I'm rereading "The Prince" for a seminar I'm doing at Origins ("The
Anatomy of Defeat") when I came across a section where Niccolo perfectly
describes a "Tactical Exercise Without Troops". I quote...

Philopoemen, Prince of the Acheans...though of nothing...(but) war...when
out in the country...he often stopped and reasoned..."If the enemy were on
that hilltop and we were here with out army, which of the two of use would
have the advantage? How could we attack them without breaking formation?
If we wanted to retreat, how could we do this? If they were to retreat,
how could we pursue them?" And he proposed to them (his companions), as
they rode along, all the contingencies that can occur in any army; he
heard their opinions, expressed his own, and backed it up with arguments;
so that, because of these continuous deliberations, when leading his
troops no unforseen incident could arise for which he did not have a
remedy.

[Philopoemen (250 to 182 BCE) was a Greek General in the Achean League. These were the cities of the Peleposian penensula (except Sparta - who had to be difficult). He was active during the Roman Macedonian wars and was cited along with Scipio and Hamibal as being one of the great generals of the age. See Plutarch and Polybus.]

I didn't notice that when I read The Prince twenty-five years ago. He was
proposing wargaming five hundred years ago and attributing the idea back
two thousand years!

COOL!

[Tactical Exercises without troops have been done for a long time but I first heard about them in Wargame Developments when Paddy Griffith ran them. The way Dr. Griffith described them is just like what Machiavelli did in "The Prince".]

Since this is the Forge and just sharing something cool is not enough I throw in the question: Drum roll please... How could something like this be incorporated into a role play game?

Chris Engle

How do you mean incorporate it into roleplay? That would mean fitting it in under the wing of something else, when it's already a self contained account of roleplaying itself.

I'd look into what could be incorporated into it - breaking up self indulgent agreement, for example - when everyone thinks you could just retreat via X and thus don't have to think about it anymore, have a system that latches onto that and makes it not such a perfect solution. Ensure a competitive element to the game so that rather than everyone just saying 'huh, system says no?' someone is trying to get ahead of everyone else by finding exactly where system says yes.

Rambling after thoughts: Although at first I was thinking of it in a 'Well, what if you can't retreat via X' design, for example. But it doesn't really work out - it'd be setting up a pattern of thought that says retreat via X is no good - while on the battle field dismissing the existance of opportunities wholesale is a bad idea. As I said, rambly - have to think more on that one.

Hey,

I've also read the prince but I really didn't recieve that message as "role-playing" but more of going through all the probabilities in your head...
But if your interested in a combo of rpg and wargames you're not alone i'm working on a project right now called WARH this stands for
"Wargame and RPG Hybrid" (I've recenty posted on it) The whole idea of my game is you can control the armies attack cities and take over countries and this would affect your characters for better or for worse. Anyway if this is anything like your idea then goodluck

We do military campaign using Engle Matrix Games but while players have characters, they are often the leaders of units or factions. Right now we are getting up a 100 years war campaign. I get to play this time. I don't have a character. Instead I'm representing the woes of the 14th Century. I will make everyone's life more difficult with unrest, plague and famine. Since players make things happen by arguments ("I think X happens next because of Y.") one can play a character focues game or a game that completely ignores characters.

Good luck on your project!

Chris Engle

I Thought of Night Time Animals Save the World myself.
You use the scenery around as you walk from one place to another as part of the game. I can't remember where the write up is though.

tj333 wrote:
I Thought of Night Time Animals Save the World myself.
You use the scenery around as you walk from one place to another as part of the game. I can't remember where the write up is though.