Wargame Design Discussion: Game Masters in Wargames

 

Game Masters you say?  Is this supposed to be about Wargame Design or RPG Design?  Game Masters are a Role-playing Game thing.  It is one of their defining traits!  

Yeah..... about that.  

Game Masters (Referees, Umpires, Control) have been part of wargaming since the very beginning.  I am not an expert on the history of Wargaming, but some of the earliest examples were Kriegspiel.  This was a wargame used by the Prussian General Staff to help train officers in the conduct of warfare after the Napoleonic Wars.  It relied heavily on other Officers to act as referees to interpret and apply orders in the game.  

This tradition stayed with wargames, and is still used in many Politico-Military wargames run today.  In 2024, the US Coast Guard ran a wargame to help prepare participants to think about US Coast Guard doctrine for the next 30 years, and it was run by a Game Master.  The same is true of many of the Wargames regarding the Taiwan Strait or the (in)famous Millennial Challenge wargame.

Readers probably also recall that Role-Playing games themselves were just a down-scaled wargame where the players handled 1-character at a time rather than units of troops.  RPGs are well-known for using Game Masters.  This was a practice taken from the roots in wargaming from early versions like Chainmail.   

In the Hobby, Miniature Wargaming market the Game Master was also a common component in the mid to late 70s and 80s.  Many of us got our start in wargaming with Warhammer: Rogue Trader.  This game heavily features a Game Master for scenario design, balancing forces, deployment, and mission creation.  They also ran NPCs, surprise encounters, and made rules interpretations and decisions during the game.  This tradition continues in Games Workshop's Inquisitor as well.        

My venerable copy of Rogue Trader

What Game Masters Bring to the Table

There was a reason that games were using Game Masters to begin with?  What were these additional folks bringing to the table?  Why were they included in the first place?  

1. Teach the game

70% of learning is doing, and a Game Master is a great way to get players stuck in and learning the game from the first moment they pick up a miniature.  The player doesn't need to know the rules backwards and forwards, they can rely on the received knowledge of the Game Master for direction on operations and focus on the fun aspects of the game.  Meanwhile, they learn as they go. 

2. Adjudicate rules disputes and make rulings

There is no system in the world that doesn't have edge cases and opportunities to break.  The Game Master can paper over these situations by making rulings.  They can also short circuit rules arguments between players by being the "final word" on how to play a situation in the moment.  

3. Play NPCs

Some games benefit from interaction with Non-Player Characters in the game.  These could be Aides-de-camp and their opinions on how things are going, captured enemy scouts, or your own officers reporting up the chain of command.  The Game Master can play these non-player characters in a game for various effects. 

4. Allow Fog-of-War

The Game Master can interpret what any player sees, and provide mis-information, confusion, or other details to a player.  This could be pre-game, during deployment, or even during gameplay.  This information allows the game to have a higher degree of uncertainty and risk than games without Game Masters.  The GM can also monitor hidden deployments, flank marches, reserves, etc.  

5. Add Complications

The Game Master can add a variety of complications that are unknown or hidden from all players, some player, or just a single player.  These complications then force players to make decisions based on limited or imprecise knowledge.   

6. Determine Outcomes of Decisions

Finally, a Game Master can determine consequences or outcomes of decisions.  If a player decides to use a narrow road, does it slow their movement?  Does it cause disorder?  The Outcomes do not have to be set or scripted by the rules, they could be improvised by the GM or just hidden from the players.  This adds more Fog-of-War, Friction, and complications when things do not always go to a calculation.  

7. Forge the Narrative

Game Masters can help in this process by making scenes, outcomes, or new developments very cinematic or narrative in nature.  They can take the random occurrences on the battlefield and help the players shape them into a larger defining narrative of the game.  

8. Be Fun

A Game Master adds additional social engagement to the entire game experience.  They can crack wise, console bad luck, and cheer along with you.  They can be a social lubricant to help the game play be smooth and fun as now it is a game of three people instead of just two. 

In many, modern, hobby-based miniature wargames new mechanics have been created to try to replicate these various aspects of what a Game Master used to do.  However, it is open for debate if these mechanics are an improvement on the human role of Game Master.  

GMs Go Home!

Despite this track record and history, modern, hobby focused miniature wargames have moved away from the Game Master model.  It is often seen as an archaic design choice.  Instead, they have been replaced by the rules themselves for dictating and arbitrating what is supposed to happen in a game, and what effects are seen on the tabletop.  Why?  

I have a couple of theories on the move away from Game Masters: 

1. The primacy of rules

The gentlemanly rules writing style has fallen out-of-favor with many modern players.  In the old days, rules could be written a bit looser, as the GM or the players themselves were assumed to be able to work-out the details as fellow gentleman.  However, players have demanded that rule sets "tighten up" in order to avoid ambiguity and remove the social decision making aspect out of the hobby.  The Rules are suppose to be the final arbiter of what should happen in a game, rather than any other source.  

2. The rise of pick-up culture

With the rise of Pick-up Culture in gaming, the primacy of rules is critical.  Two random strangers enter a neutral, third space and play a game with no other commonalities between them.  The Rules themselves are to create that bridge between these two strangers.  If the rules do not cover it, these two strangers are at an impasse.  

As this type of gaming became more common in miniature wargaming circles, the rules themselves had to reflect these changes.  No more could writers rely on a group of like-minded buddies around a table.  They had to make sure that the rules could work if two complete strangers met up in a game store, club, pub, or the street to play a wargame. 

The wargame scene was atomizing into smaller and smaller components. 

3. I need 3 people to play this game now!   

As this atomization occurred, wargamers became much more "singular".  They were expected to meet-up and play a game.  Trying to organize three players to get in a game was much more difficult, therefore games had to cater to two player at most.  Games designed for more than two players fell out of favor commercially in the industry because it was a limiting factor to getting a game.  The Game Master became a liability to getting a game in. 

4. Competitive Gaming

Of course, many of these factors were also linked to the rise of the competitive scene in wargame, as games moved away from being a form or learning/recreation and into more of an arena of skill/sport over time.  Here again, the Game Master was a liability as the role could inject uncertainty into outcomes that were anathema to the Competitive ideology.  Certainty, known outcomes, and set statistical probabilities were essential for a competitive scene to function between two random strangers. 

Even a casual reader can see how these factors have all intermingled and grown in such a way, that the Game Master became a liability to the growth of the miniature wargaming hobby rather than a benefit.

There are probably more reasons or theories, but those are the ones I am going to postulate for today.  Feel free to add your thoughts or other ideas about why the GM has become less common in wargaming in the comments below.  I would appreciate it.  

A Game with a Game Master

Why Design with a Game Master in Mind? 

Based on why Game Master went away, I find it highly unlikely that they will return in a big-way to mainstream miniature wargaming.  The reasons they went away are still too prevalent in the market.  In fact, the market has potentially atomized even further with the rise in demand and popularity of solo-play games over the last few years.  I only see this trend accelerating as Society as a whole becomes more solitary for a variety of cultural and sociological reasons that are way beyond the scope of this little musing.  

So, if this is not the future but the past of Wargaming, then why am I even talking about it?  Well, because a lot of non-miniature, non-hobby wargames still make extensive use of the Game Master.  Therefore, the role still has a fundamental value that sometimes can only be met as a human.  Nothing yet can improve and react to a changing experience better than a Human Game Master can. 

With that in mind, a Game Master can be really important to your game and something to consider if you plan on having some of the following elements feature heavily in your game: 

1. A one-shot club or Con game

In this type of environment, the Game Master can teach the players as the game is ongoing.  The players themselves probably do not have much time or interest in learning all the nuances of a complex rule system.  They want to get in, get a feel for the game, and play.  A Game Master can help smooth over a lot of the bumps in this process by giving options, knowing the rules so players do not have to, and explaining rules only when they become relevant to the game at the moment.  

2. A high-level of role-play

If your game expects a high-level of RPG-Lite in the function of the game, then an impartial Game Master can help determine suitable outcomes and results during the game, especially when players inevitably go off-script and do something that the game itself does not explicitly cover.  

3. Fog-of-War/Hidden Actions

The Game Master can be an impartial observer and monitor for where actual units are, where they are not, and outcomes of actions well-beyond the scope of the 4Ms.  With a GM, things like Double-Blind deployment, hidden movement and set-up, unexpected battlefield conditions, etc, can all play a role in your game.  

4. Evolving Complications/Friction

If you game has escalating friction or levels of unexpected complications, a Game Master is useful to make decisions on when these situations apply, and how they apply to the game.  The intention is to make the player make tough decisions and manage the Friction.  Game Masters can apply these quicker and easier than mechanics like charts and If/Then rules and can do so only with guidelines as opposed to mechanical systems.  

5. High Degree of the Unknown

Games with a lot of Unknown elements like guerrilla ambushes, mine fields, unexploded ordinance, and other 3rd party or ambush type factors can benefit greatly from a GM to decide when and how they come into play.  The GM can also adjudicate when players themselves try to move beyond the scope of the rules and into "unknown" territory as well.  

All of these situations are ideal for a Game Mastered game.         

Final Thoughts

Wargames have a long tradition of using Game Masters to help run a smooth game for the players, and this tradition is still alive and well.  However, the hobby, miniature wargame market has moved away from this as a feature for a variety of reasons, often related to the atomization of the hobby into smaller and smaller units of participation.  Despite this move away from a Game Master, there are times and places when a Game Master can still be an important and relevant part of a wargame's design.  

Like most mechanics, a Game Master can be a useful tool that a designer should consider and keep in their tool box.  The designer's job is to make sure they can apply the right tool, at the right time, to get the outcome they want for the game.  It is important to know how and why a Game Master can be useful.  

Until next time! 

Become a Patron and get access to all the cool stuff, a peak behind the curtain of Blood and Spectacles, and early-access to playtest games!  

Blood and Spectacles Patreon! 

You can follow Blood and Spectacles Facebook page or Instagram for more fun! 

Check out the latest publications and contact me at our Blood and Spectacles website

Or purchase all out games at the Blood and Spectacles Publishing Wargames Vault Page!