Over the last couple of years, I've been getting increasingly involved in historical miniatures gaming. And, although I'm just a young 'un and wasn't around for the early years of D&D as discussed in other threads on this forum, I'm noting a marked similarity between the way D&D is described there and the way historical mini games are today. I don't think there's an absolute correspondence, but I think a casual glance at the historical minis community would be rewarding for the student of RPG history, if only for comparative purposes.

If you pop on over to rec.games.miniatures.historical, or leaf through a copy of Wargames Illustrated, you'll notice, I think, a couple of trends:

a) systems very seldom include explicit instructions on "how to play." It is a basic assumption that you will be able to scrounge up or convert the figures you need, and that you understand implicitly concepts like "ground scale" and so forth. Many games don't include army lists, and it is assumed that you will either just use the army lists from another game(!) or that you will know your favorite army's orbat (and no one will tell you that this means "order of battle") well enough to just improvise it. One game published in this month's WI actually includes a section which says, basically, "I'm not going to include rules for this -- I know all of you have a favorite set of rules you'll use instead." Taken in this context, the vagueness of early D&D fits right in.

b) most systems are extremely idiosyncratic -- they reflect the author's personal views about the state of the hobby, and are conceived as part of a dialogue in which the other parts are other games. It is not uncommon for rules sets to include long ramblings by the author about why this game is "better" than some others. This doesn't really apply much to very early D&D, since it was essentially the only game in the field. But the idea of producing a generic product is not common.

c) most companies producing historical wargames of the miniatures variety are tiny cottage companies, indie as all hell. I can think of only one that isn't, and they're run by the same guys who turned fantasy minis into big business.

Now, there are a few significant differences between historical games and RPGs, and I'll touch briefly on them here:

1) the tension between design goals is seen as being a spectrum with "playability" on one end and "historical accuracy" on the other. Though, mind you, it is of course perfectly possible to create a game which is neither.

2) the contributions of other games are well-recognized and understood. Games frequently include "designer's notes" in which the influence of earlier games on the rules set is specifically referred to. Someone pointed this out ages ago (In Lawrence Schick's "Heroic Worlds?") and wondered why other RPGs don't do the same -- and of course, "awareness of context" is something Ron's been pushing for a while.

I'm not sure if I have a point; any other historical gamers on the board disagree with me? But I think that if you want to understand the way D&D in particular and early RPGs in general developed, you could do worse than to check out the historical wargames community.

Hi James,

This is a fascinating post, because back in the early 80s, the insights you present here were almost universal common knowledge among the role-players I knew. Role-playing was considered, in the late 70s, to be a sub-set of wargaming, and in some groups, play was only carried out in the context of the events established by the larger-scale wargame rules. That's why people call extended role-playing a "campaign."

You also might be interested in how many RPGs existed within months of D&D's first convention release. In many ways, I think the hobby didn't start with a single innovator at all, but rather parts and pieces of what we now call role-playing were present all around the world - and were synthesized during a very brief post-D&D process of massive communication and experimentation. The earliest players included RuneQuest, Chivalry & Sorcery, High Fantasy, Tunnels & Trolls, and Melee/Wizard, among others that are almost 100% forgotten.

If you can, take a look at that very-first-version D&D some time. You'll be astonished at how little like a role-playing game it is.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote: Hi James,

This is a fascinating post, because back in the early 80s, the insights you present here were almost universal common knowledge among the role-players I knew. Role-playing was considered, in the late 70s, to be a sub-set of wargaming, and in some groups, play was only carried out in the context of the events established by the larger-scale wargame rules. That's why people call extended role-playing a "campaign."

Ron Edwards wrote:
You also might be interested in how many RPGs existed within months of D&D's first convention release. In many ways, I think the hobby didn't start with a single innovator at all, but rather parts and pieces of what we now call role-playing were present all around the world - and were synthesized during a very brief post-D&D process of massive communication and experimentation. The earliest players included RuneQuest, Chivalry & Sorcery, High Fantasy, Tunnels & Trolls, and Melee/Wizard, among others that are almost 100% forgotten.

If you can, take a look at that very-first-version D&D some time. You'll be astonished at how little like a role-playing game it is.

Best,
Ron

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~beattie/timeline/1972-1979/dd.gif

Ron Edwards wrote: In many ways, I think the hobby didn't start with a single innovator at all, but rather parts and pieces of what we now call role-playing were present all around the world - and were synthesized during a very brief post-D&D process of massive communication and experimentation. The earliest players included RuneQuest, Chivalry & Sorcery, High Fantasy, Tunnels & Trolls, and Melee/Wizard, among others that are almost 100% forgotten.

Greetings James,

Great post.

James Holloway wrote: Over the last couple of years, I've been getting increasingly involved in historical miniatures gaming. And, although I'm just a young 'un and wasn't around for the early years of D&D as discussed in other threads on this forum, I'm noting a marked similarity between the way D&D is described there and the way historical mini games are today. I don't think there's an absolute correspondence, but I think a casual glance at the historical minis community would be rewarding for the student of RPG history, if only for comparative purposes.

Kester Pelagius wrote:
Ok, now for something redeeming. Here's a link to a good site about wargames. Web-Grognards ("The site for wargames on the web.")

Hi b',

Good call on Traveler - I agree with you entirely. My riffle through the mental Rolodex skipped an entry while typing ...

Best,
Ron

Kester wrote: Yet these minis were seldom used for anything other than putting them on the table to show party order or, if there was a map, used as one might move a pawn on a game board.

Walt, I'm guessing that he means that they were never used for combat, just to mark where on the map the party was in a strategic fashion. Marching order just becomes the point of departure for "in the head" play. We played that way as well.

Gareth, I'm not sure, but I'm going to guess that the game on grognards is one pulled from the General magazine. It's most likely some battle in the Phillipines, WWII. I use grognard.com all the time.

Funny thing about Traveller is how it was presented along with all the minitatures battle stuff like Striker, and Snapshot, and along with the strategic level wargame, Imperium. Really a mixed bag of stuff. I loved the deckplans for the Azhanti High Lightning.

Mike

Thierry Michel beat me to posting the link that's been circulating lately (a wargamer's review and opinions on the recently-released game called dungeons & dragons,) so instead I'll mention something else, related to this quote from Ron:

Ron Edwards wrote: If you can, take a look at that very-first-version D&D some time. You'll be astonished at how little like a role-playing game it is.

Greetings wfreitag,

Apologies for the confusion.

wfreitag wrote:

Kester wrote: Yet these minis were seldom used for anything other than putting them on the table to show party order or, if there was a map, used as one might move a pawn on a game board.

Kester, I'm curious -- what else should or could a character miniature have been used for?

talysman wrote: I scanned through the booklets a couple months ago, during some huge discussion here at the Forge about original D&D, and was a little startled. D&D was presented entirely as an individual-level tactics medieval fantasy wargame based around "dungeoncrawls" and wilderness exploration. role-playing -- in the pre-gaming sense -- was certainly at the back of gygax and arneson's minds, but it wasn't part of the game, so there were no rules for it.

Greetings Mike,

Mike Holmes wrote: Walt, I'm guessing that he means that they were never used for combat, just to mark where on the map the party was in a strategic fashion. Marching order just becomes the point of departure for "in the head" play. We played that way as well.

Kester Pelagius wrote: Topically redeeming question: Did anyone ever use their wargame maps and chits in a RPG?

Kester Pelagius wrote: Greetings James,


I don't know if this will be as interesting or insightful a post but, it is a unusual observation... probably from circa the mid-1980s and some of the games I recall.

Odd as it may sound just about every gamer I knew had a mini to represent their main character. In fact those of who didn't have one (or forgot to bring them to the game) were considered less than serious about our character. Yet these minis were seldom used for anything other than putting them on the table to show party order or, if there was a map, used as one might move a pawn on a game board.

Can't say if that observation is peculiar to some of the games I ran or not yet, at the same time, I can't say it's because we didn't know about wargames. I know I owned a few.

This talk of miniatures has got me thinking. AFAICS miniatures are mostly of use in a position-orientated combat system. One thing I've noticed about such things is they can be mind-bogglingly complex because of the man-to-man scale. Granted my experience with wargames is Chess, Checkers, Risk, Warhammer Fantasy Battle and that's pretty much it.

A RPG combat system of this nature is essentially a wargame at the man-to-man scale. Because of this, factors are taken into account that would seem superflurious or unnecessary or just too cumbersome in a troop scale wargame. Things like the variable weapon damages or the effect of armor on that damage (halves bladed damage, quarters blunt damage) and so on.

Maybe this sort of thing is only really, really bad on the homebrewed level. I remember thinking my friend's game was pretty bad in action with all sorts of situational modifiers to keep track of for special manuevers and such.

Anyone else feel this way or notice a similar phenomenon?

Hi there,

Jack, I'm not sure if "bad" or "good" is really the issue so much as one of prevailing aesthetics. I remember the days that b' is talking about (~1979), and I must say, well-painted miniatures were often amazing works of art. Having people appreciate the actual labor involved was a big part of being respected as a practitioner of the hobby, just like the really spiffy screens and the binders full of hex/grid paper.

Kester's description is very accurate for a few years later, say, 1983. Most of the "facing" rules or other fairly close-focus* situational modifiers for combat were largely abandoned by then - frankly, given AD&D's one-minute combat round, it was hard to understand how they were supposed to be applying anyway. And in games like RuneQuest, the modifiers were applicable to the imagined/verbal map in everyone's head almost more easily without a map. It would be another five or six years before many people stopped caring about movement rates, but that eventually came as well.

But back to your point, I think the key issue is the time-scale of resolution. If a unit of "exchange" is reasonably modified by the issue in question, then all's good if that's what the game is about (immediate local circumstances). But if you have, say, a "facing modifier" for what is supposed to be a whole minute of bobbing, weaving, feinting, and essentially unmodelled local tactics, then people will swiftly ignore it in play.

The above paragraph assumes a fairly Simulationist task-orientation toward Fortune mechanics, historically speaking. Other modes of play, I think, are so much more oriented toward other "things" in conflict besides immediate logistics that the discussion would shift quickly elsewhere.

Best,
Ron

* I call this "fine-grained" but apparently "grain" is a problematic term for many.

I'm not sure what phenomenon you're talking about? That miniatures when used actively tend to be used in a "Wargamey" fashion? Um, yup. That's the whole point of the thread, I think; that early RPGs were often, from today's perspective, played as wargames for all intents and purposes.

Yes, that's pretty much true.

Bad? You're criticizing the first four years of my RPG career pretty heavily there. I'd call it different.

In fact, I still like to play this way occasionally. For an interesting comparison, see the game Gladiator (often in a boxed set with Circus Maximus the chariot racing game). You design gladiators making about three choices, and then they fight and kill each other. Fun, fun, fun. Never intended to be an RPG, you can see what a man-to-man scale wargame is really like. For this sort of play, give me as many modifiers as you can find. Anyone play Advanced Squad Leader out there, or Star Fleet Battles? Two great wargames, with more detail than you can shake a stick at. I played SFB just a couple of weeks ago; great stuff. For this sort of game, detail is everything.

The basic difference between this sort of game and D&D when it came out, is that D&D was left a little (a little) more open-ended. Since the environments were not really all that set, and "encounters" could happen in the "countryside" or even in "town", the idea is put forth that one can put together any scenario that might happen to a character. This concept leads to the idea that characters can do "anything a person can do". And then further that one ought to play the character not as a playing piece, but as a person.

This is the development, mentally, of what RPGs could be in the first two years or so. I don't believe that either Gygax or Arneston envisaged any of this early on. They made a wargame that was just one-to-one, and very open-ended, and indicated a feeling of avatarism. The actual "role-playing", as we think of it, just developed as a natural extension. At best the early designers had a feeling that more could be done; but not until they'd played a bit did they realize what the range is. Nor have we yet realized all of it today.

And this is why we speak of the "wargaming heritage". There has never been a single point at which RPGs have just "jumped" away from being wargames (White Wolf notwithstanding; they talked about juming away from wargames, but did not). RPGs have gradually drifted away from wargames, but the imprimatur is still there (mostly, as I'm fond of pointing out, with the assumption that an RPG needs a combat system).

Today we have RPGs that cannot be said to be wargames in any way at all. But they are few, and the exception. People who play RPGs as though they are not wargames are the majority, however. But there are still a few that play RPGs with little attention to anything beyond what could be described as the "wargaming" details. Heck, I occasionally make Hero characters or whathaveyou, and just have them beat on each other for the tactical joy of it.

I feel old describing this. It seems to me like everyone should have observed the gradual trasformation and understand it implicitly.

Mike

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: Because of this, factors are taken into account that would seem superflurious or unnecessary or just too cumbersome in a troop scale wargame.

Thanks for the clarification about the miniatures, Kester and Mike.

This sounds very similar to my early experiences. The first time I played D&D in '77, we had no miniatures. Instead, the GM had managed to obtain business-card-sized cards with blanks to fill in for character stats (from where, I don't know. They weren't homemade but I never saw them anywhere else.) This group used these cards laid out on a bare tabletop as rudimentary miniatures to establish marching orders and general locations such as who was inside or outside a room (but not specific locations on a map).

As a GM, I apparently regressed relative to the progression away from minis described in this thread. In my first significant game as GM (79-82), I used miniatures and a hex mat for combat -- and for any homebrew that uses the AD&D spell lists, I still do, mainly because of the irreducible tactical importance of areas of effect. Same goes for Hero system.

Wargamey? Perhaps. Caused by influence from war games? In my case, quite frankly, no. And though I know miniatures have a deep history among historical war gamers, my recollection of the late-70's-early-80's is that a resurgence in using (and retailing) military miniatures followed, not pre-dated, the interest in fantasy figures for role playing games. With arguably the most important "missing link" between the two being Jackson's Ogre.

- Walt

Kester Pelagius wrote: Greetings Mike,

Topically redeeming question: Did anyone ever use their wargame maps and chits in a RPG?

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: This talk of miniatures has got me thinking. AFAICS miniatures are mostly of use in a position-orientated combat system. One thing I've noticed about such things is they can be mind-bogglingly complex because of the man-to-man scale

Greetings b_bankhead,

b_bankhead wrote:

Kester Pelagius wrote: Greetings Mike,

Topically redeeming question: Did anyone ever use their wargame maps and chits in a RPG?

I know a couple of example of those who did use wargames for the strategic level of their games. One friend set a traveler campaign during the fifth frontier war, which was a grand strategic wargame GDW set in that section of the spinward marches. Every couple of weeks he would get a friend together to play a few rounds and then take careful notes as to what happened.

Events that happened at the wargame level filtered down to the rpg level. You might come out of warp to find your homeworld had been taken over by the Zhodani or in the middle of a debris cloud left over from a massive space battle, or a fleet being mustered for a coming battle, it made for a universe that was dynamic in a logical way but at the same

This may be thread-drift, but it does sort of look like the thread has already drifted somewhat.

Kester Pelagius wrote: Of course you are probably unaware of just how lucky you were to experiance such a thing. Don't ask me why but role-players (at least in my experience) have been notoriously uninterested in wargames.

Kester Pelagius wrote: Greetings b_bankhead,

Of course you are probably unaware of just how lucky you were to experiance such a thing. Don't ask me why but role-players (at least in my experience) have been notoriously uninterested in wargames. It's almost as if they were werewolves and wargames was wolfsbane. I couldn't get my players to go near them, save of course to use a map from a space game or some such here or there.

Hmmmm, regarding the last two posts, I wouldn't be quite so quick to identify "story" with role-playing and "combat" with wargaming.

Despite the name, quite a few wargames were very concerned with the drama (small "d") of their content. Some historical ones integrated the personality quirks of generals into their rules because those quirks had played a role in real history, and so seeing how they might play out "again" was a priority of play. Others, based on various fiction, preserved the features of those stories as a basis for play, such as the John Carter of Mars game in which the villain inevitably kidnapped the hero's beloved and fled across the Barsoomian plains.

Conversely, many role-playing games, as we know, have either preserved combat as the central "go-unit" of play quite openly, or merely caused it to be central functionally despite rhetoric to the contrary.

Best,
Ron

Greetings Ron,

Some very good points.

Ron Edwards wrote: Hmmmm, regarding the last two posts, I wouldn't be quite so quick to identify "story" with role-playing and "combat" with wargaming.

Despite the name, quite a few wargames were very concerned with the drama (small "d") of their content. Some historical ones integrated the personality quirks of generals into their rules because those quirks had played a role in real history, and so seeing how they might play out "again" was a priority of play.

Ron Edwards wrote: Conversely, many role-playing games, as we know, have either preserved combat as the central "go-unit" of play quite openly, or merely caused it to be central functionally despite rhetoric to the contrary.

Valamir wrote:

Kester Pelagius wrote: Topically redeeming question: Did anyone ever use their wargame maps and chits in a RPG?

AD&D came out with an absolutely HORRIBLE miniatures war game called Battle System. Its one redeeming feature, was that it had hundred of scaled counters for D&D creatures and troops, from peasants armed with pitchforks, to elven bowman, trolls, orcs, warg riders, etc. We used those counters all the time in place of minis.

Oddly, I used BattleSystem quite effectively to run a huge war following a run of Keep on the Borderlands, all adapted slightly for OAD&D play. There were many aspects of it which made massed combat of that sort a lot smoother to resolve. However, I did not use the chits or lay out the battle on the table at all--it was more the resolution mechanics for group vs. group and individual vs. group that were the lifesaver. I've more than once recommended finding a copy of the set to D&D players trying to figure out how to run a war within their D&D campaign.

Ron Edwards wrote: Hmmmm, regarding the last two posts, I wouldn't be quite so quick to identify "story" with role-playing and "combat" with wargaming.

I had no problem with Battlesystem, used it several times and enjoyed it. In fact, when I saw the hit points at work in the mass system, they made infinitley more sense than they had 1-to-1 context. Sure, so a whole unit sustained hits till it reached X level, and we removed a figure - easy peasy.

Furthermore, the casting limitations oin MU's made more sense than they had previously, becuase they were there to make the MU's a predictable and accountable input to the battle... a magician who could cast fireballs ad infinitum might make an interesting PC, but couldn't be used for a wargame with any balance.

On the down side, Battlesystem also showed us just how broken D&D was for the kind of play we wanted to have. It became clear, as soon as we started constructing the armies, that you could do a hell of a lot with magic despite the restrictions (in fact, may of the things which saw little use in dungeoneering - cloudkill, blade barrier etc - got used a lot). I remember a unit of what, 3rd level elves in woods, IIRC, opening up with a barrage of magic missiles before the charge. Modern logic started to pervade the tactical decisionmaking; power levels escalated, and the armies got less and less "normal" and more and more like the wandering party on grand scale. Too much flash, not enough impact.

Kester Pelagius wrote: Greetings b_bankhead,
Even better, integrating wargaming with role-playing!

Of course you are probably unaware of just how lucky you were to experiance such a thing. Don't ask me why but role-players (at least in my experience) have been notoriously uninterested in wargames.

Wulf's comment

Indeed, we brought back minis (25mm) for position in RPGs to avoid positional arguments in crowded situations:
"I hide behind the table!"
"You're nowhere near the table!"
"What table?"

Others find that figures, token or markers give focus to the action, and help in weaving together player imaginations. Arranging the investigators in marching order shows who can believably whisper to each other and who must shout, or it can show who is at the rear to attempt to listen for pursuers, or it can show who must first risk being entangled in a snare, and so forth.

Re: Call of Cthulhu

I must agree, I have never used figures in CoC (other than to show off the lovely Grenadier monster minis - "It looks like this" - "Eeew!"). That game doesn't need careful positioning, as it's primarily a ranged game (as far away as possible, in most cases). We likewise have rarely, if ever, used minis in a SF game (despite massive collections of Traveller maps...). EDIT: except for the wargame-like tactical situations described above END EDIT. We only found them useful in close-quarters combat in crowded or crampd areas. It's not always easy to verbally 'map' a room to the mutual satisfaction of all concerned, and worse if the players are all adding to it. With a map, even a sketch on paper, everyone starts at the same point, and you can sketch on additions and changes. With minis, you don't have to ask as many questions about positions, lines of sight, etc.

But they are a damned nuisance at times. Particularly when the GM is expected to carry 50 lbs of them around every week...

Wulf

Chris Lehrich wrote:
M.J....Care to bring me up to date [on BattleSystem], as it were?

i began playing rpg's in 82-83. There was mention in the Basic D&D book of using miniatures on grid paper, but this was not really emphasized. Same deal when i 'upgraded' to AD&D about 4 years later. For the most part, we didn't represent things on a map, and combat was always a slash happy affair where people could attack whoever they wanted, whenever they wanted. The idea never even occurred to us that maps could be used. Fortunately, there were no gigantic conflicts of the size of M.J. Young's description, but the largest i ran, with 13 characters against 20 or so enemies took forever....

I never saw anyone using miniatures for anything. Ever. I did see them in the store, like the Grenadier and RAFM stuff, and actually owned a few (halflings, some "adventurers", a dragon and the "Dwarf with an inferiority complex") but never considered them for use in the game.

Then i got into wargames around 1990 (Warhammer 40'000 Rogue Trader, sigh...the good old days), and things changed completely. I stopped playing RPG's for many years (you can blame White Wolf for that, the last year i really played was the year Wraith came out), except for the occasional 2E excursion (Undermountain).

When i did start a WFRP game up last year, i used maps and pencil drawn marks for the combatants positions. It made for easier representations of combat for everyone involved, and more exciting combats, where people would jump onto tables or hurl chairs at their opponents. I actually played a mass combat as well, which went along quite nicely (WFRP, using the WFB mechanics for resolving NPC groups, about 60 goblins against 30 or so humans and the PC's).

In short, i went the reverse route, from purely imagined combats to ones on graph paper. I still haven't used miniatures for RPG combat though, and probably never will.

Hi All,

(this is my 1st post so please excuse any formatting boo-boos)
I have found this thread interesting because it deals with the
relationship between RPGs and wargames. I've had a long-time
interest in both hobbies.

I think that much (but not all) of the comment here on the relationship between the two has been "through a roleplayer's eyes". IMO this limits the depth of the discussion a bit.

For instance, there has been a lot of talk about the nature of wargames seems (to me) to refer to an older model of "how
they work". Remember that formal hobby wargames aren't really
that much older than RPGs at this stage :-) There has been parallel rules development ongoing in the wargames world. This has resulted in a new breed of wargames rules (especially for miniatures) that have a very different feel.

These new rules are generally based on top-down rather than bottom-up (raw simulationism?) design. Thus they are simpler to play, generally require little or no record keeping *and* provide a better model of battlefield mechanics than the old sets. I think that these rules are, in a way, more like narrativist RPG designs because they focus on modelling conflict outcomes rather than simulating the details of what's happening on a blow by blow basis.

Two examples of the sorts of rules that I'm talking about are:

- DBM (De Bellis Multitudinis), which is a set of large scale (c15K guys a side) ancients wargames rules.
http://www.richardbodleyscott.btinternet.co.uk/dbm.htm

- Crossfire, which is a set of WWII infantry combat rules.
http://www.10mbfree.com/crossfire/

DBM and it's little brother DBA have been responsible for generating a huge amount of new interest in the Ancients period. This is largely due to the elegance of the design IMO.

This stuff may seem a bit incomprehensible to GW players but in fact the GW style of rules is still based in 1970's-style wargames. FYI this is the stated position of the rules authors, I'm not trying to be contentious.

The above types of games represent one thread of development in wargames which is based around a traditional or compeditive style of play. In addition to this there are wargamers who prefer history, modelling etc to even the abstract "simulationism" embodied in the rules above. Many of these people have moved away from traditional "toy soldier" type rules and play games that are very recogisable from a RPG/freeform PoV. See the Wargames Developments web-page for more details on this:
http://members.lycos.co.uk/TomMouat1/Index.htm

A major part of this movement is the use of "Matrix Games" which make use of structured arguments invented by the players rather than any formal rules to control play. Possibly a true narrativist wargame?

Anyway I hope this has been of some interest.

rgds
rob

Rob Brennan wrote: Hi All,

Two examples of the sorts of rules that I'm talking about are:

- DBM (De Bellis Multitudinis), which is a set of large scale (c15K guys a side) ancients wargames rules.
http://www.richardbodleyscott.btinternet.co.uk/dbm.htm

- Crossfire, which is a set of WWII infantry combat rules.
http://www.10mbfree.com/crossfire/

James Holloway wrote: So I know that we can't possibly apply GNS to tabletop wargames, but if we could I would say that DBA is an example of "incoherent" design -- but it's mostly functional.

Jack Spencer Jr wrote:

James Holloway wrote: So I know that we can't possibly apply GNS to tabletop wargames, but if we could I would say that DBA is an example of "incoherent" design -- but it's mostly functional.

Egad. I really, really hope "incoherent" doesn't become the new "roll-playing" to designate a style or approach one doesn't agree with or like and , thus, it's inferior.

TBH James, what you'd described about DBA ddoesn't sound incoherent to me, but I'm going completely by your description here.

James Holloway wrote: Good God, no. I mean that it's trying to do two things at once:

1) provide an abstract set of combat rules, and
2) model the constructions of real historical armies

I think it does 1) well but this hampers its ability to do 2). Basically, it's fallen between the two historical mini game objectives of "historical accuracy" and "competitive enjoyment." It tries to do both and is hampered by this -- this is what I take incoherent as it is usually used to mean. No?

Oh yeah; I forgot to mention that armies are *fundamentally* unbalanced. I have a Vikings army and a pre-feudal Scots army and the Vikings pretty much always win. Because this is historically accurate; they were better. They won more often. And yet the game has tons of rules which are supposed to facilitate its use in tournament play... and as a result, you never see certain armies being played. Cause no one likes tournaments which are nothing but them getting whupped. So which is it? A chess-like competitive game or a historical simulation?

James Holloway wrote:

Good God, no. I mean that it's trying to do two things at once:

1) provide an abstract set of combat rules, and
2) model the constructions of real historical armies

I think it does 1) well but this hampers its ability to do 2). Basically, it's fallen between the two historical mini game objectives of "historical accuracy" and "competitive enjoyment." It tries to do both and is hampered by this -- this is what I take incoherent as it is usually used to mean. No?

Rob Brennan wrote:

Many of these issues are resolved in DBM. It is true that a large proportion of it's popularity stems from its suitability for tournament-style play but there are also large numbers of people who happily use it for both historical scenarios and campaigns. In fact many play principles shift subtly when used in these different manners. This is a real strength of the rule-set, is a tournament game a "historical simulation"? - no not really. But when played with suitable game parameters it does a really good job of being a simulator (at the battle level), much more so than previous generations of "detailed" rules-sets.

Rob Brennan wrote:
Anyway my main point was not to evaluate the merits of these games but rather to point out that they represent a quantum leap in game design (both in terms of historical simulation and playability) within the wargames area. This parallel evolution of wargames goes largely unnoticed by RPers because they are not mass-market items like GW (+imitators) and "wargame" extensions/supplements for many RPGs are very "retro" in wargames terms.

rgds
rob