These words were addressed to the adherents of the ''easy answers" of all times; to those who can read in America's quintessential Time magazine an epithet which warns us to accept the inevitable "next war" with a hardening of our collective will and without a ruffling of our moral feathers.. This article is a response to those who ascribe to self-importance any second thoughts about the morality and value of our hobby. It is also written to those gamers who can accept games. based on WWII analogs, which purport to simulate some future event -- and are in reality a nearly-entirely fanciful extrapolation of trend lines which may or may not exist anywhere except in the (collective or individual) imagination.
You understand I am less a gamer than a game designer, and !ess a game designer than a reader of history As a reader of history (not a historian) I see that throughout his brief appearance man has consistently chosen to solve conflict by violence (or the threat of violence) Because man is an animal it seems nearly impossible to conceive of his existence without violence and conflict But, because man is an insatiable and questing spirit he is also an artist and a toolmaker -- thus man conceives of and creates the means to destroy more and more effectively; the machine gun (the essence of infantry), the hydrogen bomb. and dreadnought battleship are all testaments to an increasing quest for destruction.
Coupled with mans' increasing capability for destruction is the very nature of history itself -- its randomness. This is the quality which gives rise to "revisionist'' histories and so many wargame advertisements -- 'Now you can change history ''Any given histoncal event is merely a link in a chain of circumstance; an alteration in any previous link can change the nature of any subsequent link However this very link analogy is something that most often can only be discovered or invented in retrospect When history is being formed (that is to say. now, at all times) its participants do not have a clear understanding of the actual forces at work, nor does a given action usually have the intended results.
As an example take the events immediately preceeding the outbreak of WWI during July of 1914. Any truly sane voice in a high place might have tried to prevent the outbreak of the conflict at that point, but the conflict itself became inevitable -- just as WWII was-due to the perception of the threat and the paralyzing indecision which was a direct outgrowth of previous "good faith" decisions undertaken in less apocalyptic times Thus history becomes a series of bizarre and random accidents punctuated by escalating violence. the product of greed and misunderstanding fueled by Man's ever grasping and manipulative mind
As we face the end of the 20th century we have a legacy of miscommunication, suspicion, imperialism and a relatively new capacity for mad annihilation. As a reader of history, I view this third and possibly final act with a great deal of trepidation. I cannot help but wonder in this context about the value of conflict simulations.
There are many points of view. Most of them denigrate the value and importance ot the hobby. A noted fellow designer at Origins '79 attempted to point out to me that the hobby is the outgrowth of an arrested adolescent sexual development. A gamer appeared at OSG's booth demanding that he be sold Napoleon at Leipzig without the Study Folder because he felt the game was not about history but rather about who is "best." Lastly, in the midst of my agonizing about the morality of our hobby in general and future games in particular at our seminar on that subject a fellow roundly informed me that I was exaggerating both my own importance and that of the games themselves.
For me a game is valuable only if it brings home some parcel of true information about the sense of a given event. Nearly all games purport to dispense "true" information, but as we all know that can be a very relative thing Thus games that attempt to recreate a historical event usually are the synthesis of historical study -- the designer consults different written histories to arrive at a simulation which accurately reflects what he judges to be the important factors in the event.
The true and valuable game "creates" new information in play through this synthesis. It provides a lesson in history through the tactile medium of the game Now games are inherently limited devices. much as history is; thus the history or the historical simulation can only reflect in a dull and retrospective manner the facts of the event The quality game is thus one that in some way overcomes this handicap and makes the event more immediate and understandable.
What then of "future history" (isn't that a contradiction) games'' Future games are generally games which examine some potential future conflict using information obtained from the extrapolated data created by the military and published in a variety of civilian and military sources Sometimes this information is based on the ubiquitous "last war," sometimes it's performance data based on noncombat specifications. Thus the designer of a future history game has a wealth of data for input into the game equation. What he lacks in contrast to a historical game is any perspective on the events portrayed. He also lacks any data of the supremely important human part ot the equation, trom the morale of a given soldier right on up to the clear-headedness of the commanders.
Lastly all historical games have the advantage of a generallyaccepted outcome ot the event already in view. Future-game designers will exclaim that they use 'analogs to past events' to check the veracity of their creations, but compared to the historical game this is a sad substitute for historical perspective.
And what of the value of the input data itself? If Firefight is an example of the military mindset, then future history games may well be a Pandora's Box Increasing military spending conspires with increasing instability to bring the military mind to a new preparedness -- equipping it with new weaponry and untried technique.
How fragile the peace seems. How impossible victory becomes. We are faced then with a question of evolution -- can we learn the lesson history has tried to teach us over and over -- or will we just blunder into extinction? I hope our games will help -- but I am not so sure.
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© Copyright 1979 by Operational Studies Group.
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