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Some would argue Kriegsspiel was the first true wargame.
You can still purchase Kriegsspiel over 100 years later!
Talk about a "dead" game.
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This blog was initially set-up to do more than just share
reviews of wargames, share battle reports, and show-off my work. It was intended to actually dig into the
process of game design and provide the reader with some insight into the
process. Game design is a combination of
art and science, but in order to master the art you need to understand the
foundational science of it. To help with
that process, I want to start with a series of articles with some of the fundamental
ideas of wargaming.
However, before I get into those I want to start with
this bit of advice for all of you aspiring game designers. Start down the path of game design because
you want to do it. Do not make games for anyone else but yourself. Along this path you will encounter many
people who will not see eye-to-eye with what you are doing. That is okay, everyone does it differently
and there are no right answers. However,
if you are trying to please everyone you will fail. If you are trying to build a better X, you
will fail. If you are cynically looking
to make a quick buck, you will fail.
Make games because you ultimately WANT to make games. So make games for yourself first.
Secondly, the idea of designing a game can be
overwhelming! There is so many moving
parts, so much to do, and so many voices involved in the process. It is much easier to never do it. However, there are several old sayings that
address how to go about designing a game:
·
What is the best way to eat an elephant?
·
How do you boil the ocean?
·
How do you start the longest journey?
That is how you build a game from the ground up. If you can answered these "Koan of Game Design" you are ready to begin the process. Let
us begin with the fundamentals of the art.
All arts are built on a strong backbone for support. For painters it is color theory, for gamers
it is probabilities, and for the wargame designer it is the 4Ms.
The 4M’s are:
1.
Movement
2.
Missiles
3.
Melee
4.
Morale
Movement- Simply
put, movement governs how the units get from point A to point B
in your ruleset.
Missiles- In
all ages of warfare, one side would try to hit the other from far away with a
weapon system. Even ancient warfare had arrows, spears, javelins, sling stones, etc.
While more modern eras have rifles, machine guns, ATGMs, etc. All of
these ranged weapons are conveniently looped into the broad category of
Missiles when it comes to design. How does unit A hit unit B from far away.
Melee- This is
when the fighting gets up close and personal.
Melee ranges from fist-i-cuffs, to hitting a guy with a chair, pistol
shots, to short-range firefights. Melee is any fighting between unit A and unit
B that is considered close combat.
Morale- Morale
is one of the least popular of the 4Ms to deal with. It focuses on the psychology of troopers in
combat, and how they will react to a given situation. At its most basic form it is at what point
one force will stop fighting, all the way to how a unit can interpret their
orders. Morale is often where the famous
“Fog-of-War” or “Clausewitzian friction” will play a part. Morale is determining how unit A will react
in combat to what unit B is doing. Morale is the most complicated interaction.
All tabletop wargames utilize these 4 key components. How these 4Ms interact and are resolved is
what makes up the mechanics of the game.
As a designer, you choose which of these gains the most emphasis in your
design and give the appropriate mechanics and weight to that part of the rules. However, no matter which of the 4Ms you
decide to emphasize, all 4 of them must be present in your design. If you fail to capture one of the 4Ms you are
probably no longer designing a tabletop wargame, but something else.
Therefore, the first step in game design is to understand
the 4Ms and decide which ones you will be emphasizing in your rules system and
why you wish to emphasize it. Then,
consider if you emphasize one or two, how it impacts those that remain.
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| A lone Greek Hoplite |
For example, if you are designing a game revolving around
Greek Phalanx combat, which of the 4Ms should be the focus? Greek Hoplites tended to frown upon missile
warfare and instead favored shock tactics.
Therefore, Missile should be de-emphasized. They also tended to use linear formations and
liked to crash into each other across an open field. I guess that means Movement is not as
important to capture the spirit of their warfare. However, few people were killed in Melee
unless they were broken in combat and started to flee, that was when the
killing started to happen. Therefore,
the interaction during Melee would lead to Morale issues. That interaction would need to be a large
component in a game about Greek Phalanx combat.
We have identified that Melee and Morale are the appropriate areas to
focus our mechanics on.
In a different example, say WWII platoon combat you might
focus on the 4Ms differently. Movement
to set-up or hide from shooting attacks was critical. Therefore, you might emphasize Missile and
Movement over Melee and Morale. For a
Sci-Fi example, you might want to emphasize how warships in space move to get
into an attack vector, and therefore highlight the Movement aspect of the game.
Good luck with your designs.
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