Historical Validation, another fallacy (Napoleonics & Generally)
Paul Minson
along the lines of the following:
Ruleset X lacks historical fidelity because when I refight
historical battle Y, I don't usually get the same outcome as
the historical battle.
I have seen comments made that part of the playtesting of a
game should be to verify that refights of historical battles
have outcomes similar to the outcome listed in the
historical record. And I've seen comments that games should
be tuned during design so that they do reproduce the
historical outcomes.
Aside from the questionable value of the historical record
as a tool for producing true fidelity to war (this was
discussed over the past few days), I want to point out that
there is a critical flaw in the above general thinking. The
assumption that anyone who proposes such a metric is making,
is that the historical outcome of battle Y was the most
likely outcome. There is in fact _no_ reason to expect this
to be true. For example, we've all probably encountered the
phrase "victory against all odds" or "victory against long
odds", and we've read about how one side achieved a victory
over another side when common sense indicated the battle
should have gone the other way. In all these cases, folks
are actually _admitting_ that the outcome of the battle in
the historical record was probably not the most likely
outcome. So would we want our game to have as its most
likely outcome of a refight of that battle the historical
battle outcome? Or would we want the outcome matching the
historical record to be as unlikely as we believe the
historical outcome was?
So far I have mentioned extreme cases, but this generalizes
to all battles. Take Waterloo for instance. The historical
record indicates the French lost. But was that actually the
most likely outcome of the battle? If Waterloo were to be
refought 100 times (humanity wouldn't last long doing this
kind of research), which side would win more frequently? I
don't think anyone can say with much certainty. Therefore,
I don't think anyone can say with much certainty that a
ruleset where the French typically lose Waterloo has any
greater historical fidelity than any other. We can probably
safely make some _gross_ generalizations, such as if the
French are usually wiped out to the last man refighting
Waterloo under a ruleset, then such an extreme loss rate was
probably of low likelihood and therefore the ruleset has
lower fidelity. But if the French win 4 times out of 7
under the rules, who can honestly say whether the rules are
historically valid or not using the "reproduces historical
battle results" criteria?
This disconnect between what actually happened and what was
likely to have happened often manifests itself as poor play
balance in historical scenarios. The scenario designer
usually sets the victory conditions based on the historical
outcome. But if the historical outcome was not very likely,
then victory for that side may become very difficult if the
rules have reasonable true historical fidelity.
Alternatively, the disconnect manifests itself as situations
where the scenario designer has had to depart from the
historical record in some way (modified OOBs, changed unit
arrival times, altered unit statistics, etc.) to make the
likely outcome of the scenario played match the historical
outcome.
So in the end, I think folks need to be more careful in
selecting criteria for condemning or extolling rulesets,
because one of the more common ones (comparison of game
results to historical battle results) is not necessarily a
valid test with the information we have available.
--Paul
Doug Ferguson
"Paul Minson" <pmi...@rt66.com> wrote:
> I have seen posted with regularity on this group comments
> along the lines of the following:
> Ruleset X lacks historical fidelity because when I refight
> historical battle Y, I don't usually get the same outcome as
> the historical battle.
DF: Could you be more specific? I don't think I have ever heard this
claim, let alone "regularly."
>
> I have seen comments made that part of the playtesting of a
> game should be to verify that refights of historical battles
> have outcomes similar to the outcome listed in the
> historical record.
DF: I cannot recall anyone make such a claim. I myself have dsaid
that I think an interesting test of any rules set's command and control
system is whether it allows the french a shot at winning Auerstadt, but
this clearly is not the post you refer to above.
>And I've seen comments that games should
> be tuned during design so that they do reproduce the
> historical outcomes.
DF: Outcomes of battles? I don't recall any such comments, either.
(snip)
>
> So in the end, I think folks need to be more careful in
> selecting criteria for condemning or extolling rulesets,
> because one of the more common ones (comparison of game
> results to historical battle results) is not necessarily a
> valid test with the information we have available.
DF: I agree with this, and go further - I think each person has to
make a decision on the "validity" of the rules set to his or her
needs. It helps when the designer clearly states what is and is not
part of his/her goals for the game design, and it helps to have a
couple of different people review the rules and describe how they feel
the designer has succeeded in his/her endeavor, but the bottom line is
that each rules set is valid only for its purpose: to give a gamer
enjoyment.
Historical fidelity differs, by design, among rules sets. Some
emphasize one element of history over another. All rules sacrifice
fidelity to increase playing speed, but they do so in different ways
and to different degrees. The final barrier to fidelity is, of course,
that we lack the knowledge to achieve 100% fidelity no matter what our
game design goals.
Players need to know what the goals of a designer are, so that they can
find the "fidelity fit" that meets their needs. With that, and some
objective knoweldge of how well the game meets its design goals, they
can be an informed consumer.
Doug
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Matt DLM
history.
But, certainly, you do see how such an exercise can be useful in the
playtesting and development of high fidelity rules?
Well, I would be interested in hearing your ideas on that...perhaps you don't
find any use at all.
Matt DeLaMater
rjo...@rmi.net
>
>So in the end, I think folks need to be more careful in
>selecting criteria for condemning or extolling rulesets,
>because one of the more common ones (comparison of game
>results to historical battle results) is not necessarily a
>valid test with the information we have available.
>
>--Paul
>
>
BJ: As brilliant and perceptive a post as has been made on this forum in the
last year! This insight is absolutely crucial for designers to consider, and
speaks to the ideas and themes found in the introduction to "Virtual History" by
Niall Ferguson.
Well said! Well Done!
BJ
Charles P. Boinske
Great observation.
Consider this:
Assume the battle of Waterloo consisted of 100 events decided by a 20 sided
die. Then the battle of Waterloo could have had 20^100 possible outcomes or
1.27E130. That's a huge number. Now lots of those outcomes are going to be
similar enough so as to be considered the same result. However, you and I
would have to replay Waterloo using the same rules set a gargantuan (very
scientific eh?) number of times to be able to test the statistical
significance of the average result. (Which may or may not be Napoleons
defeat) Im sure the number of replays required would have us doing nothing
else for several lifetimes.
My point is science can only take us so far down the road in deciding why
one rules set may be preferable over another. When science leaves off ( and
I think its really early in the trip) personal preference picks up and , at
the end of the day, personal preference is going to decide which set you
like. All of these arguments come down to untestable personal opinion. End
of story.
Bracing myself in Downingtown,
Phil Boinske
Paul Minson <pmi...@rt66.com> wrote in message
news:8c016i$5...@news.or.intel.com...
> I have seen posted with regularity on this group comments
> along the lines of the following:
> Ruleset X lacks historical fidelity because when I refight
> historical battle Y, I don't usually get the same outcome as
> the historical battle.
>
> I have seen comments made that part of the playtesting of a
> game should be to verify that refights of historical battles
> have outcomes similar to the outcome listed in the
> historical record. And I've seen comments that games should
> be tuned during design so that they do reproduce the
> historical outcomes.
Paul Minson
>Paul,
>
>Great observation.
>
>Consider this:
>
>Assume the battle of Waterloo consisted of 100 events
decided by a 20 sided
>die. Then the battle of Waterloo could have had 20^100
possible outcomes or
>1.27E130. That's a huge number. Now lots of those outcomes
are going to be
>similar enough so as to be considered the same result.
However, you and I
>would have to replay Waterloo using the same rules set a
gargantuan (very
>scientific eh?) number of times to be able to test the
statistical
>significance of the average result. (Which may or may not
be Napoleons
>defeat) Im sure the number of replays required would have
us doing nothing
>else for several lifetimes.
Right, and the actual complexity of the battle on the
tabletop is compounded by the addition of troop movements
and the timing and sequence of the events on the tabletop.
>My point is science can only take us so far down the road
in deciding why
>one rules set may be preferable over another. When science
leaves off ( and
>I think its really early in the trip) personal preference
picks up and , at
>the end of the day, personal preference is going to decide
which set you
>like. All of these arguments come down to untestable
personal opinion. End
>of story.
Yup. That's a good summary. I agree that the boundary
between objective information and opinion is crossed very
early on, and I think that too much authoritative opinion,
unsubstantiated data, and unverifiable data, is being passed
off on this newsgroup, intentionally or not, as objective
information.
>Bracing myself in Downingtown,
Not sure why. You didn't even call anybody a bad name, let
alone insult anyone's integrity, intellect, parentage, or
worst of all, wargaming skill. :-)
--Paul
Charles P. Boinske
to know _how_much_ of a shot the French should have at
winning. Is a one-in-a-million chance sufficient? A
fifty-fifty chance?"
Paul,
Right. Think about it. How many real battles were fought in the 1806
campaign against the Prussians? Jena and Auerstaedt are the only ones that
qualify I think. Today we condemn the Prussians as inflexible and poorly led
etc etc. What if the French successes were the result of good rolls rather
that poor performance on the part of the Prussians. What if the French were
really lucky instead of skillful? (and this from an admitted Francophile!)
After all, we have all had really bad days that wouldn't be considered the
norm. Fact is, sitting here almost 200 years later we can never know the
truth. We can hypothesize but we can never prove or disprove the hypothesis.
(statistically speaking) The result is that our opinions are simply our
opinions (no matter how educated) and not fact.
Phil Boinske
Paul Minson <pmi...@rt66.com> wrote in message
news:8c09v0$g...@news.or.intel.com...
>
> Doug Ferguson wrote in message
> <8c05e9$c1t$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
> >In article <8c016i$5...@news.or.intel.com>,
> >"Paul Minson" <pmi...@rt66.com> wrote:
> >> I have seen posted with regularity on this group comments
> >> along the lines of the following:
> >> Ruleset X lacks historical fidelity because when I
> refight
> >> historical battle Y, I don't usually get the same outcome
> as
> >> the historical battle.
> >
> >DF: Could you be more specific? I don't think I have ever
> heard this
> >claim, let alone "regularly."
>
> Doug, are you serious? I've been following the newsgroup
> for about 3 years, and there have been whole threads on the
> subject (It doesn't necessarily always come up in threads
> about Napoleonics, but also surfaces in discussions about
> realism, command control, why a ruleset is good/bad, etc.).
> Courtesy of dejanews, here's one example from a thread that
> had a lot of discussion on the topic (apologies to Raymond,
> but his post is a great illustration of my point):
>
> BEGIN QUOTED POST---------------------------
> Subject: Re: battle outcomes (was Re:
> Predictability,Randomness, Luck, and Control
> Date: 09/14/1999
> Author: Raymond Rangel <ray.r...@worldnet.att.net>
> > I agree. As discussed in a previous thread, the concept of
> 'realism' is a
> > tricky one, outside of very broad boundaries. I tend to
> think 'realism' is
> a
> > matter of personal preference based on that person's
> research and view of
> > history. But you are right, any arguement advanced should
> be consistently
> > applied.
> >
> Perhaps I should have said this in the "Realism" thread but
> I was actually painting miniatures...
> There are two answers to the "realism" question, in my
> opinion.
> Comparing the typical *results* of games to the typical
> results of actual battles demonstrates, in an objective
> sense the realism of the results.
> However, the judgement of the realism of the process to
> achieve the results is subjective and is based on our
> individual perceptions and interpretations of the actual
> process.
> The way I see it is that there are many ways to skin a cat,
> but in that the cat is ultimately skinned there is no doubt.
> END QUOTED POST----------------
>
> >> I have seen comments made that part of the playtesting of
> a
> >> game should be to verify that refights of historical
> battles
> >> have outcomes similar to the outcome listed in the
> >> historical record.
> >
> >DF: I cannot recall anyone make such a claim. I myself
> have dsaid
> >that I think an interesting test of any rules set's command
> and control
> >system is whether it allows the french a shot at winning
> Auerstadt, but
> >this clearly is not the post you refer to above.
>
> Doug, I am not responding to a specific post on the topic (I
> would have replied to the post, instead of starting a new
> discussion). I am responding to a general approach that I
> see applied often (keep in mind often is a relative term,
> subject to my personal experience). I've seen the same
> thoughts expressed about computer wargames as well. The
> syndrome isn't limited to miniatures. Regarding your
> statement about Auerstadt you brought up, the difficulty is
> to know _how_much_ of a shot the French should have at
> winning. Is a one-in-a-million chance sufficient? A
> fifty-fifty chance?
>
> >>And I've seen comments that games should
> >> be tuned during design so that they do reproduce the
> >> historical outcomes.
> >
> >DF: Outcomes of battles? I don't recall any such
> comments, either.
> See dejanews for the entire discussion on the subject from
> which I copied Raymond's post. The discussion of which it
> is a part contains upwards of 500 messages (pretty
> convoluted and complex thread involving realism and a lot of
> other related aspects in wargames).
>
> >(snip)
> >>
> >> So in the end, I think folks need to be more careful in
> >> selecting criteria for condemning or extolling rulesets,
> >> because one of the more common ones (comparison of game
> >> results to historical battle results) is not necessarily
> a
> >> valid test with the information we have available.
> >
> >DF: I agree with this, and go further - I think each
> person has to
> >make a decision on the "validity" of the rules set to his
> or her
> >needs. It helps when the designer clearly states what is
> and is not
> >part of his/her goals for the game design, and it helps to
> have a
> >couple of different people review the rules and describe
> how they feel
> >the designer has succeeded in his/her endeavor, but the
> bottom line is
> >that each rules set is valid only for its purpose: to give
> a gamer
> >enjoyment.
>
> I have not addressed anything to the question of whether a
> gamer's needs and wants are met by a design. I am talking
> specifically about the attempts to evaluate historical
> fidelity of cases where a design _intends_ to achieve some
> level of reproduction of a
> phenomenon/event/outcome/characteristic found in the
> historical record. My 'thesis', so to speak, is that one
> common method of testing/evaluating/passing-judgement-on the
> success or failure of a design to do so is based on an
> assumption whose validity cannot be known or even assumed
> except in very extreme cases, and then only with very poor
> resolution.
>
> >Historical fidelity differs, by design, among rules sets.
> Some
> >emphasize one element of history over another. All rules
> sacrifice
> >fidelity to increase playing speed, but they do so in
> different ways
> >and to different degrees. The final barrier to fidelity
> is, of course,
> >that we lack the knowledge to achieve 100% fidelity no
> matter what our
> >game design goals.
>
> Right, and my point earlier was that we lack the information
> needed to assess those degrees with the precision and
> accuracy that would allow comparative evaluations of
> wargames' fidelity to the level that is typically attempted
> on this newsgroup and elsewhere. I assert that your 'final'
> barrier is probably the _dominant_ barrier to the type of
> analysis being attempted.
>
> >Players need to know what the goals of a designer are, so
> that they can
> >find the "fidelity fit" that meets their needs. With that,
> and some
> >objective knoweldge of how well the game meets its design
> goals, they
> >can be an informed consumer.
> This is not related to what I posted about, but I don't
> think this is necessarily true. Any assessment of how well
> a game meets its design goals will be subjective, unless it
> is couched in such terms as "goal: a 12# artillery will have
> a 40% chance of rendering a 100-man battalion combat
> ineffective for the remainder of the battle by bombarding it
> for 2 turns). You can't make an objective evaluation of
> whether the command control mechanics accurately reproduce
> Napoleonic command control, because there is no large group
> of Napoleonic wars commanders around to tell us whether the
> mechanic matches what they experienced and did. I don't
> need to know whether the designer deliberately omitted an
> aspect of war that I think is important, to play the game
> and assess whether I like its presence or absence. Knowing
> the designer meant to leave it out could reduce the chances
> of people being inclined to call the designer bad names on
> the newsgroup though. :-)
> --Paul
>
>
>
>
Charles P. Boinske
p.clarke
Charles P. Boinske <cboi...@independenceadvisors.com> wrote in message
news:se7fu4j...@corp.supernews.com...
> "the difficulty is
> to know _how_much_ of a shot the French should have at
> winning. Is a one-in-a-million chance sufficient? A
> fifty-fifty chance?"
>
> Paul,
>
> Right. Think about it. How many real battles were fought in the 1806
> campaign against the Prussians? Jena and Auerstaedt are the only ones that
> qualify I think. Today we condemn the Prussians as inflexible and poorly
led
> etc etc. What if the French successes were the result of good rolls rather
> that poor performance on the part of the Prussians. What if the French
were
> really lucky instead of skillful? (and this from an admitted Francophile!)
>
> After all, we have all had really bad days that wouldn't be considered the
> norm. Fact is, sitting here almost 200 years later we can never know the
> truth. We can hypothesize but we can never prove or disprove the
hypothesis.
> (statistically speaking) The result is that our opinions are simply our
> opinions (no matter how educated) and not fact.
>
> Phil Boinske
>
against the Prussians of the period, but the Austrians and Russians as well;
and that after their defeat the Prussians felt the need to entirely
re-organise their armed forces. The French, through some means, won an
outstanding vistory at Auerstadt (and Austerlitz, and ...). I think this
gives some reason for assuming that the French system was in some way
'better' than their opponents'.
It's up to us, as historians and researchers, to explain (at whatever level
we choose) what it was that made the French superior enough to win a battle
against such odds; and then, as gamers, to interpret these differences into
game terms. No, we cannot know the norm - but how much of a simulation
would it be if no account was taken of national differences.
Ultimately, you are right, it's a matter of opinion, but to take this to
extremes is a council of despair. There is evidence and we can judge it -
but let's not get upset if someone else interprets it differently
Peter Clarke
Doug Ferguson
"Paul Minson" <pmi...@rt66.com> wrote:
>
DF: Paul, I would have to point out that "results" of the battle are
not necessarily the "outcome" of the battle in terms of won/lost. If one
side in a stand-up Napoleonic battle lost very few men, and the other
very many, then this would indicate that the "results" should be looked
at closely to find out where there may be a problem. This is true
regardless of who won or lost historically versus who won in the game.
I don't know enough about that thread (must have been while I was busy
with other pursuits) except that I agree with you that one cannot judge
a rules set based on WHETHER a side won, but one can (at least
subjectively) on WHY a side won.
> Doug, I am not responding to a specific post on the topic (I
> would have replied to the post, instead of starting a new
> discussion). I am responding to a general approach that I
> see applied often (keep in mind often is a relative term,
> subject to my personal experience). I've seen the same
> thoughts expressed about computer wargames as well. The
> syndrome isn't limited to miniatures. Regarding your
> statement about Auerstadt you brought up, the difficulty is
> to know _how_much_ of a shot the French should have at
> winning. Is a one-in-a-million chance sufficient? A
> fifty-fifty chance?
DF: I don't have an objective percentage of chances for Davout to win
Auerstadt in mind. I look at the rules (and even play out some paper
drills) to see if the French stand much of a chance, and then try to
play the game a time or two. In one rules set (I cannot recall which
one - it may have been Zuparko's Vive L'Emperor) the French lost so
decisively and so early we went back and reconstructed the odds that the
sequence we saw would be repeated, and it was quite large. It put a
damper on my enthusiasm for that rules set!
>
> I have not addressed anything to the question of whether a
> gamer's needs and wants are met by a design. I am talking
> specifically about the attempts to evaluate historical
> fidelity of cases where a design _intends_ to achieve some
> level of reproduction of a
> phenomenon/event/outcome/characteristic found in the
> historical record. My 'thesis', so to speak, is that one
> common method of testing/evaluating/passing-judgement-on the
> success or failure of a design to do so is based on an
> assumption whose validity cannot be known or even assumed
> except in very extreme cases, and then only with very poor
> resolution.
DF: I think we are in agreement on this. Rules cannot be held to a
specific numerical standard, because we don't know the values of all the
numbers. When a rules set consistently produces numbers outside the
range of error of our historical numbers, however, we can try to
investigate and find out why. This is how rules get improved.
>
(snip)
>
> Right, and my point earlier was that we lack the information
> needed to assess those degrees with the precision and
> accuracy that would allow comparative evaluations of
> wargames' fidelity to the level that is typically attempted
> on this newsgroup and elsewhere. I assert that your 'final'
> barrier is probably the _dominant_ barrier to the type of
> analysis being attempted.
DF: I agree that there can be no "historical rating scale" that is not
subjective. Even a descriptive difference between rules, however, can
be useful to a potential purchaser. In an example I used earlier, John
Hill's "Bar Lev" game had daily aircraft losses in the 60-80% range, at
times, but this was acceptable because he explained in his designer's
noes why he did this and what it represented, and the final result was
quite acceptable to most. This was true in a case where the ACTUAL
numbers were known quite closely.
>
>
> This is not related to what I posted about, but I don't
> think this is necessarily true. Any assessment of how well
> a game meets its design goals will be subjective, unless it
> is couched in such terms as "goal: a 12# artillery will have
> a 40% chance of rendering a 100-man battalion combat
> ineffective for the remainder of the battle by bombarding it
> for 2 turns). You can't make an objective evaluation of
> whether the command control mechanics accurately reproduce
> Napoleonic command control, because there is no large group
> of Napoleonic wars commanders around to tell us whether the
> mechanic matches what they experienced and did. I don't
> need to know whether the designer deliberately omitted an
> aspect of war that I think is important, to play the game
> and assess whether I like its presence or absence. Knowing
> the designer meant to leave it out could reduce the chances
> of people being inclined to call the designer bad names on
> the newsgroup though. :-)
DF: Any assessment of "It's good enough for me" will be subjective.
However, the rules results that lead to that assessment need not always
be subjective. If a rules set results in casualties in the range of 80%
of the force, and those limits are only not exceeded because the
"overkill" on each unit does not carry to the next, then it is useful
for a person who wants to run campaigns to know that, because all
results will have to be treated with a "kludge factor" that cannot
necessarily account for "effectiveness kills" versus "hard kills." The
campaign-type person may decide that they want rules that reflect losses
with more "fidelity" to the numbers actually suffered in historical
battles, even if we don't know that the rules inflict the results in the
way the real battles did.
It is subjective, but the ability of rules to meet our own "fidelity"
goals, and the cost in complexity that these may entail, are legitimate
issues for discussion. Rules "comparisons" are perhaps less so, since
it is in many cases comparing apples and oranges.
When it comes to "process fidelity" the issue is no more objective, I
think. Still, a descriptive account of processes, and comparision with
what we know of real processes, can give the potential buyer another
guide in the purchase decision. The tolerance for explicit constraints
on action, as opposed to implicit constraints, will vary. Still, it is
also an issue worth examining.
I think that we agree on the main issues. We probably disagree on the
level to which history can guide our interpretations of "which rules are
right for us." If the French succeed against a number of foes using
methods that both sides are agreed to as being related to better command
and control, then I may not want to accept a set of rules which has the
French win because they have greater "combat factors," even if the
results are the same. I have let "imperfect" history guide me.
Matt DLM
>between objective information and opinion is crossed very
>early on, and I think that too much authoritative opinion,
>unsubstantiated data, and unverifiable data, is being passed
>off on this newsgroup, intentionally or not, as objective information.
I would be very interested in some examples of what you mean here.
Matt DeLaMater
Matt DLM
battle situations to gauge the historical fidelity of your rules:
1. Given the Prussian position at 1200, and the mud, what are the chances that
they can mount their historical attacks on Plancenoit by the time they did?
2. What are the approximate chances of Plancenoit changing hands with the
frequency that it did historically? Can the Old Guard duplicate its celebrated
charge?
3. What are the chances of the British holding Hougoumont against Jerome's
initial assaults?
4. Will the Middle Guard probably be repelled given an approximation of their
historical attack?
5. Can the Union Brigade pursue/breakthrough as far as they did? Can they
overrun portions of the French Grand-battery?
6. What are the average effects of the French grand-battery against British in
reverse slope? Bylandt's brigade?
etc.
Is it your contention that such exercises are a waste of time and will not lead
to any insight into a set of rules?
Matt DeLaMater
Raymond Rangel
>Perhaps I should have said this in the "Realism" thread but
>I was actually painting miniatures...
>There are two answers to the "realism" question, in my
>opinion.
>Comparing the typical *results* of games to the typical
>results of actual battles demonstrates, in an objective
>sense the realism of the results.
>However, the judgement of the realism of the process to
>achieve the results is subjective and is based on our
>individual perceptions and interpretations of the actual
>process.
>The way I see it is that there are many ways to skin a cat,
>but in that the cat is ultimately skinned there is no doubt.
I still believe this to be true. As I have said in many, many posts and
emails, I think that one of the worst methods of validating a game design is
picking a particular battle and comparing the results of a game to that
battle's historical results. In my words above I was very careful to say
that one method of validation of results is to compare a typical came with
typical results. That is to say that I would expect a charge into the teeth
a grand battery by cavalry to result in huge losses of men and horses. I
would expect that cavalry would avoid engaging a square. I would expect a
road column that gets ambushed to be thrown into confused disarray. This is
what I mean by typical historical results that should be reflected by a
typical game.
The second statement I also believe to be true. Many of us have ideas about
how the mechanisms of an actual battle work. Our perceptions of this are
based on research, on direct experience, and on preconceptions. Since
different people rely on different mixes of these factors, and some people
interpret the same factors differently there are many opinions about how a
battle actually works. Now, when we try to overlay our subjective
interpretations on top of a game's mechanisms, forgetting for a moment what
the results might be, we decide whether the game in question is more or less
realistic. This is very much a subjective judgement.
To sum up, results of typical actions and the results of typical games can
be compared objectively. Make enough of these comparisons and one can make a
pretty good objective judgement about the whether a game produces historical
results. On the other hand, given the nature of our perceptions of combat
and how we arrive at them, we make subjective judgements about the realism,
historicity, of the game mechanics used to arrive at those results. And just
to reiterate what I have said time and again...one of the worst ways to test
a game is to play it. In relying on the play of a game, one is depending on
situations to arise that will put the game results and mechanics through its
paces. In other words, if a particular situation doesn't come up, it doesn't
get tested. It makes much more sense to set up situations, play them
through, and examine the results and the methods used to arrive at them
without playing a game.
When all is said and done, if charging the battery or the square gives you
the results that are what you would historically expect, if the road column
fragments, and the other situations that are tested produce the expected
comparable historical results AND you are comfortable with the model of
decision making, point of view, friction, etc. represented by the mechanics,
then you have a keeper.
I realize that the quote, out of the context of the thread, might be
misleading. However, I think that I agree with you more than not when what I
was trying to convey is clarified.
Paul Minson
>In article <8c09v0$g...@news.or.intel.com>,
>DF: Paul, I would have to point out that "results" of the
battle are
>not necessarily the "outcome" of the battle in terms of
won/lost. If one
>side in a stand-up Napoleonic battle lost very few men, and
the other
>very many, then this would indicate that the "results"
should be looked
>at closely to find out where there may be a problem. This
is true
>regardless of who won or lost historically versus who won
in the game.
>I don't know enough about that thread (must have been while
I was busy
>with other pursuits) except that I agree with you that one
cannot judge
>a rules set based on WHETHER a side won, but one can (at
least
>subjectively) on WHY a side won.
Doug, since "won" and "lost" are somewhat subjective terms,
you are correct, "results" would have been a better term to
use. I was however, using "won" and "lost" as a proxy for
aggregate results--deciding whether a side "won" or "lost"
is usually dependent on the results of the individual
aspects of a battle (casualties taken, casualties inflicted,
ground held, structures destroyed, movements hindered,
weapons and ordnance lost, prisoners taken, etc.). I don't
see how looking separately at the results of different
aspects of the battle instead of considering the results in
aggregate changes the validity of my point. Just because
the casualty rates in a test game or paper exercise differed
from the historical result is _no_guarantee_ that there is
anything wrong. That was the whole point of my original
post. Who can say indisputably that the historical outcome
was not a fluke? How different do the results have to be
before there is a reasonable chance that something is wrong?
Who should choose what that threshold is, and how should we
measure it? You can say subjectively why a side won, but
that is an opinion, about which there is no point in arguing
because there can be no definitive resolution, maybe at best
just a concensus.
>DF: I don't have an objective percentage of chances for
Davout to win
>Auerstadt in mind. I look at the rules (and even play out
some paper
>drills) to see if the French stand much of a chance, and
then try to
>play the game a time or two. In one rules set (I cannot
recall which
>one - it may have been Zuparko's Vive L'Emperor) the French
lost so
>decisively and so early we went back and reconstructed the
odds that the
>sequence we saw would be repeated, and it was quite large.
It put a
>damper on my enthusiasm for that rules set!
I have no problem with this. You can be enthusiastic or
not, and can hold your own opinion of a rules set. That is
not my contention. If you say that you have less enthusiasm
for a rules set because it has an unrealistically low chance
for the French to win (or for the French to have the
casualties they did, if you want to consider the pieces of
the battle individually), then I have a problem. We do not
have the information available to test the probabilities of
the various results of the battle, in order to have an
objective assessment of the degree to which the game matches
what the reality was. So any claim to unrealism (or realism
for that matter) is subjective, and arguing about it amounts
to evangelism, because you would be trying to convert people
to thinking that your opinion is a better one to hold, or
superior in some way.
>DF: I think we are in agreement on this. Rules cannot be
held to a
>specific numerical standard, because we don't know the
values of all the
>numbers. When a rules set consistently produces numbers
outside the
>range of error of our historical numbers, however, we can
try to
>investigate and find out why. This is how rules get
improved.
Sigh. We do not know what the range of error in the
historical numbers is, so we cannot define an objective
criteria for deciding when to investigate and when a change
is really an improvement.
[snip]
>DF: Any assessment of "It's good enough for me" will be
subjective.
>However, the rules results that lead to that assessment
need not always
>be subjective. If a rules set results in casualties in the
range of 80%
>of the force, and those limits are only not exceeded
because the
>"overkill" on each unit does not carry to the next, then it
is useful
>for a person who wants to run campaigns to know that,
because all
>results will have to be treated with a "kludge factor" that
cannot
>necessarily account for "effectiveness kills" versus "hard
kills." The
>campaign-type person may decide that they want rules that
reflect losses
>with more "fidelity" to the numbers actually suffered in
historical
>battles, even if we don't know that the rules inflict the
results in the
>way the real battles did.
Yes. I don't understand why you feel this is in conflict
with my post. This is a design scope issue. You are
talking about "losses" in a single battle under a rule
system not reflecting campaign losses in the historical
record. There is no reason those two should be required to
agree. To 'go modern' for a moment, a tank that suffers a
penetration in an armor skirmish battle is usually killed,
and removed from the game. At an operational level though,
some of those tanks can be repaired and put back into
service, and may not show as losses in the historical
record. By the same token, soldiers who broke and fled the
battlefield may return to fight in a subsequent battle They
were lost to the battle, but not lost to the campaign. You
are welcome to your preferences, but the "more fidelity" you
speak of is a purely subjective assessment, not a proveable
fact.
>It is subjective, but the ability of rules to meet our own
"fidelity"
>goals, and the cost in complexity that these may entail,
are legitimate
>issues for discussion. Rules "comparisons" are perhaps
less so, since
>it is in many cases comparing apples and oranges.
Yes rules satisfying customers is a legitimate topic for
discussion. It was not what I was discussing, however, so I
am a bit mystified why you inserted it into the discussion.
>When it comes to "process fidelity" the issue is no more
objective, I
>think. Still, a descriptive account of processes, and
comparision with
>what we know of real processes, can give the potential
buyer another
>guide in the purchase decision. The tolerance for explicit
constraints
>on action, as opposed to implicit constraints, will vary.
Still, it is
>also an issue worth examining.
Yes it is, but again that was not what I was driving at.
Nowhere in my original post did I mention purchasers of
rules, or the decision to buy anything. To get a good
discussion on that topic, I recommend you start a new thread
on it.
>I think that we agree on the main issues. We probably
disagree on the
>level to which history can guide our interpretations of
"which rules are
>right for us." If the French succeed against a number of
foes using
>methods that both sides are agreed to as being related to
better command
>and control, then I may not want to accept a set of rules
which has the
>French win because they have greater "combat factors," even
if the
>results are the same. I have let "imperfect" history guide
me.
No. You have let a concensus of opinions based on a
historical record which is not guaranteed to be
representative of the reality guide you. A subtle but
important difference. It means you can say you like one
rules set better than another, but you cannot make an
indisputable claim about the relative validity or historical
fidelity of the sets. I never contended that history cannot
guide you to figuring out which rules are right for you.
That was never mentioned, and was not my point.
--Paul
Paul Minson
has only guaranteed the system will produce the results
desired by the tester for that specific set of conditions.
There is no assurance that a game validated on Waterloo will
reproduce Auerstadt. Raymond, reread my original post that
started this thread, and you will hopefully see that even if
a rules set can consistently reproduce a historical outcome,
it is not necessarily a good model of the reality, because
the battle itself, if fought many times, may not have
consistently reproduced the historical outcome--the
historical outcome may have been an extreme, unlikely result
against the odds. You've surely seen the old saying:
For want of a nail, the shoe was lost.
For want of a shoe, the horse was lost.
For want of a horse, the rider was lost.
For want of a rider, the battle was lost.
For want of a battle, the war was lost.
This is a highly unlikely, but not impossible scenario. So
the historical record in this case might record that a war
was lost because a cavalry unit needed one more man. But do
you set up your game system so that being a single
cavalryman short will usually result in loss of the battle?
--Paul
COL Bill Gray wrote in message ...
>Just curious, but how valid would you say is a game which
vaildated its
>results by comparison to those of a particular battle,
where the players in
>the game were forced to have the same setup, same initial
operations orders,
>and forced to make the same moves (decisions, assaults,
etc) as their
>historical counterparts did?
>
>Bill Gray
Paul Minson
Matt DLM wrote in message
<20000330165053...@ng-cs1.aol.com>...
Matt, anytime anyone makes a definitive statement that a
certain game mechanic or rules set is more or less
realistic, or has more or less historical fidelity, and
starts citing references, giving examples, reciting accounts
of refights of historical engagements, _and_ talking of
_proof_ or _verification_ that their position is correct or
true, they are likely to be heading down that road, because
they are expressing what can only be an opinion, but are
making statements couched in the trappings of fact. An
opinion cannot be proved. Surely you haven't forgotten the
thread on "what is truth" that went on a little while ago?
If I recall correctly it sprang out of the realism thread,
but I've spent enough time on dejanews for today. On second
thought, maybe an example of one of your own posts would be
good. Here's one:
BEGIN QUOTED POST--------------
Subject: Re: Historical Fidelity: Nap Artillery
Date: 03/23/2000
Author: Matt DLM <mat...@aol.com>
The first premise we are checking is if, as Bob basically
claims, that there is no significant difference in results
(outcomes?) between various games.
Is there anything wrong with checking on that hypothesis?
You should be familiar enough with Empire to provide some
answers for that system, and for Napoleonique as well. The
more the merrier.
Then we can look at various historical data.
Both Wagram and Aspern-Essling provide some evidence on
French heavy cavalry getting bombarded by Austrian heavies.
END QUOTED POST---------------
Matt, you used the word "evidence" to describe the
information contained in the historical record about Wagram
and Aspern-Essling. According to the Merrian-Webster online
dictionary, evidence is:
1 a : an outward sign : INDICATION b : something that
furnishes proof : TESTIMONY; specifically : something
legally submitted to a tribunal to ascertain the truth of a
matter
Implicit in your choice of words is that the information we
have in the historical record is accurate and objective.
Only if it is accurate and objective can it supply proof of
anything, or add to the truth. Intentionally or not, you
represented the historical record in this case as having
properties of objective information which we cannot
indisputably verify that it does.
--Paul
Paul Minson
--Paul
OmanBT wrote in message
<20000330213202...@ng-ft1.news.cs.com>...
>I don't think the point is that looking at the examples is
a waste of time, but
>rather that comparing rule set %'s to a sample of one real
world ocurrence
>(your specific examples for instance - each happened once,
with those exact
>combinations of circumstance) does not necessarily prove
fidelity or lack of
>fidelity.
>
>Brent Oman
Bill Armintrout
>has only guaranteed the system will produce the results
>desired by the tester for that specific set of conditions.
Here's how I *think* the process should go:
1. Based on the historical record, a person forms a model which represents
their understanding of warfare in a particular era.
2. Games are then compared against this model.
Games are usefully compared against models, not against bare facts.
- Bill
Paul Minson
but only gross information can be gained by doing so. See
case-by-base below.
Matt DLM wrote in message
<20000330170519...@ng-cs1.aol.com>...
>Okay, guys, some samples of how you might incorporate
playtests of historical
>battle situations to gauge the historical fidelity of your
rules:
>
>1. Given the Prussian position at 1200, and the mud, what
are the chances that
>they can mount their historical attacks on Plancenoit by
the time they did?
We can work out the probabilities for the game, but we don't
know what the real historical chances of success were. If
the possibility exists at all in the game that it might
happen by the time it did historically, then the game has
fidelity--the historical outcome can be achieved in the
game. But without knowing the chances of success in the
real thing, we have no way of judging whether the chances of
success in the game resemble the historical case or not.
>2. What are the approximate chances of Plancenoit changing
hands with the
>frequency that it did historically? Can the Old Guard
duplicate its celebrated
>charge?
First, calculations at this level, involving analog
movements of units, many turns of fire, melee, and morale
mechanics, would be so complex as to be nearly intractable
from a practical perspective. But again, calculating the
game chances is only of much use if the historical chances
are known. Otherwise you can only answer the binary
question: can Plancenoit change hands in the game with the
historic frequency? Yes or no?
As for the Old Guard, you asked a binary question yourself.
Any non-zero result for the probability that it can happen
makes the answer yes. But we cannot say whether a game that
gives a 40% chance of that happening has more or less
fidelity than a game where it has a 50% chance. So if
you're the designer and you calculate a 40% chance it can
happen in your rules, should you change the rules? Can't
say. The only case where you know you need to change
something is if in your rules there is a 0% chance it could
be done. In that case, you know from history that there was
a non-zero chance it could happen, because it _did_ happen,
so you know your 0% chance is wrong and must be changed
somehow.
>3. What are the chances of the British holding Hougoumont
against Jerome's
>initial assaults?
Again, difficult to calculate, and we have no knowledge of
the historical chances to make a comparison to. So from
this question asked this way we learn nothing. If you asked
if it was possible for the British to hold out, that we
could answer.
>4. Will the Middle Guard probably be repelled given an
approximation of their
>historical attack?
That we could try to answer for the game--fun math though.
But we don't know if it _should_ be more likely that they
will be repelled, or that they won't be. All we know is the
result of the actual event. If I roll the sum of two d6,
get an 11, and write that down for history, it doesn't mean
that 11 is the most likely result of rolling the dice and
adding. Having knowledge of the probability distribution, I
know that 7 is the most likely result, but the history just
says I rolled the dice and 11 came up. So if I base my dice
rolling simulation rules on history, should they be written
so that 11 is the most likely outcome? Or the least likely?
What probability should an 11 have? Without knowledge of
the real probability distribution, I wouldn't be able to
say.
>5. Can the Union Brigade pursue/breakthrough as far as they
did? Can they
>overrun portions of the French Grand-battery?
Same as above--we can answer yes or no, but won't know if
one-in-a-million odds is a high-fidelity 'yes' or a
low-fidelity 'yes'.
>6. What are the average effects of the French grand-battery
against British in
>reverse slope? Bylandt's brigade?
Same story as #3.
>Is it your contention that such exercises are a waste of
time and will not lead
>to any insight into a set of rules?
I never said that nor implied it at the absolute level you
stated. Such exercises are good as a designer's gross
reality check (for example, the zero versus non-zero
probability question--is it _possible_ for the historical
result to be achieved in the game), but there is certainly
not much information to allow relative comparisons of
fidelity or to allow evaluation of whether a change is an
improvement in fidelity. I do think that running such gross
reality checks against history are probably not very useful
in the newsgroup, because of the limited information
yielded. If Doug or someone can come up with a good metric
for combat effectiveness (one reasonably applicable to all
the designs being examined) I think the comparison of the
different system's results might be a fruitful line of
inquiry, although the instant anyone claims
superior/inferior fidelity I'd be tempted to have them read
my posts on the subject again.
--Paul
Paul Minson
>Here's how I *think* the process should go:
>
>1. Based on the historical record, a person forms a model
which represents
>their understanding of warfare in a particular era.
>2. Games are then compared against this model.
>
>Games are usefully compared against models, not against
bare facts.
physics, comparisons between it and other models for
historical fidelity, realism, or other
difficult-to-quantify-and-verify characteristics, is mostly
a matter of opinion, and there is no conclusive resolution
possible. So this competitive undertone that keeps cropping
up the the design discussions between the different
philosophical camps is probably not productive.
--Paul
Paul Minson
>I'll put this as simply as I can and I do so out of clarity
and not
>condescension.
Matt, thanks for taking the time to do this. I'm entirely
in favor of clarity--this medium is hard enough to
communicate in as is.
>1. History is a discipline that has entirely different
methodologies than
>science, accounting,or engineering.
I agree.
>2. Wargaming is about history (and gaming). A wargame can
aspire to be an
>active theory of history, if you like.
Here I think is the crux of our (likely irreconcilable)
differences. To me, wargaming is an attempt at simulating
some aspects of warfare in order to gain a better
understanding of the military arts and sciences in the
periods being simulated, to try my own hand at learning some
of those arts, to try to get the tiniest glimpse of what it
might have been like to be there, and of course, to have
fun. As a result, history is only part of the equation for
me. I have no problem refighting a historical battle. But
I also have no problem playing an entirely fictional battle,
where the test is to apply what I know of the military art
to see if I might be successful in the tactical,
operational, or strategic problem posed by the battle's
opening conditions.
>3. The same standards of "truth" that apply to history can
be applied to
>wargames. That is what I was proposing when we started to
look at what
>Napoleonic wargames were actually saying (their results).
It can be, but nothing requires that that be the only
standard applied. I think comparing Napoleonic wargames
from this perspective is an interesting idea, and I don't
think I discouraged it. I just wanted to point out what the
limitations are on what kinds of conclusions can be drawn.
I was pointing out the differences between fidelity to the
reality and fidelity to the historical record (with the
limitations that record has), and what that means for the
conclusions.
>4. I am unable to argue with those who would set a "higher"
standard of truth
>for wargames than for the history upon which they are
based.
For me, wargames are not based solely on history. History
is but one component. There is a substantial amount of
materials science, ballistics, physics, etc. that
contributed to what happened on the battlefield. These
science and technology aspects do have a higher standard of
truth than history, and can even result in some interesting
insights into the history.
>5. The problems of history are also problems in wargaming.
(wargaming has
>further issues as well of course)
>
>In a quest for historical fidelity in wargaming, we must
accept the
>methodologies of actual history as our modus operandi, or,
there really is no
>point in having the discussion.
Given the technology inputs to the events that were recorded
as history, I am not so pessimistic about the possibilities
of working beyond those methodologies. Like I said above,
our different approaches to wargaming appear to create
different sets of criteria with which we analyze the games.
And I don't think there is any reason why the two approaches
need to be in conflict.
--Paul
rjo...@rmi.net
>
>>In validating a game that way, one
>>has only guaranteed the system will produce the results
>>desired by the tester for that specific set of conditions.
>
>
>
>1. Based on the historical record, a person forms a model which represents
>their understanding of warfare in a particular era.
>2. Games are then compared against this model.
>
>Games are usefully compared against models, not against bare facts.
>
>
BJ: Except the model IS the game; and the game is the model. Circular!
Bill, you're right on the statement that the "facts" may or may not be a proper
comparison, certainly not a provable one!
BJ
COL Bill Gray
results by comparison to those of a particular battle, where the players in
the game were forced to have the same setup, same initial operations orders,
and forced to make the same moves (decisions, assaults, etc) as their
historical counterparts did?
Bill Gray
Raymond Rangel <ray.r...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
news:jMRE4.1775$pK3.1...@bgtnsc04-news.ops.worldnet.att.net...
OmanBT
rather that comparing rule set %'s to a sample of one real world ocurrence
(your specific examples for instance - each happened once, with those exact
combinations of circumstance) does not necessarily prove fidelity or lack of
fidelity.
Brent Oman
Matt DLM wrote:
>Okay, guys, some samples of how you might incorporate playtests of historical
>battle situations to gauge the historical fidelity of your rules:
>
>1. Given the Prussian position at 1200, and the mud, what are the chances
>that
>they can mount their historical attacks on Plancenoit by the time they did?
>
>2. What are the approximate chances of Plancenoit changing hands with the
>frequency that it did historically? Can the Old Guard duplicate its
>celebrated
>charge?
>
>3. What are the chances of the British holding Hougoumont against Jerome's
>initial assaults?
>
>4. Will the Middle Guard probably be repelled given an approximation of
>their
>historical attack?
>
>5. Can the Union Brigade pursue/breakthrough as far as they did? Can they
>overrun portions of the French Grand-battery?
>
>6. What are the average effects of the French grand-battery against British
>in
>reverse slope? Bylandt's brigade?
>
>etc.
>
>Is it your contention that such exercises are a waste of time and will not
>lead
>to any insight into a set of rules?
>Matt DeLaMater
>
>
>
>
>
>
Matt DLM
I'll put this as simply as I can and I do so out of clarity and not
condescension.
1. History is a discipline that has entirely different methodologies than
science, accounting,or engineering.
2. Wargaming is about history (and gaming). A wargame can aspire to be an
active theory of history, if you like.
3. The same standards of "truth" that apply to history can be applied to
wargames. That is what I was proposing when we started to look at what
Napoleonic wargames were actually saying (their results).
4. I am unable to argue with those who would set a "higher" standard of truth
for wargames than for the history upon which they are based.
5. The problems of history are also problems in wargaming. (wargaming has
further issues as well of course)
In a quest for historical fidelity in wargaming, we must accept the
methodologies of actual history as our modus operandi, or, there really is no
point in having the discussion.
So, those who wish to pursue the "white whale" will have to take to the sea,
and accept its risks.
Matt DeLaMater
Matt DLM
I wrote:>>2. Wargaming is about history (and gaming). A wargame can
>aspire to be an
>>active theory of history, if you like.
>
Paul>Here I think is the crux of our (likely irreconcilable)
>differences. To me, wargaming is an attempt at simulating
>some aspects of warfare in order to gain a better
>understanding of the military arts and sciences in the
>periods being simulated, to try my own hand at learning some
>of those arts, to try to get the tiniest glimpse of what it
>might have been like to be there, and of course, to have
>fun. As a result, history is only part of the equation for
>me. I have no problem refighting a historical battle. But
>I also have no problem playing an entirely fictional battle,
>where the test is to apply what I know of the military art
>to see if I might be successful in the tactical,
>operational, or strategic problem posed by the battle's
>opening conditions.
>
Also, I agree with you that scientific methods and disciplines can greatly
inform history, and often overturn previous "truths".
Matt DeLaMater
Raymond Rangel
I think that a game mechanic that achieves a particular result cannot be
validated by comparison to an historical event. Rather, the game mechanic
can be validated by comparison to an average of historical events. The more
historical events used to determine the average the more accurate the
validation.
For instance, comparing the distance that a projectile can be fired in a
game effectively with a single in stance of that projectile being fired in
reality does nothing to validate the historical accuracy of the game.
However, if the many historical instances are used, then we can get closer
to validation. The more instances, the more validity. This is simply because
the oddities in reality start to cancel. Those familiar with statistics will
recognize the formation of a normal curve. The objective is to get as many
historical samples as possible to build the curve and then to compare it to
the game.
As for the good Col's example of Waterloo, even though we have as close to
historical conditions as possible, we are still trying to compare singular
events in reality to singular events that occur during the game. Since these
are...well...singular, we cannot use them for validation. Again, this
demonstrates the futility of attempting to validate a game by playing it.
Doing so creates the illusion that one is testing the game results and
mechanics, but in reality one is only testing one of many possible results
that is precipitated by a singular set of circumstances. This sort of hit or
miss testing and analysis results in misleading data that are the germ of
misconceptions.
When I examine a game with the intent of validating its historicity, I set
up tests, as I indicated before, to specifically test mechanics. I don't
depend on the mechanics occurring by happenstance during the course of a
game. I simply make them happen so that I can examine the results. It's
certainly not perfect, but it beats hoping that one player will form square
and that the other will try to charge it with his cavalry during the course
of a game. When you add that, because a game is in progress, both players
are try to win and thus will adopt aggressive or passive modes or
operation...well you get my point. Once the results of discrete mechanics
are established, if the rules integrate the mechanics well, then a normal
game of a typical (in the statistical sense of the word) battle should
produce results that lie within the historical norms.
As I indicated above, there is value is playing the game. It is a valid test
for the integration of the discrete mechanics of which the game is composed.
However, the discrete mechanics like firing, charging, forming square,
morale, etc. might be very well integrated and produce a well playing,
smoothly flowing game that bears no resemblance to reality because those
discrete components produced results that were on one end of the normal
curve or outside of it altogether. Thus playing a game without testing the
discrete mechanics involved, is at best, a misleading gesture
Perhaps I should have used the word average instead of typical in my
original postings. I tend to view the word typical as being the norm in a
statistical sense.
At any rate, I still think we agree that game results cannot be validated by
direct comparison to historical events. If we differ, it's because I believe
that we can take many historical events to form an idea of what the normal
result of an action should be. Using this norm and comparing it to results
of a set properly conducted tests to produce a norm for a game mechanic we
can validate a game's ability to reproduce historically normal results.
Furthermore, I believe that most gamers do this in an uncontrolled (in the
laboratory sense) manner. The comparison of results of events on the table
are mentally compared to an historical average derived from the gamer's
knowledge of the period to form an opinion as to whether the game has the
proper historical "feel". When we try to take this a step further and
actually determine whether, indeed, the game is "historical", this adhoc
comparison breaks down due to lack of applied test methods or the objective
formation of the historical norm for an event.
Paul, as to the horseshoe... If one were to examine, analyze, and test the
mechanics of the game that govern shoeing horses which results in the
determination that shoes can, indeed, be lost. Then one examines the
shoe-horse interface to determine the effect of losing said shoe;
determining that the shoe can, indeed, result in the loss of a horse, etc.
etc. etc. Then one can determine that a game can, indeed, be lost due the
loss of a shoe. However, trying to determine the same thing by playing a
game over and over, hoping that a shoe might be lost and that that
particular shoe would result in a loss of the unshod horse, one might have
to play the game for an eternity without any guarantee that anything will
ever be determined. And please remember that I am not setting up a game to
perform testing. Rather, I am setting up a specific set of conditions to
test the results of specific mechanics. There is no game or battle at all
involved in this process.
Paul Minson wrote in message <8c0rv4$8...@news.or.intel.com>...
>Excellent point Bill. In validating a game that way, one
>has only guaranteed the system will produce the results
>desired by the tester for that specific set of conditions.
>There is no assurance that a game validated on Waterloo will
>reproduce Auerstadt. Raymond, reread my original post that
>started this thread, and you will hopefully see that even if
>a rules set can consistently reproduce a historical outcome,
>it is not necessarily a good model of the reality, because
>the battle itself, if fought many times, may not have
>consistently reproduced the historical outcome--the
>historical outcome may have been an extreme, unlikely result
>against the odds. You've surely seen the old saying:
> For want of a nail, the shoe was lost.
> For want of a shoe, the horse was lost.
> For want of a horse, the rider was lost.
> For want of a rider, the battle was lost.
> For want of a battle, the war was lost.
>This is a highly unlikely, but not impossible scenario. So
>the historical record in this case might record that a war
>was lost because a cavalry unit needed one more man. But do
>you set up your game system so that being a single
>cavalryman short will usually result in loss of the battle?
>--Paul
>
>COL Bill Gray wrote in message ...
Raymond Rangel
rjo...@rmi.net wrote in message <8c1hkj$2h...@edrn.newsguy.com>...
>BJ: Except the model IS the game; and the game is the model. Circular!
>
>Bill, you're right on the statement that the "facts" may or may not be a
proper
>comparison, certainly not a provable one!
>
I think you have misconstrued what Bill was saying. The game, certainly is a
model, but it is not the same one to which he refers. He refers to the
historical model. The summation of a myriad of historical details that
combine to form a model of the past. This is what an anthropological picture
of the human experience in the recent or distant past based on collection,
assimilation, and synthesis of many bits of data. The more data, the clearer
the picture, or model if you will.
The model of which you speak, i.e. the game, is a model of this picture. A
model modeling a model so to speak. The closer that the game model can be
shown to reflect the historical model, the more historically accurate we say
it is.
Two different models, thus not circular at all.
Ergo, the premise that a game's historicity cannot be validated by
comparison to singular real world events. As we have seen time and again in
this News Group, no rules can stand the historicity test if the test is to
be conformant to every single instance that occurred. However, rules do, and
can, stand the test of historicity if the right test is applied. That being
an aggregate of known facts that have been put together to form a historical
norm.
I think there is a lot of confusion about what history is and how it is
developed that results from most gamers' limited experience with history and
the way that is was taught to them. Typically, through secondary schools and
college, people are taught facts in history classes and, thus, come to
believe that if they know the facts they understand a history. However, they
are rarely taught how to put all the facts they know together to form a
history. So here we sit as adults, some of us long out of school but still
carrying the memorization baggage, trying to design, evaluate, and play war
games. It would seem as though every game we play is at odds in some way
with the facts that we know. Some, if not most, of the facts that we think
we know are shown at some time to be not completely factual to one degree or
another. The logical conclusion is that we can never have a historical game
based only on facts. This I believe is true.
It is a misleading conclusion though. Historical knowledge is based on
facts, not single facts that stand on their own, but a collection of facts
that support each other. The more facts, the more precise the history. If
some of the history's supporting facts are shown to be erroneous, there are
still many more to bolster it. If, as occasionally happens, an assumption
was made along the line that throws the whole history out of whack, then the
history is rewritten to reflect what the new knowledge is.
History, in the sense of the word as we commonly use it, is the record of
events. Historical is a human artifact that represents what we think we
know. To say that a game is historical is to compare it to the sum of human
knowledge of that period. How well a game reflects this knowledge is
something that most certainly can be measured and judged.
So let's not confuse facts with a history. Facts are tidbits of information
about past events; a history is the collection and distillation of the many
facts used to form it.
That we cannot have a game wholly based on facts I don't dispute. Construing
that to mean we cannot have a game demonstrably based on history is an
error.
Dallas Gavan
A very perceptive post, as others have said. Judging a rules set (on
the end results of a game) can only be useful if the rules won't allow
the historical outcome to occur at all. As Phil points out, the number
of playings to prove that occurs would be beyond anyone's ability so
it's not really a valid use either.
However historical validation does have its uses, albeit at a much lower
level. Rules that routinely allow infantry to out-pace cavalry, that
allow cavalry to routinely and easily break infantry in square, that
make cannister less effective than shot in all situations, etc, clearly
go against current wisdom. At this level historical validation has a
role to play, don't you think?
Current wisdom may/will change as new research discovers new sources or
as people retrofit current experience to historical happenings (eg the
"Squares move as fast as column" theory) and so rules may/will change
with them. It's not a static process or else we'd still be using Wells'
original rules. As each new set is released, though, consciously or not
the gamer will fit the mechanisms into his perception of what happened.
And that's the most basic use of historical validation- "Is it right?".
Dal.
--
http://www0.delphi.com/napwar/
Brian Hodson
gamers are looking for, anyway.
A number of years ago I had an entire room dedicated to GDW's Europa: Fire
in the East (gasp! a boardgame!), the 9' x 6' map splayed out across three
tables and a couple of thousand cardboard counters running across the hexes
in neat stacks. A friend stopped by, looked over the scene, and remarked:
"But Brian, the Germans lost!"
I never could manage to explain that I wanted to see "how" they lost, and
"if" they might have won. I think many other gamers are engaged in the same
exercise on the table. If the rules re-produce Wellington's victory at
Waterloo without fail, and with full fidelity to the historical narrative of
the battle, good luck finding anyone to play Old Boney.
That said, I agree with earlier posters on this thread on two counts:
1) what we are really doing when we say a game is "historically realistic"
is saying that it conforms to a particular understanding we have developed
(a model) of "how" history worked the first time around.
2) it is impossible to compare a game directly to specific historical
events, except in the binary example of realms of possibility mentioned by
Paul Minson, for the reason already stated earlier by Paul and others: we
can never understand or encapsulate the inherent probability of any
historical event, except to say that it was inherently "possible", given its
occurance (alternately, we would have to assign it inherent certainty -- it
happened in that particular manner and in no other, but this makes history a
teleological construct, which I reject out of hand).
Since we are "playing" with "history", we should be cautious about making
pompous statements about the "realism" of our rules. We should rather be
honest enough to admit that we are simply trying to achieve a certain kind
of fidelity or resonance with what we *think* the historical record shows to
have been true.
Brian Hodson
Phil Myers
Paul Minson wrote in message <8c0qv1$8...@news.or.intel.com>...
Just because
>the casualty rates in a test game or paper exercise differed
>from the historical result is _no_guarantee_ that there is
>anything wrong. That was the whole point of my original
>post. Who can say indisputably that the historical outcome
>was not a fluke? How different do the results have to be
>before there is a reasonable chance that something is wrong?
>Who should choose what that threshold is, and how should we
>measure it? You can say subjectively why a side won, but
>that is an opinion, about which there is no point in arguing
>because there can be no definitive resolution, maybe at best
>just a concensus.
>
<Phil> (we're both PM so that's not useful)
True, we do NOT know on any particular battle whether casualties are a mean
result, or an extreme result for the possibilities involved in that battle.
What one can do is look at proportions of troops involved. I have a vague
recollection that battlefield casualties (as looked at over many battles)
fell within a fairly narrow percentage of troops involved (with some
outliers of course, just to make life difficult) so I think rules ought to
TEND to produce casualties in that range, but be capable of producing the
outliers
Phil
<Paul>
If you say that you have less enthusiasm
>for a rules set because it has an unrealistically low chance
>for the French to win (or for the French to have the
>casualties they did, if you want to consider the pieces of
>the battle individually), then I have a problem. We do not
>have the information available to test the probabilities of
>the various results of the battle, in order to have an
>objective assessment of the degree to which the game matches
>what the reality was. So any claim to unrealism (or realism
>for that matter) is subjective, and arguing about it amounts
>to evangelism, because you would be trying to convert people
>to thinking that your opinion is a better one to hold, or
>superior in some way.
<snip>>Sigh. We do not know what the range of error in the
>historical numbers is, so we cannot define an objective
>criteria for deciding when to investigate and when a change
>is really an improvement.
>
<Paul>
Charles P. Boinske
I was only saying that we cant prove they were by using statistics.
Phil
p.clarke <p.cl...@tinyworld.co.uk> wrote in message
news:38e3c...@news1.vip.uk.com...
>
> Charles P. Boinske <cboi...@independenceadvisors.com> wrote in message
> news:se7fu4j...@corp.supernews.com...
> > "the difficulty is
> > to know _how_much_ of a shot the French should have at
> > winning. Is a one-in-a-million chance sufficient? A
> > fifty-fifty chance?"
> >
> > Paul,
> >
> > Right. Think about it. How many real battles were fought in the 1806
> > campaign against the Prussians? Jena and Auerstaedt are the only ones
that
> > qualify I think. Today we condemn the Prussians as inflexible and poorly
> led
> > etc etc. What if the French successes were the result of good rolls
rather
> > that poor performance on the part of the Prussians. What if the French
> were
> > really lucky instead of skillful? (and this from an admitted
Francophile!)
> >
> > After all, we have all had really bad days that wouldn't be considered
the
> > norm. Fact is, sitting here almost 200 years later we can never know the
> > truth. We can hypothesize but we can never prove or disprove the
> hypothesis.
> > (statistically speaking) The result is that our opinions are simply our
> > opinions (no matter how educated) and not fact.
> >
> > Phil Boinske
> >
Ty Beard
> Implicit in your choice of words ["Evidence"] is that the information we
> have in the historical record is accurate and objective.
> Only if it is accurate and objective can it supply proof of
> anything, or add to the truth. Intentionally or not, you
> represented the historical record in this case as having
> properties of objective information which we cannot
> indisputably verify that it does.
Interestingly enough, US law agrees with you. *Facts* are determined by a
jury. The law recognizes that whether a particular fact occurred can never
be proven absolutely. It therefore charges a group of people with
determining if the burden of proof has been met to determine if something
happened. That burden ranges from "proponderance of evidence" in civil
trials ("more likely than not likely") to "beyond a reasonable doubt" in
criminal trials. If the burden is met, the fact is *assumed* to have
happened.
The question is "what burden of proof do we demand to prove historical
facts?"
And that's a problem in history, because we don't have juries. Each person
makes up his own mind as to what the burden of proof is and whether it's
been met. Then they confuse "meeting the burden of proof" with "it did
happen". Then we lambast *game* designers because their games don't clearly
reflect what *we* have determined actually happened. And so it goes.
I have long contended that no wargame can be "realistic" in any meaningful
sense of the word. Outside of patent absurdities (rayguns at Waterloo) or
overwhelmingly confirmed facts (Pearl Harbor was bombed on or about
12/7/1941; trucks move faster than infantry on good roads) we can't be too
sure what "realistic" means. This is exacerbated by the fact that our
particular niche of history is vastly underreported (at the level we need
anyhow). So we squabble over details. And because we're not even making the
same argument as our opponent, we get the emotional thrill of contending
that our foe is an obvious idiot. He gets the same thrill of course.
This has led me to abandon the notion of "realism" and focus mainly on
whether a game is *fun*.
BTW, the law usually considers evidence to be "information tending to prove
or disprove a fact." So almost anything can be called evidence. But is it
relevant? And what is its probative value? Who decides?
--Ty Beard
Ty Beard
news:20000330232023.07256.00000143@ng
> Paul,
>
> I'll put this as simply as I can and I do so out of clarity and not
> condescension.
>
> 1. History is a discipline that has entirely different methodologies than
> science, accounting,or engineering.
Agreed -- as a former history teacher and history grad student. But many of
you guys are trying to use engineering methodologies to prove your points
("Given the Prussian position at 1200, and the mud, what are the chances
that they can mount their historical attacks on Plancenoit by the time they
did?"). There is no valid historiographical method that can answer this
question. It's an engineering question and Paul correctly replied that
there's no way to validate the answer.
> 2. Wargaming is about history (and gaming). A wargame can aspire to be an
> active theory of history, if you like.
>
> 3. The same standards of "truth" that apply to history can be applied to
> wargames. That is what I was proposing when we started to look at what
> Napoleonic wargames were actually saying (their results).
Yes, but you're ignoring a basic point. A true historian can argue *whether*
something happened. Perhaps *why* it happened. But he simply lacks the tools
to argue what the objective chance of something happening was. He can say
"Napoleon lost at Waterloo, and here's why..." He cannot say "Napoleon had a
36% chance of losing at Waterloo".
And to determine if a wargame is "realistic", that's the question that
*must* be answered by someone.
Napoleon lost at Waterloo. So are we to only play rules that give him *no*
chance of winning? If not, then how much chance should the rules give him,
and why that particular chance? See the problem?
I suppose if we had clear and convincing evidence of every movement and the
timing and effect of every single volley and barrage fired, then we could
reconstruct a model to test our Waterloo game. Of course, the Rand
Corporation would have to do it. But we have no such data, do we?
> 4. I am unable to argue with those who would set a "higher" standard of
truth
> for wargames than for the history upon which they are based.
How can the wargame -- a derivative product -- have a higher standard of
truth that the history it's based on?
> In a quest for historical fidelity in wargaming, we must accept the
> methodologies of actual history as our modus operandi, or, there really is
no
> point in having the discussion.
By demanding that the historian produce an objective percentage chance of a
given event occurring, you have gone to the realm of engineering, not
history. Because a historian cannot (and should not) answer those questions.
If he does, it's a WAG.
--Ty Beard
Ty Beard
> I agree. And unless a model is based solely on the laws of
> physics, comparisons between it and other models for
> historical fidelity, realism, or other
> difficult-to-quantify-and-verify characteristics, is mostly
> a matter of opinion, and there is no conclusive resolution
> possible. So this competitive undertone that keeps cropping
> up the the design discussions between the different
> philosophical camps is probably not productive.
I agree, at least on the issue of whether a game is
"realistic/historical/whatever". However, I do think that there are valid
points of debate on the issues of whether games are fun, the role of luck vs
skill, whether mechanics are elegant or clumsy, whether a game is intuitive,
etc.
--Ty Beard
Ty Beard
> Also, I agree with you that scientific methods and disciplines can greatly
> inform history, and often overturn previous "truths".
Assuming of course, that the scientific tests are "historically accurate" --
i.e. that the musket ball is identical to it's Waterloo counterpart, that
the musket is effectively identical and so on...
And these methods are used by historians as well.
--Ty Beard
rjo...@rmi.net
>
>Agreed. I'm not saying that the French weren't better than their opponents.
>I was only saying that we cant prove they were by using statistics.
>
>Phil
BJ: Which returns us to the thought that the data within a set of rules need
only be consistent within its own framework, and must RELATIVELY indicate the
comparitive values of certain factors. For example:
• Horse should move faster than foot.
• Heavier batteries should have more penetration(or effect) on dense formations
than light guns.
• The 1804-6 French should, generally speaking, be a little more flexible in
their maneuvers and show a little more "pace" to their movements than the
Prussian or Austrian Army of that period.
One could go on with comparitive values for the various units, leaders, and
equipments. In terms of the comparitive and relative values, I think we will
find great agreement across many rulesets. The differences will primarily lie
in three areas:
1. The total number of characteristics that the designer chooses to use in any
processes' calculation. That is, musketry fire in set A may be decided by 5
factors, all others being deemed minor, or lumped into a single factor, but Set
B will utilize 34 factors all of which will be considered. Needless to say, the
34 steps will take a lot longer!
As a footnote to this, I have a Rand Corp. paper that discusses that after WWII
the think tank was intent on modeling the outcome of tank vrs. tank
confrontations. They tried many convoluted formulae and calculations to model
the event-but found it was just as accurate to flip a coin! This indicates
that, in at least some cases, the simpler model functions quite well. This sort
of thing CANNOT be checked against any data supplied on Napoleonic warfare.
Much of this is dependent on the degree of process the gamer needs to create an
illusion of 'historicity', as well as the degree of abstraction he will accept
in the interest of playability and time of play. Gamers will fall all along a
wide, wide range on these points.
2. The relative values will vary from set to set. Some may see greater a range
in the values than others. This is VERY subjective, since it is an
interpretation of the data and historical anecdotes and narratives in hand.
They are also both affected by the mechanics of the design and the designer's
focus.
3. The mechanics of play. The data will be manipulated differently in each
design-usually because the designer is focusing on certain characteristics of
combat which he wishes to accent. Piquet is, for instance, focused on critical
decision making in a 'fog of War' environment.
Most wargamers will have general agreement about the characteristics of a
period, and those general characteristics are the most 'provable'. Almost all
the fracas on this forum resides in the three points above, and some people's
confusion of provable fact and hard data with subjective design decisions and
highly relative, and very particular, anecdotal statements from the historical
record.
I would also add that there is a different skill set for wargame designers and
Historians-and that, too, gets confused by some. Christopher Duffy is a fine
historian, but, for all his attendence at wargaming conventions, rarely involves
himself with playing wargames-nor do I expect his 18th century wargame rules to
be published soon. Conversely, many an excellent wargame designer is a fair
amateur historian, but we needn't wait for their ground-breaking work on
military history.
BJ
Paul Minson
distinction I am trying to make.
Raymond Rangel wrote in message ...
>Paul, as I said we are really in agreement.
>
>I think that a game mechanic that achieves a particular
result cannot be
>validated by comparison to an historical event. Rather, the
game mechanic
>can be validated by comparison to an average of historical
events. The more
>historical events used to determine the average the more
accurate the
>validation.
In this paragraph, you are talking about validating against
a "historical event." What you are doing with the procedure
you describe is validating against the historical _record_
of an event. No new data can actually be collected from the
event (it is over long ago), and the historical record is
known to have limitations to its veracity, objectivity, and
completeness. Fidelity to the historical record, and
fidelity to the reality of war are two different properties,
because of the imperfections in the historical record's
attempts to capture the reality.
>For instance, comparing the distance that a projectile can
be fired in a
>game effectively with a single in stance of that projectile
being fired in
>reality does nothing to validate the historical accuracy of
the game.
>However, if the many historical instances are used, then we
can get closer
>to validation. The more instances, the more validity. This
is simply because
>the oddities in reality start to cancel. Those familiar
with statistics will
>recognize the formation of a normal curve. The objective is
to get as many
>historical samples as possible to build the curve and then
to compare it to
>the game.
Again, here you talk about validating against the historical
record. For the specific example you use, my preferred data
would be to take a surviving cannon, or fabricate a replica
using period materials and records of the manufacturing
processes of the day, fabricate projectiles and powder the
same way, and go to a range and do some ballistic testing.
If the results match the historical record, then I'd use the
historical record. If they don't, someone has an
opportunity for a PhD thesis project to figure out why
not--is the history in error, or is the fabrication process
in error? I also think that the historical record is sparse
enough, and there are enough uncontrolled variables between
the different reported instances, that not much tightening
of the confidence interval on the population average is
possible, because each additional data point may include a
new source of variation.
>As for the good Col's example of Waterloo, even though we
have as close to
>historical conditions as possible, we are still trying to
compare singular
>events in reality to singular events that occur during the
game. Since these
>are...well...singular, we cannot use them for validation.
Again, this
>demonstrates the futility of attempting to validate a game
by playing it.
>Doing so creates the illusion that one is testing the game
results and
>mechanics, but in reality one is only testing one of many
possible results
>that is precipitated by a singular set of circumstances.
This sort of hit or
>miss testing and analysis results in misleading data that
are the germ of
>misconceptions.
I agree.
>When I examine a game with the intent of validating its
historicity, I set
>up tests, as I indicated before, to specifically test
mechanics. I don't
>depend on the mechanics occurring by happenstance during
the course of a
>game. I simply make them happen so that I can examine the
results. It's
>certainly not perfect, but it beats hoping that one player
will form square
>and that the other will try to charge it with his cavalry
during the course
>of a game. When you add that, because a game is in
progress, both players
>are try to win and thus will adopt aggressive or passive
modes or
>operation...well you get my point. Once the results of
discrete mechanics
>are established, if the rules integrate the mechanics well,
then a normal
>game of a typical (in the statistical sense of the word)
battle should
>produce results that lie within the historical norms.
Two questions:
1. How do you determine if the rules integrate the
mechanics well? For your conclusion to hold (that the sum
of separately tested mechanics makes a game that will also
pass the tests), this must be an objective measurement, not
a subjective one. Testing the individual systems separately
does not account for interactions between the systems.
Mechanics that play well alone may not play well together.
How do you measure this?
2. Since there is no guarantee that the information
recorded about history that has survived to reach us is
representative of the norm of what happened, or even of the
norm of what was originally recorded, here again you are
matching the norm of the historical record, not the norm of
the reality.
>As I indicated above, there is value is playing the game.
It is a valid test
>for the integration of the discrete mechanics of which the
game is composed.
>However, the discrete mechanics like firing, charging,
forming square,
>morale, etc. might be very well integrated and produce a
well playing,
>smoothly flowing game that bears no resemblance to reality
because those
>discrete components produced results that were on one end
of the normal
>curve or outside of it altogether. Thus playing a game
without testing the
>discrete mechanics involved, is at best, a misleading
gesture
I agree here. The engineering phrase is "garbage in,
garbage out." Testing a system with faulty components leads
to an invalid test of the system's capabilities. NASA and
the US military's guided missile programs provide a long and
glorious list of examples of this.
>Perhaps I should have used the word average instead of
typical in my
>original postings. I tend to view the word typical as being
the norm in a
>statistical sense.
>
>At any rate, I still think we agree that game results
cannot be validated by
>direct comparison to historical events. If we differ, it's
because I believe
>that we can take many historical events to form an idea of
what the normal
>result of an action should be. Using this norm and
comparing it to results
>of a set properly conducted tests to produce a norm for a
game mechanic we
>can validate a game's ability to reproduce historically
normal results.
Results typical for the historical record, yes. But that is
the limit of what can be said with confidence. One cannot
determine how closely it conforms to the reality.
>Furthermore, I believe that most gamers do this in an
uncontrolled (in the
>laboratory sense) manner. The comparison of results of
events on the table
>are mentally compared to an historical average derived from
the gamer's
>knowledge of the period to form an opinion as to whether
the game has the
>proper historical "feel". When we try to take this a step
further and
>actually determine whether, indeed, the game is
"historical", this adhoc
>comparison breaks down due to lack of applied test methods
or the objective
>formation of the historical norm for an event.
Yep, exactly.
Raymond, I never said running experiments is bad. You are
correct that it is a faster and more effiecient way of
getting information about a certain subsystem. There are
just limitations to what they can tell you because of the
inputs and boundary conditions, and it is important that
people understand that. These experiments you describe are
simply fragments of a battle with specified boundary
conditions.
--Paul
Paul Minson
shouldn't have included the part about "or other
difficult-to-quantify-and-verify characteristics."
--Paul
Ty Beard wrote in message ...
Charles P. Boinske
I agree. One of the basic principles of good model design is to have it
produce a reasonable result with as few variables as possible. Your point
about tank vs. tank combat coming down to the flip of a coin is the ultimate
illustration of that process. Wont make much of a game though! :) Adding the
right amount of flavor without creating an unplayable rules set, should be
the goal of any designer.
>Much of this is dependent on the degree of process the gamer needs to
create an
> illusion of 'historicity', as well as the degree of abstraction he will
accept
> in the interest of playability and time of play. Gamers will fall all
along a
> wide, wide range on these points.
You're right; in a sense all game designers are illusionists.
Phil B.
<rjo...@rmi.net> wrote in message news:8c2igi$12...@edrn.newsguy.com...
> In article <se9fn5...@corp.supernews.com>, "Charles says...
> >
> >Agreed. I'm not saying that the French weren't better than their
opponents.
> >I was only saying that we cant prove they were by using statistics.
> >
> >Phil
>
> BJ: Which returns us to the thought that the data within a set of rules
need
> only be consistent within its own framework, and must RELATIVELY indicate
the
> comparitive values of certain factors. For example:
>
> . Horse should move faster than foot.
>
> . Heavier batteries should have more penetration(or effect) on dense
formations
> than light guns.
>
> . The 1804-6 French should, generally speaking, be a little more flexible
Doug Ferguson
"Paul Minson" <pmi...@rt66.com> wrote:
> I don't
> see how looking separately at the results of different
> aspects of the battle instead of considering the results in
> aggregate changes the validity of my point. Just because
> the casualty rates in a test game or paper exercise differed
> from the historical result is _no_guarantee_ that there is
> anything wrong. That was the whole point of my original
> post.
DF: about which we agree.
> Who can say indisputably that the historical outcome
> was not a fluke? How different do the results have to be
> before there is a reasonable chance that something is wrong?
> Who should choose what that threshold is, and how should we
> measure it? You can say subjectively why a side won, but
> that is an opinion, about which there is no point in arguing
> because there can be no definitive resolution, maybe at best
> just a concensus.
DF: Again, we agree here.
>
> I have no problem with this. You can be enthusiastic or
> not, and can hold your own opinion of a rules set. That is
> not my contention. If you say that you have less enthusiasm
> for a rules set because it has an unrealistically low chance
> for the French to win (or for the French to have the
> casualties they did, if you want to consider the pieces of
> the battle individually), then I have a problem. We do not
> have the information available to test the probabilities of
> the various results of the battle, in order to have an
> objective assessment of the degree to which the game matches
> what the reality was. So any claim to unrealism (or realism
> for that matter) is subjective, and arguing about it amounts
> to evangelism, because you would be trying to convert people
> to thinking that your opinion is a better one to hold, or
> superior in some way.
DF: I disagree here. Arguing about what we find realistic and
unrealistic informs the group. I do not believe anyone (okay, maybe
SOME people) hold their opinions in stone. Discussing how various rules
sets handle various situations informs us all, even if it does not
convince many.
> Sigh. We do not know what the range of error in the
> historical numbers is, so we cannot define an objective
> criteria for deciding when to investigate and when a change
> is really an improvement.
DF: Are 10% losses expected in a Napoleonic frontal assault major
battle (say, Waterloo or Wagram) not "beyong the range of error" in your
mind? If no results are beyond your tolerance for outcomes, than your
point is correct for you. I think we have enough cases of Napoleonic
combat to draw some general conclusions, even if the error limits ARE
high because of the uncertainty of the data.
>
> Yes. I don't understand why you feel this is in conflict
> with my post.
DF: I did not say I was disagreeing with you. We are, I think, mostly
in agreement with at least what I understand to be your main point:
that players must take care in selecting the standards by which they
judge how a rulkes set meets their standards of "realism." If I have
misrepresented your main idea, then feel free to enlighten me.
> Yes rules satisfying customers is a legitimate topic for
> discussion. It was not what I was discussing, however, so I
> am a bit mystified why you inserted it into the discussion.
DF: I inserted it because I thought this thread was about what it takes
to "validate" a rules set for the purpose of the rules set: to
entertain and even possibly enlighten.
>
> Yes it is, but again that was not what I was driving at.
> Nowhere in my original post did I mention purchasers of
> rules, or the decision to buy anything. To get a good
> discussion on that topic, I recommend you start a new thread
> on it.
DF: Maybe I will have to do this. I consider all of my statements to
be a direct response to your ideas in the original post, but maybe I
have misunderstood what you had in mind when you started this thread.
Perhaps a concise restatement is in order.
>
> No. You have let a concensus of opinions based on a
> historical record which is not guaranteed to be
> representative of the reality guide you. A subtle but
> important difference. It means you can say you like one
> rules set better than another, but you cannot make an
> indisputable claim about the relative validity or historical
> fidelity of the sets. I never contended that history cannot
> guide you to figuring out which rules are right for you.
> That was never mentioned, and was not my point.
DF: The history we have is the only history we have. To say that we
should not pay heed to it because it is "not guaranteed to be
representative of the reality" is to say that the entire concept of
historical gaming is a sham because we cannot define precisely what that
history was. In an abstract sense, you are probably right. However, if
I decided to believe this, then my proper course is not to accept all
rules sets as equally valid, but rather to declare all rules sets
totally invalid, and take up Warhammer or something that makes no claims
of relying on "history."
If, on the other hand, you are arguing that we SHOULD take history into
account when evaluating the "validity" of rules sets for our use, then
we certainly CAN state what rules (or even rules elements) are unsuited
to represent our concept of history. THAT is my point, and thus I
disagree with your contention in the title of this thread that
"historical validation" is "another fallacy."
Doug
Paul Minson
<8c2025$bl5$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
[snip]
>However historical validation does have its uses, albeit at
a much lower
>level. Rules that routinely allow infantry to out-pace
cavalry, that
>allow cavalry to routinely and easily break infantry in
square, that
>make cannister less effective than shot in all situations,
etc, clearly
>go against current wisdom. At this level historical
validation has a
>role to play, don't you think?
Yes. This is the gross reality check I have referred to
elsewhere in this discussion. My point was that people
can't expect to apply the same methodology to determining
whether 12# guns should get a -1 or a -2 modifier for fire
at targets over 1000 yards.
>Current wisdom may/will change as new research discovers
new sources or
>as people retrofit current experience to historical
happenings (eg the
>"Squares move as fast as column" theory) and so rules
may/will change
>with them. It's not a static process or else we'd still be
using Wells'
>original rules. As each new set is released, though,
consciously or not
>the gamer will fit the mechanisms into his perception of
what happened.
> And that's the most basic use of historical validation-
"Is it right?".
The key here, is the word "right." If "right" means in the
gamer's opinion it resembles his perception of the
historical record, then that's fine. But if right means
that it has fidelity to the reality of what happened, my
contention is that we can only know that it is not proven
wrong yet.
--Paul
Charles P. Boinske
>pompous statements about the "realism" of our rules. We should rather be
>honest enough to admit that we are simply trying to achieve a certain kind
>of fidelity or resonance with what we *think* the historical record shows
to
>have been true.
This about sums it up. Next topic?
Phil B.
Brian Hodson <hodso...@sprynet.com> wrote in message
news:8c28a4$kl9$1...@slb6.atl.mindspring.net...
Bill Armintrout
>bare facts.
>I agree. And unless a model is based solely on the laws of
>physics, comparisons between it and other models for
>historical fidelity, realism, or other
>difficult-to-quantify-and-verify characteristics, is mostly
>a matter of opinion, and there is no conclusive resolution
>possible. So this competitive undertone that keeps cropping
>up the the design discussions between the different
>philosophical camps is probably not productive.
The first step should be to see if the different camps can agree on portions
of their historical model. In other words, they will always have some
differences when it comes to a Grand Model of Napoleonic warfare, but in
specific areas they should be able to come to some broad agreements, against
which the games can then be measured.
- Bill
Dave Robertson
> Raymond, we are mostly in agreement, but there is a subtle
> distinction I am trying to make.
>
> a "historical event." What you are doing with the procedure
> you describe is validating against the historical _record_
> of an event. No new data can actually be collected from the
> event (it is over long ago), and the historical record is
> known to have limitations to its veracity, objectivity, and
> completeness. Fidelity to the historical record, and
> fidelity to the reality of war are two different properties,
> because of the imperfections in the historical record's
> attempts to capture the reality.
and
> 2. Since there is no guarantee that the information
> recorded about history that has survived to reach us is
> representative of the norm of what happened, or even of the
> norm of what was originally recorded, here again you are
> matching the norm of the historical record, not the norm of
> the reality.
and
> Results typical for the historical record, yes. But that is
> the limit of what can be said with confidence. One cannot
> determine how closely it conforms to the reality.
Paul, perhaps I am missing the point of your argument, but it seems
to me that the only useful meaning of "historical fidelity" is "fidelity
to the historical record" (or to our historical knowledge, which is
a synthesis and interpretation of the historical record), not to some
unknown -- and unknowable -- "reality of war." Thus the game
designer interprets the historical record (or more likely, a historian's
pre-digestion of it :-) and constructs a system which may reflect it to
a greater or lesser degree. This is (I believe) what Matt DLM was
getting at when he said:
> 2. Wargaming is about history (and gaming). A wargame can aspire to
> be an active theory of history, if you like.
>
> 3. The same standards of "truth" that apply to history can be
> applied to wargames. That is what I was proposing when we started to
> look at what Napoleonic wargames were actually saying (their
> results).
The game is built on the same knowledge base as history itself, and
comes with all the attendant limitations, among them the caveats regarding
"veracity, objectivity and completeness" you mention. The question of
historical fidelity is then a comparison of two histories, or rather of a
"historical model" (i.e., a representation of historical knowledge, or what
Matt calls a "theory of history") with our actual historical knowledge.
Now in some areas a game system actually produces _more_ historical
"knowledge" ("hypotheses" might be better) than exists in the historical
record: detailed probability distributions for the effects of cannon fire,
for
example. Of course these can only be verified in the crudest terms -- there
simply isn't enough data (and information from physics, etc.) to do more.
Furthermore, given several distributions that _do_ satisfy whatever minimal
historical constraints exist, we cannot distinguish one as more historically
faithful than the others. Each must be considered equally plausible. Note,
however, that the same uncertainties in the record that make it impossible
to distinguish them also make it basically irrelevant (from the point of
view
of fidelity) which one we actually use.
Of course the points where the game and the historical record more closely
coincide are ultimately of more interest, for obvious reasons :-).
Cheers,
Dave
Paul Minson
Doug Ferguson wrote in message
<8c05e9$c1t$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>In article <8c016i$5...@news.or.intel.com>,
>"Paul Minson" <pmi...@rt66.com> wrote:
>> I have seen posted with regularity on this group comments
>> along the lines of the following:
>> Ruleset X lacks historical fidelity because when I
refight
>> historical battle Y, I don't usually get the same outcome
as
>> the historical battle.
>
>DF: Could you be more specific? I don't think I have ever
heard this
>claim, let alone "regularly."
Doug, are you serious? I've been following the newsgroup
for about 3 years, and there have been whole threads on the
subject (It doesn't necessarily always come up in threads
about Napoleonics, but also surfaces in discussions about
realism, command control, why a ruleset is good/bad, etc.).
Courtesy of dejanews, here's one example from a thread that
had a lot of discussion on the topic (apologies to Raymond,
but his post is a great illustration of my point):
BEGIN QUOTED POST---------------------------
Subject: Re: battle outcomes (was Re:
Predictability,Randomness, Luck, and Control
Date: 09/14/1999
Author: Raymond Rangel <ray.r...@worldnet.att.net>
> I agree. As discussed in a previous thread, the concept of
'realism' is a
> tricky one, outside of very broad boundaries. I tend to
think 'realism' is
a
> matter of personal preference based on that person's
research and view of
> history. But you are right, any arguement advanced should
be consistently
> applied.
>
Perhaps I should have said this in the "Realism" thread but
I was actually painting miniatures...
There are two answers to the "realism" question, in my
opinion.
Comparing the typical *results* of games to the typical
results of actual battles demonstrates, in an objective
sense the realism of the results.
However, the judgement of the realism of the process to
achieve the results is subjective and is based on our
individual perceptions and interpretations of the actual
process.
The way I see it is that there are many ways to skin a cat,
but in that the cat is ultimately skinned there is no doubt.
END QUOTED POST----------------
>> I have seen comments made that part of the playtesting of
a
>> game should be to verify that refights of historical
battles
>> have outcomes similar to the outcome listed in the
>> historical record.
>
>DF: I cannot recall anyone make such a claim. I myself
have dsaid
>that I think an interesting test of any rules set's command
and control
>system is whether it allows the french a shot at winning
Auerstadt, but
>this clearly is not the post you refer to above.
Doug, I am not responding to a specific post on the topic (I
would have replied to the post, instead of starting a new
discussion). I am responding to a general approach that I
see applied often (keep in mind often is a relative term,
subject to my personal experience). I've seen the same
thoughts expressed about computer wargames as well. The
syndrome isn't limited to miniatures. Regarding your
statement about Auerstadt you brought up, the difficulty is
to know _how_much_ of a shot the French should have at
winning. Is a one-in-a-million chance sufficient? A
fifty-fifty chance?
>>And I've seen comments that games should
>> be tuned during design so that they do reproduce the
>> historical outcomes.
>
>DF: Outcomes of battles? I don't recall any such
comments, either.
See dejanews for the entire discussion on the subject from
which I copied Raymond's post. The discussion of which it
is a part contains upwards of 500 messages (pretty
convoluted and complex thread involving realism and a lot of
other related aspects in wargames).
>(snip)
>>
>> So in the end, I think folks need to be more careful in
>> selecting criteria for condemning or extolling rulesets,
>> because one of the more common ones (comparison of game
>> results to historical battle results) is not necessarily
a
>> valid test with the information we have available.
>
>DF: I agree with this, and go further - I think each
person has to
>make a decision on the "validity" of the rules set to his
or her
>needs. It helps when the designer clearly states what is
and is not
>part of his/her goals for the game design, and it helps to
have a
>couple of different people review the rules and describe
how they feel
>the designer has succeeded in his/her endeavor, but the
bottom line is
>that each rules set is valid only for its purpose: to give
a gamer
>enjoyment.
I have not addressed anything to the question of whether a
gamer's needs and wants are met by a design. I am talking
specifically about the attempts to evaluate historical
fidelity of cases where a design _intends_ to achieve some
level of reproduction of a
phenomenon/event/outcome/characteristic found in the
historical record. My 'thesis', so to speak, is that one
common method of testing/evaluating/passing-judgement-on the
success or failure of a design to do so is based on an
assumption whose validity cannot be known or even assumed
except in very extreme cases, and then only with very poor
resolution.
>Historical fidelity differs, by design, among rules sets.
Some
>emphasize one element of history over another. All rules
sacrifice
>fidelity to increase playing speed, but they do so in
different ways
>and to different degrees. The final barrier to fidelity
is, of course,
>that we lack the knowledge to achieve 100% fidelity no
matter what our
>game design goals.
Right, and my point earlier was that we lack the information
needed to assess those degrees with the precision and
accuracy that would allow comparative evaluations of
wargames' fidelity to the level that is typically attempted
on this newsgroup and elsewhere. I assert that your 'final'
barrier is probably the _dominant_ barrier to the type of
analysis being attempted.
>Players need to know what the goals of a designer are, so
that they can
>find the "fidelity fit" that meets their needs. With that,
and some
>objective knoweldge of how well the game meets its design
goals, they
>can be an informed consumer.
This is not related to what I posted about, but I don't
think this is necessarily true. Any assessment of how well
a game meets its design goals will be subjective, unless it
is couched in such terms as "goal: a 12# artillery will have
a 40% chance of rendering a 100-man battalion combat
ineffective for the remainder of the battle by bombarding it
for 2 turns). You can't make an objective evaluation of
whether the command control mechanics accurately reproduce
Napoleonic command control, because there is no large group
of Napoleonic wars commanders around to tell us whether the
mechanic matches what they experienced and did. I don't
need to know whether the designer deliberately omitted an
aspect of war that I think is important, to play the game
and assess whether I like its presence or absence. Knowing
the designer meant to leave it out could reduce the chances
of people being inclined to call the designer bad names on
the newsgroup though. :-)
--Paul
Dallas Gavan
> The key here, is the word "right." If "right" means in the
> gamer's opinion it resembles his perception of the
> historical record, then that's fine. But if right means
> that it has fidelity to the reality of what happened, my
> contention is that we can only know that it is not proven
> wrong yet.
> --Paul
As, IMHO, all history is just a set of personal opinions then the
gamer's perspective is the benchmark by which he judges rules. Not
overly scientific, is it. As we can't go back and test our theories
(worse luck) by using or observing the actual troops and commanders
involved, we have to rely on what we've read and considered pertinent.
There's no real way to prove or disprove the validity of a mechanic, we
have to judge against our own perceptions. Where many people hold the
same "facts" to be true then we have the "current wisdom" but there's no
real proof this is correct just because the opinion is popular.
Even well-documented "hard" data such as uniform colours, numbers of
rounds carried, orders of battle, etc, is open to interpretation. Some
things we can test now (relative speeds of men and horses, muzzle
velocities) but these are a minor part of the "truths" we all go looking
for. All the rest is opinion, guesstimation and very, very seldomly
personal experience (which again renders down to personal opinion).
When it comes down to it, it's my idea against yours. And my idea of
fun against yours. So there's no "good" nor "bad" rules sets, just
those that do or don't appeal to your sense of history and/or fun.
Regardless of the opinion of authors, acolytes and adherents. ;-)
Take care, mate.
Dal.
Raymond Rangel
Raymond Rangel
>a "historical event." What you are doing with the procedure
>you describe is validating against the historical _record_
>of an event
Close, but what I am saying is that, just as anthropologists nad historians
do, we should be looking at many events, finding the commonalities,
considering the differences to build a picture of, in this case, Napoleonic
war in general. Since the miniatures games rules (unlike most board games)
are designed to accommodate many battles, both historical and conjectural,
are also general. It is the broad picture of Napoleonic war that should, and
can, be compared to the general rules. Thus, even a comparing a particular
battle, unless the rules are also designed for playing only that particular
battle, is an apples and oranges comparision. Which is why I agreed with
your original premise, if I understand it correctly, wherein you state that
attempting to validate a game using facts is a futile and misleading
endevour. I don't agree that games cannot be validated as historical if the
general period game is compared to the aggregate knowledge of history of the
subject period.
I would like to point out that validating that a particular game is, or is
not, historically representative has nothing to do with realism. Realism,
the way the term is mostly commonly used in the context of these
discussions, carries the connotation of moment to moment historical
fidelity. This, by its nature, I agree, is not possible to determine except
in very isolated instances. Since period games are designed to
representative of an historical era, attempts to compare incidents or
results at any particular moment in the life of game with what are believed
to be corresponding moments of a historical battle end in frustration
because of two factors. The first is that game is intended to represent
rather than duplicate. The other is that the facts of the moment in
historical battle are often unreliable and undependable. So realism is, by
nature, a subjective judgement made by a player because he or she is
actually making a comparison between the results of a game mechanic and
their perception of the facts (which may or may not be objective truth).
Thus we must segregate the concept of realism from the concept of historical
validity. We can with some amount of objectivity, determine the latter.
However, we can only subjectively pass judgement on the former. We can argue
for eternity about realism because the basis for our arguements is
subjective.
>I also think that the historical record is sparse
>enough, and there are enough uncontrolled variables between
>the different reported instances, that not much tightening
>of the confidence interval on the population average is
>possible, because each additional data point may include a
>new source of variation.
>
Which why I maintain that the more examples (data) that go into the
equation, the closer we can get to objectively making a determination of
historical validity. The concept is that as more data samples are collected
the historical extremes and norm become more and more apparent. In essence,
the larger the goup of data, the more normal the curve.
>Two questions:
>1. How do you determine if the rules integrate the
>mechanics well? For your conclusion to hold (that the sum
>of separately tested mechanics makes a game that will also
>pass the tests), this must be an objective measurement, not
>a subjective one. Testing the individual systems separately
>does not account for interactions between the systems.
>Mechanics that play well alone may not play well together.
>How do you measure this?
I think you wrote this before you read my next paragraph which spoke to the
use of play of the game to test the integration of its parts.
>2. Since there is no guarantee that the information
>recorded about history that has survived to reach us is
>representative of the norm of what happened, or even of the
>norm of what was originally recorded, here again you are
>matching the norm of the historical record, not the norm of
>the reality.
Are you speaking of information about a particular incident, battle, war,
era? As the span of the data is reduced so is its reliablity. Reality rears
its ugly head again. Certainly, the recorded history of any era is not
necessarily indicative of objective reality. Since history is recorded by
humans, it gets filtered by the recorders' own motives, predelictions and
prejudices. But a history is built on more than the recordings primary
sources. Just as good journalists do, historians search for corroberating
evidence pertaining to recorded historical accounts. This takes the form,
for example, of comparing different accounts to find supporting commonality,
archeological inquiry, and other methods. Dependance on primary sources
without supporting research, is a trap into which many an avocational
historian has fallen.
>I agree here. The engineering phrase is "garbage in,
>garbage out." Testing a system with faulty components leads
>to an invalid test of the system's capabilities. NASA and
>the US military's guided missile programs provide a long and
>glorious list of examples of this.
And here your insight shines. You probably deduced that my vocation is,
indeed, in the field of engineering. Specifically, it is my responsiblity to
validate and verify software engineering and design processes and eventually
the products themselves for the DoD. Given this knowledge of my background,
I think it should be easy to understand why and how I apply verification
techniques to game rules. I see the rules as nothing more than a program
composed of subroutines and modules. In each instance of a subroutine
(musket fire, artillery, movement, etc.) the inputs must be defined as well
as the outputs. The bounds (extremes) of the input data are determined as
well as the other points along the curve. These inputs are pumped into the
routine and the output is compared to expected results (the historical
norm). Once the routines are verified, then the integration of the of the
routines into a complete program (game) can be tested to determine whether
their interaction produces expected results.
Quite frankly, when we get a new rule set in our hands (and I am guilty of
this as anyone) our first impulse is to play...because this is a hobby and
we want to have fun. Methodical testing of the mechanics and historical
validation is the farthest thing from our minds. The drive to paint and play
overpowers our higher cognative functions. So we play. From that experience
are born our preconceptions of the game's historical validity and realism.
99.9% of the people in the world are not engineers and are not schooled or
wired to apply methodical, objective, verification and validation
disciplines and thus accept the play of the game as a valid test and accept
their preconceptions as truth.
Do I apply these rigorous methods to every set of game rules I come across?
Certainly not. There are rules, Larry Brom's "The Sword and the Flame" for
instance, that is not intended to be a historically accurate game. Rather,
Larry's stated intent for the game is to be representative of the those
beloved British Colonial movies like the "Four Feathers" and "Zulu". It
would be inappropriate to test his game for historical validity and doing so
would lead to erroneous conclusions. In "The Sword and the Flame"'s case, if
playing the game results in the player feeling as though they are in one of
the aforementioned movies, it has met its stated design goals. No futher
testing is required. When a game, or a player, lays claim to historcal
validity or realism (remember they are two different and distinct issues)
the game becomes fair game for close examination. To perform this
examination and draw valid conclusions it is nessessary for the examiner to
understand what history is and how historical norms are developed as well as
how to apply validation and verification disciplines in order to draw
meaningful conclusions.
>Results typical for the historical record, yes. But that is
>the limit of what can be said with confidence. One cannot
>determine how closely it conforms to the reality.
I agree with you completely. That's why "realism" and "historical validity"
must always be kept apart. Confusing the two muddies the perception leading
to poor logic and thus to some strange conclusions.
>Raymond, I never said running experiments is bad. You are
>correct that it is a faster and more effiecient way of
>getting information about a certain subsystem. There are
>just limitations to what they can tell you because of the
>inputs and boundary conditions, and it is important that
>people understand that. These experiments you describe are
>simply fragments of a battle with specified boundary
>conditions.
>
You are quite right about identifying boundary conditions. Correctly
identifying the boundary conditions is as critical to the analitcal process
as correctly identifying the expected results. Boundry testing is often one
of the hardest parts of an analysis. I think that most people have an inate
knowledge of this difficulty so boundary testing is often ignored by
designers. We see the results of this all the time in this hobby of ours. It
is the lack of this part of design verification that results in many of the
"holes" in rules that leaves players standing around scratching their heads
and wondering what to do next. Lack of disciplined testing methods
(including boundary conditions) and reliance on "play testing" is what
results in some of the outlandish or historically impossible results of
applying a mechanic in an unforeseen situation that we all see from time to
time.
By the way, and off topic, thanks to all the participants for this lucid and
insightful discussion. Some of the things we have been discussing are quite
abstract and can be difficult to grasp, yet all the participants have
obviously spent the effort and time to read and understand what it is that
we are trying to convey to each other. The tempered comments and
participation of everyone has renewed my faith in this News Group as a
medium for meaningful exchange of ideas.
Ty Beard
news:kheF4.3419
> So let's not confuse facts with a history. Facts are tidbits of
information
> about past events; a history is the collection and distillation of the
many
> facts used to form it.
Assuming that your definitions are correct, we still have the problem that
the distillation of facts is subjective. Each historian -- amateur or
professional -- has his own *opinion* as to what the correct distillation
is.
> That we cannot have a game wholly based on facts I don't dispute.
Construing
> that to mean we cannot have a game demonstrably based on history is an
> error.
The only way that I could see a game being really based on history is to
design a game based on the writings and theories of a particular historian.
"WWII According to JFC Fuller", for instance.
Otherwise, your game is based upon a group of *opinions* of how history
should look. And this opinion is ill-informed as we simply don't know
everything that has happened.
In either case, your game is based on a subjective view that cannot be
proven.
--Ty Beard
MltryHstrn
Ty Beard wrote>at
>the distillation of facts is subjective. Each historian -- amateur or
>professional -- has his own *opinion* as to what the correct distillation
cannot be
>proven.
Agreed - to a point. The nature of "proof" is subjective and reflective of a
variety of standards. As Ty well knows proof of criminal behavior in court is
different in many respects than the standards needed to "prove" something in
civil court. The chemist's validation of data (proof if you will), is different
from the anthropologist's or sociologist' standards. And the historian is faced
with an even greater standard - what is the truth about the past? The
professional historian looks at a variety of different types of evidence -
written primary sources, archaeologiacl evidence, and oral history to mention
just three types. He or she then processes this sometimes ambiguous evidence
looking for patterns and behaviors which seem reasonable. Yes, this is all
subective in the extreme sense but this argument carries with it a great truth
- some historical research is better than others just as some lawyer's "proof"
is better than others. It is broader based, more critically examined,
subjected to tests for authenticity. After all is said and done we are left
with what most historians accept as fact - D-day occurred on June 6, 1944, the
North won the Battle of Gettysburg, etc.
If I understand Mr Beard correctly, he is stating that subjective views - as
expressed in game design - cannot be proven. The problem with that is that if
we look at wargames as expressions of historical study, then we can use the
historian's tools to examine the assumptions, mechanics, and biases of a
particular game. For example, if I design an ACW game (I have) you should be
able to look at my game notes, tables, etc and either validate or disprove
their validity. The historian will not only examine the sources used to create
the structure but will also bring as much critical analysis and new material as
available into the mix to get at what the historian sees as "truth". If I
create a WWII game which uses only the writings of Paul Carell or JFC Fuller it
will certainly have a definite flavor. Will it be historically accurate? The
answer to that will depend on the level of historical accuracy used by that
historian. BTW that doesn't mean it won't be a good game, just that it might
not be terribly accurate or to the contrary, might be a terribly accurate, but
rather dry and poorly done.
Simply put, subjective isn't all that bad if the designer and historian has a
respect for historical rules of evidence, imagination, and a sense of fun.
Great gaming to all!
Jerry Lannigan
Ty Beard
> Greetings All:
> Simply put, subjective isn't all that bad if the designer and historian
has a
> respect for historical rules of evidence, imagination, and a sense of fun.
> Great gaming to all!
> Jerry Lannigan
I agree with this statement Jerry. But my comments should be read in the
context of debating whether one game is more "historically accurate" than
another. My bottom line point is that we must first agree on what is
historically accurate before we commence debating which games are more
accurate than others. Otherwise, it's a collossal waste of time, because we
aren't arguing the same points.
But some don't want to do this crucial first step. They want to jump past
the agreement on what actually happened and pretend that there's an
objectively verifiable standard that we can test rules against. Then they
jump into the argument part.
But the problem is that there ain't no such objective standard. Yes, there
are certain widely agreed-on points -- Lee commanded the Army of Norther
Virginia at Gettysburg, Pearl Harbor was attacked on 12/7/1941, no lasers at
Waterloo. But in most cases, there is too little data (and often of
questionable validity) to meet even the most generous burden of proof.
Beyond dates, who was there and very broad (fairly useless for tactical
wargames) descriptions of actions, there's simply not much there.
And what is there is often contradictory and/or written well after the
action, wreaked with bias, etc. As Paul also pointed out, it's the uncommon
events that usually get reported. So we have to agree on what the "truth" is
before we can test a game against it, IMHO. And the subjective component of
this agreement is large enough to doom a debate on the historical fidelity
of any pair of games -- assuming those games are even vaguely in the
ballpark.
That's why my main criteria for a game is "is it fun".
--Ty Beard
Raymond Rangel
Ty Beard wrote in message ...
>news:kheF4.3419
>> So let's not confuse facts with a history. Facts are tidbits of
>information
>> about past events; a history is the collection and distillation of the
>many
>> facts used to form it.
>
>Assuming that your definitions are correct, we still have the problem that
>professional -- has his own *opinion* as to what the correct distillation
What you say is true. However, given that a history is evolved by a
historian using the methods of verification and techniques that are used to
determine fact from fiction, a history, itself, can be shown to be more or
less likely to be corresponent to the truth. It is up to the game designer
to choose a history in which he or she believes or to develop their own.
Representation of this history, then, becomes the design goal. Can, and do,
most certainly compare, objectively, how well the game represents this
history.
As I have said before, while, except in isolated instances, we cannot
objectively compare game results to reality. We can, objectively, compare
the game to a history.
Thus, when we concider whether a game is historical or not, we must consider
the history on which it is based. For instance Chandler and Elting have
different views of Napoleonic warfare. In many cases they agree in some they
don't. If one designs a game based on Chandler's conceptions, it is
successul if it relects those concepts. It is historical. If, however, the
game doesn't, then it is not historical. The same would be true of different
rules based on different histories. This is completely divorced from any
concept of whether the game is realistic. They are so different that I
hesitate to mention them both in the same paragraph.
>The only way that I could see a game being really based on history is to
>design a game based on the writings and theories of a particular historian.
>"WWII According to JFC Fuller", for instance.
Or to formulate one's own history based on others. When the discussion of
whether a game is historical or not, then the discussion must also include
identifaction of to what history it is be compared. A simple, unqualified,
pronouncement of whether a game is historical or not.
What generally happens in these discussions is that there are certain
elements of almost all histories that are common. This is what becomes known
as "accepted fact". Note that these are not proven facts, but since the
majority of historians reach the same conclusions, they are accepted as
being factual. These accepted facts, tempered with our own judgement about
what these facts are, that we use as a basis for light discussion. It is
possible, and many have done it, to design a game around a core set of
accepted historical facts. (Now, always remember that a historical fact is
not truth. It is a hypothesis that has withstood the test of repeated
scrutiny. The more historicans scrutinize the hypothesis and the most direct
evidence there is to support it, the more firmly it becomes entrenched in
ranks of "accepted fact".) When the converation starts getting heavy,
arguements over the historical validity of a game never seem to end. The
reason is that the it started out based on an asusmed set of historically
accepted facts which was a fine premise for light small talk, when the
discussion turned serious, no bothers to examine the set of facts being used
as a premise for arguement. Opponents in the debate argue whether a game is
historical or not with ever returning to examine what history they are using
or what history the game designer intented to represent. That, in my
opinion, is why it so important to discuss histories and how they are
formulated in the context of historical gaming. Without this understanding,
there can never be any meaningful conclusions about whether a game is true
to the history it attempts to represent.
>
>Otherwise, your game is based upon a group of *opinions* of how history
>should look. And this opinion is ill-informed as we simply don't know
>everything that has happened.
That a game is based on an opinion of what a history should be is without
question. That all opinions are equal and equally uninformed is patently
false. If one were to design a WWII game based on the works of established
historians, known chronology, and empirical evidence, I would think that
that game would be more historically valid than one based on a Sgt Fury and
His Howling Commandos comic book. In my opinion, within the context of this
discussion, throwing ones' hands in the air and exclaiming that it's all
subjective opinion and that as such, all games are equally invalid, is the
ultimate cop-out. That's taking the philisophical nillest stand that nothing
can be absolutely proven, therefore all subsequent arguements are null and
void. Cogito ergo sum.
>In either case, your game is based on a subjective view that cannot be
>proven.
So what? Proof is not a required to formulate a history. A history is an
account of past events, not the events themselves. The Bible is as much a
history as the oral history of a tribe in the forests of New Guinea as is
the accounts written in you college textbook. The difference in them is the
extent to which they can be supported by evidence, not proven, supported.
Thus, if we use the most well supported history that we find, or adopt a
history and then support it ourselves with evidence, to design a game, it is
going to be closer to the truth than one that's not. So we can determine
whether a game is, or is not, a represetation of a history. If we also
validate and test the history, we can determine whether a game comes closer
or strays further to or from the truth. To encapsulate this concept let me
reduce it to a couple of essential sentences:
A game's historically validity can objecively be determined by comparing it
to the history it is intended to represent.
A game's realism can be determined only by examination of the history used
for its basis and the supporting evidence for the chosen history.
I will take this discussion one step further and address the question of
realism and proof of a historical hypthesis. It occurs to me that many of
the discussions concerning the degree of realism of a game are muddied by
confusion of the terms unproven and disproven. They seem to lumped together
under the term proof when, indeed, they are two disticnt concepts. I can,
for instance, formulate a hypothesis that my car will be destroyed by a 12#
cannon ball that strikes it from 100 yards. The hypothesis seems reasonable
as it is based on the the best known facts concerning the physical
characteristics of the car, ball, and the conditions under which it will
strike. Until there is evidence the hypothesis remains unproven. If I either
perform the act (which will surely cause some consteration on the part of
may insurance company) and find the ball does no damage (much to their
relief) or I find evidence of others who have fired cannons at their cars
under similar condions with no effect, I will have disproven the hypthesis
and either reject it or modify it.
When we examine history, we accept as facts those hypothesis that have
withstood the cannon fire of close examination or those that can be proven
with direct evidence. Realism of a history as a whole depends on the ratio
between proven or accepted points, unproven points, and points that have
been disproven.
Applied to game, we can say that a game is realistic if it does a good job
of representing a history that has many proven points and accepted (albeit
unproven) points. Subjectivity is more of a factor when discussing realism
than when discussing historical validity because a determination has to be
made by each individual as to what they will accept as proof and what they
will accept as valid analysis used as proof.
Thus, meaningful assertions concerning the historical validity and the
realism of a game can be made only when the process of evolving a history is
understood and there is common understanding of what is accepted and
rejected as supporting evidence for that history.
Given all that has be written thus far, it should be clear why I maintain
that assertions that we can never really know anything and therefore all
games are equally historical and/or realistic is as absurd as saying that we
can never know how fast each indivdual car might be able to go, therefore
all cars can travel at the same speed.
When statements like this are made by players it's, more than not, an
attempt to side-step the issue because either the player doesn't understand
the issue or doesn't doesn't want make the effort to do the analysis. When a
designer makes these sorts of statements, likely as not, they haven't
validated or verified their work against the history it's supposed to
represent, they don't have clear and consistant picture of the history they
are attempting to represent, or they have not qualified the assertions that
their chosen history makes.
Now might be a good time for a reality check...
Do I understand how to rigorously test games? Sure. Do I know how to
identify and apply metrics to determine a game's historical validity and
realism? Sure. Do I do it? Nope. The fact is that it takes a lot of time and
effort to test a game and determine it's validity and realism. I don't write
rules and I like to use my time to play and paint. Thus the prime
considerations I have are totally subjective. Is the game fun? Does it
appear to be plausibly historical? If so, off I go to paint yet another army
or two for yet another era. If not...well we all have those dusty rules in
the back of the closet that are never played.
==============
humorus aside:
It occurs to me that Warhammer 40K is an excellent historical game because
it is an excellent represention of the Warhammer universe's history. It is a
fantasy game because there is no supporting evidence for the history of that
universe it is representing. Masticate on that all you "historical only at
conventions" guys!
Ty Beard
> A game's historically validity can objecively be determined by comparing
it
> to the history it is intended to represent.
As long as you and I degree on whose history to compare it to, then fine.
But if I like Liddell Hart and you like Fuller, then we have a problem.
Because a game that may be perfectly valid when tested against
Liddell-Hart's paradigm may fail miserably when tested against Fuller's
paradigm.
> A game's realism can be determined only by examination of the history used
> for its basis and the supporting evidence for the chosen history.
Yes, but again, we must agree on the history. While everyone agrees that
Pearl Harbor was bombed on 12/7/41, everyone does not agree on how much
damage a 16" armor piercing shell does. And unfortunately, we wargamers
often require the kind of specific trivia that often goes unrecorded.
> Given all that has be written thus far, it should be clear why I maintain
> that assertions that we can never really know anything and therefore all
> games are equally historical and/or realistic is as absurd as saying that
we
> can never know how fast each indivdual car might be able to go, therefore
> all cars can travel at the same speed.
You paint with too broad a brush. No one is saying that we can't know, for
instance, when Pearl Harbor was bombed. To the contrary, the date of the
attack is widely accepted.
What I'm saying is that the kind of *detailed* information required to test
a wargame's "realism" is often unavailable. When did every musket volley at
Waterloo occur? How many men fired each one? What was the effect of each
volley? We simply don't know. Yet the effect of firing is at the heart of
any Napoleonic wargame.
So, historians opine and analyze and *make conjectural arguments* about the
effects of musket fire. And gamers argue about it incessantly, with one
gamer arguing historian X's view and the other arguing historian Y's view.
And guess what? Nothing gets resolved. Well, duh.
Only in the grossest sense can we test the "validity" of a wargame. And most
games will get the big stuff -- that's easy to validate -- right. No lasers
will appear at Waterloo. Cavalry will move faster in most games than
infantry.
But the stuff we actually argue about remains unproven because there ain't
enough data.
--Ty Beard
Doug Ferguson
"Ty Beard" <tbe...@tyler.net> wrote:
> I agree with this statement Jerry. But my comments should be read in
the
> context of debating whether one game is more "historically accurate"
than
> another. My bottom line point is that we must first agree on what is
> historically accurate before we commence debating which games are more
> accurate than others. Otherwise, it's a collossal waste of time,
because we
> aren't arguing the same points.
DF: I am not sure that "whether one game is more 'historically
accurate' than another" is really what most of us, anyway, are
debating. It is not what I am discussing, certainly. I am arguing that
(1) history can inform our decisions about what rules meet our own
standards for what I will call "personally required realism," (2)
there are different objectives for rules in terms of the complexity
versus abstraction, and that rules designers should be up front about
what decisions they have made, so that I the consumer can accurately
judge whether those rules are the right level of complexity for me, and
(3) that it has not been established that there is a magical level
(already reached) of "maximum historical fidelity" that any game can
aspire to.
If others wish to argue other points, that is all right with me.
>
> But some don't want to do this crucial first step. They want to jump
past
> the agreement on what actually happened and pretend that there's an
> objectively verifiable standard that we can test rules against. Then
they
> jump into the argument part.
DF: I think that analysis of historical facts, and how games interpret
them, can inform. It cannot reach absolute objective conclusions, as
you say. Still, if something that happened historically CANNOT happen
in a set of rules, would you not say that there is an objective standard
that cannot be met?
(snip)
>
> That's why my main criteria for a game is "is it fun".
DF: Almost the same as mine: "Is it fun for me?"
rjo...@rmi.net
says...
>This goes the premise that Bob Jones spoke to that I think was widely
>misunderstood. Jones postulated that numbers of casualties are largely
>irrelavent in PK and PK is no less historically valid for it. On this point,
>I agree with Mr. Jones completely. Since the historical model that PK
>represents addresses the relative strength of units, and casualties are but
>one of many, many, factors that determine a unit's strength, then it would
>be an error on the designer's part to place much emphasis at all on
>casualties. NPoW is another example where the basis of design is predicated
>on relative strengths. Casualties are not counted in that game either for
>the same reason. Are they wrong? Not with respect to the historical models
>they are trying to represent. However, to compare PK to Empire, which is
>predicated on a 1/60th historical model is to compare apples to oranges.
>This is where I think that the 1/60th group completely misses the PK group
>(and vise-versa) in the endless arguements. The games are based on
>completely different, yet very valid, historical models. Both sides
>constantly attempt to compare the other game against their own model and
>find, and this is no surprise, that it comes up lacking. Instead of
>realizing that they are trying to jam a square peg into a round hole, they
>argue that the peg should be round. They don't stop to consider that the
>square hole andround hole are both valid holes and that when compared to
>their appropriate holes, both pegs are valid.
BJ: Ray, on the basis of this post alone, I can say that I have misjudged your
position and insight into the discussions that preceeded. To put it bluntly, I
was wrong, and I offer you an apology. To that apology I add another, and that
is, sometimes I let my 'wit' overrule my judgement. I am sorry.
I will now declare publicly that I will give you a one month pass from any
"pings" and I owe you one "gotcha"; one drink of your choosing at Historicon (Go
for an good champagne or brandy); and a concurrence that POW is a solid design.
NO, this not an April Fool; Yes, I am too old to totally reform, and yes, I mean
it.
I should also point out that Empire, co-designed by a good friend (Jim Getz),
and NB co-designed by another friend, Bob Coggins, are both excellent designs
based on totally different premises than PK, and both are designed by people of
excellent historical knowledge.
There are designs I appreciate on an aesthetic, historical, and pure design
level. There are designs I find very pedestrian. Others, with differing
opinions, will value other approaches. It has little to do with historical
validity or 'truth', and a whole lot to do with the gamer's personal
appreciation and enjoyment of a set of rules. I have said before that it is
similar to a preference in authors. It ain't in the history!
I only know of a few wargame designers that are historical, mathematical, or
publishing incompetents, even fewer that are incontrovertably 'right'.
In that light, I retract, with apology, my characterization of Matt as a
mediocre designer, that was unfair, and purely an irritable reaction to his
repetitive comments.
Now I stand ready to provide fresh offenses. (Don't worry it's a crypto-Catholic
thing as opposed to the more Protestant tradition of shunning.) :-)
BJ
PS No, I am not Catholic, but with a daughter very attached to an Italian
Catholic man, and having a great love of history, opera, theater, and Amarone,
my sensitivities are heightened in that direction, though, as Pat Condray often
tells me, the world is almost certainly Zen at core.
PSPS My criticism of Jay Martino as an advocate of the Canadian belief remains
firm, and I hope to goad him into betting on the upcoming NHL playoffs.
rjo...@rmi.net
says...
>
>Ray,
>
>Thank you for taking the time to make that persuasive and brilliantly reasoned
>post on historical accuracy in rules design.
>
>Where I have become exasperated and nearly speechless with amazement at the
>"nihilist" impications of some of these arguments against historical method,
>you responded with philosophical eloquence.
>
>Wow! Some highlights:
>
>
>> In my opinion, within the context of this
>>discussion, throwing ones' hands in the air and exclaiming that it's all
>>subjective opinion and that as such, all games are equally invalid, is the
>>ultimate cop-out.
>
>>designer makes these sorts of statements, likely as not, they haven't
>>validated or verified their work against the history it's supposed to
>>represent, they don't have clear and consistant picture of the history they
>>are attempting to represent, or they have not qualified the assertions that
>>their chosen history makes.
>
>
>
BJ: One can make broad characterizations; one may extoll one interpretation over
another-but, bottom line, it is closer to the Flashman novels, the O'Brien saga,
or The Red Badge of Courage, War and Peace, Hugo, Hemingway, or Remarque, than
to science, physics, statistics, or any replicable science.
Wargames are historical fictions. Each seperate treatment will capture 'truth'
for some. Hell, they aren't even history-they are ABOUT history! BIG
DIFFERENCE!
Is this arguable?
BJ
Raymond Rangel
>
>> A game's historically validity can objecively be determined by comparing
>it
>> to the history it is intended to represent.
>
>But if I like Liddell Hart and you like Fuller, then we have a problem.
>Because a game that may be perfectly valid when tested against
>Liddell-Hart's paradigm may fail miserably when tested against Fuller's
>paradigm.
>
You missed the point or I didn't make it clear enough. Testing the
historical validity of a game is independednt of what you or I think the
history should. I has everythine to do with the history being represented by
the game. If the game does a good job of representing the history it is
indended to, well then we can say, objectively, that it is more, or less,
historical. That the history upon which the game is based is more, or less,
to actual events is the measure of realism. The amount to which we agree or
disagree with the history upon which the game is based is a separate
judgement and debate that has little to do with the game.
>> A game's realism can be determined only by examination of the history
used
>> for its basis and the supporting evidence for the chosen history.
>
>Yes, but again, we must agree on the history. While everyone agrees that
>Pearl Harbor was bombed on 12/7/41, everyone does not agree on how much
>damage a 16" armor piercing shell does. And unfortunately, we wargamers
>often require the kind of specific trivia that often goes unrecorded.
No we don't have to agree. One points is that the debates should be about
the historical basis for the game, not the game itself. Often they are, but
the debates get muddled becasue debators carelessly switch back and forth
between argueing about the game and the history upon which it was based.
Both are good topics for debate, however, they are different topics. Without
this realization, debates go on forever because the participants are talking
past each other.
>What I'm saying is that the kind of *detailed* information required to test
>a wargame's "realism" is often unavailable. When did every musket volley at
>Waterloo occur? How many men fired each one? What was the effect of each
>volley? We simply don't know. Yet the effect of firing is at the heart of
>any Napoleonic wargame.
What I am saying is that a Napoleonic wargame is intended to be
representative of an era. The specific data you listed is useful to a
wargamer only to the extent that it adds to the pool of knowledge that
historians use to formulate a history. It is this pool, this collection of
knowledge, this summation of events, that must be compared to the game. In
your example, volley fire for instance, the war game designer does (or
shouldn't) care what the effect of volley fire at Waterloo was, he's not
designing a Waterloo game. He *does* care what the typical effects of valley
fire were (the effects at Waterloo is a component of this) during the
Napoleonic era because he's designing a Napoleonic game. As avid readers and
tinkerers with history we all can fall into the trap of comparing details to
generalities (apples to oranges). Without being on guard and aware of this
pitfall, we draw conclusions such as we have seen do in the embodied in the
statement: "we don't know the details so we can't demonstrate anything".
Clearly a false assertion.
>So, historians opine and analyze and *make conjectural arguments* about the
>effects of musket fire. And gamers argue about it incessantly, with one
>gamer arguing historian X's view and the other arguing historian Y's view.
>And guess what? Nothing gets resolved. Well, duh.
Why should anything get resolved? Obviously the goal of historical research
is to determine what actually happened, i.e. the truth. However, like every
other science, the practitioners know that is a goal that can never be
reached...the is always something else to learn. However, as the research
goes on the picture, the concept, becomes clearer and clearer. The exchange
of ideas and open debate weed out much of the historical chaff by disproving
it. There are some hypothesis that are out right, and demonstrably, proven
(Dec 7th et al). The remainer of the offered hypothesis remain unproven are
are the subject of many a heated debate. Again, this attitude of throwing up
one's hands and walking away speaks more to the frustration of the speaker
than the value of scientific investigation and historical debate.
>
>Only in the grossest sense can we test the "validity" of a wargame. And
most
>games will get the big stuff -- that's easy to validate -- right. No lasers
>will appear at Waterloo. Cavalry will move faster in most games than
>infantry.
The typical game is a gross representation of a chosen historical model.
Thus validation "in the grossest sense" is EXACTLY what is required. Thus a
game's historical validity can be determined. So we have come full circle.
The original premise was that games cannot be historically validated. I
think I have shown that they canand that the concept they can't is born of a
misconception of what historical validation, in the game sense, means.
>
>But the stuff we actually argue about remains unproven because there ain't
>enough data.
There are vast amounts of data. However, history isn't handed to historians
on a silver platter. Historians are detectives who depend on direct evidence
and circumstantial evidence to prove or disprove a hypthesis. We don't know,
for instance, exactly how many balls were expended at Waterloo, after all no
one was there counting them. We can, however, hypothesize how many were
spent by examining the records of how many balls were ordered from
contractors before and after the event. We don't know how many soldiers were
killed there either, but we can form a reasonable hypthesis by examining the
effects on agriculture and economics along with recruitment reconds and
other circumstantial data. Historians don't assume that because they don't
know the truth that it can never be discerned.
This goes the premise that Bob Jones spoke to that I think was widely
misunderstood. Jones postulated that numbers of casualties are largely
irrelavent in PK and PK is no less historically valid for it. On this point,
I agree with Mr. Jones completely. Since the historical model that PK
represents addresses the relative strength of units, and casualties are but
one of many, many, factors that determine a unit's strength, then it would
be an error on the designer's part to place much emphasis at all on
casualties. NPoW is another example where the basis of design is predicated
on relative strengths. Casualties are not counted in that game either for
the same reason. Are they wrong? Not with respect to the historical models
they are trying to represent. However, to compare PK to Empire, which is
predicated on a 1/60th historical model is to compare apples to oranges.
This is where I think that the 1/60th group completely misses the PK group
(and vise-versa) in the endless arguements. The games are based on
completely different, yet very valid, historical models. Both sides
constantly attempt to compare the other game against their own model and
find, and this is no surprise, that it comes up lacking. Instead of
realizing that they are trying to jam a square peg into a round hole, they
argue that the peg should be round. They don't stop to consider that the
square hole andround hole are both valid holes and that when compared to
their appropriate holes, both pegs are valid.
Let me take another example, "Tripods and Hussars". Can I historically
validate the game? Sure. I can examine it in relation to the history, albeit
fictional, it is intended to represent. I can determine, objectively,
whether it violates or supports the "War of the Worlds". I can reach a
meaningful conclusion that it is, or is not historically valid. I can also
reach meaningful conclusions about the history upon which it is based. I can
determine, objectively, how much of the history is true to known and
accepted historical evidence and how much is conjecture and speculation. I
can then reach a conclusion about how realistic the game is, but only if I
qualify that judgement to account for the fictional Martians.
Thus, I can historically validate "Tripods and Hussars" and measure it's
realism. To assume that one cannot simply because it's a game based on
fiction (and therefore many elements are unprovable) is to misunderstand
what historical validation means and how one can determine realism and the
difference between the two.
Matt DLM
Thank you for taking the time to make that persuasive and brilliantly reasoned
post on historical accuracy in rules design.
Where I have become exasperated and nearly speechless with amazement at the
"nihilist" impications of some of these arguments against historical method,
you responded with philosophical eloquence.
Wow! Some highlights:
> In my opinion, within the context of this
>discussion, throwing ones' hands in the air and exclaiming that it's all
>subjective opinion and that as such, all games are equally invalid, is the
>ultimate cop-out.
>When a
>designer makes these sorts of statements, likely as not, they haven't
>validated or verified their work against the history it's supposed to
>represent, they don't have clear and consistant picture of the history they
>are attempting to represent, or they have not qualified the assertions that
>their chosen history makes.
Matt DeLaMater
Ty Beard
> "Ty Beard" <tbe...@tyler.net> wrote:
> > .... My bottom line point is that we must first agree on what is
> > historically accurate before we commence debating which games are more
> > accurate than others. Otherwise, it's a collossal waste of time,
> > because we
> > aren't arguing the same points.
>
> DF: I am not sure that "whether one game is more 'historically
> accurate' than another" is really what most of us, anyway, are
> debating.
Wasn't comparison between games the point of Paul's original post?
> It is not what I am discussing, certainly. I am arguing that
> (1) history can inform our decisions about what rules meet our own
> standards for what I will call "personally required realism,"
Agreed. Although, I must point out that "personally required realism" is *by
definition* a subjective standard.
> (2) there are different objectives for rules in terms of the complexity
> versus abstraction, and that rules designers should be up front about
> what decisions they have made, so that I the consumer can accurately
> judge whether those rules are the right level of complexity for me,
The last part of your statement is absolutely correct. Designers should
annotate their rules and tell players *why* they did what they did. I'll
certainly be doing this in FFT 2.
> (3) that it has not been established that there is a magical level
> (already reached) of "maximum historical fidelity" that any game can
> aspire to.
Agreed.
--Ty Beard
Ty Beard
> Ty Beard wrote in message ...
> >As long as you and I degree on whose history to compare it to, then fine.
> >But if I like Liddell Hart and you like Fuller, then we have a problem.
> >Because a game that may be perfectly valid when tested against
> >Liddell-Hart's paradigm may fail miserably when tested against Fuller's
> >paradigm.
> >
>
> You missed the point or I didn't make it clear enough. Testing the
> historical validity of a game is independednt of what you or I think the
> history should.
I disagree here. There is no objective source that we can use to test our
games by. We rely on the *opinions* of historians and ourselves. And these
opinions may not be widely agreed on. Sure, the easy stuff is agreed on --
the date Pearl Harbor was attacked, who commanded Third Army in Operation
Cobra. But the hard, detail stuff is often simply unavailable. So it boils
down to *opinion* again.
> I has everythine to do with the history being represented by
> the game. If the game does a good job of representing the history it is
> indended to, well then we can say, objectively, that it is more, or less,
> historical. That the history upon which the game is based is more, or
less,
> to actual events is the measure of realism.
Except that this "history" you refer to does not exist in any objective
sense. For the most part, "history" is nothing more than aggregated opinions
about what happened a long time ago. And the primary source material is
often quite sparse -- especially in the areas that we wargamers study.
Professionals, by the way, acknowledge this. The regrettable trend in
historiography away from "what happened" to "why something happened" implies
that the professionals know how hard it is to determine what actually
happened. So, they *assume* it happened and analyze why. To some extent, at
least.
My goodness, go observe a trial. Look how hard it is to figure out what
happened even when you have witnesses, professional interrogators, and the
penalty of perjury.
> The amount to which we agree or
> disagree with the history upon which the game is based is a separate
> judgement and debate that has little to do with the game.
I disagree, if we disagree about (for instance) the effect of a 12 lb
barrage on an infantry regiment in line formation in 1812.
Then, this historical disagreement is very relevant to our perception of the
game.
> >Yes, but again, we must agree on the history. While everyone agrees that
> >Pearl Harbor was bombed on 12/7/41, everyone does not agree on how much
> >damage a 16" armor piercing shell does. And unfortunately, we wargamers
> >often require the kind of specific trivia that often goes unrecorded.
>
> No we don't have to agree. One points is that the debates should be about
> the historical basis for the game, not the game itself.
We do have to agree if we're going to resolve the argument. If that's not
the goal, then why argue?
> >What I'm saying is that the kind of *detailed* information required to
test
> >a wargame's "realism" is often unavailable. When did every musket volley
at
> >Waterloo occur? How many men fired each one? What was the effect of each
> >volley? We simply don't know. Yet the effect of firing is at the heart of
> >any Napoleonic wargame.
>
> What I am saying is that a Napoleonic wargame is intended to be
> representative of an era. The specific data you listed is useful to a
> wargamer only to the extent that it adds to the pool of knowledge that
> historians use to formulate a history. It is this pool, this collection of
> knowledge, this summation of events, that must be compared to the game. In
> your example, volley fire for instance, the war game designer does (or
> shouldn't) care what the effect of volley fire at Waterloo was, he's not
> designing a Waterloo game. He *does* care what the typical effects of
valley
> fire were (the effects at Waterloo is a component of this) during the
> Napoleonic era because he's designing a Napoleonic game.
Fine. But such data does not exist for any battle. So how can he, using
primary sources, prove what the effect was? He can't. So he analyses it (or
reads an author who has) and makes an educated guess. Then he models it in
his game.
But another perfectly reasonable could come to a completely different
conclusion.
So if you are going to argue that a game is non-historical, you must first
argue and resolve what it means to be "historical". If the game's fire
charts are off, you need to resolve what the effect of such fire actually
was.
Only then, after you agree on these points, can you rationally argue whether
the game correctly addresses the points.
But the problem, of course, is time and lack of data. So we fall back to
bald assertions...
> >So, historians opine and analyze and *make conjectural arguments* about
the
> >effects of musket fire. And gamers argue about it incessantly, with one
> >gamer arguing historian X's view and the other arguing historian Y's
view.
> >And guess what? Nothing gets resolved. Well, duh.
>
> Why should anything get resolved?
If you're arguing about a game, you should resolve that argument so you can
get to playing, yes?
> Obviously the goal of historical research
> is to determine what actually happened, i.e. the truth.
Actually, historians are more concerned with why something happened, than if
it happened.
> ...However, as the research
> goes on the picture, the concept, becomes clearer and clearer. The
exchange
> of ideas and open debate weed out much of the historical chaff by
disproving
> it.
I disagree that this is necessarily so. The revisionist history movement for
instance. The market rewards historians for discovering (manufacturing) new
theories, not validating old ones. But to the extent that more primary
source material is uncovered as research continues, I agree with you.
> There are some hypothesis that are out right, and demonstrably, proven
> (Dec 7th et al). The remainer of the offered hypothesis remain unproven
are
> are the subject of many a heated debate. Again, this attitude of throwing
up
> one's hands and walking away speaks more to the frustration of the speaker
> than the value of scientific investigation and historical debate.
Actually, I merely challenge us all to make arguments that are capable of
resolution. Until both sides of an argument agree on the assumptions, the
argument is incapable of resolution.
For example, we really can't have much of an argument as to whether
Roosevelt knew about Pearl Harbor, if I believe that Pearl Harbor was never
attacked. Yes, I may be wrong. But *we* will never get anywhere unless we
first can agree that Pearl Harbor was attacked.
> >Only in the grossest sense can we test the "validity" of a wargame. And
> >most
> >games will get the big stuff -- that's easy to validate -- right. No
lasers
> >will appear at Waterloo. Cavalry will move faster in most games than
> >infantry.
>
> The typical game is a gross representation of a chosen historical model.
> Thus validation "in the grossest sense" is EXACTLY what is required. Thus
a
> game's historical validity can be determined.
How?
Please make a compelling historical analysis (based on primary sources) that
will tell us what the percentage chance of Napoleon winning at Waterloo was.
No one can do that. Yet that is what you must have in order to validate a
wargame on the Napoleonic Wars.
> >But the stuff we actually argue about remains unproven because there
ain't
> >enough data.
>
> There are vast amounts of data. However, history isn't handed to
historians
> on a silver platter. Historians are detectives who depend on direct
evidence
> and circumstantial evidence to prove or disprove a hypthesis. We don't
know,
> for instance, exactly how many balls were expended at Waterloo, after all
no
> one was there counting them. We can, however, hypothesize how many were
> spent by examining the records of how many balls were ordered from
> contractors before and after the event.
"Hypothesize" = "guess (hopefully educated)"
See my point?
> Let me take another example, "Tripods and Hussars". Can I historically
> validate the game? Sure. I can examine it in relation to the history,
albeit
> fictional, it is intended to represent. I can determine, objectively,
> whether it violates or supports the "War of the Worlds".
True -- but a literary work is far easier to conform to than real life. The
author wraps it up into a neat package for you.
Yet, note how many times there are inconsistencies in sequels...
--Ty Beard
Ty Beard
news:20000401224329...@ng-cb1.aol.com...
> Ray,
>
> Thank you for taking the time to make that persuasive and brilliantly
reasoned
> post on historical accuracy in rules design.
>
> Where I have become exasperated and nearly speechless with amazement at
the
> "nihilist" impications of some of these arguments against historical
method,
> you responded with philosophical eloquence.
I am assuredly not a nihilist. I just feel that the objective truth about
certain historical events has not been established by the evidence. And I
don't find that historians widely agree on these points either.
My other point is that before arguing if a game is "historical" you need to
be sure that you and the other guy are proceeding from the same assumptions.
This basic point of logic escapes most of us from time to time, but it seems
to spring up a lot in the "is XX historically accurate" threads.
If you disagree on the assumptions, then you should address them first
before moving to the game discussion. For example --
You disagree with the range and effect of a 13.87 pounder cannon in my
"Cannons and Currasiers" game. Before arguing that the game models 13.87
pounders poorly, shouldn't we at least agree on how they did perform?
Otherwise, we argue back and forth and never resolve the real issue of
whether the game models 13.87 pounders correctly.
Because if you believe Spunkmeyer's 400 yard maximum range and I believe
Cornpone's 1000 yard maximum range, then arguing about the game won't get us
anywhere. My game could have perfect fidelity to Cornpone, yet fail to
conform to Spunkmeyer.
And for that matter, what happens when a third person weighs in and starts
babbling about the revisionist Smyth-Joans who claims that the 13.87 pounder
only had a range of 200 yards?
See the problem?
--Ty Beard
Ty Beard
> BJ: One can make broad characterizations; one may extoll one
interpretation over
> another-but, bottom line, it is closer to the Flashman novels, the O'Brien
saga,
> or The Red Badge of Courage, War and Peace, Hugo, Hemingway, or Remarque,
than
> to science, physics, statistics, or any replicable science.
>
> Wargames are historical fictions. Each seperate treatment will capture
'truth'
> for some. Hell, they aren't even history-they are ABOUT history! BIG
> DIFFERENCE!
>
> Is this arguable?
Not to me.
The wargamer is concerned with what *could* have happened. The historian
(other than Ferguson and a few other lunatics) is concerned with what *did*
happen and *why* it happened.
As you say, BIG DIFFERENCE.
On a personal note, I think this is why I ultimately abandoned the history
profession.
--Ty Beard
Raymond Rangel
Ty Beard wrote in message ...
>"Raymond Rangel" <ray.r...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
>news:jlxF4.5278
>> Ty Beard wrote in message ...
>
>> historical validity of a game is independednt of what you or I think the
>> history should.
>
>I disagree here. There is no objective source that we can use to test our
>games by. We rely on the *opinions* of historians and ourselves. And these
>opinions may not be widely agreed on. Sure, the easy stuff is agreed on --
>the date Pearl Harbor was attacked, who commanded Third Army in Operation
>Cobra. But the hard, detail stuff is often simply unavailable. So it boils
>down to *opinion* again.
You make my point for me. It is precisely the fact that histories disagree
that a game must be evaluated in relation to only that which it claims to
represent. If the game doesn't violate that history, then it is historically
valid. This, of couse, has no bearing on whether it reflects what really
happened (realism) which is another matter altoghter.
>> I has everythine to do with the history being represented by
>> the game. If the game does a good job of representing the history it is
>> indended to, well then we can say, objectively, that it is more, or less,
>> historical. That the history upon which the game is based is more, or
>less,
>> to actual events is the measure of realism.
>
>Except that this "history" you refer to does not exist in any objective
>sense. For the most part, "history" is nothing more than aggregated
opinions
>about what happened a long time ago. And the primary source material is
>often quite sparse -- especially in the areas that we wargamers study.
Of course it doesn't...that's the point. By the way, to say that history is
nothing more than collected opinions is an over-simplification of the
highest order. There is, you must admit, a huge amount of research,
anaylsis, and direct evidence that goes into the formulation of a history.
To make a statement that history is nothing but opinion to expose a
fundamental misunderstanding of what a history is and how a history is
developed. Again there a demonstrated lack of understanding of the role of
primary sources in developing a historical account. Primary sources can
serve as starting points for a historical account or as evidence for the
support of a hypothesis. However, there is a huge amount of data that is
available to historians. It is the historian's job to fit the data together
like a jigsaw puzzle to develop a understanding and accounting of the past.
>
>Professionals, by the way, acknowledge this. The regrettable trend in
>historiography away from "what happened" to "why something happened"
implies
>that the professionals know how hard it is to determine what actually
>happened. So, they *assume* it happened and analyze why. To some extent, at
>least.
What it implies is that historians have realized that events don't happen in
a vacuum. A history is more than just a chronology and tallies. A history is
an account of human experience. To understand that experience, one must
understand the "why".
>My goodness, go observe a trial. Look how hard it is to figure out what
>happened even when you have witnesses, professional interrogators, and the
>penalty of perjury.
I have. I do understand the difficulty. But the difficulty of the task is
not the subject of this discussion.
>
>> The amount to which we agree or
>> disagree with the history upon which the game is based is a separate
>> judgement and debate that has little to do with the game.
>
>I disagree, if we disagree about (for instance) the effect of a 12 lb
>barrage on an infantry regiment in line formation in 1812.
If the chosen history basis says the 12#er does X damage and the game
reflects that, then that particular part of the game is historically valid.
If, in reallity we determine that the 12#er does Y, then we can say that the
history is unrealistic (and thus the game). SInce it is now known that Y is
the truth, the history must be modified and the game brought back into line
with the history. But as long as the game reflects the history upon which it
is based, it is historically valid.
>> >Yes, but again, we must agree on the history. While everyone agrees that
>> >Pearl Harbor was bombed on 12/7/41, everyone does not agree on how much
>> >damage a 16" armor piercing shell does. And unfortunately, we wargamers
>> >often require the kind of specific trivia that often goes unrecorded.
>>
>> No we don't have to agree. One points is that the debates should be about
>> the historical basis for the game, not the game itself.
>
>We do have to agree if we're going to resolve the argument. If that's not
>the goal, then why argue?
Why? The issue here is whether a game can be, objectively, deemed
historically valid. I have presented my opinion that it is possible if
history used for validation is the same history that was used as the basis
for the game. A great deal of discussion ensued wherein I, and others,
presented ideas and concepts about the nature of games, their design, what
histories are and how they are developed. Even the nature of disagreements
has be explored...and you ask why argue?
>> What I am saying is that a Napoleonic wargame is intended to be
>> representative of an era. The specific data you listed is useful to a
>> wargamer only to the extent that it adds to the pool of knowledge that
>> historians use to formulate a history. It is this pool, this collection
of
>> knowledge, this summation of events, that must be compared to the game.
In
>> your example, volley fire for instance, the war game designer does (or
>> shouldn't) care what the effect of volley fire at Waterloo was, he's not
>> designing a Waterloo game. He *does* care what the typical effects of
>valley
>> fire were (the effects at Waterloo is a component of this) during the
>> Napoleonic era because he's designing a Napoleonic game.
>
>Fine. But such data does not exist for any battle. So how can he, using
>primary sources, prove what the effect was? He can't. So he analyses it (or
>reads an author who has) and makes an educated guess. Then he models it in
>his game.
I already addressed the problem with reliance on primary sources in this
posting and at least one other.
>So if you are going to argue that a game is non-historical, you must first
>argue and resolve what it means to be "historical
And that is EXACTLY what I have been doing all along...
>Only then, after you agree on these points, can you rationally argue
whether
>the game correctly addresses the points.
And that is EXACTLY what I have been doing all along...
>> Obviously the goal of historical research
>> is to determine what actually happened, i.e. the truth.
>
>Actually, historians are more concerned with why something happened, than
if
>it happened.
I addressed this above.
>> There are some hypothesis that are out right, and demonstrably, proven
>> (Dec 7th et al). The remainer of the offered hypothesis remain unproven
>are
>> are the subject of many a heated debate. Again, this attitude of throwing
>up
>> one's hands and walking away speaks more to the frustration of the
speaker
>> than the value of scientific investigation and historical debate.
>
>Actually, I merely challenge us all to make arguments that are capable of
>resolution. Until both sides of an argument agree on the assumptions, the
>argument is incapable of resolution.
What? Why, in the world would anyone argue about things that they know can
be resolved. Arguments exist to DISCOVER WHETHER A RESOLUTION EXISTS.
>> The typical game is a gross representation of a chosen historical model.
>> Thus validation "in the grossest sense" is EXACTLY what is required. Thus
>a
>> game's historical validity can be determined.
>
>How?
The past few days of posting tell you exactly how. Asked an answered.
>Please make a compelling historical analysis (based on primary sources)
that
>will tell us what the percentage chance of Napoleon winning at Waterloo
was.
>
>No one can do that. Yet that is what you must have in order to validate a
>wargame on the Napoleonic Wars.
Not it's not. Start reading those posts again...
>"Hypothesize" = "guess (hopefully educated)"
I'll let the above comment stand on its own merit...
Ty Beard
> Ty Beard wrote in message ...
> You make my point for me. It is precisely the fact that histories disagree
> that a game must be evaluated in relation to only that which it claims to
> represent. If the game doesn't violate that history, then it is
historically
> valid.
*Which* history are you referring to? Mr. Churchill's history of WWII? Or
Mr. Liddell-Hart's history? Or Mr. Fuller's? Or my own, synthesized from
many sources?
Or to the history that the designer relates in his design notes?
> >Except that this "history" you refer to does not exist in any objective
> >sense. For the most part, "history" is nothing more than aggregated
> >opinions
> >about what happened a long time ago. And the primary source material is
> >often quite sparse -- especially in the areas that we wargamers study.
>
> Of course it doesn't...that's the point. By the way, to say that history
is
> nothing more than collected opinions is an over-simplification of the
> highest order. There is, you must admit, a huge amount of research,
> anaylsis, and direct evidence that goes into the formulation of a history.
> To make a statement that history is nothing but opinion to expose a
> fundamental misunderstanding of what a history is and how a history is
> developed.
I know what history is. Besides my amatuer studies of it, I have taught it
and been a graduate student in it (21 hours towards my MA).
> Again there a demonstrated lack of understanding of the role of
> primary sources in developing a historical account.
As a History graduate student, I've read plenty of primary sources. I
understand their role and I do not need to be lectured by a wargamer on this
point.
> >Professionals, by the way, acknowledge this. The regrettable trend in
> >historiography away from "what happened" to "why something happened"
> >implies
> >that the professionals know how hard it is to determine what actually
> >happened. So, they *assume* it happened and analyze why. To some extent,
at
> >least.
>
> What it implies is that historians have realized that events don't happen
in
> a vacuum. A history is more than just a chronology and tallies. A history
is
> an account of human experience. To understand that experience, one must
> understand the "why".
I see it differently. As a lawyer, I work with proof and evidence every day.
The standard of proof accepted by many historians would never hold water in
a courtroom. That's often because such evidence is simply not available.
Nonethless, a lot of what we consider to be settled is still wide open to
argument. That's why the revisionists continue to flourish.
By focusing on "why", we get to avoid the proof problems in the "if". Of
course, this isn't the sole reason for the focus on the "why". But I do
believe it's a significant one.
> >My goodness, go observe a trial. Look how hard it is to figure out what
> >happened even when you have witnesses, professional interrogators, and
the
> >penalty of perjury.
>
> I have. I do understand the difficulty. But the difficulty of the task is
> not the subject of this discussion.
Yes it is. You confidently claim that "There is ... a huge amount of
research, anaylsis, and direct evidence that goes into the formulation of a
history." I flatly assert that a great deal of "history" is nothign more
than educated opinion, backed up with a few nuggets of primary source
material. That was certainly my eperience as a grad student studying, for
instance, the battles of Crecy, Poitiers and Agincourt. Or, for that matter,
studying the attitudes of Thomas Jefferson, one of the most prolific writers
in history.
> >I disagree, if we disagree about (for instance) the effect of a 12 lb
> >barrage on an infantry regiment in line formation in 1812.
>
> If the chosen history basis says the 12#er does X damage and the game
> reflects that, then that particular part of the game is historically
valid.
Agreed.
> If, in reallity we determine that the 12#er does Y, then we can say that
the
> history is unrealistic (and thus the game).
If we could determine this, I agree. But I suggest that such a simple
question simply cannot be answered (most of the time) because the primary
sources do not exist for that purpose. Heck, it's hard enough to get such
data on WWII weapons.
> >We do have to agree if we're going to resolve the argument. If that's not
> >the goal, then why argue?
>
> Why? The issue here is whether a game can be, objectively, deemed
> historically valid. I have presented my opinion that it is possible if
> history used for validation is the same history that was used as the basis
> for the game.
Okay, so it sounds like we're making a similar point.
> >Fine. But such data does not exist for any battle. So how can he, using
> >primary sources, prove what the effect was? He can't. So he analyses it
(or
> >reads an author who has) and makes an educated guess. Then he models it
in
> >his game.
>
> I already addressed the problem with reliance on primary sources in this
> posting and at least one other.
Not really. You've merely argued that there's more to it than primary
sources. Yet the primary sources are the "facts", if you will. The analysis
is *opinion*.
> >So if you are going to argue that a game is non-historical, you must
first
> >argue and resolve what it means to be "historical
>
> And that is EXACTLY what I have been doing all along...
Then we agree.
> >Actually, I merely challenge us all to make arguments that are capable of
> >resolution. Until both sides of an argument agree on the assumptions, the
> >argument is incapable of resolution.
>
> What? Why, in the world would anyone argue about things that they know can
> be resolved. Arguments exist to DISCOVER WHETHER A RESOLUTION EXISTS.
I repeat -- Until both sides of an argument agree on the assumptions, the
argument is incapable of resolution.
> >Please make a compelling historical analysis (based on primary sources)
> >that
> >will tell us what the percentage chance of Napoleon winning at Waterloo
> >was.
> >
> >No one can do that. Yet that is what you must have in order to validate a
> >wargame on the Napoleonic Wars.
>
> Not it's not. Start reading those posts again...
Non answer.
> >"Hypothesize" = "guess (hopefully educated)"
>
> I'll let the above comment stand on its own merit...
Me too.
--Ty Beard
Brian Hodson
> profession.
>
> --Ty Beard
Are you sure it wasn't the money or career prospects?
Charles Deily
news:MuJF4.392$iiQ.16...@news.randori.com...
> I disagree here. There is no objective source that we can use to test our
> games by. We rely on the *opinions* of historians and ourselves. And these
> opinions may not be widely agreed on. Sure, the easy stuff is agreed on --
> the date Pearl Harbor was attacked, who commanded Third Army in Operation
> Cobra. But the hard, detail stuff is often simply unavailable. So it boils
> down to *opinion* again.
Just to throw another wrench in the works, Ty, I recall my father telling me
about a conversation he had with a Japanese gentleman who kept referring to
the date Pearl Harbor was attacked as December *8th* (Japan being over the
international date line and all...).
Even the "easy" stuff isn't always that easily agreed on...
-Charles.
Raymond Rangel
Ty Beard wrote in message <0pPF4.425$iiQ.30...@news.randori.com>...
>"Raymond Rangel" <ray.r...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
>news:QvNF4.8953
>> Ty Beard wrote in message ...
>Or to the history that the designer relates in his design notes?
Precisely.
>I know what history is. Besides my amatuer studies of it, I have taught it
>and been a graduate student in it (21 hours towards my MA).
And this proves what?
>As a History graduate student, I've read plenty of primary sources. I
>understand their role and I do not need to be lectured by a wargamer on
this
>point.
Perhaps not, but your apparent obtuse view seems intent on ignore the points
of the debate.
>I see it differently. As a lawyer, I work with proof and evidence every
day.
>The standard of proof accepted by many historians would never hold water in
>a courtroom. That's often because such evidence is simply not available.
>Nonethless, a lot of what we consider to be settled is still wide open to
>argument. That's why the revisionists continue to flourish.
Ah-hah! I think I now understand what is happening here.
The practice of U.S. Law is based upon an adversarial debate model. The
objective in court is not the truth, it is to convince the jury or judge
that one's own case has more merit than the opponent's. There are two ways
to accomplish this. One is to make one's own case buller-proof. The other,
and more often used is to attempt to show the opponent's case has less
merit. This works in law because there are only two sides from which to
select in the courtroom. It is not surprising that a lawyer would tranfer
that debate model to other forums.
In my case, I am in Software Engineering. In this profession we too debate,
often passionately for our causes. However the debate model is fundamentally
different. It is a cooperative model which seeks, not to convince a judge or
jury, but seeks the best solution to a problem. As such it is not uncommon
for persons on opposite sides of a debate to assist the opposion with their
case. The goal after all is resolution of the problem, not winning. I, like
you, transfer my professional experience to this forum.
I think that it is this fundamental difference between us that is the source
of friction rather than the actual points being discussed.
You have reiterated my points several times now in almost the terms in which
I originally stated them. You, however, switch direction in midstream and
seem to argue against...well I'm not really sure what you are argueing about
at this point. I think we are agreeing, but you still perceive a need to
"win".
I don't think our exchanges ar getting us any closer to consensus. The only
way I can answer your points now is to repeat what I have already said. So I
refer you to the other messages in this thread. If, however, you have an new
arguement or a fresh point of view, I will most happy to discuss it with
you. Until then, though, all of the answers you asked for are already there.
I will not repeat answers endlessly once they have already been posted.
Jay
>PSPS My criticism of Jay Martino as an advocate of the Canadian belief remains
>firm, and I hope to goad him into betting on the upcoming NHL playoffs.
I'm a fan of the heart Bob, and as such will never commit my wallet to
a hockey game. Besides, it's well known that you Yanks have bought the
Stanley Cup (damme those mercenary Canadian players).
BTW: the Royal Military College Redmen beat the West Point team for
the first time in a significant number of years. Maybe our military is
ascendant as well!
One hopes that we could do as well as South Park portrays.
Jay
Remove the wildcard from the "reply-to" address
if replying by e-mail.
MltryHstrn
Charles Deily wrote:>ust to throw another wrench in the works, Ty, I recall my
father telling me
>about a conversation he had with a Japanese gentleman who kept referring to
>the date Pearl Harbor was attacked as December *8th* (Japan being over the
>international date line and all...).
verifiable by a historian. However, the argument needs to go forward from here.
The historian looks at an event and asks "Why did it happen?" What
circumstances were relevant to our understanding? What sources are most likely
to be believable? Which are doubtful n nature?
Ty Beard was on the right track when he says>>But the hard, detail stuff is
often simply unavailable. So it boils
>> down to *opinion* again.
The deductions and inferences are based on the best of the fragmentary data,
analyzed more carefully, and simply worked with more professionally. Opinion is
not a bad thing when the frame of reference of the opiner is solidly based on
exhaustive research and thinking. What we as readers of the glut of material
constantly being poured out on military subjects must do is to look carefully
ourselves and be actively engaged with the conclusions drawn from the past by
the historian. If we do that then subsequent appplications to our wargames will
bear some parallel to historical reality. BTW, we are playing games and it is
interesting that the conversation has taken us into the area of asking how
close to reality our games are. Personally I would prefer an entertaining, and
somewhat unrealistic, game over a study in detail, like ASL, anyday.
Jerry Lannigan
Tim Marshall
Tim, RMC 14999, class of 85
--
http://www.ucs.mun.ca/~tmarshal/
^o<
/#) "Burp-beep, burp-beep, burp-beep?" - Quaker Jake
/^^
Ty Beard
>
> Ty Beard wrote in message <0pPF4.425$iiQ.30...@news.randori.com>...
> >"Raymond Rangel" <ray.r...@worldnet.att.net> wrote in message
> >news:QvNF4.8953
> >> Ty Beard wrote in message ...
>
>
>
> >I know what history is. Besides my amatuer studies of it, I have taught
it
> >and been a graduate student in it (21 hours towards my MA).
>
It proves that your lecturing on the use of primary sources is misplaced.
> >As a History graduate student, I've read plenty of primary sources. I
> >understand their role and I do not need to be lectured by a wargamer on
> this
> >point.
>
> Perhaps not, but your apparent obtuse view seems intent on ignore the
points
> of the debate.
Well it does take one to know one, I suppose. At least I can claim to have
some training in the field. Perhaps I should lecture you on object-oriented
programming because I own a computer?
> >I see it differently. As a lawyer, I work with proof and evidence every
> >day.
> >The standard of proof accepted by many historians would never hold water
in
> >a courtroom. That's often because such evidence is simply not available.
> >Nonethless, a lot of what we consider to be settled is still wide open to
> >argument. That's why the revisionists continue to flourish.
>
> Ah-hah! I think I now understand what is happening here.
>
> The practice of U.S. Law is based upon an adversarial debate model.
Is there any other kind of debate model?
> The
> objective in court is not the truth, it is to convince the jury or judge
> that one's own case has more merit than the opponent's...
> In my case, I am in Software Engineering. In this profession we too
debate,
> often passionately for our causes. However the debate model is
fundamentally
> different. It is a cooperative model which seeks...<snip of "my job is
better than your job" drivel>
> I think that it is this fundamental difference between us that is the
source
> of friction rather than the actual points being discussed.
<Chuckle> I think you've clearly demonstrated many times that "point
scoring" isn't just limited to us lawyers.
> You have reiterated my points several times now in almost the terms in
which
> I originally stated them. You, however, switch direction in midstream and
> seem to argue against...well I'm not really sure what you are argueing
about
> at this point. I think we are agreeing, but you still perceive a need to
> "win".
Actually, no. I agree with your conclusions, at least vis-a-vis game
designers.
I just disagree that the fine points of history can be objectively
determined. Do we have any current history professionals -- MA or PhD's that
can provide some additional perspective here?
--Ty
Ty Beard
news:8c8tlh$mni$1...@nntp9.atl.mindspring.net...
<chuckle>
Yes, I seem to recall that that had something to do with it as well... :-)
But the study of history was becoming unsatisfying because the focus was on
"why" rather than "what if". As a wargamer, I was really interested in "what
if"...
I note that a few wild-eyed fanatics like Niall Ferguson are trying to
expand the study of history to include alternative history. Lotsoluck...
--Ty Beard
Ty Beard
news:8c9034$218$1...@bob.news.rcn.net...
our
> > games by. We rely on the *opinions* of historians and ourselves. And
these
> > opinions may not be widely agreed on. Sure, the easy stuff is agreed
on --
> > the date Pearl Harbor was attacked, who commanded Third Army in
Operation
> > Cobra. But the hard, detail stuff is often simply unavailable. So it
boils
> > down to *opinion* again.
>
me
> about a conversation he had with a Japanese gentleman who kept referring
to
> the date Pearl Harbor was attacked as December *8th* (Japan being over the
> international date line and all...).
>
Touche.
--Ty Beard
Ty Beard
> Ty Beard was on the right track when he says>>But the hard, detail stuff
is
> often simply unavailable. So it boils
> >> down to *opinion* again.
> But he misses the fact that some opinions are inherently better than
others.
No I don't. I recognize the limitations that *we wargamers* suffer from. In
general, we are not professional historians. We do not typically have PhD's
in History and we did not do our Doctoral dissertation on the battle we're
wargaming. We do not have huge libraries of primary source material that
we've spent countless hours studying, sythesizing and "fondling" (to use a
term from a Civil War prof).
I question *our* ability, not the abilities of professional historians --
who are mostly unconcerned with our issues. We really need facts and detail.
But most professional historians are looking for "why", not trivia such as
musket volley effects. I recall a prof lecturing us on the "avoidance of
trivia". "Have a thesis!" he thundered at us. Which was another way of
saying "tell me WHY".
> ...Opinion is
> not a bad thing when the frame of reference of the opiner is solidly based
on
> exhaustive research and thinking.
True, but my point is that it's effectively impossible for us, sitting
around a game table, to appraise the merit of competing authors, since. Now,
if everyone at the table agrees that a certain author is right, *then* we
can argue if the game accurately reflects that author's views.
>...BTW, we are playing games and it is
> interesting that the conversation has taken us into the area of asking how
> close to reality our games are. Personally I would prefer an entertaining,
and
> somewhat unrealistic, game over a study in detail, like ASL, anyday.
Me too.
--Ty Beard
Brian Hodson
>snip<
> I just disagree that the fine points of history can be objectively
> determined. Do we have any current history professionals -- MA or PhD's
that
> can provide some additional perspective here?
This is one of the issues under contention in the modernist/post-modernist
debate. While few historians will still claim to be able to objectively
reconstruct the past "as it really was", most argue that they are able to
construct it "as it essentially was" through application of appropriate
methods. Others (self included) contend that because of our ever-present
and ever-shifting perspective on the past, the best we can do is
de-construct the record for new, more relevant interpretation -- always
recognizing that today's conclusion will be subject to tomorrow's revision,
as new experiences prompt us to ask new questions and frame our answers in
new ways.
Unfortunately, the central debate on this thread has little (nothing?) to do
with this concern. While it is true that we have a plethora of historical
details (eye-candy, in modern parlance) to play with, none of it adds up to
significant "proof" of the kind of things that we are trying to model in a
wargame. Thus, all wargames begin and end as an abstraction of
sketchily-recorded events and probabilities. "Historically valid" is a
convenient fiction -- nothing we do as gamers comes remotely close to the
realities of war (when was the last time you took casualties by smashing the
lead figures with a hammer? Ever heard of a wargamer killed by a stray
musket-ball? Fragged by troopers frustrated at his incompetence?), nor do
the rules themselves bear much resemblance to reality. The best we can say
of them is that they provide an highly entertaining simulation of a grossly
non-entertaining endeavor, and that they do so in a manner that enables us
to suspend our rational disbelief and momentarily "believe" that the
microlumps scattered on the felt table are actually a platoon of T-34s
squeaking across the steppe towards their destiny.
So, argue about how it is that you want to convey that spirit of belief,
debate the evocative value of a +1 modifier for close-range fire (however
that is defined for you), but never, ever confuse the *game* for any
*simulation* of reality -- if it really were, it would be (alternately) very
boring or horrendously terrifying.
Brian Hodson
PhD candidate, History
Purdue University
Ty Beard
> Ty Beard <tbe...@tyler.net> wrote in message
> news:aW0G4.502$iiQ.20...@news.randori.com...
> >snip<
> > I just disagree that the fine points of history can be objectively
> > determined. Do we have any current history professionals -- MA or PhD's
> that
> > can provide some additional perspective here?
>
> This is one of the issues under contention in the modernist/post-modernist
> debate. While few historians will still claim to be able to objectively
> reconstruct the past "as it really was", most argue that they are able to
> construct it "as it essentially was" through application of appropriate
> methods.
That was the line when I was pursuing a career in History. The problem I
always had with that is that there's an implied subjectivity in as it
"essentially was". Of course, who decides what's essential?
For instance I had a Modern Europe prof who flatly stated that he though
military history was a waste of time. I then presented a paper arguing that
the defeat of France in 1940 was first and foremost a *military* defeat...
Oh well, I was never any good at politics.
> Others (self included) contend that because of our ever-present
> and ever-shifting perspective on the past, the best we can do is
> de-construct the record for new, more relevant interpretation -- always
> recognizing that today's conclusion will be subject to tomorrow's
revision,
> as new experiences prompt us to ask new questions and frame our answers in
> new ways.
I agree, but I'm more skeptical about the motivations of many revisionists.
Often, economics and political bias seem to have a greater effect that any
real desire to uncover new truths.
> Unfortunately, the central debate on this thread has little (nothing?) to
do
> with this concern. While it is true that we have a plethora of historical
> details (eye-candy, in modern parlance) to play with, none of it adds up
to
> significant "proof" of the kind of things that we are trying to model in a
> wargame. Thus, all wargames begin and end as an abstraction of
> sketchily-recorded events and probabilities.
That last sentence was brilliant. May I copy it?
> "Historically valid" is a
> convenient fiction -- nothing we do as gamers comes remotely close to the
> realities of war (when was the last time you took casualties by smashing
the
> lead figures with a hammer? Ever heard of a wargamer killed by a stray
> musket-ball? Fragged by troopers frustrated at his incompetence?), nor do
> the rules themselves bear much resemblance to reality. The best we can
say
> of them is that they provide an highly entertaining simulation of a
grossly
> non-entertaining endeavor, and that they do so in a manner that enables us
> to suspend our rational disbelief and momentarily "believe" that the
> microlumps scattered on the felt table are actually a platoon of T-34s
> squeaking across the steppe towards their destiny.
>
> So, argue about how it is that you want to convey that spirit of belief,
> debate the evocative value of a +1 modifier for close-range fire (however
> that is defined for you), but never, ever confuse the *game* for any
> *simulation* of reality -- if it really were, it would be (alternately)
very
> boring or horrendously terrifying.
>
> Brian Hodson
> PhD candidate, History
> Purdue University
Well said!
--Ty Beard
rjo...@rmi.net
>who are mostly unconcerned with our issues. We really need facts and detail.
>But most professional historians are looking for "why", not trivia such as
>musket volley effects. I recall a prof lecturing us on the "avoidance of
>trivia". "Have a thesis!" he thundered at us. Which was another way of
>saying "tell me WHY".
>
>
>--Ty Beard
>
BJ: Actually, one of the things many rules do lack is a thesis-an argument
aimed at a specified characteristic(or group of characteristics) of battle that
they are attempting to mimic and illuminate. Simply a statement of simulating
battle is both too broad and too flabby for any true focus.
BJ
rjo...@rmi.net
>
>
>I note that a few wild-eyed fanatics like Niall Ferguson are trying to
>expand the study of history to include alternative history. Lotsoluck...
>
>--Ty Beard
>
>BJ: Wild-eyed fanatic? I know John Keegan on his last book tour said that
>"Niall, has been a bad boy!", but then went on to say that NF was raising some
>very provocative and perceptive questions.
The fact that reputable historians such as Ferguson(and others) are taking
alternative history seriously as a way to weigh the "Why", should be
encouraging to hobbyists that play at alternative history on a regular basis.
Truth be told, I have always been amazed at how wargamers, who are conceptual
revolutionaries in their willingness to 'change' history, are so beholden to the
most conservative strain of narrative historians-such as Chandler, Duffy, et al.
I have always thought that a broader interest in economic, social, legal, and
diplomatic history would make for better perceptions in military history. As it
is, military history needs a shot in the arm as it is in great danger of
becoming an academic backwater that the best and brightest are loathe to
specialize in. It is increasingly becoming the playground of the amateur
historian and the last refuge of the banal narrative approach.
It could be easily said that the last thing the world needs is another amateur's
re-telling of a napoleonic battle-where OBs are plentiful, but analytic ideas
are few. I suppose Greenhill would feel otherwise as the word 'Napoleon' on the
cover of a book is almost as good as a picture of a well-endowed woman in
boosting sales. In most cases, both sales tools promise more than they deliver.
BJ
PS I again recommend Ferguson's introduction to "Virtual History."
Ty Beard
True, but the context of the prof's statement was "don't bring a bunch of
trivia in my classroom." I do think that games should have a "thesis". In my
games the thesis is usually "these are the important factors that should be
covered in this game" and "this is the kind of game that should result".
--Ty Beard
Ty Beard
> In article <cW0G4.503$iiQ.20...@news.randori.com>, "Ty says...
> >I note that a few wild-eyed fanatics like Niall Ferguson are trying to
> >expand the study of history to include alternative history. Lotsoluck...
> >--Ty Beard
> >BJ: Wild-eyed fanatic? I know John Keegan on his last book tour said
that
> >"Niall, has been a bad boy!", but then went on to say that NF was raising
some
> >very provocative and perceptive questions.
>
> The fact that reputable historians such as Ferguson(and others) are taking
> alternative history seriously as a way to weigh the "Why", should be
> encouraging to hobbyists that play at alternative history on a regular
basis.
Yes, but I shouldn't my breath for the Alternative History course at out
universities...
> Truth be told, I have always been amazed at how wargamers, who are
conceptual
> revolutionaries in their willingness to 'change' history, are so beholden
to the
> most conservative strain of narrative historians-such as Chandler, Duffy,
et al.
I don't find it surprising, since military history tends to be
conservative -- witness the reactions of my leftist pinko commie profs to my
interest in military history :-)
What is rather surprising is the apparent psychological need to portray our
hobby as "serious" historical research rather than playing with toy
soldiers.
Having spent my fair share of time through primary sources, I can
assure anyone that this is nothing like wargaming. Nor is it anywhere near
as much fun as wargaming. I think Brian would agree.
> I have always thought that a broader interest in economic, social, legal,
and
> diplomatic history would make for better perceptions in military history.
As it
> is, military history needs a shot in the arm as it is in great danger of
> becoming an academic backwater that the best and brightest are loathe to
> specialize in. It is increasingly becoming the playground of the amateur
> historian and the last refuge of the banal narrative approach.
It *is* an academic backwater. Heck it was in 1989 when I was a grad
student. Sad, because I think that military history should be studied
seriously. As I told my high school students "wars are the bookends of
history."
And developments in military technology *do* sometimes have a dramatic
effect. While many mainstream historians would argue that WWII was
inevitable given the situation after WWI (which was itself inevitable...),
most do not realize that it was *military technology* -- tactics, really --
that allowed Germany to effortlessly overrun most of Europe. Had Germany
failed to develop the blitzkrieg first, the *result* of WWII may have been
significantly different.
> It could be easily said that the last thing the world needs is another
amateur's
> re-telling of a napoleonic battle-where OBs are plentiful, but analytic
ideas
> are few.
I don't mind them so long as they provide information I can't easily get
elsewhere. But they should clearly be considered "game aids" and not serious
historical works.
After all, as Prof Smyrl once said -- "Mr. Beard, *real* historians rely on
primary sources." This was the response to my question as to whether I'd
overused Alfred Thayer Mahan in a draft of a paper.
>I suppose Greenhill would feel otherwise as the word 'Napoleon' on the
> cover of a book is almost as good as a picture of a well-endowed woman in
> boosting sales. In most cases, both sales tools promise more than they
deliver.
Yes.
> PS I again recommend Ferguson's introduction to "Virtual History."
Read the book several months ago. It's good.
--Ty Beard
Brian Hodson
historians' conferences, it is because "most" military history is
[conservative, banal, programmatic, and] unremarkable in its methods,
evidence, or conclusions. While the historical profession as a whole has
undergone a dramatic sea-change in the last thirty years, entering into new
areas of study, developing new methods of analysis, and considering new
sources of evidence in creative ways, military history (and military
historians, by and large) has languished in its own backwater, shut off from
the mainstream of historiographical development.
There are important exceptions, which should be examined and emulated. I
think most of the subscribers to this list are aware of John Keegan's
contributions to the field, many will perhaps have read Paul Fussell's work
(even if they haven't agreed with his conclusions); more to the center of
"standard" history, Geoffrey Parker has made a mark that can't be (and
isn't) ignored by other historians, even those who profess no interest in
military history. Responding to Bob Jones' argument for consideration of
social and economic history alongside military developments, I cannot
recommend highly enough Fritz Redlich's "The German Military Enterpriser and
His Work Force" as an example of how these may be combined in original
scholarship that enlightens *both* the parochial field of military history
and the broader field of social and political history.
In the light of what is happening elsewhere in the historical profession, it
is suicide for military historians to cling to an outdated methodology,
language, and interpretation. The importance of military history can no
longer be assumed, it must be re-proven, and by the same standards as other
fields of historical research.
But, to return to my earlier post, I think we need to be careful, as
*gamers* not to exaggerate the "validity" of our games. Sure, it may be
admirable to make good and honest efforts at producing rules that satisfy
our desire for recapturing the flavor of the past, but we should not confuse
that effort for serious scholarship. I believe the original point made by
Paul Minson in this thread, and scarcely addressed (though hotly denied by
some) is that no game's mechanics can be *validated* by comparison with the
historical record. This derives from two basic facts: 1) the historical
record is, generally speaking, too fragmented and disparate to enable us to
produce incontrovertible and quantifiable "facts" relating to the mechanics
of combat; and 2) the historical record allows for only a single "probable"
outcome (the historical result), not a range of demonstrable probabilities.
This is, of course, complicated by the fact that the historical result is
itself only problematically understood and is not subject to direct
verification.
Go ahead, argue about the subtle attractions of your favorite rules set,
explain why you *think* it is more "realistic" than another. But don't lose
sight of the fact that you are arguing over personal preferences of
interpretation, not over a demonstrably true mechanic of historical
simulation -- that creature doesn't exist.
Brian Hodson
toysldr
<tbe...@tyler.net> wrote:
>
>What is rather surprising is the apparent psychological need to
portray our
>hobby as "serious" historical research rather than playing with
toy
>soldiers.
>
JG: Indeed! Perhaps it is another manifestation of the innate
Puritanical guilt that seems to periodically appear in social
activities - you can't just have FUN, you have to be doing
something SERIOUS. (I am not playing golf I am doing
cardiovascular conditioning and stress management.) Or perhaps
some see playing with TOYS as "childish" and not something that
an adult would do or that compares well to the previously
mentioned golfers at social gatherings. Or perhaps there is a
feeling that having fun with something that is, even so
tenuously as wargaming, related to war must be rationalized by
making it historical research or we would appear as barbarians
to "normal" folk.
Perhaps we should form support groups ;-)
Jim
* Sent from RemarQ http://www.remarq.com The Internet's Discussion Network *
The fastest and easiest way to search and participate in Usenet - Free!
Dan Cyr
later). My adding rules to play with instead of lining the figures up and
throwing pebbles at them is just an refinement. Attempting to justify what we
do in the hobby as "serious" is silly. War gaming with miniatures is a
sub-section of my interest in, and fascination of history. Reading sources,
visiting sites and war gaming have the same value in that sense (enjoyment).
Being trained as a military historian did not make me more "serious" in my
approach to the hobby. It is fun, and one should not take it too seriously (if
I may put it that way). The rules (and I mean all of them) published for the
hobby are not "real", and don't even come close. Frankly, if one wants to war
game realistically, join the service and experience it personally. That's as
real as it gets. No game played on a table, or floor, is anything other than a
huge abstraction. Accept it, get over it and play (with toy soldiers).
Dan
Brian Hodson wrote:
<<large snip>>
>
> Since we are "playing" with "history", we should be cautious about making
> pompous statements about the "realism" of our rules. We should rather be
> honest enough to admit that we are simply trying to achieve a certain kind
> of fidelity or resonance with what we *think* the historical record shows to
> have been true.
>
> Brian Hodson
Paul Minson
Doug Ferguson wrote in message
<8c3ap8$qqm$1...@nnrp1.deja.com>...
>In article <8c0qv1$8...@news.or.intel.com>,
>"Paul Minson" <pmi...@rt66.com> wrote:
>> I have no problem with this. You can be enthusiastic or
>> not, and can hold your own opinion of a rules set. That
is
>> not my contention. If you say that you have less
enthusiasm
>> for a rules set because it has an unrealistically low
chance
>> for the French to win (or for the French to have the
>> casualties they did, if you want to consider the pieces
of
>> the battle individually), then I have a problem. We do
not
>> have the information available to test the probabilities
of
>> the various results of the battle, in order to have an
>> objective assessment of the degree to which the game
matches
>> what the reality was. So any claim to unrealism (or
realism
>> for that matter) is subjective, and arguing about it
amounts
>> to evangelism, because you would be trying to convert
people
>> to thinking that your opinion is a better one to hold, or
>> superior in some way.
>
>DF: I disagree here. Arguing about what we find realistic
and
>unrealistic informs the group. I do not believe anyone
(okay, maybe
>SOME people) hold their opinions in stone. Discussing how
various rules
>sets handle various situations informs us all, even if it
does not
>convince many.
Let me draw a subtle distinction here. The presentation of
opinions to the newsgroup is fine and encouraged, IMHO.
It's the subsequent back-and-forth arguing which often
deteriorates into unproductive personal attacks that I feel
isn't really necessary.
>> Sigh. We do not know what the range of error in the
>> historical numbers is, so we cannot define an objective
>> criteria for deciding when to investigate and when a
change
>> is really an improvement.
>
>DF: Are 10% losses expected in a Napoleonic frontal
assault major
>battle (say, Waterloo or Wagram) not "beyong the range of
error" in your
>mind? If no results are beyond your tolerance for
outcomes, than your
>point is correct for you. I think we have enough cases of
Napoleonic
>combat to draw some general conclusions, even if the error
limits ARE
>high because of the uncertainty of the data.
No, that magnitude of losses is not beyond the range of
possibilities. It is simply highly unlikely. In fact, it
would not be impossible in most existing game systems. If
your opponent rolls only '1's in NB, it would be difficult
to lose any troops. It's simply highly unlikely that that
will happen. Deciding how unlikely that level of casualties
should be from history, against the probability that you
opponent rolls so poorly, is subjective though, and where
you draw the line and say "that result shouldn't have
happened" and I would are not necessarily the same point,
and there is no data out there sufficient to refute any
position except the most extreme.
>DF: I did not say I was disagreeing with you. We are, I
think, mostly
>in agreement with at least what I understand to be your
main point:
>that players must take care in selecting the standards by
which they
>judge how a rulkes set meets their standards of "realism."
If I have
>misrepresented your main idea, then feel free to enlighten
me.
Partially. They also need to understand the difference
between subjective standards and objective standards, so
that one is not misrepresented as the other.
>> Yes rules satisfying customers is a legitimate topic for
>> discussion. It was not what I was discussing, however, so
I
>> am a bit mystified why you inserted it into the
discussion.
>
>DF: I inserted it because I thought this thread was about
what it takes
>to "validate" a rules set for the purpose of the rules set:
to
>entertain and even possibly enlighten.
Okay, I see where you are coming from, but the original post
for this thread was very focused: the limitations of using
the historical record when attempting to "validate" the set.
The focus was on the limitations of using the historical
record. I wasn't intending it to be a broad discussion on
validation in general.
>> Yes it is, but again that was not what I was driving at.
>> Nowhere in my original post did I mention purchasers of
>> rules, or the decision to buy anything. To get a good
>> discussion on that topic, I recommend you start a new
thread
>> on it.
>
>DF: Maybe I will have to do this. I consider all of my
statements to
>be a direct response to your ideas in the original post,
but maybe I
>have misunderstood what you had in mind when you started
this thread.
>Perhaps a concise restatement is in order.
See above.
>> No. You have let a concensus of opinions based on a
>> historical record which is not guaranteed to be
>> representative of the reality guide you. A subtle but
>> important difference. It means you can say you like one
>> rules set better than another, but you cannot make an
>> indisputable claim about the relative validity or
historical
>> fidelity of the sets. I never contended that history
cannot
>> guide you to figuring out which rules are right for you.
>> That was never mentioned, and was not my point.
>
>DF: The history we have is the only history we have. To
say that we
>should not pay heed to it because it is "not guaranteed to
be
>representative of the reality" is to say that the entire
concept of
>historical gaming is a sham because we cannot define
precisely what that
>history was. In an abstract sense, you are probably right.
However, if
>I decided to believe this, then my proper course is not to
accept all
>rules sets as equally valid, but rather to declare all
rules sets
>totally invalid, and take up Warhammer or something that
makes no claims
>of relying on "history."
Again, you are taking my statements and applying them too
broadly, and generalizing them to extremes. I did not say
we should not heed the historical record. We simply should
not represent it as having characteristics it does not. We
cannot say indisputably that it is objective, that it is
representative, nor that it is accurate. People had been
fairly casual in some cases about treating it as though it
were.
>If, on the other hand, you are arguing that we SHOULD take
history into
>account when evaluating the "validity" of rules sets for
our use, then
>we certainly CAN state what rules (or even rules elements)
are unsuited
>to represent our concept of history. THAT is my point, and
thus I
>disagree with your contention in the title of this thread
that
>"historical validation" is "another fallacy."
The fallacy is that the historical record must represent
reality. People weren't distinguishing between verifying
the rules sets' fidelity to the historical record versus
verifying the fidelity to the reality of what happened.
Those are two completely separate discussions, the first
subjective, the second objective but with very little data
to use.
--Paul
Raymond Rangel
Ty Beard wrote in message ...
>>
...<snip of "my job is
>better than your job" drivel>
I never said that...you inferred it because it fits your method of debate.
Thus, you make my point (again), that because of different backgrounds we
are talking at cross-purposes. There was no value judgement in my
observation.
I'll not comment on your other notes as none of them addressed the subject
of the debate.
Raymond Rangel
Ty Beard wrote in message ...
>news:20000403054730...@ng-fd1.aol.com...
>Now,
>if everyone at the table agrees that a certain author is right, *then* we
>can argue if the game accurately reflects that author's views.
The point of my writing up to now is that this is not true. Whether the game
does a good job of reflecting author X's history is independent of whether
author X is full of it.
Thus, a game is historically valid if it reflects author X well. It is
realistic if author X has his history right.
When gamers start discussing historically validity and realism in the same
breath they are mixing two altogether different topics.
Raymond Rangel
rjo...@rmi.net wrote in message <8ca84m$v...@edrn.newsguy.com>...
>aimed at a specified characteristic(or group of characteristics) of battle
that
>they are attempting to mimic and illuminate. Simply a statement of
simulating
>battle is both too broad and too flabby for any true focus.
>
Gawd! I hate having to agree with Bob twice in one week! The source of many,
many arguments of the historical validity of rules is that the historical
basis for the game model is never identified; sources and research are no
cited. This leaves the gamer to free to guess. Naturally everyone tries to
compare the game to their own perception or favorite historians. The fur
ball of confusion that ensues consumes great amounts of bandwidth.
Raymond Rangel
Dan Cyr wrote in message <38e8d819$0$89...@news.execpc.com>...
>Attempting to justify what we
>do in the hobby as "serious" is silly.
I have seen this comment made in this NG many, many times. Dan, playing with
toy soldiers may be nothing but a whimsical passtime to you. I am pleased
that you find light hearted enjoyment in it.
However, different people look at the hobby differently. Many game designers
take great pleasure and satisfaction from making their work as accurate as
they can. So take pleasure in playing in serious tournaments and thrive on
the tough, and serious, competition.
I am not prepared to pass judgement on the way these people choose to enjoy
the hobby any more than I am on the way you choose to enjoy it.
So, please, please, stop with this "it's just toy soldiers" stuff and let
other people enjoy themselves in lively debate.
Ty Beard
>
> Ty Beard wrote in message ...
> >>
> ...<snip of "my job is
> >better than your job" drivel>
>
> I never said that...you inferred it because it fits your method of debate.
Only a child would actually believe that inference is not a method of
communication. Note here that I have not actually called you a child.
> I'll not comment on your other notes as none of them addressed the subject
> of the debate.
Good. Are we through now?
--Ty Beard
Ty Beard
> Dan Cyr wrote in message <38e8d819$0$89...@news.execpc.com>...
>
> >Attempting to justify what we
> >do in the hobby as "serious" is silly.
>
> I have seen this comment made in this NG many, many times. Dan, playing
with
> toy soldiers may be nothing but a whimsical passtime to you. I am pleased
> that you find light hearted enjoyment in it.
>
> However, different people look at the hobby differently. Many game
designers
> take great pleasure and satisfaction from making their work as accurate as
> they can. So take pleasure in playing in serious tournaments and thrive on
> the tough, and serious, competition.
I'm still missing how playing with toy soldiers can be called a "serious"
activity in any meaningful sense of the word. It's no more serious than
playing golf, IMHO. Unless, of course, you happen to be a professional
military officer honing your professional skills...
Sounds like more of that psychological need to justify our fun as somehow
"serious". Well, as Brian can attest (and anyone else who has been a History
grad student), playing wargames is nothing like hacking through primary
sources. Some may imagine that wargaming = serious history, but wargaming is
far easier. As befits a hobby.
> So, please, please, stop with this "it's just toy soldiers" stuff and let
> other people enjoy themselves in lively debate.
Getting a little close for comfort? How about you give us a rational
explanation of how playing with toy soldiers could be a "serious" endeavor,
or how it differs from playing golf (professionals excepted, of course).
--Ty Beard
Paul Minson
<93bG4.10905$TM.6...@bgtnsc06-news.ops.worldnet.att.net>..
.
>Thus, a game is historically valid if it reflects author X
well. It is
>realistic if author X has his history right.
No, you cannot say this. This is the point I have been
trying to make through this whole cotton-pickin' thread:
_a_reasonable_reproduction_of_the_historical_record_does_not
_guarantee_realism_!
Maybe you'll understand if I take a horribly extreme
example. The former Soviet Union is full of historical
documents, but some of those documents are now known to
present a very warped picture of some history (deliberately
distorted for propaganda purposes). A wargame designer in
the 1970's in Russia, if he made his game faithful to the
historical record there, would likely find today that his
game deviates significantly from designs on the same topic
created outside the former Soviet Union. His game would
have very high fidelity to the historical record he had
available, but would probably not be terribly faithful to
the reality of what happened. While our historical record
today is not so full of known deliberate extreme
distortions, neither can it be shown to be fully objective,
accurate, or complete. So designs based on the historical
record, cannot necessarily make claims to realism. For
clarity's sake, here are the relevant definitions of
realism, from Merriam-Webster's online dictionary:
Main Entry: re戢l搏sm
Pronunciation: 'rE-&-"li-z&m, 'ri-&-
Function: noun
Date: 1817
1 : concern for fact or reality and rejection of the
impractical and visionary
3 : fidelity in art and literature to nature or to real life
and to accurate representation without idealization
The definitions mention fact, reality, and real life. The
historical record cannot be indisputably verified in most
cases to possess only facts, an accurate portrayal of
reality, or the substance of real life. It is simply a
record of the perceptions of what happened, possibly skewed
or even misrepresented to support the author's purpose, and
may contain suppositions, opinions, or guesses, without
explicitly identifying them as such. And it may even
contain bald errors, where the information the author was
recording was reported to him or remembered by him
incorrectly.
>When gamers start discussing historically validity and
realism in the same
>breath they are mixing two altogether different topics.
Actually, there are three separate topics that you have
rolled into two:
1. The fidelity of the historical record to the reality of
what happened.
2. The fidelity of the game designer's interpretation of
the historical record to that record.
3. The fidelity of the game design to the designer's
interpretation of the historical record.
Some people take a leap and allege to be comparing game
designs to the reality, when in fact they are comparing the
designs to their own interpretation of the historical
record, instead of to the designer's interpretation. So
that's potentially a fourth topic.
--Paul
Doug Ferguson
"Ty Beard" <tbe...@tyler.net> wrote:
> I'm still missing how playing with toy soldiers can be called a
"serious"
> activity in any meaningful sense of the word. It's no more serious
than
> playing golf, IMHO.
Okay, Ty, that is your opinion. So what? If others' opinions differ,
why must they justify themselves to you? Wasn't it you who argued that
it is meaningless to argue about opinions?
Personally, I view history as an avocation. I am interested in what
made Napoleonic commanders make the decisions they did. Miniatures is a
way (not the only one I employ) to explore that. I happen to take it
pretty seriously, although I play the "fun" miniatures as well. I do
dinstinguish between the miniatures played "for fun" and the miniatures
I play "for enlightenment" although I do not expect everyone else to
even see the difference. That's okay with me, and if you, for example,
cannot see the difference I can live with it, as can others.
Doug
Sent via Deja.com http://www.deja.com/
Before you buy.
Matt DLM
>over
>another-but, bottom line, it is closer to the Flashman novels, the O'Brien
>saga,
>or The Red Badge of Courage, War and Peace, Hugo, Hemingway, or Remarque,
>than
>to science, physics, statistics, or any replicable science.
Remember Bob, the term "realism" is in itself a literary term. (something the
on-line dictionary might be sketchy about).
Perhaps this is a part of the confusion when we use the word to mean historical
accuracy or fidelity.
Remember, that both fiction and wargames can be reduced by trendy
"intellectuals" who find it profound to point out that War and Peace is "merely
words on paper" and that miniature games are "just playing with toy soldiers".
Are they merely that? Is this an insightful or useful reduction in any sort of
meaningful way? Or, is it simply a means to belittle someone when other more
contstructive arguments fail?
Now, perceptive folks might argue that you can't compare War and Peace to a
wargame. However, no one would be so foolish as to say War and Peace is much
more than words on paper, while a miniatures wargame is aways nothing more than
grown men "playing with toy soldiers".
So, if you admit that War an Peace is indeed much more than words on paper, we
proceed to find out what it is that we are doing in the hobby that transcends
"playing with toy soldiers".
However, if you feel, indeed, that War and Peace is merely words on paper, and
that this feature is the most important thing about it... well, God, help you
for you are indeed a fool.
Think carefully gentlemen how far you want to go with the "merely toy soldiers"
argument, especially if what you are really saying is something entirely
different.
Matt DeLaMater
Chris Keil
To assert that these games model a historical reality in any meaninfgul
sense is ridiculous. It's a pasttime, which happens to trigger on certain
historical events. Think about it this way-
1. Your rules are based on a model of how reality works. Depending on
your goal, this is usually easier said than done.
2. The data you base those rules on is based on observations and
documentations of the actual event. These may or may not reflect the actual
reality.
3. The above data must be interperted (by historians, game designers, or
you, if you're feeling frosty) by a human being, who is forced to come at it
with some kind of goal in mind/agenda (not in the political sense, but you
have to have a set of guidelines to found things on). These interpertations
may or may not reflect reality.
4. It's impossible for any ruleset to reflect all variables in a
meaningful way. There's always SOMETHING that isn't being taken into the
equation. This may or may not be important, but probably is to somebody.
5. THere is no way a living human can know the *Truth* in the sense of an
absolute reality sense of the term. I.e., What makes the universe go? Why
do things really happen? As an extreme example of this, let's say John
Calvin was right. Everything is predetermined. Nap lost Waterloo because
it was written in the great book. If this is the way the universe really
works, then no ruleset currently written will reflect this. They're all
wrong. So you, as a gamer, are forced to assume things.
So your meanigful game is really a model of a model of a model, if you're
even that close to the truth. If you take these things as seriously as you
claim, I'm going to guess you've thought this through and can formulate a
response to some of these points, or at least tell me why they don't matter
in your serious appriciation of things.
Doug Ferguson <gobl...@my-deja.com> wrote in message
news:8cdq72$vmv$1...@nnrp1.deja.com...
rjo...@rmi.net
says...
>
>>BJ: One can make broad characterizations; one may extoll one interpretation
>>over
>>another-but, bottom line, it is closer to the Flashman novels, the O'Brien
>>saga,
>>or The Red Badge of Courage, War and Peace, Hugo, Hemingway, or Remarque,
>>than
>>to science, physics, statistics, or any replicable science.
>
>Remember Bob, the term "realism" is in itself a literary term. (something the
>on-line dictionary might be sketchy about).
Realism is, of course, an statement of "facing facts" AND secondarily, a term of
both the literary and art world. The artistic use is an interesting one-" The
picturing in art and literature of people and things as it is THOUGHT they
really are, without idealizing." (emphasis added). Though, as I suspect, every
wargamer, by definition, idealizes the object of their interest, I point out the
words, "Thought they really are".
>
>Perhaps this is a part of the confusion when we use the word to mean historical
>accuracy or fidelity.
>
>Remember, that both fiction and wargames can be reduced by trendy
>"intellectuals" who find it profound to point out that War and Peace is "merely
>words on paper" and that miniature games are "just playing with toy soldiers".
BJ: NO ONE I know of, trendy "intellectuals" or no, would subscribe to the idea
that "War and Peace" is anything but one of the greatest novels ever written,
though many a wargamer would be shocked to discover that the novel is decidedly
critical of the idea of war as a force of decision in History, and, most
certainly, does not support the "Great Man" theory.
Conversely, Miniature wargames will, as H.G. Wells, Stevenson, and Churchill,
attest by their works, NEVER rise above an honest entertainment, an historical
diversion, a good time had by all with a litte(sometimes very little) history
thrown in for free.
To link serious novels with wargaming, as you appear to want to do, will be
amusing to most people.
>
>Are they merely that? Is this an insightful or useful reduction in any sort of
>meaningful way? Or, is it simply a means to belittle someone when other more
>contstructive arguments fail?
BJ: Oh, Matt! There is nothing wrong with having fun! There is nothing wrong
with entertainment and social interaction. Nothing about attending a play, or
singing a song, or playing a piano piece is belittling! "Merely" enjoying
yourself and the company of friends is a good thing! Asking Wargames to be a
VERY serious endeavor is simply overwrought!
>
>Now, perceptive folks might argue that you can't compare War and Peace to a
>wargame. However, no one would be so foolish as to say War and Peace is much
>more than words on paper, while a miniatures wargame is aways nothing more than
>grown men "playing with toy soldiers".
BJ: "Perceptive?" How about rational!
>
>So, if you admit that War an Peace is indeed much more than words on paper, we
>proceed to find out what it is that we are doing in the hobby that transcends
>"playing with toy soldiers".
BJ: Non sequitor! One could say that playing with toy soldiers; laughing,
joking, enjoying an historical diversion, is a good thing-as fun and
entertainment always is! No more explanation or justification is needed!
Transcedence is best reserved for other, more important, things!
>
>However, if you feel, indeed, that War and Peace is merely words on paper, and
>that this feature is the most important thing about it... well, God, help you
>for you are indeed a fool.
BJ: No, Matt, You would be creating a Strawman, and making a foolish comparison.
>
>Think carefully gentlemen how far you want to go with the "merely toy soldiers"
>argument, especially if what you are really saying is something entirely
>different.
BJ: Huh? Firstly, contrary to your quotation marks, I never said the phrase.
Secondly, I think the toy soldiers rather grand-only your arguments are "mere"
and foolish! It's a stern man that can't let himself have fun without very
serious justification. A stern man, indeed!:-)
BJ
Jay
>Remember, that both fiction and wargames can be reduced by trendy
>"intellectuals" who find it profound to point out that War and Peace is "merely
>words on paper" and that miniature games are "just playing with toy soldiers".
Matt, I would hardly think that such an opinion is merely "trendy." We
are just playing with toy soldiers, and we risk true "geekdom" if we
try to prove otherwise.
BTW, I'm one that finds "playing with toy soldiers" quite satisfying.
Jay
Remove the wildcard from the "reply-to" address
if replying by e-mail.
Matt DLM
>portray our
>>hobby as "serious" historical research rather than playing with
>toy
>>soldiers.
Ty,
Don't you do "serious" historical research before writing a set of rules? I do.
And I hardly think my psychological needs should be evaluated because I happen
to disagreee with you. Do you share that "psychological need" to portray the
hobby as more serious, or were you just speculating?
JG: Indeed! Perhaps it is another manifestation of the innate
>Puritanical guilt that seems to periodically appear in social
>activities - you can't just have FUN, you have to be doing
>something SERIOUS.
Jim,
Are the terms "fun" and "serious" mutually exclusive? (Did you ever play a
competitive sport?)
>Or perhaps there is a
>feeling that having fun with something that is, even so
>tenuously as wargaming, related to war must be rationalized by
>making it historical research or we would appear as barbarians
>to "normal" folk.
I think you are on to something there, but what a can of worms that is.
Imagine, for instance, the reaction of the parent, initially excited that their
kid is into history, after spending a day at Historicon (the SS t-shirts crowd
always a big hit).
I recall my own parents, after dragging them to a convention, trying to talk me
out of the hobby! (those guys are too weird!)
As for the "merely toy soldiers" camp, Systems 7 much pose a philosphical
dilemma similiar to the Buddhist koan of "Nansen kills the cat."
Matt DeLaMater
Matt DLM
>are just playing with toy soldiers, and we risk true "geekdom" if we
>try to prove otherwise.
>
>BTW, I'm one that finds "playing with toy soldiers" quite satisfying.
Jay,
Obviously, it is true that we are playing with toy soldiers. War and Peace is
just words on paper.
What makes playing with toy soldiers satisfying for you? Does history have
anything to do with it?
Matt DeLaMater
Matt DLM
>amusing to most people.
Yes, Bob, you might recall explicitly linking fiction and wagaming when you
wrote of wargames that "
> One can make broad characterizations; one may extoll one interpretation
>>>over
>>>another-but, bottom line, it [miniature wargames] is closer to the Flashman
novels, the O'Brien
>>>saga,
>>>or The Red Badge of Courage, War and Peace, Hugo, Hemingway, or Remarque,
>>>than
>>>to science, physics, statistics, or any replicable science.
Perhaps you can explain what you meant here, because I thought you were linking
"serious novels with wargaming" which indeed was amusing to me.
>BJ: NO ONE I know of, trendy "intellectuals" or no, would subscribe to the
>idea
>that "War and Peace" is anything but one of the greatest novels ever written,
Fortunately, you have not spent any time in an English department lately,
although you do seem to be infected with some of its rot.
>though many a wargamer would be shocked to discover that the novel is
>decidedly
>critical of the idea of war as a force of decision in History, and, most
>certainly, does not support the "Great Man" theory.
Fascinating...does this add to the debate, or is it just an aside that let's us
know that Bob Jones has digested War and Peace, while the great unwashed have
not?
>BJ: Oh, Matt! There is nothing wrong with having fun! There is nothing
>wrong
>with entertainment and social interaction.
What a strawman! If you don't play PK, you are AGAINST FUN.
I would argue that a well-researched and playable set of rules magnifies the
fun tenfold. Its the designer who has to be serious when he researches so that
the players can have "fun". (perhaps you can quantify and prove what "fun" is
so that you can substantiate all these claims you are making!)
By the way, in terms of social interaction, how many players is PK written for?
It works best with two, right? I've seen a FVTW Wagram game that had at least
25 players in it. Too bad Keyser is against social interaction and fun!
> Nothing about attending a play,
>or
>singing a song, or playing a piano piece is belittling! "Merely" enjoying
>yourself and the company of friends is a good thing! Asking Wargames to be a
>VERY serious endeavor is simply overwrought!
Surely you see a difference between wargaming and these activities...And I
would argue that the "serious" wargamers are having more fun, so...until you
can quantify fun, these unverifiable claims cancel each other out.
>BJ: Non sequitor! One could say that playing with toy soldiers; laughing,
>joking, enjoying an historical diversion, is a good thing-as fun and
>entertainment always is! No more explanation or justification is needed!
>Transcedence is best reserved for other, more important, things!
Sorry Bob, the straw must be in your eyes. I am making a point about
REPRESENTATION. See if you can get it without my further clarification.
The non sequitor is claiming that your game is uneclipsed in historical
accuracy, but than arguing that determining historical accuracy is
impossible. Which is it?
Matt DeLaMater