Great lecture! I've tried designing Medieval wargaming rules myself and encountered the same problems with sources, consumer expectations, publisher and market place demands. I like your proposed solutions.
Fantastic lecture. Very interesting thoughts regarding the balance between a sort of quantitative view of victory as opposed to a cultural view of victory. Thanks for your time Robert!
Dr. Jones, your conclusion that the medieval era is not being considered in terms of military practice or technology based on an observation from wargaming period names makes so much sense!
Your discussion of alternative medieval era rules that better reflects the culture and values of the area reminds me of how the Crusader Kings series demonstrated the politics of the period much better, dispensing of the realist model of nation states and showing how dynastic politics influenced countries behavior. Thus it's a much better model of the period than, say, Europa Universalis 4.
Dr. Jones, you teach in Lancaster, PA when you're Stateside? Any chance you'll be attending the Fall In! convention at the beginning of November? As an avid wargaming, armor-wearing, academic, archaeologist myself, I've love to meet up with you to discuss two medieval battle projects I'm working on at the moment!
A very interesting talk, and rather enlightening. It certainly has given me some ideas about how to enliven my own big battle medieval game scenarios. One point I would make in defence of wargames figure manufacturers however is that almost by definition wargames figures have to be stereotypes otherwise they're not fulfilling their primary role on the tabletop of telling the players, at a glance, what they represent. It's an "Anglo Saxons have moustaches in the Bayeux tapestry" type effect.
Thanks. It's not my intention to paint manufacturers or rules publishers as the villains of the piece: in the end they are responding to what their buyers - we the wargamers - are asking for.
Amazing lecture! Many of your thoughts and conclusions are similar to mine :) I made a set of medieval rules for my club, maybe I will publish them one day and then I will gladly hear your opinion about them ;)
Interesting talk, thank you very much for sharing. From what i understand you think that i shouldn't be using dark age miniatures to represent the 53rd (Welsh) Division in Boltaction?
If mechanisms like SAGA work in other periods, then the core mechanisms to basically roll dice seems sound.. It is very loose in historical terms but then it's aim is as you say is to "game for fun" a cerebral Kriegsspiel it is not.
Excellent analysis of the issues involved in designing wargames that are applicable to periods other than just medieval. "Mechanism" creep where rule systems that work for one specific conflict are morphed to cover everything is particularly irritating.
Something that would deepen the analysis is a simple observation (that the talk comes close to in the mid part but never quite gets to). The vast majority of wargamers, and virtually no designers of wargames, have any interest in accuracy. What they care about is something different I would call verisimilitude - they care that the rules 'feel' right, not that the rules simulate something. Wargamers often talk about 'accuracy' but that is just the vagaries of language, failing to understand that it does not quite mean accuracy conflates two conceptually different things. And it does impinge towards the end of the talk, where much of the recommendations reflect the speaker striving for verisimilitude. Because the distinction is not made the question of how you model and how you measure accuracy (essential first steps to simulation) is never really addressed.
Thanks for this. I suppose, to my mind, the search for 'verisimilitude' is another way of looking at what I was talking about in terms of a spectrum between 'simulation' and 'game'. In fact, I recognise that a 'simulation' of medieval warfare is impossible (we simply do not have enough data to work with, and will inevitably filter our understanding through a modern lens - there's a lot of thought about this in both the historical music and historical European Martial Arts communities). I would agree that what we are looking to capture is the 'feel' of a medieval battle; 'the hoofprints on their faces' as one wargaming buddy calls it. I also agree that this inevitably means making compromises over 'accuracy' and 'simulation'. Thanks for your comment.
imo, the one ruleset that has struck me as the best fit for medieval and some ancient warfare is Field of Glory, simply by virtue of paying so much attention to the importance of terrain, morale, and commander influence. Ultimately though I think the biggest hangup of systems, regardless of understanding of the rules team of period warfare, is Umpire or no Umpire. Without an Umpire, you can never have a fog of war, orders cannot be confused beyond some dice system, and calculations for combat are usually more fluid and faster since there isn't a dedicated party to hash it out.
I certainly agree that an umpire, or gamesmaster, can help with fog of ear and the like. However, I have also seen some very clever mechanisms across rulesets of all periods that can give you some of that even if you don't have the 'man in the middle'.
@@historianinharness The main mechanic in that ballpark is limitation of special maneuvers without the presence of a command model which is something the TT version of FOG does I quite like. Otherwise troops can only do basic actions like attacking, advancing, or wheeling and require better organization to engage in reverse marching, redressing, etc.
@@wyattw9727 hmm. I'm not a fan of 'special manoeuvres for medieval troops. I don't see a leader figure being able to exert the kind of influence on a group of men that suddenly means they are able to pirhouette across the field or whatever! 😉 I was thinking more about the use of blinds, to allow troops to appear put of dead ground, the impact of extreme weather (the sort that has a recorded effect on the outcome of a battle), or mechanisms to replicate (for the Wars of the Roses for example) the unreliable ally.
I'd point out that, at least as of the halfway point, one could not glean from the video that there is any table top wargaming but miniatures. That leaves a broad genre of board wargames entirely out of consideration. No comment is made on the rules systems employed there because, it appears, Dr Jones is entirely unaware of their existence.
You are right; I do not mention board wargaming, and I'm sorry not to have added the caveat at the start of my talk that I am a miniatures gamer, and have been for my entire wargaming career. Whilst I am not 'entirely unaware' of the existence of other forms of wargaming, it is true that I have little or no experience of them, and would have been unable to offer an informed commentary, even had I time to add them into the mix. I would love to know whether that genre of wargaming was better or worse at avoiding the issues that I see in miniatures gaming for the period, or whether the same issues with research, stereotypes, and commercial imperatives reside there too.
To be fair on the speaker miniature wargames and board wargames have surprisingly little overlap in players (I know this as somebody who does) and the games themselves though they could use the same rules do not and in fact are very different in their structure and logics.
Listening to that, I think by myself, the dear Doktor has lost the point a bit. Wargames, whether on a PC or on the tabletop, are just just this : playing war as a GAME. I own a plethora of rulesets and none is claiming to provide a historically accurate simulation of a battle / campaign of medieval times. And I doubt, that such a Ruleset would really provide the fun people seek in games that may last anywhere from one to 3 hrs before players loose concentration. Also the widespread wish of so called " balanced Armylist" is diametrally the contrary of what happend in reality, aside from terrain aspects, weather, diseases, disappearing drafted conscripts etc.which struck many armies on campaign. Aside from major issues such as providing provisions, sanitation, repairworks for thousands of men and their equipment , horses etc. . Of course one could add such things by means of "unexpected events" but is this fun to play ? In the end, unless an author of a ruleset has a philantropic mindset, the work must be paid...usually through sales. And dry and bitter reality does not sell. If people spend their sparetime with collecting and painting hu dreds of minis , terrain, buildings etc, they don't want to remove the first 3 units before the battle starts because of diarrhea and or dysentry....or the horses break down after a 9" move because they couldn't be fed for 3 days before the battle due to lack of vegetation...aside from warriors haunted by famine or thirst ( crusades, HYW, TYW, ACW,..no ?). So unless someone comes up with an, again abstract and hopefully not too complicated, collection of such realistic events and behaviour of men at war, I stick with what we have as rulesets and enjoy a good 2-3 hr. GAME-Session, witjout worring too much whether my knights have been in the, historically correct, whatever this means, order...😊
As I say, we all have our place along a spectrum between the pure (and probably unachievable) simulation and something that is wholly a game. Where one sits on that spectrum is a personal choice. For me, I want a game that is both fun to play *and* reflects something of what I understand to be the medieval culture of war. All of that is hugely subjective. Wargaming is a broad church; there's space for us all!
I'm sorry that's how you received it. It certainly wasn't my intention, and I hope that, by the end, I did have some positive takes, and suggestions, with reference to the 'A Coat of Steel' and 'Bloody Barons' rules, (both of which offer a different way of handling period feel), and also with the suggestion of looking at changing the scenario objectives in our gaming. The paper was titled 'challenges and Pitfalls...' however, so (to a certain extent) the clue was in the title! 😉
@@historianinharness The utility of recommending The Perfect Captain games is somewhat dulled by them having closed down their page, so you can't download it these systems anymore.
Great lecture!
I've tried designing Medieval wargaming rules myself and encountered the same problems with sources, consumer expectations, publisher and market place demands.
I like your proposed solutions.
Extremely informative. Thank you.
Fantastic lecture. Very interesting thoughts regarding the balance between a sort of quantitative view of victory as opposed to a cultural view of victory.
Thanks for your time Robert!
What a fantastic lecture! Would have loved this club when I was an undergraduate ;)
Dr. Jones, your conclusion that the medieval era is not being considered in terms of military practice or technology based on an observation from wargaming period names makes so much sense!
Excellent ideas about Agincourt/Crecy.
Ed Smith's, Wars of the Roses, rules, published by Decalset more than half a century ago, were specific and honed to that period.
Not one I was aware of, I'm afraid, but I see that they are still available from Skytrex.
Excellent talk, really thought provoking.
Great stuff. Perceptive and well argued!
Your discussion of alternative medieval era rules that better reflects the culture and values of the area reminds me of how the Crusader Kings series demonstrated the politics of the period much better, dispensing of the realist model of nation states and showing how dynastic politics influenced countries behavior. Thus it's a much better model of the period than, say, Europa Universalis 4.
Dr. Jones, you teach in Lancaster, PA when you're Stateside? Any chance you'll be attending the Fall In! convention at the beginning of November? As an avid wargaming, armor-wearing, academic, archaeologist myself, I've love to meet up with you to discuss two medieval battle projects I'm working on at the moment!
Afraid that I am a Visitng Scholar, based in the UK, and have never quite got my visits to coincide with the show!
A very interesting talk, and rather enlightening. It certainly has given me some ideas about how to enliven my own big battle medieval game scenarios. One point I would make in defence of wargames figure manufacturers however is that almost by definition wargames figures have to be stereotypes otherwise they're not fulfilling their primary role on the tabletop of telling the players, at a glance, what they represent. It's an "Anglo Saxons have moustaches in the Bayeux tapestry" type effect.
Thanks.
It's not my intention to paint manufacturers or rules publishers as the villains of the piece: in the end they are responding to what their buyers - we the wargamers - are asking for.
this. was. AWESOME.
Listened while painting P&S
Amazing lecture! Many of your thoughts and conclusions are similar to mine :) I made a set of medieval rules for my club, maybe I will publish them one day and then I will gladly hear your opinion about them ;)
Interesting talk, thank you very much for sharing. From what i understand you think that i shouldn't be using dark age miniatures to represent the 53rd (Welsh) Division in Boltaction?
No. No that is absolutely fine!
Just not on my wargames table... 😂
If mechanisms like SAGA work in other periods, then the core mechanisms to basically roll dice seems sound.. It is very loose in historical terms but then it's aim is as you say is to "game for fun" a cerebral Kriegsspiel it is not.
Indeed. As I say, Saga is one of the systems that sits towards the 'game' end of the spectrum between 'game' and 'simulation'.
Excellent analysis of the issues involved in designing wargames that are applicable to periods other than just medieval. "Mechanism" creep where rule systems that work for one specific conflict are morphed to cover everything is particularly irritating.
Something that would deepen the analysis is a simple observation (that the talk comes close to in the mid part but never quite gets to). The vast majority of wargamers, and virtually no designers of wargames, have any interest in accuracy. What they care about is something different I would call verisimilitude - they care that the rules 'feel' right, not that the rules simulate something. Wargamers often talk about 'accuracy' but that is just the vagaries of language, failing to understand that it does not quite mean accuracy conflates two conceptually different things.
And it does impinge towards the end of the talk, where much of the recommendations reflect the speaker striving for verisimilitude. Because the distinction is not made the question of how you model and how you measure accuracy (essential first steps to simulation) is never really addressed.
Thanks for this. I suppose, to my mind, the search for 'verisimilitude' is another way of looking at what I was talking about in terms of a spectrum between 'simulation' and 'game'.
In fact, I recognise that a 'simulation' of medieval warfare is impossible (we simply do not have enough data to work with, and will inevitably filter our understanding through a modern lens - there's a lot of thought about this in both the historical music and historical European Martial Arts communities). I would agree that what we are looking to capture is the 'feel' of a medieval battle; 'the hoofprints on their faces' as one wargaming buddy calls it. I also agree that this inevitably means making compromises over 'accuracy' and 'simulation'.
Thanks for your comment.
imo, the one ruleset that has struck me as the best fit for medieval and some ancient warfare is Field of Glory, simply by virtue of paying so much attention to the importance of terrain, morale, and commander influence. Ultimately though I think the biggest hangup of systems, regardless of understanding of the rules team of period warfare, is Umpire or no Umpire. Without an Umpire, you can never have a fog of war, orders cannot be confused beyond some dice system, and calculations for combat are usually more fluid and faster since there isn't a dedicated party to hash it out.
I certainly agree that an umpire, or gamesmaster, can help with fog of ear and the like. However, I have also seen some very clever mechanisms across rulesets of all periods that can give you some of that even if you don't have the 'man in the middle'.
@@historianinharness The main mechanic in that ballpark is limitation of special maneuvers without the presence of a command model which is something the TT version of FOG does I quite like. Otherwise troops can only do basic actions like attacking, advancing, or wheeling and require better organization to engage in reverse marching, redressing, etc.
@@wyattw9727 hmm. I'm not a fan of 'special manoeuvres for medieval troops. I don't see a leader figure being able to exert the kind of influence on a group of men that suddenly means they are able to pirhouette across the field or whatever! 😉
I was thinking more about the use of blinds, to allow troops to appear put of dead ground, the impact of extreme weather (the sort that has a recorded effect on the outcome of a battle), or mechanisms to replicate (for the Wars of the Roses for example) the unreliable ally.
12:16 Freudian slip :)
I'd point out that, at least as of the halfway point, one could not glean from the video that there is any table top wargaming but miniatures. That leaves a broad genre of board wargames entirely out of consideration. No comment is made on the rules systems employed there because, it appears, Dr Jones is entirely unaware of their existence.
You are right; I do not mention board wargaming, and I'm sorry not to have added the caveat at the start of my talk that I am a miniatures gamer, and have been for my entire wargaming career. Whilst I am not 'entirely unaware' of the existence of other forms of wargaming, it is true that I have little or no experience of them, and would have been unable to offer an informed commentary, even had I time to add them into the mix.
I would love to know whether that genre of wargaming was better or worse at avoiding the issues that I see in miniatures gaming for the period, or whether the same issues with research, stereotypes, and commercial imperatives reside there too.
To be fair on the speaker miniature wargames and board wargames have surprisingly little overlap in players (I know this as somebody who does) and the games themselves though they could use the same rules do not and in fact are very different in their structure and logics.
15:22 Hmmmm sword and board?
Sword and shield
Listening to that, I think by myself, the dear Doktor has lost the point a bit. Wargames, whether on a PC or on the tabletop, are just just this : playing war as a GAME. I own a plethora of rulesets and none is claiming to provide a historically accurate simulation of a battle / campaign of medieval times. And I doubt, that such a Ruleset would really provide the fun people seek in games that may last anywhere from one to 3 hrs before players loose concentration. Also the widespread wish of so called " balanced Armylist" is diametrally the contrary of what happend in reality, aside from terrain aspects, weather, diseases, disappearing drafted conscripts etc.which struck many armies on campaign. Aside from major issues such as providing provisions, sanitation, repairworks for thousands of men and their equipment , horses etc. . Of course one could add such things by means of "unexpected events" but is this fun to play ? In the end, unless an author of a ruleset has a philantropic mindset, the work must be paid...usually through sales. And dry and bitter reality does not sell. If people spend their sparetime with collecting and painting hu dreds of minis , terrain, buildings etc, they don't want to remove the first 3 units before the battle starts because of diarrhea and or dysentry....or the horses break down after a 9" move because they couldn't be fed for 3 days before the battle due to lack of vegetation...aside from warriors haunted by famine or thirst ( crusades, HYW, TYW, ACW,..no ?). So unless someone comes up with an, again abstract and hopefully not too complicated, collection of such realistic events and behaviour of men at war, I stick with what we have as rulesets and enjoy a good 2-3 hr. GAME-Session, witjout worring too much whether my knights have been in the, historically correct, whatever this means, order...😊
As I say, we all have our place along a spectrum between the pure (and probably unachievable) simulation and something that is wholly a game.
Where one sits on that spectrum is a personal choice.
For me, I want a game that is both fun to play *and* reflects something of what I understand to be the medieval culture of war. All of that is hugely subjective.
Wargaming is a broad church; there's space for us all!
I hear a lot of pedantic complaining, but with no alternatives or solutions proposed.
I'm sorry that's how you received it. It certainly wasn't my intention, and I hope that, by the end, I did have some positive takes, and suggestions, with reference to the 'A Coat of Steel' and 'Bloody Barons' rules, (both of which offer a different way of handling period feel), and also with the suggestion of looking at changing the scenario objectives in our gaming.
The paper was titled 'challenges and Pitfalls...' however, so (to a certain extent) the clue was in the title! 😉
@@historianinharness The utility of recommending The Perfect Captain games is somewhat dulled by them having closed down their page, so you can't download it these systems anymore.