Wargame Design- What is Fun?

The eternal question.  Spoiler alert for this post.  I don't know the answer to the leading question in the title.  However, as a designer this is the #1 goal players have when they approach your game.  They want to have fun!  Of course, what that means varies a lot!  

I have talked to a lot of different players in my time to try to answer this question, "What is fun?".  Here is a snapshot of answers I have received: 

• Winning is fun! 
• Hanging out with my buddies is fun! 
• The spectacle of a good game is fun! 
• Getting some insight into the period is fun! 
• Telling stories on or about the games is fun! 
• Playing and seeing what happens is fun! 
• Painting and setting it all up, and seeing it all come together is fun! 
• Letting my imagination run wild is fun! 
• Trying to master the game is fun! 
• Smack talking my friends is fun! 
• Researching the period is fun! 
• Being part of a larger community of folks is fun! 
• Talking about the games is fun! 
• Having a lot of choices in gameplay is fun!

The list is honestly endless.  There are as many different answers to "What is fun?" as there are players.  Each player comes to the table with their own history, personal preferences, styles, and calibrations for what is FUN and what is NOT FUN!  

If you ask players the flip-side of the coin, what is NOT FUN you also get a variety of different outcomes too.  If you list what is FUN on one side, and what is NOT FUN on the other you will often see the same answers!  

The Futility of It All! 

As designers, we all want to make "FUN" games.  The problem is obvious, no two people find the same thing fun!  In fact, what one person finds fun, another person will find "UNFUN".  How do we bridge this gap?  How is a designer supposed to make FUN games?  

The answer is surprisingly simple.  You don't.  

At first, this seems counter-intuitive.  After all, the most important rules in ALL of my games is this: 

• The goal of the game is for all players to have fun.  If this does not happen, then the game is a loss for everyone involved.      

Yet, when you look at the Designer's Notes on my games I often put the Design Goals for the game on paper for you to read.  If you have read all of my Designer's Notes you will notice that none of the goals on the sheet are "Have Fun".  

Where is the disconnect between the Most Important Rule and the Design Goals?  There is not one.  It is impossible for a Wargame Designer to design a game for people to "Have Fun".  Therefore, it is not a relevant design goal.  It is an impossible guideline to apply to any wargame.  As I have demonstrated, people find unique and different things fun, and often they are counter to each other so it is impossible to design for Fun. 

What is a Designer to Do? 

No need to abandon all hope, ye who enter here.  Instead of seeing the impossibility of designing for FUN as an exercise in futility, we can see it for what it really is.  The fact that you can not design for FUN is liberating.  Now you can now focus on your own design goals.  You no longer have to be bound by the expectations of others.  You no longer have the pressure of delivering FUN, because you can't deliver FUN for everyone.  

Here is what you can do.  You can have a Point-of-View on what makes a game FUN, and you can try to deliver that.  I previously wrote about how a Wargame Designer has to have a POV of how what you are trying to model on the table, actually worked in the real or fictional world it represented.  Designing a game for FUN is similar.  The Designer needs to have a POV on what is fun and apply it to their own games. 

In this way, you are not designing for a committee, you are not designing for an audience, you are only designing games for one.  You are now designing for yourself and what you consider FUN.  What you consider FUN is not going to match up with any other person in the world 100%, and that is just fine.   

Take the time to ask yourself, "What is FUN?"  Do not stop on the first level of your answer.  Dig in deep.  Ask yourself WHY several times, and note where the answers start to branch off, and could lead to different answers.  At the end of the exercise, you might have 3 to 12 things that you think make a game FUN.  

For me, it came down to a few key elements: 

- Making a decision is fun

- Seeing the stories of the world unfold is fun

- The spectacle of a game is fun

- Seeing "what happens" is fun

- Learning about new things is fun

Now, take this list and reflect on where, when, and how you like to see these in Wargames you all ready play, have read, or have experienced.  This will help you understand what works and doesn't work for you in a game.  If this things come in opposition to each other, which one takes priority?  This process highlights your design preferences.  

These are the things that I find fun.  I like each of these things in various degrees, and expressed differently at different points in a game.  For example, I like decision making on the table more than off-the table.  I like to see "What Happens" more during the post-game than I do during a game.  I like to learn new things prior to the game, more than during or after.  I prioritize seeing stories unfold over the spectacle of the game.  Making an on-table decision is more important to me than learning about new things.   

Now, take a moment and recognize that you are the only person in the world that likes the things you like, when you like them, and the mix that you like them.  That is OK!  

POV ---> Design Goals   

These core principles of what you decide are FUN, naturally lead into your Design Goals. 

• POV on Fun + POV on How Thing Work = Design Goals

You probably recall that your Design Goals act as guard rails for decision making on what goes in and what stays in your game.  Therefore, it makes sense that these Design Goals be informed by your POV as a designer on what is FUN and How Things Work.  Now your POV will infuse what your game will end up being.  

Once you have successfully captured your POV in your Design Goals for yourself and made a few games; then you can expand your thinking.  You will have enough self-knowledge and experience to try to think theoretically about what drives fun for people outside of your POV.  This is much harder to do.  I find it much easier to design for an audience of one, myself.  At least you know one person will appreciate the game! 

Final Thoughts

What is fun?  No one knows, because it is different for every single person as their preferences, tolerances, and experiences all vary.  Making FUN as a design goal is futile.

Instead, create your own Point-of-View on the topic and use that to inform your design goals.  I good place to start is by identifying what is fun for you.  Once you have mastered how to capture this into your design goals, you can start expanding outwards and experimenting with what is fun for others.  

The key point is that as a Designer, you must have a clear POV on what kind of FUN your game is catering to, and build your design goals around that.  

Bonus Content! 

It is funny to me that in theory, Kill Team does not have the mechanics that I like in a wargame at all.  I hate hit points.  Firepower overlaps maneuver.  There are tons of special rules.  It is filled with Game as Product gimmicks.  It does not have fire arcs and there is every reason to shoot every time you can shoot.  It is token heavy.  It is not model or scale agnostic at all.  Despite all these elements I do not like; I have fun playing it?  

Why?  

Simple really, despite all the mechanical things I do not like about it; it still checks the boxes for what I find fun!    

- Making a decision is fun 

• Are you in shoot mode or stealth mode?  
• What do you activate when? 
• How do I secure the objective against opponents with more APL?
• When do I use my Command Points and how?   

- Seeing the stories of the world unfold is fun

• I have a soft spot for the 40K universe.  
• It is evocative and Kill Team let's that world unfold for me. 
• Each model is a character of their own

- The spectacle of a game is fun

• My opponents are painting their forces as there are only 12 or less models  
• We have painted terrain.  
• We have cool play boards.

- Seeing "what happens" is fun

• The focus on Objectives over killing allows interesting game outcomes and reasons to interact
• I have won the game with 0 models left functional
• Quick games, so we can play 2+ in a club meeting
• There is a campaign system 

- Learning about new things is fun

• I have no idea what other Kill Teams do, so they keep surprising me
• We keep changing up the missions
• We keep attracting new players by playing it   

The game ends up being more than the sum of its parts for me.  Mechanically, it is not to me taste at all and that doesn't matter.  Instead, it is delivering on the things that I consider fun. 

Corsairs vs Ork Kommandos.  I am pretty sure I won this one on objectives in the end.  However, it was the first time an Ork player successfully used his Bomb Squig to take out one of my guys! 

We also keep attracting new people to the True Crit Gaming Guild who want to play games of Kill Team.  Therefore, we keep getting new players and showing new players the basics of wargaming.  Later this year, I plan on running a few other games like Force-on-Force, Castles in the Sky, and Men of Bronze but right now we are growing and people are painting up their forces for Kill Team! 

Why mess with a good thing.  This is the most games I have played in a long time, so I might as well sit back and enjoy it.  In addition to the game sessions, we also run painting nights and learn to paint sessions too.  This has set the expectation that painted models are key to the game.  I am loving it.  

So, enough photo dumping and bragging about our growing True Crit Gaming Guild.  Until next time!