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Pointless Views: Don’t Need No Dang Imagination?
January 24, 2020 by crew
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Until we get a machine that can deduce the existence of Taxation and rice pudding, I don’t think we have real AI.
Why’s the table so wobbly? Hasn’t one of you got access to a screwdriver? 😉
It will take at least 20 men!
Good God, I just drove back to Sydney whilst listening to the podcast and I don’t think I’ve ever heard “Acre” mentioned so many times in an hour before in my life. It’s a city that was sieged many times (several times during the crusades) and each time its largely the same result. The siege of Damascus is far more interesting. If the Crusaders had won the 2nd crusade would have continued.
In regards to the topic, if historical gaming isn’t about imagination then what is it? Even if you are re-fighting a historic battle you are trying to “What if” history. What if Napoleon had finished of Wellington before Blutcher showed up? What if Harold hadn’t died at Stamford Bridge? What if the crusaders had won the Siege of Damascus? What if the Nazis had won the battle of Kursk?
As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago there are so many historical “What if?” moments in history that coming up with alternative histories are easy. The question simply becomes how far do you take them. Did the Germans win Kursk and these are the follow-on battles or is it 1947, and the war is still going because the victory set the Soviet war machine back 3 years? Did Hardarda win Stamford Bridge and is now facing off against the Normans or did Viking explorers give tech to Central American Indians who have steel weapons when the Spanish show up?
And I suppose this line right here “the siege of Damascus is far more interesting” cuts straight to the heart of the conversation.
Regardless of how much time and effort I have been putting into finding a cool battle to base my project around (and I’ll admit its not a lot but probably a little more than I can really afford to spare), it will pretty much always feel like an old nag in a horse race (not that I’m competing but I’s struggling to find another analogy)
Now we go back a good long way so I know where you’re coming from with the above and I don’t take offence because I do know what you mean and where you’re coming from – I’ll admit it stings a little – but I put that down to me maybe feeling a little sensitive these days lol.
But that comment makes me feel – yup maybe imagi-nations are a good idea, as even when I do try to ground something in a more ‘real world’ historical context – it falls at the 3rd comment lol
And of course, you are not wrong, you are absolutely correct I’m sure 🙂 But your correctness is based on knowledge I don’t and won’t have (I just don’t have the time – and to wait for a number of years to research something before having the confidence to do a hobby project on it – well I’m not sure that’s for me)
So yeah – the Imposter syndrome does hit me quite hard when attempting to do something historical – and I would place a small bet that it affects others too 🙂
(I am not criticizing your comment – I REALLY want to stress that btw!)
One thing I don’t think you covered in the vid about imagi-nations is a sense of ownership of that imagi-nation.
And whilst I think about it, the creativity of coming up with the background, however deep you want to go.
I’m getting more onboard with the notion of gaming telling stories, and even creating them, depending on how much of one’s self is thrown at a game…
If one is to create characters for all of one’s commanding officers, there might come a point in a game where the commander of a unit would, given their character, declare a charge, even though the game state says it is a bad idea…
What would give you more fun, that commander going for the charge, perhaps with an imagined court marshal later, or playing safe for the game win?
The more we create of what we game, I believe, the higher the sense of ownership, perhaps creating a loop to more fun in the whole process.
Very true, well make sure that goes into next weeks show about the positives of imagi nations 🙂
I guess may advice or response would be “Why Acre?” If you like the crusades and you fear historical gamers knowing more than you then why isn’t it just a “ A siege set in the crusades?
Think about FoW or BA. Are every battle there historical re-fought battles OR are they battles set in that WWII setting. I once fought Chinese communist troops with my early war Germans. It never happened in history but we made the story that my Germans were left over trainers of the Nationalist Chinese Army.
Ask Gerry would he have been happy to add Gatling guns to Rorkes Drift? Zulu cavalry? I doubt it.
In short if you are doing one of the sieges of acre, shape the game around the facts, character’s, troops, starting positions and changes (such as relieving forces) for the scenario, because if you don’t it’s not one of the sieges of Acre. If it’s a siege that you’re setting during one of the crusades, then you can do as you like!
Sorry mate I’m being really dense here but I dont understand what point you are making?
The point is a historical battle is a refight where the forces, terrain etc are set and at least one of the sides is trying to change history.
The rest is fiction. I think most of us prefer fiction because it’s not a accurate refight and we can do as we like in a historical setting.
If you like historical refights then the historical knowledge and accuracy are necessary. You are trying to replay or change history.
If you like a setting then you don’t need in depth knowledge, what you need is an interesting scenario and players.
“If you like historical refights then the historical knowledge and accuracy are necessary”
And who decides when that requirement is met.
For example what specifically was wrong with my description and potential interpretation of Acre 1191?
I don’t think I said there was a problem did I? I said I thought the siege of Damascus was a more interesting siege because it was historically pivotal to the 2nd crusade.
Sorry mate I interpreted this…
“Ask Gerry would he have been happy to add Gatling guns to Rorkes Drift? Zulu cavalry? I doubt it.
In short if you are doing one of the sieges of acre, shape the game around the facts, character’s, troops, starting positions and changes (such as relieving forces) for the scenario, because if you don’t it’s not one of the sieges of Acre. If it’s a siege that you’re setting during one of the crusades, then you can do as you like!”
That i had got it wrong and was sticking the equivalent of a gatling gun into the scenario. 🙂
But Acre is very exciting and Damascus is very boring. This is a wargame you know not a case study. Plus Damascus ruined the Crusades because of “off table” political infighting not a crushing loss in battle.
Acre has Siege Towers, War Machines, fighting in the Fortifications and outside of them.
At Damascus they did some basic fighting then settled in for a siege then just went home all in a few days. Not exactly the same level of excitement of flaming siege towers and actually taking a position.
In the reverse Albuera (Napoleonic Spain) would be a lot of fun to wargame, massive Cavalry Charges, 57th dying in ranks, a Brigade holding off a Corps but in reality the battle wasn’t that important since a few weeks later the French relived the Siege anyway.
Compare that to the battle of the Pyramids in the Napoleonic Wars where Napoleon defeated the Mameluke’s (See @warzan all History is connected, later he would also besiege Acre).
The Pyramids is very important but it’s just “French Form Square and GG guys see you next week”.
Albuera clearly makes the better wargame despite being the less impactful and arguably less influential battle. In the same way that Acre might be less important (That I would debate but here is not the place to do it) but it is far more interesting and easier to wargame.
@horus500 that’s what @warzan is going to do. He is going to base his games around Acre with the Siege Towers and the other related events.
For One you can’t “Wargame” a Siege in the way we wargame. Sieges go on forever what we can wargame is the “Escalation” part of the siege and we can add some pre-game decision making to that to make it more fun. So long as everything either happened or is reasonably likely to have happened then it is still Acre.
Right but Warren isn’t trying to play a points match here he’s trying to play a scenario that he can bring out and say “Right we’re doing this and it’s based on this and here’s how it works” just like someone running a D-Day Game.
“The point is a historical battle is a refight” that’s just not true. It’s impossible to be accurate enough to properly re-fight something and even if we could we simply can’t take everything into account.
For example almost no Battalion or larger level wargames include rules for soldiers lying down yet we know it was done, what about when some KGL and French Cavalry Battalions just stood off facing one another while two men had a private duel at Waterloo? We can’t simulate all things because the second we either do something that wasn’t in History or a roll goes bad we are no longer playing a recreation but a fiction.
The best we can do is set everything up in a way that sort of looks like what we think it looked like on the day then add a whole bunch of triggers and special rules to the game to make it work.
What if on Monday you set up and play a game “Properly” but then on Friday Historians discover something about the battle that makes your game no longer 100% historical did you play a Historical Scenario or does that now count as a what if game retroactively? It’s just far too complicated to distinguish between “A Re-Fight” and “A Faithful Recreation”.
the British don’t need any help at the Drift, I may give one to the Zulus next time though 😉
I think both myself and Elessar made the point during the show that Imagi-Nations are very different, and that Warren’s Siege of Acre is just a historical game but in the gaps.
I think the definition of Imagi-Nations blurred a few times beyond why the phrase was coined.
@avernos to be ‘historically accurate’ dont you need the Zulus to have an Elephant with a very worried look , a big spear in its trunk and a Zulu be behind with two bricks?
Napoleon Blownapart?
FFS LOL
I see the appeal of historicals; and there are plenty of people out there who will jump all over your ideas for a “historical” game because it’s historically inaccurate, you just need to decide “does it matter?”
A little while back, I was creating a Wild West tabletop game. I didn’t really know much, but I quite liked the Young Guns movies in my youth (not so much as an older viewer) and I thought the Fistful/Dollars “trilogy” were amazing (again, as an older man watching The Good The Bad And The Ugly, I was less impressed by two hours of watching Lee Van Cleef eat soup).
I did a little digging and was really drawn into the whole era: bad boy Billy The Kid is nothing like Emilio Estevez (his is quite a tragic story), Jesse James wasn’t the wholesome American anti-hero (he was a vicious violent knobhead) and Wyatt Earp wasn’t the wholesome upstanding lawman he was made out to be (he and his wife owned brothels and he was regularly arrested himself).
There are famous western characters whose timelines didn’t even overlap – and where they did, notorious outlaws often lived hundreds, if not thousands of miles apart.
None of that stopped me putting together a gang of the rootinist, tootinest, meanest, baddest cowboys for a bit of Hollywood style fun. So what that Billy the Kid was a reluctant outlaw – in my game he was a kick-arse train robber. Yes, Pat Garrett and Wyatt Earp and the Pinkerton agents CAN join forces and have a gunfight against Wild Bill Hickok, Buffalo Bill (who was a thespian rather than an outlaw) Billy the Kid and the Sundance Kid (whose life of crime started only six years after Billy the Kid had been killed); at least they can in my game.
*Some* historical fact is threaded throughout the rules – Wild Bill being one of the few gunslingers who actually shot from the hip (like they do in Hollywood) got a super-bonus during any one-on-one shootout for example – but those rules added flavour, they weren’t intended to re-create any particular scenario.
So I guess my game is set in the imagi-nation of “Wild West Land”. Where history influences and guides the game, rather than provide a strict, rigid framework. At the same time, I’ve thoroughly enjoyed learning more and more about the characters of the Wild West and it’s given me an appetite to find out more about actual real history.
I’d never dream of imposing real-life on my tabletop though!
Have you seen the post on the internet about betelguse may have been eating up a neighbour star @warzan ???
I read what Ryan puts in the descriptions – Swans are evil, they win!
tee hee hee 😀
I think Joe would be quackers to put himself in that situation…
You never see anybody playing many table’s of WWII Japan v Russia as they were blood baths in real life.
A thought provoking episode.
Regarding historical games – imagined or not – the only thing I would get annoyed about is someone claiming something is historically accurate when it blatantly isn’t.
There is also too much snobbery surrounding historical games – people criticise KoW historical saying it isn’t the way battles were fought… no shit Sherlock, it isn’t meant to be a simulation, it is a set of rules that easily allows you to play games with historical armies. Do I really want to play a naval simulation or do I want to play Black Seas… one is going to be fun for me… but i’m not going to belittle you if you prefer the other. Not liking a ruleset or company because you only play historically accurate ruleset, doesn’t make you better than someone else, and if you think it does make you superior… well it just means you are a cunt.
Imposter syndrome is interesting as well – it used to be called a lack of confidence. While a lack of confidence is something I don’t lack in the hobby, I would have a lack of confidence in other aspects of life. With the hobby, I really couldn’t give a fuck what someone one the internet or at a club thinks about my models or my gaming ability. The only person who matters is me and if I am not happy with a paint job, I’ll tell myself and it will probably be in a bath of dettol… pretty odd when I need 10 pints to talk to a girl when I am the most handsome man I know.
If I remember right Featherstone came up with Imaginations as he loved the Lace Wars period (early horse and musket) so he could have British line, Austrian Grenadiers, French Hussars all in the same army.
A Great show guy’s loved the interaction with the guest’s @elessar2590 and @laughingboy certainly got more fire into the talks.
I read a book written in 12century I believe, could be wrong by Geoffrey of Monmouth entitled The History of the Kings of Britain. In that book he suggested that they were descended from Trojans who fled the fall of Troy. So this got me thinking about a campaign of Greeks/Trojans conquering Britain. I knew that Cornwall at that time was trading tin into the Med. So I decided that they’d logically land in Cornwall. I created a Greek/Celtic state set in Cornwall for the purpose of the campaign.
I wrote all this up and can be found here in this issue of Irregular Magazine: http://www.irregular-magazine.com/latest-issue/
I had to imagine a new Greek state, but it was loosely based on historical Greek States from history.
To me imagin nations is all about the campaign. Most wargamers especially in the ancient period have done battles that would never have happened for decades and for most periods as well but…
Imaginations is all about a small tweak of history and creating a logical and believable campaign based on a what if. AVBCW is a prime example Edward VII doesn’t abdicate and you run with it .
When Grant or Young wrote the definitive imaginations it was based on 7YW and the players created there own uniform colours the army OOB even the history and economy of the country
In fact any campaign that’s strays from the historical is an imaginations campaign
On coming to things from the movies, is it the Perry range that has the choice of the movie Rourkes Drift characters and the actual characters? It may be Empress.
Empress is the movie set, although they do the historical version as well
I have both, if you’re going to match to plastics though, Perrys are huge compared to the Warlord plastics which were made to match the Empress range. Bear that in mind
I knew someone did it. I have a box of Perry British and (I think) some Zulus too so I’m stuck with those. I say stuck, they have a great range.
@warzan interesting pointless views , perhaps the most enlightening thing about the topic isn’t so much is imagination in games required , more the fact that we feel we have to do it. We could just get too forces and bash them together as Justin says for fun, but most of us both fantasy, sci fi and history gemers etc feel we have to not so much justify what we are doing ( I gave that up ages ago, sod off I play with toy soldiers), but perhaps to make a little world for our little wee fighting men. Made up or research we are putting a bit of a narrative to our game.
look at my on going project
https://www.beastsofwar.com/project/1375730/
I move a whole island chain to the med , to semi justify me having Cheiftains in the same force as Abrams and Leopards .
My gaming group dont need it , getting some of them to have the tank going in the right direction can be a challenge.
I have spent a bit of time painting the little buggers and feel they really need some narrative.
Over the years I have built and organised my own Battlemech Regiments . for Hammers Slammer we developed our own set of planets ( we even thought about publishing ‘Hammers into the Mercian Sector) our own multiverse to link them all , even my historic units have little unicorn heads painted on them and unit histories.
Of course I could just be a bit anal !
A good person to interview about the benefit of Imagi-nations in the grand tradition of Don Featherstone would be Henry Hyde of https://battlegames.co.uk/
He has run several old-school Imagi-nations games and campaigns and is an excellent and very knowledgeable fellow,as well as a great raconteur!
@warzan essentially it’s what you want to do and can you convince, threaten, bribe someone to play. You will always upset someone, and everyone has different ideas on what’s right for them.
Couple of examples – flags and banners, typically will come for xx battalion at Waterloo, and it’s the wrong flag to use for the peninsular, or you have flags for A B and C but they never were in the same brigade for example.
Secondly why only look at battles of the period to game. I think it was in MW mag years ago someone did Waterloo but using 30 yrs war and making it work on the same battlefield with similar timings. Even GW did Orks Drift (no sure it’s based on though…) and suggested Space Troopers for a guard v nids game.
If you want to do a Facre, or use weird round bases, it’s up to you and for your hobby. As Cap’n Jack said, it’s about what a man can do and what a man can’t do (sub women and her as appropriate) and only you know the answer to that
I like seeing and hearing things of history and I have an interest in it.
But like laughingboy, in my games I just want to do things that are fun and I enjoy and that my opponent enjoys even (and most of the times) aren’t historically correct. Because isn’t that the point of our hobby?
And everybody should play/hobby in the way they like without all the “critique” on others.
You can give some pointers or ideas but it isn’t necessary to break other people down for doing what they like.
Interesting discussion guys, I might chime in with my own thoughts here if I may,…… Imagi-nation, at least my understanding of it was as a training platform for military s to train to fight a proposed/imaginary enemy/threat (weapons & doctrine) without actually naming them, ie “The Musurin’s” were a common “enemy faction for training years ago when I was in the A-Res (Australian army reserves).
Call it gaming the gaps, undocumented history/historical gaps, or whatever, wargaming (NOT war simulation) is the practice of the what-if scenarios with as many of as few variations that you want to use to play.
War simulation is taking what happened between 2 opposing forces, and including the weapons training, doctrine, and the know events of that era, to either a) recreate what happened to understand what happened, b) look at the tactical views of both sides to see what, (if any) were the turning points in the conflict and how or if they could have been avoided (learning tactics and tactical theory will do this sometimes) . The second you start to say what would have happened if….. Patton had push on the hit the soviets and continue WW2 and the cold war never happened, then we are wargaming the what-if scenarios.
I hate to disagree with @elessar (fellow aussie), but the best alt history that I have come across is a series of books/novels by D.Niles & M.Dobson called Fox on the Rhine, Fox at the Front, & MacArthur’s War, all 3 are Alt history on WW2. The two Fox novels are about if Rommel didn’t die and instead link up with the allies to end WW2 and end the Nazi regime quicker. (Spoiler!!!!! and test the A-bomb on the Soviets in germany Bk2) The macaurtheur’s War is all about the pacific theatre and the variations that the Authors provide there. All 3 are a enjoyable read im my opinion.
While I can appreicate the fun of playing historically accurately, or replaying famous battles, I do have to wonder why some people can’t just enjoy the game without getting upset or needing excuses as to why my brisith force is fighting your british force, or why half my army is in winter gear while the rest have shorts on (although I’m sure collectively we all know enough people so we could field a real unit of shorts during a russian winter), etc. I understand there’s fun to be had playing thematically, but it is not the only fun. Don’t let it get in the way of you playing. Play the game for what it is. The other stuff is an extra layer you can choose to add on top, and definitely not a rules requirement or a definitive part of the game.
Only 7.8 billion? I thought we were 9?