Applied Gamism

[Mike Holmes]

And as far as wargames, you ought to try a game like Europa sometime. This is a wargame that I help some friends play on rare (masochistic) occasions. It is WWII in Eurpoe with hexes that are only sixteen miles across, and units broken down to the batallion level. This means that there are from five to ten THOUSAND peices on the board (which takes up an entire basement on three separate tables) at any time. With that sort of detail, you can perform tactics like mobile defense, and exploitive encircling maneuvers. Anything that a high level general could try, anyhow. Heck we even use psyops to wear down the opposing team (five or so players on each team) over the course of the four hours it takes for one side to do their turn.

"Hah, Ben made a mistake! He's left an entire three hex portion of the front without any armor or anti-armor support, and minimal artillery. Time for a breakthrough to spearhead the drive om Moscow! John, pull all the ME -111 squadrons from the south to make a softening attack on these to hexes here and here."

John: "But that wont leave enough air power to fly interdiction over the Soviet rail supply in Stalingrad. We'll be counterattacked!"

With games like these you better employ some tactics or you're going to get beat bad.

Mike

[Seth L. Blumberg]

Wargames on that scale, I think, are more Simulationist than Gamist. The emphasis is not so much on competition as on realism.

In fact, that kind of detail of tactical elements is not necessarily Gamist. Tactics can also be a very Simulationist feature.

{edited to add second paragraph}

[Mike Holmes]

Wargames on that scale, I think, are more Simulationist than Gamist. The emphasis is not so much on competition as on realism.

In fact, that kind of detail of tactical elements is not necessarily Gamist. Tactics can also be a very Simulationist feature.

Excellent point. Indeed. My friend, who I shall call Dave (because that's his name) is considered possibly the best Europa player in existence. He spends quite a lot of time in such games actually giving the opposition hints and suggestions as to how to improve their performance. He does so because he knows that gross errors on the opponent's side make the simulation less accurate. The opposing generals would never make such mistakes given actual experience and actual timeframe to consider decisions. One could argue that this is also to ensure that the game is challenging to him.

Dave brings his Gam/Sim attitude to my RPGs as well. For him, any tactical choices are the primary reason to play. This may explain his affection for RoleMaster. Nobody generates a character as effectively as Dave. It's also why he dislikes Hero System, as he is always fighting the urge to min/max to excess. And why he refuses to play in a Narrativist fashion at all. Where's the tactical challenge there?

I'm really looking forward this year to (what I feel is) the ultimate Gam/Sim LARP, the National Security Decision Making events held by the War College at the major Cons. You are a politico of some sort in a simulation of RW global international politics. Here are your objectives, GO!

Mike

[contracycle]

Compare with Bailywolfs gamist romp from a little while back - many different uses of dice, many strategies.  I think a good gamist game has a variable mechanic, one that can be tweaked a lot, so that it can be exploited in a wide variety of ways.  IMO where previous gamist games have gone wrong is to compromise elegance by constructing a huge mass of sequential calculations which you finally resolved on a single mechanic.  I think die pools probably have the edge here by allowing ways to make parallel decisions on multiple dice via multiple mechanical applications.  

Of course we also have behavioural game theory, the metagames like Nomic and matrix gaming etc.  

Should we try to construct a mechanical method for each of those strategies listed above?  Would we expect a fully developed conflict mechanic to explicitly cover each of those strategic decisions in some way?

Edit: Oh, and I propose "Interdict" in replacement of "Interpose".