I would like to pose two questions: 1. What is the poem about? 2. What has it got to do with wargaming? The answer to the first questions should be fairly obvious. The poem has "the Tyger" for its subject, but to say it is "about" a tiger would be simplistic. Rather, by careful reading, one need not be a literary scholar to see that Blake's poem deals with ideas that run beyond its surface representafion of the tiger. It is about God, about the structure of the universe and the relation between the tiger and the lamb -- with ail that each stand for. This poem is literature because the tiger is more than a cat and the lamb more than mutton. "The Tyger" goes beyond the empirical, surface, manifestation of a flesh-and- blood creature to its true subject -- the existential meaning of the poem. The use of one thing (the tiger) to suggest another (Blake's view of God and the universe) involves a huge mental leap, but one that has been perf6rmed so often in Western culture that we are no longer conscious of what is involved. When we say, for example, a piece of music is solemn or exaltant, we often forget that the sounds themselves have no meaning. They are just sounds -- bits of noise. We ourselves provide the meaning that assigns the contrast between Verdi's Requiem and Handel's Massiah. Like the poem. on the surface, they mean nothing The images and hence the rneaning must be provided by imagination -- that of the reader or listener. This representation of the existential (Blake's God, Verdi's solemnity, Handel's exaltation) by the empirical (the words of the poem, the sounds of the music) is not universal. It is conditioned and imprinted by the conventions and demands of society and individual. Lawrence of Arabia once showed some Arabs pen and ink drawings he had done of them to illustrate his book. The Arabs did not know what to make of them Instead of recognizing a representation of themselves. They peered at the drawings, turning them sideways. They could not make the connection between the existential (them) and the empirical (lines on paper) The Arab culture and experience did not provide them with the ability to say "this, is that." Enjoyment? Many will claim that they play games for enjoyment or relaxation, without any higher purpose. Yet people also read Plato's Republic or Nietzsche's Zarathustra for enjoyment and relaxation, and no one can deny that an intelligent and perceptive reader will certainly get much out of these works. It says little for our American educational system that learning and enjoyment are regarded as opposites. For a game to have a purpose or meaning is not op posed to its being enjoyable. What then is the essence, the existential message, that we would hope a game will convey through its rules, map, and counters? It depends on the game, its subject, and its focus For example, if someone were to produce one of die role playing games that seem all the rage these days on the First World War, then one would hope that by the empirical use of the rules, it would show the player its essence -- the awful realities of warfare, the nightmare landscape, and so on. But this would be the exception rather than the rule The majority of games do not attempt to convey a message of this personal, direct, internal nature. Let us leave that task to the artists; we should rather describe or analyse an event in game form. If one looks to comparisons with the printed word. a good game should be analogous to a good military history book Modern historiography does not hold the recitation of details, dates and facts to be the heart of history -- military or otherwise. Rather it is analysis, the systhesis of information with its context to make what occured in the past understandable, that the modern historian aims at. Those in our field who exalt the order of battle as if it were a pagan diety while neglect ing game systems and their testing are relegating their work to the level of the eighteenth century antiquary, a mere "fact collector." Other games seem to be more analogous to a historical novel with flavor and drama being the chief ends, although imposed on a historical background which -- however artful -- must remain only a background. Many of the games designed by John Hill and some of SPI's would fit this description. But if one accepts the goal of history expressed in a game to be the same as history expressed in a book, then it again highlights that the game should suggest something more than itself, in its depiction of a real, objective, situation or object. It is possible to see an analogy to portrait painting. A portrait, like a game, must deal with an actual, empirical, identifiable subject, which it must simulate, if you will, as closely as the artist's skill will allow. What differentiates the good, competent portrait from the excellent one is how the artist can use the empirical object to suggest what lies behind it, the "existential," if you will. Wellington Look at Sir Thomas Lawrence's portrait of the Duke of Wellington, to see the confidence and self-assurance of one of the best and brightest of the Empire as it approached its ninteenth century zenith. Granted, the Duke was a multi-faceted and complex man and it is hard to do him full justice in a multi-volume biography, let alone a single painting, but the viewer who has the imagination to see beyond the mere representation will come away believing he has seen something beyond the surface, beyond the scarlet uniform and glittering braid, and into the man himself, just as an imaginitive game player, if given a game that will permit it. can look past the cardboard counters and touch the actual event -- to be successful, both the designer and the player need imagination -- and what could be more worthwhile than that? It would be pretentious to claim that game design is an art Indeed, some people, including the head of the largest wargame company, believe that no skill at all is required to design wargames and that anyone can do it. So it may all be nonsense, after all, and these games just excuses to make a few people wealthy. But I do not think so. Through the games I have worked on in the last nine years, I have tried to call on you, the gamers, to allow me to perform my slight of hand trick, to use what skills I might possess to show to you the thrust of a jet fighter in full afterburner, the feel of a Lee Enfield rifle in your hands, and the sound of the rain falling in the Wiltshire Trench. Tyger Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night What immortal hand or eye Could frame thy fearful symmetry? In what distant deeps or skies Burnt the fire of shine eyes? On what wings dare he aspire? What the hand dare sieze the fire? And what shoulder, & what art, Could twist the sinews of thy heart? And when thy heart began to beat, What dread hand? and what dread feet? What the hammer? what the chain? In what furnace was thy brain? What the anvil? What dread grasp dare its deadly terrors clasp? When the stars threw down their spears, And water'd heaven with their tears, Did he smile his work to see? Did he who made the Lamb make thee? Tyger! Tyger! burning bright In the forests of the night, What immortal hand or eye, Dare frame thy fearful symmetry? -- William Blake Back to Wargame Design Vol. 1 Nr. 1 Table of Contents Back to Wargame Design List of Issues Back to Master Magazine List © Copyright 1978 by Operational Studies Group. 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