Narrativist wargaming

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Here's something I've been wrestling with for a long time:

In Henry V, Braveheart, Lord of the Rings, and many, many others, the protagonists are involved in substantial battles. Part of the value of these battles is their visual impact - it gives you a sense of the scale of the conflict and shows how much the pro/antagonists (and their lesser cohorts) care about the issues.

The other thing it does is that it shows you battle, which is viscerally thrilling, at least to some.

However, I have never seen a tabletop wargame wherein there is any sort of Narrativist bent, where the relevance of the protagonists is taken into account; nor have I seen an RPG that gives the sense of scale that could be given by laying your armies out on a table.

Is this synthesis possible? My own attempts haven't been a complete wash, but they haven't been success, either.

[TonyLB]

Totally possible.  No doubt in my mind.

If it's possible to get people answering Premise by talking, it's possible to get people answering premise by moving pieces.  Same difference, it's all gaming/contributing-to-SIS.

How?  Well that's the tricky thing, isn't it?  For Narrativist, wouldn't you have to start by figuring out what the Premise of the wargame is?

[TonyLB]

Wait... I think it's even been done on a small scale.  Old-style BloodBowl had a very cunning balance of team effectiveness this game versus team effectiveness down the road.  You could end up asking too much of your star players, and get them injured.  You could give your lesser lights too little to do, and they would never become stars in their own right.

Over the course of an entire season, you answered, moment by moment, the question "What type of coach are you?"  Some folks decided to play necromantic teams, where the players were wholly expendable.  I carefully nurtured a team of delicate little elves through several early defeats until their team-work and concern for each other combined to make them a tremendously effective force.  But the necromancers still gave me a run for my money, because they could target my team members for attack and injury, and they knew full well that I cared more about them than about victory.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

Over the course of an entire season, you answered, moment by moment, the question "What type of coach are you?"

That was a fun game, and not too terribly different from Heroic Factor, an RP/wargame that I "designed" several years ago. The premise (small p) therein was that each player was a petty king vying to be High King and, over the course of numerous battles, your army could be eliminated or you could wind up being the vassal of another player's king (I hadn't figure out yet that the ability to come in 2nd is critical in this kind of game, but it could easily add that feature in). There were also (at the time, GM-generated) other petty kingdoms that would be there to present obstacles and give you resources, should you overcome those obstacles. (for instance, you could gain, I dunno, Welsh Bowmen or Sir Lucien and add them to your retinue)

Part of the idea was that the RPing aspect would be diplomatic, so you could stop off with the Wood Elves and chat with them, and maybe they'd give you a bunch of archers, or maybe they'd stab you in the throat.

Another part of the idea - and this is important, I think - is that you, the king, are down there on the table. That mini represents your character, and it is through that character that you enact stuff. The king gives orders and the other charactes act according to some sort of mechanic.

Another important issue is that the king doesn't sweat any of the petty details of how the kingdom works. He's just making himself a bigger kingdom. "How good a king am I?" isn't, therefore, a viable question. "What am I willing to do to gain a kingdom?" might be.

Perhaps kings can have a PTA-like Issue, let's call it a Calling, where they can be working for something, e.g. Justice or The Fomorians or United Syldavia. The also have a Temptation, like Lady Tightbodice or Invincible In Battle. At every point when they can choose to fight for one thing or another, one of them must be toward their Calling, and the other is toward the Temptation. The Struggle gives you power to lead, while the Temptation gives you power as an individual. Likewise, obeying your Calling will give you power over men, but will make you vulnerable as a person, and obeying your Temptation will give you personal strength, but will likely make you a vassal. Balancing them will make you a powerful nation and a powerful individual. A 1:1 ratio shouldn't be the "correct" answer, either.

So, there, maybe it can be done.

[Paul Czege]

Story Engine defaults to a scene level resolution system, in which individual contributions from player characters participating in the scene are pooled, but has "quick take" mechanics that enable players to have their characters engage opponents individually, which draws any dice the opponent would be contributing to scene resolution away into a featured one-on-one. When that's resolved, the quick take mechanics then determine what dice go back into affecting the scene resolution. So if the "scene" were a clash of armies...

Paul

[TonyLB]

nikola:  Or throw in somewhat more complex victory-condition rules, such that victory could be pursued through Vassalage as well as through being Top Dog, and you might have a game that asks "How much will I sacrifice to be my own man?"

Yeah, it can be done.

[Bankuei]

I don't know about wargames with Nar inclinations, but I know Nar games that do big battles well:

HeroQuest
Riddle of Steel (in the Flower of Battle Supplement)
Universalis

I guess the hardest part I would see in a wargame is trying not to let all the fiddly strategy stuff overwhelm whatever Premise is going on.

[Andrew Cooper]

I've made an experiment of sorts with something similar.  I've tried to blend a mixture of strategy gaming and Narrativist RPGing.  I'm using a core FATE type ruleset.  The game (which I haven't recruited players for yet) is over on www.rpol.net under the Sci Fi section.  It's named Full Thrust Epic because I intend to use the Full Thrust Universe as the setting but on a much larger scale.

[Michael S. Miller]

Nikola: Even if it's the Birthday Forum, I'm still gonna do the "Read This" thing. Watch:

READ THIS: Birthright via Sorcerer

In it, Judd (aka Paka) lays out a model for true Sorcerer-Kings in, well, Sorcerer. Make each "unit" a demon and you're halfway there.

After I finish With Great Power..., crafting this idea into a full-fledged mini-supplement will probably be my next project: Sorcerer and Sovereignty.

Bill Cook is also trying something cool in [Burning Wheel] Mass Combat Playtesting I think he has more about this on the BW forum, but I'm not positive.

[Thierry Michel]

I have never seen a tabletop wargame wherein there is any sort of Narrativist bent, where the relevance of the protagonists is taken into account

Most wargames are historical and the relevance of individuals in big battles in slim, unless we're talking of generals.

[James Holloway]

Most wargames are historical and the relevance of individuals in big battles in slim, unless we're talking of generals.

Yeah, but it could be done on a smaller scale -- platoon-level skirmishes are not uncommon, or (to blow my own trumpet), the early medieval skirmish campaign I've been working on intermittently for like five years, Mordlanda Saga.

I can kind of see doing a very intense "what will you do to survive" kind of a Vietnam game, for instance, but I'm not sure it would be "wargaming" properly so-called.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

I have never seen a tabletop wargame wherein there is any sort of Narrativist bent, where the relevance of the protagonists is taken into account

Most wargames are historical and the relevance of individuals in big battles in slim, unless we're talking of generals.

Tell that to Cuchullain or Aiax.

... or anyone who plays Warhammer or War Zone or D&D Minis.

[James Holloway]

Tell that to Cuchullain or Aiax.

... or anyone who plays Warhammer or War Zone or D&D Minis.

When Thierry says "most" wargames are historical, he is using it in the sense where "most" means "hardly any compared to the sales of Warhammer."

But I admit that when I see "wargame" I think "historical miniatures wargaming" as well. Of course, "wargame" properly speaking means "hex-and-counter wargame," right?

I began a series of remarks on WHFB and Warzone and so forth, but realised that I was only articulating my own prejudices about what you can have a "serious" story about.

[Joshua A.C. Newman]

I can kind of see doing a very intense "what will you do to survive" kind of a Vietnam game, for instance, but I'm not sure it would be "wargaming" properly so-called.

OK, I want to make something clear: real war isn't fun. There are no heroes, people die of infection, frostbite, and dyssentery, and miscommunication is the greatest foe. Maybe someone wants to make that game. I don't.

I'm not interested in any war that's happened in the last three centuries. I'm not intersted in a simulation of the stupid ways people can die for something they don't understand. I'm not interested in Viet Nam, Korea, the Civil War, or Napoleon. I'm not interested in "historical" depictions of the Trojan War or Tokugawa Ieyasu's military rise to power.

I am interested in how Aiax, Hector, et. al effected the battle, and I'm interested in how Ieyasu and his dudes did, too. I'm not saying that there have to be wizards and fireballs; I'm saying that the stories of these individuals are more interesting than the mass combat model that is prevalent in wargaming.

I'm interested in depicting heroism, where the sacrifices made by those of mighty stories are the hinging points of the conflict. If there is narrative to be found in modern and historical warfare, it's probably to be found in the war room. What I want to be depict is at the banquet table trading favors and on the battlefield trading blood.

throw in somewhat more complex victory-condition rules, such that victory could be pursued through Vassalage as well as through being Top Dog, and you might have a game that asks "How much will I sacrifice to be my own man?"

Ah, now that's cool. Very cool.

[Sydney Freedberg]

If you want to go a more traditional hard-core wargame route, where the player's role is not as a national leader but as a military commander of some medium level, there are lots of painful, story-worthy dilemmas to get out of that middle position to, as you're pulled between what your superiors want done to win the war and your subordinates' desire not to get killed, thank you very much.  To paraphrase the Tom Hanks character in Saving Private Ryan, you have to choose between the mission and the man. So, premise: "What victory is worth sacrificing others for?"

(EDIT: This is particularly anti-heroic because as a commander in a modern military -- colonel or higher -- you don't get to put yourself on the front line much, so you're always asking people to do what you're not doing yourself. Which, if you have a soul at all, hurts.)