex. Foremost of all is the fact that we have not, nor will we ever, agree as to the nature of the event (warfare) we are attempting to portray on the table top. Wally Simon, until his recent metamorphosis, could not envision anything beyond one figure equalling one real soldier, while other rules authors are quite comfortable with ratios of one to one hundred and even higher, and others are somewhere in between. Ratio, to some extent, dictates scale (i.e., one inch equals fifty yards) and time (i.e., one turn equals two minutes), but the problem of a lack of operational definitions does not end here. We also do not agree on what a real melee was like (i.e.) were there lots of casualties or few casualties?), nor can we agree on game mechanics, for example, should melee casualties include those who are disorganized, demoralized, etc., as well as those who are actual casualties? Our view of the event is obviously dependent upon what we read and/or who we talk to, yet it has not yet been established that anything beyond generalizations can be obtained from the course of a battle, i.e., Wellington's observation that a battle is much like the course of a ball; it is not possible to break it down into definable parts which, can be said to be dependent upon, or follow., each other. Thus, we not only can not agree on what we see, we can not agree on how to represent it on the table top! Since we all seem to be viewing a different portion of a yet undefined event, it would seem as though the chances of rules standardization is exceedingly unlikely. It may be possible that such standardization, were it to occur, would prove to be detrimental to the hobby. Thomas Kuhn, in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, states that a scientific theory is accepted to the degree in which it holds promise for explaining the target event; the more variables it explains, the more widely it is accepted. Kuhn also postulates that it is not by the gradual increase of knowledge (first we know "A", which helps us to understand "B") which leads us bit by bit, to know "C", etc.) that major scientific discoveries are made, but rather, by shifts in theory (he refers to them as paradigms) which allow investigators to see an event in an entirely different manner than it was ever viewed previously. The analogy to wargaming would be that rules standardization reduces the possibilities of developing any new, radically different, views of portraying of what actually happened on the battlefield. Furthermore, it would be said to reduce the possibility of a really original set of rules being developed. Viewing wargaming through Kuhn's postulation, one could describe, for instance, Column, Line and Square (CLS), as being fairly successful at explaining Napoleonic warfare until we learned more about the period...then it was rejected in favor of a system (Empire?) which offered more promise or potential. George Jeffrey's ideas on Napoleonic warfare may hold the potential for taking over for awhile. It is very important, for wargamers, if interested in increasing realism in rules sets [and it is granted that it is not important for everyone to be concerned about this issue], to keep trying to fit new information about the period into the currently used theory/model/rules setand/or continue to write and/or fine-tune their own rules efforts. Fine-tuning implies a gradual progression, which Kuhn, as stated previously, feels does not result in giant steps forward. However, fine-tuning, at least in my own mind, can allow one to see things in a different view and in that way, allow for larger steps to be made. Besides, even if writing our own rules does not result in any new, startling revelations, we will have rules that match our view of what actually happened, or match our taste for simple/moderate/complex rules systems. Even more importantly, it will have been fun, much more so than accepting someone else's view of what happened. Back to PW Review May 1985 Table of Contents Back to PW Review List of Issues Back to MagWeb Master Magazine List © Copyright 1985 Wally Simon This article appears in MagWeb (Magazine Web) on the Internet World Wide Web. Other military history articles and gaming articles are available at http://www.magweb.com