Wargame Articles

What is a Wargame? by Alan Emrich

War is too terrible not to contemplate, not to study. However natural it might be to hate something as tragic and dire as war, matters of survival and freedom are often determined as the consequence of war's outcome. Ignorance of a real knowledge of war and history is not bliss, but folly that too often ends in slavery or death. And while the first casualty of war might be truth, I don't see anyone lining up to be the second casualty.

As a teacher, I know that there are many ways to foster learning. The best involve doing. When the subject is war, the lessons must be made more practical than setting off a bomb while the neighbors are away.

For subjects like these, we learn by doing through simulations.

What's in a Name?

To the uneducated, the word "wargame" is a pejorative. It's right up there with "war monger." (Interestingly, if I studied cancer, would that make me a "cancer monger?") We need to start with a vocabulary lesson.

Better terms for wargames include "conflict simulations" and "strategy games." Although more technical (and harder to 'market'), the former is the best alternate for 'wargames.'

"Conflict simulations" hinges on that particular word, "simulation." Wargames are, in fact, simulation games, and it is those two words ("simulation" and "game") that make wargames fascinating and such a good tool for learning.

Allow me to explain.

What's in a Game?

While you might instinctively 'know' what a game is, let us consider the exact list of specifications required to make one. Like a recipe for your favorite cookies, it is the combining of these ingredients, their mixing and baking with care, which makes them great and gives us a desire to enjoy them. So too it is when making games.

To begin with, a game has defined ends. That is, the object of a game is to win it. This makes it different than a toy, puzzle, or story in that the player has something interactive to do to fulfill an objective and win the game.

Of course, nothing worth doing is easy. In a game, there must be something to be bested, something to overcome - a competition element. Here, the Greek word for game, "agon," is the key to understanding and the next ingredient on our list. Agon, in addition to defining the contest, conflict, and struggle that is at the very heart of games, is also the word that defines Western Civilization; agon defines the West's constant struggle for betterment and freedom.

In order play a game, you need stuff. The pieces or 'tokens' and locations in that 'game world' (e.g., pawns, cards, items, avatars, play money, controllers, levels, etc.) required to play the game are called its "means." That is, players manage limited resources (including time and space) through the use of 'tokens' to achieve a winning situation; that is, fulfilling the game's victory conditions. Or, to put it more simply, players use the game's means to achieve its ends.

Now everything conceivable is not included among the means in a game; like all art, a game's designer selects from life and presents a vision of gameplay and / or 'story' for the player to experience. But that is not all a game designer is responsible for.

How a player uses a game's means to achieve its ends is defined by the game's rules. Every game has to have rules (otherwise it wouldn't be a game; it would be real life). Rules define the actions and moves that the players may make in the game, and their restrictions, limitations, and prohibitions. And while every game has its rules, it's more important to understand that every game is its rules, for they are what define it. If I handed 30 space aliens each a set of Monopoly components except for the rules booklet, and said, "Your homework is to bring this back next week with a set of rules for using these pieces to win a game," I'd get 30 different games (none being Monopoly). Each would be a unique game because, even though they all shared the same basic component set, they would all have different rules.

About "Fun" and Why Players Want to Make "Cool Decisions"

"Based on my reading, the human brain is mostly a voracious consumer of patterns, a soft pudgy gray Pac-Man of concepts. Games are just exceptionally tasty patterns to eat up.

Fun is all about our brains feeling good - the release of endorphins into our system (that is, the same thing that happens with cocaine, an orgasm, or chocolate).

One of the subtlest releases of chemicals is at that moment of triumph when we learn something or master a task. This almost always causes us to break out in a smile. After all, it is important to the survival of the species that we learn - therefore out bodies reward us for it with moments of pleasure. There are many ways we find fun in games, but this is the most important:

Fun from games arises out of mastery. It arises out of comprehension. It is the act of solving puzzles that makes games fun. In other words, with games, learning is the drug. "

Raph Koster, A Theory of Fun

Ends, Means, Rules, Agon…

What's Missing?

If you were baking chocolate chip cookies, of course you'd need flour, baking soda, cooking oil, butter, and so forth - but the reason people love them is for the chocolate chips! Granted, you could make chocolate chip cookies without the chocolate chips, but then they would just be boring old cookies.

Likewise, games need fun in the same way that chocolate chip cookies need chocolate chips, for without fun a game is about as enjoyable as a plain cookie.

So how do players derive 'fun' from a game? Well, fun in playing a game is derived from achieving mastery in solving its puzzles, and thus, achieving its goals. This mastery is achieved (and 'fun' experienced) through two principle avenues: making 'cool decisions' and just plain 'showing off.'

So, great gameplay experiences are all about fun, and fun begins with making cool decisions. Gameplay is a constant stream of cool decisions (and their consequences) in the face of challenges that the player must resolve. A 'cool decision' is one where:

A. The player understands the need to make it along with its potential ramifications, and it must be made with the information that the player currently has available - that is, decisions made in a vacuum of knowledge, those where the player is simply forced to guess, are not cool; and

B. It has an effect on the progression of events in the game and, ultimately, its potential outcome - meaningless decisions (such as changing the color of your shoes in the heat of battle) are a waste of time and effort. Game designers must avoid creating these situations and keep the player focused on what's important; and

C. It demands a trade-off or sacrifice (i.e., a 'cost') in the game's context players must make a real choice; they can't have everything. In a game, it's bad game design to have a ring with unlimited wishes or a pot of gold that never runs out; scarcity of resources (i.e., 'means,' including time and distance) creates cool decisions when players must decide how best to use / allocate them.

Then, of course, there is 'showing off' that adds fun to one's gameplay experience. Players always 'bring something' when they play. Logic, spatial reasoning, timing, mathematical skills, pattern recognition, rhythm, reflexes, agility, drawing skills, cunning, singing, rhyming, trivia and historical knowledge, eye-hand coordination, an understanding of human nature, deductive reasoning, the abilities to spell, negotiate, and perform feats of manual dexterity using gross and fine motor skills are all among this very partial list. It is when players get to use these abilities (i.e., to 'show off' what they personally bring to the game) to help them progress in (and, better still, win) a game that players really have fun. A successful demonstration of one's innate and developed talents and skills is very satisfying and fun! That's all there is to it. And allowing players to use their personal skills and abilities to their advantage is simply good game design.

Benefiting from 'Game' value

Okay, so a wargame is a simulation game, and we've nailed down that a 'game' consists of ends, means, rules, agon and fun. So the 'game' part of 'wargame' means:

" Maintaining some degree of 'fun,' 'playability,' and 'interactivity' (the players contribute to the process).

" Providing the agon (i.e, the 'contest'); that is, a struggle between players or a game 'system' that is opposing the player(s) in which there are winners and losers.

" Providing a non-linear experience (i.e., one that can be explored and a player's theories for success and/or failure tested within the simulation being modeled).

" Working within the constraints of rules and other (simulation systems) limitations.

This is known as a Fulcrum of Game Design: games can be made so realistic and full of lessons that they are neither playable nor fun. Similarly, games can be about a subject matter, but be so unrealistic as to have no 'simulation value' to provide lessons.

What is a 'Simulation?'

Let us consider the other side of the simulation game coin, that of 'simulations.' A simulation is created to simulate, but not duplicate, an actual or fictional event. To this end, game designers 'model' the relevant activities and allow the players to input their decisions over time to see changes.

It is important to note that in the modern military, 'models' and 'simulations' have distinct meanings. Specifically, a model is a physical, logical, and/or mathematical representation of a system or process; a simulation adds to this the dimension of representing change over time based on input of external factors (such as player decisions and random events). For example, chessmen roughly serve as a model of an army, but it is the game play of Chess that is the simulation of a battle.

Benefiting from 'Simulation' value

What makes a wargame a simulation game is the development simulation technique. Since the invention of Chatarunga (the earliest antecedent of Chess) and through the evolution of Kriegspiel (professional military wargaming developed in Germany in the 19th Century), simulation technique has been used to get the most educational value from the gameplay experience in simulation games.

What is simulation technique? It is something that most modern games use, almost taking it for granted; it is prominent in most game designs. Simulation technique uses these key elements to achieve simulation value (i.e., a perception of realism sufficient to engender valuable lessons from the play experience):

1. Quantification: That is, reducing things down to numbers (such as combat strengths, damage values, movement rates, morale, and so forth). This creates clear, measurable distinctions that can be compared and assessed with precision. Quantification Should be Greek to You

If you remember your geometry, then the name of Greek philosopher Pythagoras (572-500 BC) might ring a bell (a2 + b2 = c2).

Not only did he 'discover' the mathematics of music (striking a chord half as long gives you a pitch twice as high), but he's also the father of the principle of quantification. His goal was to reduce everything in the world down to numbers.

He would have made a great simulation game designer.

2. The Laws of Probability: Which hold that, while a certain range of outcomes is known (i.e., are possible in a given situation), the order in which they occur is subject to chance (i.e., random). Why?

"The die serves as the unknown quantity which, on the human scale, always appears as if it were handed down on the winds of fate - it thus preserves the chaotic perspective of the battlefield and forces an intuitive or poetic basis in the ultimate moment of crisis, an adoption of the calculated risk, which alone can grant success."- Kevin Zucker,

3. A Role-playing Aspect: Because a simulation is about something (i.e., it's not abstract - it's about whatever is being simulated), there is a role-playing element where the player represents the person (or 'force') making the decisions at a level of that simulation's scope and scale (i.e., a pilot, general, stock broker, wizard, crime lord, spy, courtesan, mother nature, a prince, car thief, etc.).

Thus, using simulation technique to add the 'simulation' to these games means:

" Adding 'realism' in a manner that can be understood and/or controlled, and

" The ability to learn practical lessons from role-playing. 'Real world' experiences can be applied (i.e., if you're playing a king, doing king-like things rewards you during the game), plus simulated experience can be learned (maybe you shouldn't overtax the peasants!), and these combine to make a very legitimate teaching tool.

Using simulation technique does not predict with unerring accuracy; rather, it instructs players about the situation presented by it. Games using simulation technique serve as a mutable framework within which you can see different parts of a simulation situation interact and consider the possibilities.

Whereas a book, movie, or play can have but one ending, a game can end in any number of ways... and in every game you can clearly see how the game evolved and understand why it ended the way it did, taking away lessons in the process. You and the other players control the decisions made within the game's framework, which in turn allows you to control and experiment with situations using the game / simulation engine as a 'laboratory.'

While games using simulation technique are, on the surface, competitive interactions between individuals, they are more frequently 'played with' for their 'study value' rather than played competitively merely to defeat opponents. People can't resist pulling out simulation games and seeing for themselves (and often just themselves - solitaire play is very common with games using the simulation technique) "what might have happened if...?"

For many long years, we have referred to analog historical wargames as "paper time machines." That sobriquet is neither a misnomer nor hyperbole. For the study of historical events, reading a book is one way to learn, hearing a lecture is another - but nothing compares to standing astride the events themselves and making decisions within that framework using simulation technique. Many disciplines all come to life when playing simulation games: history, sociology, politics, economics, and geography, for example. When a player is standing in the shoes of another, seeing the world that they saw, and making decisions based upon the pressures of that time at that location, more than mere learning takes place - understanding occurs! Nothing makes the light bulb go off over the learner's head like the electricity provided through experiencing events using simulation games. It is these 'wargames,' these 'paper time machines,' that have evolved into most of the modern computer and video games that people enjoy today.

"Games made for entertainment inspired professional games made to teach and wage war; these new, deadly serious games in turn influenced novel innovations in games for pleasure." From Sun Tzu to Xbox

I hope that you will show wargames a little more deference and a little more respect, now that you understand them better. © 2008 Alan Emrich and Victory Point Games by Alan Emrich www.alanenmrich.com and Victory Point Games www.victorypointgames.com