Sparker's Guide to the Two Types of Wargamers

Tristram Evans · April 05, 2017, 03:31:22 PM

Presented with tongue firmly in cheek...

On the one hand we have the 'Romantics'; fine, upstanding stalwart types, who still hear the distant drums and the eternal bugles. They wargame to commemorate and play out their interest in the highs and lows of military history, that canvas that depicts the very highest peaks and lowest troughs of what it is to be human. They have delved long and deep into military history, and may even have served under the Colours themselves. They are by nature and experience gentlemen in the old fashioned sense, courteous, polite and affable by nature. They heed the old saw that 'rules are for the guidance of the wise, and the obedience of the foolish'. Confident in their place and duties in society, they seek simply comradeship, display and commemoration from the tabletop.

They have the intellect, period knowledge and maturity to resolve any good natured disagreement over a rules query through the throw of a dice. Should such an arbitrary ruling go against their opinion, they accept this with the sangfroid with which their forebears gambled away their former ancestral estates on a similar throw of dice. Should their strategy and tactics lead to victory on the tabletop, for them that is but the cherry on the icing of a game well played amongst gentlemen, fellow connoisseurs of the greatest periods in history.

They have the wisdom to realise that such fleeting success, sweet though it may be, bears no closer relation to the qualities required of a successful commander in the field than a game of chess does to the skills required to run an Empire, or Monopoly to running a multinational corporation.

Similarly, these types instinctively understand that warfare is a tale of surprises, ambushes, heroic fights against the odds, and that the one uniting facet of military history is that two opposing forces were rarely equally and precisely balanced as per a points system. Ergo, they would no more enter into a Wargaming tournament than they would speak ill of long dead heroes who are not around to defend their reputations.

Then we have the other type of wargamer, the 'Tourney player' I shall style them; wet of eye and weak of knee, short, ill favoured types who see the tabletop as a place to gain revenge and exorcise their jealousy at the poor hand they have been dealt in life, at being expected to go out and earn an honest crust.

These folk have but a passing interest in the panoply of the past; for them period knowledge serves only two purposes; to preach at and upbraid their more amateurish fellow gamers; or to gain a passing advantage in a game, preferably a tournament game in which their brief moment of success can be formally recorded.

Victory on the tabletop is all important, but, the thought of service to their country never having entered their heads, thus the benefits of an orderly appreciation of the relevant factors not something they have been trained in, the path to victory is to be gleaned by slavishly poring over the rules long into the night by the light of a smoky, guttering candle.

Detailed and bookish knowledge of the rules affords the opportunity to gain fleeting moments of triumph on the tabletop, brief moments of glory in an otherwise grey and mundane suburban life. Tournaments and points system are the very stuff of gaming to these folk.

Wargaming is not about the glory and tragedy of the past, but the ability to pounce upon a discrepancy in a ruleset or points system with a ghoulish shriek of laughter, a gemstone of arcane knowledge to ferret away, to spring on an unwary opponent at some future occasion when honest native wit has been lacking.

For these types of players, rules should be precisely that, comprehensive, detailed and closely written in legalise to invest the hours they spend devouring them some form of spurious merit. Only then can their fiendish and implausible loopholes cause so much perplexity to their better favoured and more straightforward opponents that these are too dumbfounded, and courteous, to object, and who will probably be only to happy to rapidly concede defeat to terminate their social obligations to their misbegotten, ungentlemanly opponents.

Gronan of Simmerya · April 05, 2017, 08:39:34 PM

Though written in a tongue in cheek tone, that is amazingly truthful. I encountered a few of the latter type at GaryCon. Fortunately very few indeed, but hoo boy, they can poison a game if you let them.

Sommerjon · April 07, 2017, 11:31:28 AM

Romantics can quickly become "but that didn't happen" or "that unit wasn't there at that time, they showed up (x time) later" or "the uniforms are off, the real color was imstilllivingwithmymom blue"
Their insistent kibitzing are why I and more than a passing number of people do not play historical miniature games.

Tristram Evans · April 07, 2017, 08:56:41 PM

Quote from: Sommerjon;955937Romantics can quickly become "but that didn't happen" or "that unit wasn't there at that time, they showed up (x time) later" or "the uniforms are off, the real color was imstilllivingwithmymom blue"
Their insistent kibitzing are why I and more than a passing number of people do not play historical miniature games.

Thats not a Romanticist, thats a Realist. Someone who, for some reason, wants historical wargames to play out exactly as they did in real life. I've never understood the point of that.

Sparker's Guide to the Two Types of Wargamers

Tristram Evans

Gronan of Simmerya

Sommerjon

Tristram Evans