the boardgamification of wargames

it's just that we could all be having a much better time
Join Patreon: / bendehart
Or become a KZbin Member: / @bendehart
#wargaming #boardgames #warhammer

[@zombielizard218]

"lets say you have a group of four or five friends into star wars legion" And right there is I think where the narrative side falls apart, and why the competitive side took over. It's hard enough to get *one* friend who has free time at the same moment you do. My friends and I have tried to do big narrative campaigns, GM and everything. They sound super fun on paper! I wish this worked! But it falls apart because coordinating a bunch of people is way way way way way harder than "two people show up at the store and use the same ruleset then pack up after its done"

[@Bobyoudontneeemyname]

Yea..love the idea but im lucky if i can get one person to play.

[@ophyjgjhnfn]

My friends begged me to play Legion forever and I finally took the plunge last August. It is now mid-May. I have never played a single game because of the four of us I am the only one who can ever play and even that’s only once in a blue moon.

[@MrStratofish]

Almost 100% solo games here. I have friends who like boardgames, I have none that want to try wargames. I do feel that having a referee will just lead to escalating idiocy though. One game you get a local tribe to help, next game you need to get a nearby nation, by 5-6 games in both sides are trying to petition a friendly race to nuke the site from orbit on turn 1, bypassing the actual gameplay entirely. By having a fixed set of options you are not trying to outdo your opponent on technicalities which is not fun at all for the loser. All options are available to everyone. Adding random events is good though, if both sides know what they might be and they are appropriate.

[@morc-at-arms8903]

Yeah, I created a grand 40k campaign in the style of Eye of Terror here in Czechia. Painstakingly cataloguing and mapping wast swatches of the universe for players to fight over. The only input needed from the fellow players was to report the results of their game and on what planet did it take place. I would then change the control % over the system and spun the narrative from there. A bit like the Helldivers do these days I guess. The results were abysmal. Some shown an interest but the reports dried out in about a year completely. None here really seem to be charmed with the proposition of leaving their mark on a galaxy map, interacting with the rest of the community, spearheading the march on Terra or reclaiming Armageddon for the green skins. Could I made some things better? Sure. But I was really left with the impression that there is no taste for this kind of narrative play, even if the effort needed to participate is utterly minuscule. Meanwhile, the competitive play is thriving here. Two out of three tables in clubs filled with grey plastic armies, build in the latest competitive fashion. Oh dear... 😅

[@FleaLictor]

You guys have friends?

[@uwesca6263]

Whats funny is that gamesystems like Horus heresy 2.0 and necromunda get praised by the scene while being utterly and complete broken. But it works because people approach it from a narrative point of view and not a competitive one.

[@justinbryan2995]

That's why I play those instead of 40K

[@Swrdfshtrmbns]

Bolt Action can be broken far more than 40K so there are lots of collective agreements that don’t exist anywhere in the rules and people play like gentlemen. When I saw my first game of Bolt Action being played I asked what the format of the game was, like how many points. The guy said “nah, I saw he had waves and waves of Soviet infantry and I just said I wanted to take them all on with what I got.” I never in a million years would have seen that happening in a pickup game of 40K at the exact same hobby store.

[@GarkKahn]

At least for me i want a narrative approach I want to tell a story thru the game And if the story requires a tau beating the entire world eaters legion and angron in melee so be it

[@Veles343]

Necromunda is an unbalanced hot mess AND I LOVE IT. I have never had so much fun watching my own dudes die as I have done playing Necromunda.

[@barbarusbloodshed6347]

It works because if it's apparent to everyone those games aren't meant to be competitive they attract the right people and are uninteresting to the wrong people. And yes, I said wrong people. Because that's what they are. For the most part. Not everyone who loves competitve games is a d!ck, but let's be honest... a lot of them are.

[@DasUnbekannte]

Historical gamers tend to focus on scenarios because they value and emphasize the narrative aspect over game balance, often dismissing the idea of balance since real conflicts are inherently unbalanced. Some even incorporate a game master to enhance this experience. However, this approach remains quite niche. Interestingly, the most popular historical games, like Bolt Action, have developed a competitive scene and have grown because of it. This trend reflects community demand rather than companies promoting this style.

[@matthiuskoenig3378]

Yep, and flames of war was popular because it was competitive. In my areas it collapsed when version 4 ruined balance, which ruined the competitive scene and the game died off.

[@greenghost2008]

I hope they make a great Napoleonic war game. The current models that exist look like they were made decades ago. Like we need games workshop level quality for Napoleon.

[@NapoleonicWargaming]

​@@greenghost2008 check out piano miniatures

[@rangda_prime]

@@greenghost2008 No, we don't. Games Workshop quality is overblown, overly detailed miniatures with over sized weapons and awful anatomy. Perry Miniatures and Warlord Games already have big ranges of plastic and metal Napoleonics available. As for rules, Warlord Games does have a rules set already, but it is arguably not the best one on the market. Napoleonic rules are the most published ones in the entire industry and many of them are quite modern with high production values.

[@greenghost2008]

@@rangda_prime GW is normally heoric scale. Of course if they made historical games it would be true scale.

[@Blue_Maxxx]

I think it's more videogamification of wargames.

[@FunkBastid]

100%. Trying to emulate e-sports with constant balance updates, and catering to the competitive scene is killing it

[@DominatorLegend]

​@@FunkBastidE-Sport were a mistake.

[@FunkBastid]

@@DominatorLegend "E-sports and their consequences have been a disaster for the gamer race."-The Unagamer

[@Orowam]

At least with video games, Uber complex mechanics are resolved at computation speed, with mechanical bloat that needs to keep 1-upping itself every edition on a tabletop it adds a LOT of slowdown to any system. Copying structures from other systems CAN work. But man does it not always go the way you’d want lol especially the constant edition tweaks and balancing, rebalancing, etc.

[@jtowensbyiii6018]

Video games are MORE complicated not less

[@thefrenchspy81]

I think one of the main issues with wargaming is the vocal online competitive warhamner scene. For many editions Games Workshop outright said in the core books "This is a miniatures hobby first that has a unbalanced ruleset." It was the fans of tournament play that demanded a more balanced game which was built off a unbalanced mess. I think one of the biggest obstacles in wargaming is to try something other then Warhammer. Warhammer's universe is so rich and fun it's hard to branch out but I feel if you try different indy games you will probably find something closer to what you imagine. Older GW games like Mordheim and Necromunda have gamemasters to organize campaign play which is closer to rpg play. I personally prefer smaller skirmish play like Infinity, Frostgrave and Necromunda. If you don't like measuring try Battletech tech which has grid maps. If you like to build your worlds from the ground up try Pulp Alley or 7TV. You just have to look beyond Warhammer which I also love.

[@staufferranda5844]

Infinity and BT mentioned, very cool person alrert! The most fun I've had playing wargames recently has been infinity. The game is super focused on making a good competitive scene which I love, it makes it easier to play pickup games. Now I'm new the the infinity scene, starting literally last spring, so I don't know much about the lore or how good the game Game can be played narrativly. But one goal I try to do every game, is have the map feel like a real place, it helps the game feel more real imo. I also had the chance to participate in the global campaign last fall, it was super fun to play games, then write up bat reps and read the other players ones. Itvwas really neat with the narrative thread tying things together, while the missions were played super competitively!

[@catcadev]

I know. The fact people think 40k is ever supposed to be balanced is a pipe dream and it's ruining the fun.

[@M3nacria]

I think what changed is that the competitiveness of a unit drives sales now. Whether customers are actually competing with them is another story, but they might be influenced by the competitive players on the forums.

[@InfernapeGames1]

the thing is the older games despite this were actually far more balanced on the whole provided the players aren't just trying to take the cheesiest stuff which the modern rules hardly do anything to prevent either

[@lorpuz4664]

Metagaming is allways de dead of fun in any Game.

[@wyrdhunter]

Rogue Trader wasn't a balanced game and called for a referee in the book itself. But somehow, somewhere it changed. I remember local stores running tournaments back during 3rd edition of 40K. Pages and pages of rules would have to be created to try and balance what was really an unbalanced game. The inclusion of categories like Composition (how hard or how soft your army and list was) as a criteria for entry much less winning one of these tournaments is a testament to the lengths people were willing to go through. Why? I have no real clue. I don't know why people suddenly started shifting to trying to make the game work as a valid tournament-style game. And, as a side effect, any pick up game you got at your local FLGS just became people practicing for an upcoming tournament. And with each edition GW kept shifting the more away from flavor and narrative to rules and "balance". Now its hard to find a wargame that doesn't have a tournament scene as its primary focus. And every pick up game I've found always adheres to the balanced tournament format rules. Which kills me. There are some games (no wargames) that I don't mind playing competitively but there are just some that are too complex for it. I love the L5R tcg but I never could stand to play it competitively in a store and being rushed to finish as much as I can in the allotted time slot. And I feel the same way with most wargames. Constantly being pressured to finish as fast as possible is super annoying and not really any fun. And its especially worse when there is nothing on the line. When there is no trophy or accolade for coming in 1st place. Those instances just make me feel sad for those people. But as someone has said, for GW it's due to money. Their adoption of "seasons" for 40K and AoS and releasing more and more books which change everything every few months is just a simple push to make as much as they can off of players. Meet the new hot thing, same as the old hot thing. But the saddest part of all is how difficult it is to get people to want to play in a campaign of any wargame these days. It's worse than pulling teeth. And any non-official narrative games are like four-lettered words to most people. i'm just glad that my wife is into wargames so I at least have 1 other person not interested in hardcore competitive play.

[@weirdo3116]

I just think it's hard to get 4-5 friends who have free time to go and play a wargame campaign. That seems like the real issue

[@captainconcrew]

Timing and scheduling seems to be the biggest barrier to campaign narrative play as you need to have the same group of people together consistently to pull it off. I used to run 40K and Warmachine campaigns at my LGS many years ago and that was always the downfall - the 2 or 3 players out of the 8 of us who were only there 2 weekends out of 10. The other factor is the convention scene. Competitive play is the fastest way to set up a way for 64 or 128 players who have never met one another before with a series of games over a weekend where every player knows exactly what to expect coming into it. I've seen some awesome scenario narrative events at conventions, but they can usually only accommodate 8 or 12 people at a time with one person to run them. To have scenario games for those 128 players, you need 10 or 12 people running the games instead of the 3 or 4 judges I've seen running tournaments - again making the competitive scene easier logistically. Lastly, I think there's also the personality factor to take into account. Some folks are looking for a strategic puzzle with an opponent while others want to tell cool stories with miniatures. Neither is 'right' or 'wrong' but there can be problems when you show up expecting one and getting the other and many people enjoy both flavors at different times.

[@bigpoppa1234]

Campaigns and narrative games have always been extremely tough to get going. I was in a big games club 15+ years ago where every attempt at a campaign died in a couple weeks (even games like bloodbowl or mordheim which had little needed than a dozen minis) would rarely last more than 2 weekends. And most people would rather just play a bigger 'matched' play game or have a two on two than deal with narrative. No-one took anything too seriously and this was before netlisting was a thing & you never knew what armies you might fight so you would rarely play skew or deliberately imbalanced lists. Now the games take 2 or 3 times longer, the rules of opposition armies are indecipherable because of the constant shuffling of strategems and special rules interacting, everyone is playing netlisted LVO & GT meta armies because if you don't, your opponent will, and you'll get tabled in 2 turns.

[@rangda_prime]

@@weirdo3116 The easiest time to lay is in your late teens and early twenties and after that in your 40s onward. When you're young you have less responsibilities and when you're older you have more money, kids are flown out and so on. Then again, as an older Gen X guy I have to acknowledge my generational privilege. Back in my day, we had more disposable income and free time. The middle class has simply shrunk and working conditions and economic life is harsher now than it was growing up in the 70s and 80s. Now that I'm in my 50s, I find i can my old friends to play with little trouble, but the millennials I know are simply strapped for time and cash. Sorry if this got close to being political, but the world is simply different now.

[@biseinerheult78]

I played Warhammer fantasy from the end of 3rd edition to the start of 6th, almost always with the same group of friends. While we rarely played narrative battles, we’d often organise big 10.000 points multiplayer battles between good and evil armies that would last the whole night. Or we borrowed a room from a church and have a whole weekend of Warhammer, pen and paper RPGs and other games and invite people from outside the friend group. During the last few years I actively played fantasy, a friend of mine introduced me to the competitive scene in our country. I remember my first tournament and being absolutely trashed by weird min max lists that exploited every loophole they could find. It was so alien to me, because eventhough these were the days of hero hammer and even in my group we always tried to win games by coming up with super powerful combinations, the idea of having an army that was thematic and beautiful was very important to us. We wanted to live the fantasy of mighty armies, shining heroes and despicable villains clashing with each other and not to win a game by abstractly playing its systems.

[@Jawzah]

Yea I feel the actual Warhammer game are just abit "bloated" to be good for competitive play.. The group we played pen&paper RPGs with had some interest in them but we did not end up playing wery much.. But we did play Blood Bowl league - with some house rules , freebooters taken from White Dwarf magazine etc and it was lot of fun.. I suppose WH(40K) could have been better as a part of an actual RPG campaign -- baing more narrative than competetive tactical game.. One guy did have nice eldar army with bit of each of the aspect warriors etc -- and I brought play to win list of orks using unpainted Blood Bowl figurines for most of them .. The eldar got wiped out from the table way too easily - was not even fun.. But with actual boardgames like blood bowl advanced space crusade you could play to win and you did not have to be married to one "faction" but could easily try out several -- so better for competitive play and you could go for storytelling and aesthetics too..

[@lrh5206]

Even though you don't brand your own experience as narrative, they strike me as exactly the kind of wargaming experience that most would consider narrative. Favouring fun and sociability over competetive setup and process. I love huge battles and weekends like that. So many fond memories of my youth!

[@derekbry9066]

Some of my best losses to you in War of the Ring were when we would let the narrative of the different moments we created take the spotlight before beginning the rolls. I haven’t played many other war games but this feels like a spot on take.

[@BenDeHart]

One of my favorite games was when you won after Boromir did a final death charge into Mordor! That game was so close

[@themocingbird2488]

I think one of my favorite War of the Ring moments I’ve had was when Gimli and Legolas led an army of Rivendell Elves and managed to retake Moria, avenging Ballan, but ultimately falling to an Uruk-hai army lead by the witch king in a drawn out siege.

[@MrTreefoz]

​@@BenDeHartOne does not simply walk into Mordor. One marches. lol

[@Tyber2]

Little Wars TV is a great channel with a narrative focus to their wargaming. Its almost exactly what you are describing.

[@BenDeHart]

I love that channel!

[@rangda_prime]

Me, an old Grognard: You're describing historical wargaming. That's simply it. It's been here all along, it came up with all of these solutions and attitudes likely before you were born. The fact that most people play the large brands and have to reinvent the wheel to be able to have fun with their games is quite sad, since they're not in touch with the actual tradition of modern wargaming which is still an unbroken line of gaming from the 1960s to this day.

[@krkngd-wn6xj]

The tabletop roleplaying game community has this same thing, where people are bending over backwards to houserule what even the earliest generation of OSR games did.

[@rangda_prime]

@@krkngd-wn6xj Yep. Basic DnD was simple and fun, but it has become a terrible beast worthy of slaying itself over the years.

[@andrewseaman9913]

I think that has more to do with how insular and resistant to change the historical wargaming community is than the fact that it has invented perfect solutions - the call isnt coming from inside the house, its imposed by the companies making this stuff.

[@krkngd-wn6xj]

@@rangda_prime Basic DnD had a ton of game design problems. I am specifically saying OSR (Old School Renaissance) because that movement applied modern game design to the same "feel" of game.

[@rangda_prime]

@@andrewseaman9913 I don't think you're actually in touch with historical wargaming if you say that. Sure, there's a bunch of Boomers who still use web forums and haven't changed since the 1970s, but the majority of the industry and player base have moved forward. Hell, in 1990 the incredibly innovative DBM rules set caused incredible change in how rules were written, and that is ancient history now compared to what's currently popular on the market. I find it to be the other way around, the people who are introduced to wargaming through GW are contemptuous and incredulous towards any other type of miniatures games. They refuse to try other rules or minis and are even resistant to playing anything else than the latest version the company has released.

[@jujitsugiraffe]

You just described Necromunda. Abitrator acts as the game master, the campaign has territories that generate resources/other benefits, there are non-player factions that can be allied with and they have their own needs. There's also Sub-Plots and Intrigues that generate secondary missions which offer additional rewards if completed.

[@boku5192]

Are you talking about new necromunda or the old one?

[@jujitsugiraffe]

@@boku5192 I'm talking about the new version. I never played the 90s versions, so I can't speak to any differences, but the new version has been a blast to play.

[@elijahherstal776]

@@boku5192 anyone that says "tHe OlD oNe WaS bEtTeR": 1- didn't play the old one 2- hasn't played the new one 3- should be ignored

[@boku5192]

@@elijahherstal776 Damn, okay I'll give it a look then : D

[@k1ngdeth]

A lot of what you were saying had me thinking that Battletech was getting another W with its emergent narrative and versatility when it came to different styles of play. I think almost everything you listed is doable in Battletech, from the umpires or adjudicators to the pick-up games and balanced (or unbalanced) matches and scenarios. Even the "making it up as you go along" are done as houserules and gentlemen's agreements and several are even included as "optional rules" in the rulebooks themselves so you don't have to corner yourself with the rules as written!

[@maniacalhun1426]

My own little theory: a lot of former strategy video game players went into wargaming as the strategy video game market is all but dead. Especially for turn based video games. This is where players want to out smart and be out smarted by their opponent. A good play being made is the equivalent to us is the equivalent of a good story being made. This is what me and my gaming group are like.

[@nicon4206]

Nothing more annoying than a broken rts strategy. I don't think I could stand an unbalanced game of 40k that takes up the entire day.

[@maniacalhun1426]

yeah admittedly we dont play meta. (Unless someone's faction is so bad that they have to play a meta list to have a chance in casual games). We try to do well with what we have/a basic and/or loreful army comp. Or meme lists

[@thejuiceking2219]

yeah, even if you're not full on competitive the idea of being forced to be at a disadvantage 'cus narrative' would likely leave a sour taste in a lot of people's mouths

[@iain-duncan]

Strategy is not at all dead... countless new amazing titles release each year. I can't even keep up with them all

[@gstellar96]

This is one of the main reasons I was so disappointed in 10th editon and honestly why im not into OPR, The rulesets are more tight and streamlined than say 9th editon 40k but it just feels like theres no sauce nothing to spice up the gameplay. No one crazy rule that rarely comes up but is perfect in this situation or a perfect set up when the rules all overlay perfectly like for 9th editon admech. Ive heard that people dont want to go through the trouble of a complex rulset when they just want to hangout and chill but I cant help but think upon hearing that, why not play a board game? The rules are perfectly streamlined for that type of playstyle and isnt as hard as to set up for a wargame. The benefit of a wargame is that generally you can play a strategy game with more freedom since movement is open and the effects of the rules can be presented in your imagination. I get wanting to make the gake accessible as well but I feel like its gone too hard in the other direction where the game feels so vanilla now.

[@grumbo8634]

100%, accesibility just means everything gets reduced to the lowest common denominator

[@ratbaby3107]

I've always said GW is afraid to have anything be good at things. Most other games, you can look at models and what they specialize in and go "oh my God, that's crazy how good that effect is". GW doesn't have that, the closest is big expensive models that they can put big numbers on, so the feeling goes away as soon as you look at it in context of it's point cost. Everything feels lukewarm, maybe slightly edged towards what it's supposed to be good at

[@roguedm6523]

I think the answer is money. For the companies making the game it's easier to sell the product based on a unified agreement on what the game piece does instead of trying to suit thousands of small narrative games. So over time this is where the focus from the people who sell the hobby has shifted. That won't change until either campaign books become the norm (and popular!) or we get some sort of critical role moment that D&D has had that specifically brings the narrative gaming to a wider audience (who then spend money on it and cause the shift in the market)

[@sambarnett6996]

Warhammer has already had a similar moment. All the MTG players who have moved to warhammer and made KZbin channels and cried on the internet until GW listened. Mostly when the game got changed with 8th and then the pandemic.

[@DarkLolification]

yes it's infinitely more profitable to target every lone gamer than target at people with established group of friends to play

[@rangda_prime]

Which is why smaller games are usually better. The nature of corporations and larger companies to seek ever increasing profits ruins the actual product. Small publishers pushing well thought out labors of love quite often make better games. They don't get rich of course, because that's not how modern capitalism works.

[@khimeraQ]

The main issue that's driving the divide between competitive and narrative is that, plainly, Warhammer is a strategy game, and strategy game players want to win. If the rules are clear, concise and measurable, you have competitive players spending hours in the lab, testing maneuvers, doing practice games and formulating a powerful list, and that's all very FUN, and it's one of the most enjoyable parts of the hobby for people into it. However, this butts heads with the narrative side of the hobby because, even if the intent is to just have fun and tell a story, adding rules that bring chaos to the game and makes strange, unbalanced things happen feels...odd. Worse, if this is something that one of the players introduced to the game, and they win the game, it starts to feel like that player just put in something so he can win that game, and that sometimes feels like cheating. This can be felt often in something like crusade, where players are expected to bring a narrative force, but nothing is preventing you from using combos that you'd only see in a competitive list. I think a referee or 3rd is a good idea for narrative play, at least to allow players to engage with the game without worrying that their opponents will pull a fast one on them. Narrative requires a level of agreement with each other because at the end of the day, most players are rules lawyers.

[@whitewall2253]

My life experience with this hobby does not align with your own experience at all.

[@brianmattei7134]

It also butts heads with the inherent messiness of games like 40k's rulesets. When has 40k EVER been balanced completely? When has there EVER been a meta where every army is on relative equal footing? My point is this: how can we treat a game like 40k "seriously" from the competitive side when you have entire armies obsoleted by same-edition power creep? Are we expected to tell people who paid upwards of $500+ on those armies "tough shit, buy another one?" or "just wait this edition out, sorry?" Like that is ridiculous on its face for a game like 40k. It isn't Magic where decks become obsolete over time, or the "rotation" is expected and accounted for via lower individual deck costs, no, if you get a bad codex early on in the edition? You are likely FUCKED for the entirety of it.

[@thejuiceking2219]

@@brianmattei7134 i mean it's never been fully balanced, like there at least a dozen different factions, it's a bugger to balance all that while still keeping them distinct and interesting, and it will never ever be properly balanced, but that doesn't mean they shouldn't attempt to do so

[@brianmattei7134]

@@thejuiceking2219 Not saying they shouldn't attempt it, just saying this is inherently at odds with treating the game competitively. I also think there's a difference between "competitive" and "optimized." People like optimization, they don't wanna play "bad" models. I get that, I'm like that. You can still play narratively that way.

[@Yurt_enthusiast7]

Who's said it's a strategy game?

[@lordmalal]

Needing a judge for games went away because it requires you to now have two friends to play with, when many people don't even have one. And the third guy doesn't even get to play the game.

[@TheRyujinLP]

Yet people can find plenty of Game Masters for the RPG sessions so this doesn't really hold water. And they're still playing the game, just in a different capacity, just like a GM. In fact there's a direct evolution from war gaming judges to RPG GMs since what we now call RPGs started out as a different way to war game and were meant to be played along side them.

[@cybrandir]

This is why I play Brikwars. Its a fun game that doesnt take itself seriously and puts story and coolness first. Building your own faction from Lego really helps with that

[@hammdogporkington3058]

"I think it works better if you have a group all in the game" okay so we're in magical Christmas land

[@katamariroller2837]

Wargaming miniatures are a product and tournaments are advertisements. Yes, GW could do thematic campaigns like Armageddon or the 13th Black Crusade and create amazing narratives and engage with the players/customers at another level... but the whole point, what they actually care about, is profit. Why bother with any effort that does not go into selling more/new models?

[@T0mm3n]

We already had both of those back in the good old days of 3rd edition, they had their own codexes and everything.

[@katamariroller2837]

@@T0mm3n I know. I had the Eye of Terror campaign codex. But my point is that unless it serves as advertisements for new products and more profit, there is no point in investing into the narrative. Why do you think they did the whole Cicatrix Maledictum stuff? To sell the new Primaris. Which is funny because they clearly overestimated how much effort was necessary to sell new stuff: I guess they thought nerds needed the biggest change in 40k lore ever to buy a new Space Marine range...

[@Tehstampede]

I played competitive Warhammer Fantasy from 2009 to 2014, and due to how units were moved in that game and how line of sight was drawn, it was pretty fun and even a loss could still feel like a good game because of how hard it was to actually table somebody. I've played competitive 40k three times since I got into the game back in 2000, and every time it was an absolutely miserable experience. Playing 40k with friends is a blast, but playing with people you don't know at a tournament sucks hard.

[@FirstNameLastName-fe2tu]

There is a MAJOR problem with this. I have a group of friends, 4 of us in total, and there are some games where Because I am the only one that actual reads the rules and stuff...I have to be the ref. And I hate that, I feel disconnected. I absolutely hate the 1 v everyone else games, cause then I am not really having fun with my friends. But then what can we do? I don't wanna go on discord and join a random thing just to have some random dude be like "I'll be the ref". That's just weird.

[@surnis9043]

One thing we often did to make sure games are narrative was that both players used their miniatures from both armies. For instance, I would use my space marines AND my necrons, and the other player was doing the same. While my marines would mostly attack his necrons over mine (you don,t want to feel like you're playing alone, after all) fights between my troops would happen. The idea being that it not a fight of Joe against his opponent Fred, it's really a fight between marines and necrons. Sure, strategy and secret plans take a back seat, and you have to be able to play your best with both your commanders, but I think this is a fun way to play, especially when matching newer players vs inexperienced ones, that won,t feel destroyed by losing, since the necrons lost, not him... Works well with 3+ players too. Of course, the competitive players at game stores want none of it, and it mostly worked with friends.

[@totallycarbon2106]

Huh this is super unique, don't think I've heard of getting players to play bits of both sides before

[@dblevins343]

Funny enough, Ive been working on a game for X-Wing, Armada, and Legion that has a DM. Essentially the players are on one galactic map but theyre options are fairly wide open with the DM decising what is and isnt acceptable. For instance, the Rebel players could send a fleet into battle against the Empires fleet which has an SSD but they could also send a task force like Rogue Squadron in a agme of X-Wing to severely cripple the opponents fleet and defenses before the Armada battle even occurs. Its still a heavy WIP but having a DM is essential for the campaign to work as intended. As the DM, they have access to the Scum faction to prevent snowballs from happening or to spice things up. The real issue isnt designing campaigns like this. The real issue is finding players who have enough freetime to do it and are available consistently to play aginst each other. Thats the real challenge.

[@johnythefox100]

When Warlord Games released Black Powder, they described it as best played with 3v3 and a referee to keep the game/scenario running. they got a bit of stick from some quarters because it's distinctly designed for casual/club games and not a competative scene.

[@Shadowknightneo]

It's why I love skirmish games so much, it feels more narrative and it's a group of smaller guys Vs other guys. Yours Vs them. It just feels better than the big sprawling armies. I come from DnD and I think skirmish games like Necromunda, Warcry, Frostgrave etc are just that perfect balance

[@GuyRiessen]

exactly what I was going to say. Warcry addresses all these issues in a way that is both super easy to apply (draw the cards for random setup/conditions) and has both balanced and unbalanced victory conditions and deployments and even battlefield effects. It's a pretty ideal balance between being able to instantly play as a pick-up game, play a long narrative with friends, or even play a pick-up game which slots into your own overarching narrative play which continues on through pick-up games.

[@philippschmitz1787]

Yes, to all of that... in theory. I actually had a few developments in that direction, however during those I learned that it doesn't play out well with huge armies. In theory it should and with the referee in the Prussian Kriegsspiel it also did, but it was clunky af and the additional need of a dude doing all the effort that always have to be available for every single game, makes running a campaign even more difficult than it is. So the main issue is scheduling. It's a problem in RPGs and the main reason why most campaigns fall apart, that is even more true for wargames that are on their own very time consuming. So you can't just run several games in a row (at least not if you have a day job). But you don't need a referee or have to run a campaign to achieve what you are actually up to. Within my own research about narrative gameplay I found out, that semi--cooperativeness can bring back a lot of narrative. By adding a third party (the battlefield) into every game, you can easily substitute a DM/adjutant/referee. Mission design also helps a lot especially faction specific missions. It's always weird if your army ended up in a situation that is super atypical for their fluff. Strong NPCs that pop up at important positions that can only be killed if both players work together or they're both be fucked is also a nice thing that creates a lot of atmosphere. All of that is achievable with hand cards, secret agendas, event decks and random tables. But that isn't the main issue here. You made a very true observation: Players want to play narrative but don't. And that is not due to an underrepresentation of narrative mechanics. Look at 40k's crusade mode for example. It's stuffed with content and GW did a lot of effort there... relics, skill trees, secret agendas, injuries, weapon upgrades etc. What is in matched play? A lot of limitations and a single card deck of only semi amazing secondary missions. So the core question is: Why are we so idiotic and play boring matched while we could enjoy the obviously much more interesting crusade mode? I don't know a definite answer on that question, but I speculate it has something to do with the existence of a meta in competitive play and the missing of a consensus of power level in non-competitive environments, that makes it very difficult to run a game that's interesting to play against a random guy in a hobby store. That means, if you start alone you best try to play competitive to find common minds. You could now ask: Ok, Philipp, but you have the same issues in RPGs to find a gaming group you want to play in. While that is true, many RPG groups know each other before or know what to expect, due to a session zero. That session zero doesn't exist in wargames and also doesn't quite contribute to the immersion of the game, since it's a depiction of war and surprise is a hell of a strategy. And here's the point why wargames are immanently competitive while RPGs are most oftenly the exact opposite. Wargames are PvP, RPGs are not. In wargames you call the other players opponents, not party members. So every war-game (no matter if played narrative or with winning in mind) is in itself always very competitive. In the end you compete against your opponent, no matter what you do. Within the community we just redefined competitiveness as something dull or bad, but actually that's a wrong definition of what compeititveness actually is in the core. Speaking of core... Core Space is a very nice game that does a lot of the above and that comes really close to what I did with my 40k 7th edition mod. In there each player has a team of space scavengers that dock at derelict stations to loot boxes and bring them back to their ships. The goal of the game is to get the most loot for your crew, but simply to fight the other team to keep them off your loot, is not necessarily a good idea, because the sound of firearms will draw some attention of old security bots and aliens that once inhabited the space station. So it's a game against time, each other and the battlefield, which itself inhabits some NPC that can be interacted with. But that doesn't work well with larger armies. In my research 50 models per side was the absolute maximum for such kind of games because the table gets too full with all the critters and additional tokens. In a good narrative game you also don't want a faceless swarm, you want to tell a story of war heroes where character development actually matters. Keeping it on a small scale also increases the chance to find enough ppl and maintain a campaign group as time and commitment are always huge factors. Skirmishers are made for that, wargames however are colliding at several points in reality... in theory they should not, but because nobody lives forever, time is the most important resource. Picking up a competitive game against a random in a hobby store therefore is much less time consuming and doesn't need a lot of commitment beyond painting your huge pile of plastic.

[@kingbonezai4925]

I think it is because the Legistics of everyone agreeing to a points level, then showing up wi the what they want to bring is so much easier Than the logistics of having to agree on a scenario, make a list of players and what they need to bring, and then hope the guy with the key models doesn’t have to bail last minute due to work or life happening.

[@sAKecOkE]

Sounds like you want to play a BattleTech campaign

[@AlxParrish]

Yeah I was like "oh he means battletech"

[@maximallen3202]

Yup

[@classiccraftdestined.7596]

@@AlxParrish hey i was thinking about trying Battletech out, where should i start?

[@midnightcoup2422]

Battletech: A Game of Armored Combat box set

[@Geeko170]

Another reason I think Wargames are being turned into Board games is that, no one wants to put the time and effort into being the GM. My local Battletech group has been wanting to do another big campaign for a while, but no one wants to put all the time and effort into planning it, nor clear their schedules to participate.

[@AlexDenton0451]

It depends on the group tbh. Me and a couple other guys GM campaigns using MechHQ and stuff occasionally, or just write up a scenario. Funnily enough I've been writing up a tournament that will transition into a campaign, starting off with Republic of the Sphere Wargames going into fighting off the Cappellan invasions, and kicking off the Late Republic Era with a bang.

[@paulgaither]

I am just here for the Battletech. I have been facinated with campaign play over competitive game balance tournament play since I was a teenager.

[@davidmesh5491]

Heck no one likes to be the GM so our group came up with a map campaign system that people can run themselves.

[@clonetf141]

Warhammer 40k is not becoming like a boardgame, Dont get me wrong, theres a host of wargames that are suffering from boardification. But the warhammer games are suffering by becoming like card games, Your army is only legal for X amount of time, when said time is over which is gonna be 3 to 6 years from this point and if youre unlucky there is gonna be an edition launche with indexes (the fact that from 8thto 10th we have gone back to indexes is really fucking bad) You will have four options for your army: Full shelf it because it doesnt exist or is barely legal Partly shelf it andhave to get new units Have to seriously retrofit it to fit the new edition Or simply get a new army At the end of it, it is done ny GW for no other reason than to sell you more minis, they dont want you to have a legendary blood angels army anymore that is 10k points, instead they want you to have 5 2k armies, preferably even more. I personnally genuinely honest to god think that only the most dedicated of competitive player should bother with 10th edition at this point. If you dont play 10th atleast once a week, dont bother playing 10th, the time it takes you to add something new to your army, get it painted and on the table it will be too late and it doesnt work anymore. 10th ed is to me the fools warhammer. You are better off a million times choosing your favourite edition and playing that with your mates and when some new model for your army comes out and you wanna play it, you go and retrofit it into your old edition. A small edit: This is all on the assumption you know about MTG and its standard rotation!

[@catcadev]

I disagree with this. I think people are just so fixated on "IT'S NOT LEGAL AAAAWWW" that they forget Legends exists. 10th ed is the way it is because the competitive players complained about balance all through 9th.

[@T0mm3n]

@@catcadev Models being legal isnt the issue, its that most legends units are so badly gimped theres barely any point in trying to run them, even in a friendly setting.

[@T0mm3n]

Patrician take, 5th being my personal choice but Id also go with 3rd or 3.5

[@whitewall2253]

I've been playing 40k since 5th edition and my favourite time was during Eighth, specifically during the Index Era of eighth edition where everyone was playing out of the same 4 books, Codex Creep ruined eighth edition.

[@l.a.wright6912]

Warhamer 10th ed removed so much nuance I'm still pissed.

[@kingbonezai4925]

I think the tournament scene driving the balance is kinda necessary, it is far easier to get people together for a tournament that they all know they each have an army for, than coordinate a narrative game. After all, think of how hard it is to get every to always show up to every DnD game in a campaign

[@zbmayk]

Over time as a game player, game designer, and person, I've realized there is a whole variety of people out there. A bell curve for each personality trait. But it's very hard for people on one end to understand how people on the other end think and feel (IMHO), as they don't have the same internal world. There are people out there who just want one game, they want to understand it, and play it, and that's it. These people are on one side of the bell curve. The opposite side is people like Ben, who do want to create new things OR enjoy new creative things. Chess is very popular, DnD is very popular. But each is a very different aspect of enjoying games with friends. Basically what I'm trying to say is that yes, I agree that Ben's perfect wargame is more interesting, provides a better, more memorable experience. But there are those out there that want to play a dry game, with little variability. And unfortunately, you can't make a game that fits both sizes at the same time, just make something that both find OK, or two games that each think are great!

[@kdhlkjhdlk]

Numbers change, and models get pushed into legends.

[@classiccraftdestined.7596]

for bigger more expensive options becasue fudge you.

[@TurkeyTerminator]

legends are playable, just have a rule 0 conversation with your opponent

[@kdhlkjhdlk]

@@TurkeyTerminator Legends aren't really playable, not even casually - they break and don't get updated. Showing up to a game and playing because your opponent took pity on you is a bad feeling. Legends units are dead.

[@TurkeyTerminator]

@@kdhlkjhdlk took pity on you?...dude it's a game. the entire point of the video is to play as YOU want to...and speak for yourself about a bad feeling. I've loved the game for 23 years

[@Chivalrics]

Dude, yes! You've voiced something I've felt but was never sure how to express.

[@henryrodriguez6260]

This is a very well thought out essay on making your case for more narrative focus in miniature wargaming. I very much appreciated your historical overview that you laid to base this position. I do think you are overlooking one important element of historical miniature wargaming however. Those games were often pursued with the goal of simulating historical battles. The act of doing this led toward less free-ranging narrative and more structured elements (in rules, in scenario orders of battle and deployment, in stats). Furthermore, this gave birth in the 1960's to historical board-wargaming that allowed one to ensure a "balanced" (i.e. historically accurate) exploration of battles. Take a look at GMT's or MMP's catalog and one will find that tactical board-wargames are alive and well (which are better comparisons than War of the Ring, which is at the strategic scale) I also wonder if you are overlooking a "silent majority" that do play miniature wargames just as you prefer. From what I have gathered, competitive, tournament players are the vocal minority. There are plenty of people out there playing narrative-focused (i.e.RPG-like minis games) Necromunda, Frostgrave, Burrows & Badgers, and even "dead" games like Mordheim. I suspect there are plenty of gamers playing tournament favorites in a narrative manner. In my opinion, I simply do not have time for narrative-based miniature gaming (even if I really like the idea of playing in a campaign). And if I am going to play one-off games occasionally with friends and strangers, then I want to be sure my time is not wasted because the game is too unbalanced.

[@JMcMillen]

Pretty much every attempt I've seen at a narrative based campaign I've ever seen quickly falls apart. Unless everyone involved has some common free time where they can all get together regularly and nothing is going to pop up and mess with it, it's almost certainly doomed to fail. However, maybe if there was more of a push towards more narrative based scenarios where you could have unequal forces, but has objectives that don't give the more powerful force time to just try to grind the enemy to nothing. Like a breakout scenario where one side is trying to get past a smaller but dug in force, and only has a certain number of turns to get as many units past them as possible. As for the competitive scene, that seems to be mostly a 40K issue. Most other war games seem to do a vastly better job of balancing things so that two strangers can enjoy a pickup game and not worry about getting tabled off the board on turn one. That balance would then extend into any competitive play for that game as well.

[@afeuetades2589]

(Excuse my english, im not a native speaker) For me the major problem is that narrative game is not easely "accessible", the ingame ressources for narrative play given by the officials games books is usually very poor and are more a systeme of managing your army and heroes between matched play classic battle. There is to my kwnoledge no good ressource for creating a good narrative battle. Im looking to create a ytb channel on the subject. so if you have any recommandation on a game or ressource that respond to that demand, feel free to share it!

[@Valkyrja90]

The problem with the "rulings over rules" mentality is that a GM is more prone to make a unit stronger simply because he likes it, even if that doesn't make any sense. Well GW does that too, but that's why I play OPR.

[@rutgaurxi7314]

The problem I have with OPR is that they so light weight, they feel like a breeze would blow them off the table, metaphorically speaking. Which is why I have I stuck with the old Mordheim/ Oldmunda set, at least I know what it's limitations and weaknesses. But damn is it good.

[@raeishimura]

​@@rutgaurxi7314 That's kind of the point of OPR though. It's a much more streamlined ruleset that's easy to get into, easy to learn, and has better pacing while still offering tactical flexibility and strategic options. A lot of my game group used to play Warhammer 40k, but when introduced to OPR, were able to get in and start playing much faster and easier. I mean, i can get how it might be too lightweight. But it's sort of trying to be the opposite of 40k, which is unmanageably heavy

[@rutgaurxi7314]

@@raeishimura I would argue OPR only really offers a solution to people either unwilling or just unable to make the mental leap around 2d/ 3rd rules, 3rd being especially streamlined and simplified. It's just everything after 3rd (rules wise) at least it starts to fall apart. Don't get me started on the latest editions... But, having said all that, I can see its use in bringing people who might be interested in tabletop.

[@Valkyrja90]

@@rutgaurxi7314 That is not it at all. OPR is simple, yes. But it's also more strategically complex. Warhammer you just win for having the best models, there is no real strategy to it.

[@rutgaurxi7314]

@@Valkyrja90 I see you're only familiar with the later editions, there's no real point in continuing this discussion.

[@kosachilles2504]

I love this! This is also why I love Frostgrave

[@rodneykelly8768]

One idea I've been working on is "Double-Blind Victory Objectives." You enter the battle thinking you opponent is fighting a force-on-force battle, After a few turns, you realize that they are pulling your forces to one side of the table, so a light recon vehicle can pass through the other side. Another idea is cobelligerents. Two armies fighting on one side of the battle have two different victory conditions. Once one of those forces achieves their goal, they can with draw, wither or not the battle is over.

[@CityofLight11]

The bigger issue is just that GW, a company who have never produced good rulesets, dominate the hobby and influence basically everything else going on. There are so many interesting ways to play miniature wargames and you won't find them in a glossy box at the LGS unless they carry the new boxed edition of Rhyfler's Pocketbook.

[@Vanret255]

My main tabletop hobby is RPG's so I'm pretty biased, but I find stuff like Little Wars TV far more intriguing and fun looking than more standard channels like Zorbazorb or Play on Tabletop for exactly these reasons! Definitely wish War game clubs like Little Wars TV that can really delve into Narrative campaigns where more common in the Hobby

[@alextruecustodian6174]

I agree, there should be more narrative in it. I agree it should be the focus. But I think video just loses the point when it doesnt try the see the "Why" it is that way. How many ways can one discuss rules instead of a narrative with people outside of your own group? if you have no consistent group it becomes a "your problem, lol" situation, while singular games has a , wider reach in that regard. I would like to give the example of crusade/path to glory of GW, people already DO play them and some DO prefer it, thing is, it is just not discussed enough, and discussion is quite literally the only way companies can get feedback, something that a beer and pretzel focused campaign with friend group in-jokes can't be. The company wants the discussion, being constantly talked about so that they dont become nobodies, to keep the kits selling. The people also want to discuss about the thing they like, dont care if its the thing they like the most, passion is passion regardless. I agree with a greater narrative focus, but if you want to change the view if others, you must understand their view, of them and of the companies that encourage it. AKA Capitalism rant over. also I personally think the problems is more on the rules designers/management than the community(for its encouragement).

[@louisazraels7072]

I fail to see the problem Competitive players need a balanced and standardised ruleset, narrative players can alter the ruleset as much as they want or do away with it entirely, how is the base ruleset striving for balance affecting them at all? Why do you want to force competitive players to play a certain way?

[@TheAurgelmir]

I'm not sure the developers of wargames are actually the ones that want the competitive style to prevail, but the players. Take the first edition of Age of Sigmar. At first there was no points values for the armies. I think they somewhat asked you to eyeball it based on wounds values or whatever. And the players complained! There's a reason why the RPG and Wargame split happened I think. People saw more value in the narrative side of the "player VS Game Master" in RPGs, and the value of competing on a more tactical side in wargaming. Because people like to win. Winning with friends against a GM who isn't playing to win is fun, and there the narrative is part of the winning. Narrative Wargames tend to need someone to lose over time - and too often those who are winning tend to win more. Further more - there's more to wargaming than just the game. The hobby side if it drives a lot of players. Collecting your army etc. That's why "Just collect the one you think looks cool" is the advice. Not "because winning doesn't matter" but because next edition someone else will be winning. Thus, if you collect an army over years, and have a little bit of everything, you can always have some fun. That's not to say there can't be narrative wargaming. It's usually not what most people seem to enjoy.

[@itswhatreallymatters]

The skirmish "wargame" that encompasses both narrative and moving guys through terrain amazingly is Core Space. You can play it solo, cooperative or head to head. Theres environmental enemies that work to kill you, you choose a mission with varying and dynamic objectives, the game comes with 3D terrain. And its totally modular. Plus, it's only $110 for a complete game with minis and terrain included.

[@deltapi8859]

Funny you are the first one I see articulate that "balance" and "coherent rules" are just a claim. In fact you often see ambiguity in rules every even the die hard nerds scratch their heads right after the claimed that everything is super defined and logic :D I tend to go with easy rulesets that are defined enough to not have weird scenarios pop up though.

[@ausaskar]

The competitive community runs events that any man off the street can pay the entry fee, show up on the day and slap down some minis. Narrative events are doubtlessly being run, but invite only within a small friend group.

[@tankbwoy]

the yu gi oh analogy is so damn accurate and hilarious 😂😂😂

[@josemanuelmunizherrera920]

As someone who -in his local gaming community-, has become less of an active player and much more of a referee, campaign writer, and event organizer, I completely agree with your message, here.

[@pantherace1000]

The most fun games I've ever played have been scenarios that used the rules and lists as guidelines. Played a game of 3E Flames of War where the German teams goal was to fight their way off the board with as many heavy weapons and vehicles reaching the board edge as they could. The Soviet team had two forces one defending the board edge the Germans were fighting towards, the other attacking the German rearguard in hopes that they could pin the Germans in place until the turn counter ran out. It was a mad dash the whole game, players that weren't moving figures were looking up stats/rules, and going over the scenario print out for clarification. Everyone was laughing and having a great time.

[@megazaku1139]

I’m so glad someone is actually bringing this up

[@padanfain7466]

My group plays Horus Heresy. We generally play a narrative style (make our own campaigns etc), and nearly always play 1v1 but with a third man adjudicating. Most fun I've ever had gaming tbh.

[@kingbonezai4925]

Logistics are the key. Anyone can build an army they like at a points level, show up at the time and place and play the game in a tournament. If someone doesn’t show up everyone is ok. In a narrative, you have to get a group of people to all agree and commit on not just time and place, but also what is being played, and they have to work together to make sure that they have the miniatures needed. Likewise, if someone doesn’t show up it could cause massive issues. Not to mention some players will be set on some game/army/narrative types, and others won’t want to play it. Tournaments at least allow people to play with the stuff they like, even if the against they can’t control. Oh, and the phycology of competition and strategically building and playing armies you designed can be exciting too

[@MrOHTEHNOES]

Your point on competetive rulsesets and lack of narrative is actually one of the reasons I got into historical hex and grid wargames (specifically ASL) to scratch the gameplay itch; I found that when I played matches at GWS I would have fun for all of 5 minutes whilst I got to move my fun-picked pieces (Valkyries are cool...) then sit on the side whilst the meta ork army I was fighting took 100 shots at me and obliterated my units one at a time, and the objective? Be the last army standing. Hardly compelling. It was far more fun when my friend and I would make up special scenarios to play at home. (Historical) Hex and grids instead had scenarios with tailored objectives, a reason for the battle, something to compare to for the aftermath etc and it was just so much more narratively satisfying, kind of like playing D&D actually. I know a number of miniature wargames have gone this route with campaign books, but these campaign scenarios are far from the most popular way to play the game insofar as I have experienced it.

[@sheacorduroy5565]

Games Night's Bolt Action series singlehandedly convinced me to get the rulebook and minis for it, purely based on the absurd scenarios that they managed to make. Battle for Pegasus Bridge is seriously the best game I've ever seen played on that channel or anywhere.

[@PenguinOverlord4555]

Thank you for this video. It was short, but said everything you needed it too. Also, this is the first time ive ever watched a video essay in which i recognized most, if not all of your video sources. Incredible!

[@dziku2222]

Well, not sure about the part with rules not being clear and coming up with things out of your butt, but my best memories are from campaign narrative games with my friends, where we made silly tongue and cheek parody of 40k, instead holding to real atmosphere. Fantastic times. Also, one of my most memorable RPG experiences were the game where you were not playing as a character but as a country with other players being other countries, in fully roleplaying out of the box thinking way. It was amazing!

[@VictorSteiner]

You could see it the other way around: For someone who turns 30-40 and has a job and kids, the oldschool board-game versions of 40K games are the only thing you can really play because of a lack of time. I stopped playing 40K years ago, I tried Kill Team but even that was too much after work, but now I rediscovered Space Hulk (1st Edition) and we are having so much fun and it is such a highly strategic game. This is the best game in the 40k universe for people that don‘t have a lot of time (or money).

[@galopus2707]

Unironically, the most fun I've ever had with wargames is playing "chess" in Tabletop Simulator. Let me explain. The way we've done it that I loaded as a joke a 4 person chessboard and decided to be a referee. It started pretty normal at first, but pretty quickly one of the players lost his king pretty early. That's when I went "oh he's still in the game, the queen is still alive, the royal bloodline isn't dead". That's when players realised we aren't playing chess normally. Fastforward 4 hours later, several d20 throws, wizard and science campuses being built and a journey through another dimension (second chessboard) the board is seperated in two handshake agreed teams, one of sides being a country of wizard gnomes who played for 4 hours straight under a giant magical dome and a singular piece being a king half-god. TL;DR You absolutely nail the point. Wargames do feel a bit like they're a competitive labirynth of overly complicated rules and it feels like people do take this game. And I really wish that it focused more on emergent storytelling. Rules should help create stories, not be a complicated puzzle. I don't want to go "oh you're playing it wrong, you shouldn't have fun", because that's absolutely what some people like, but I do wish things were like that.

[@elizabethmilward8301]

That sounds like the most unforgettable and awesome chess game ever. I'm not sure it's chess anymore, though.

[@Elwirfy]

This sounds wonderful in theory, but for me at least i struggle to get irl friends together, it'd be cool if this could be done online!

[@Dave-hp4vh]

This is fascinating because as a former GM who recently got into WH40k teaching friends and family to play I find that the more narrative I inject into things, the more fun we all have. I was truly feeling weird about it, like we're "playing it wrong", but after the amazing match yesterday (where I only refereed event though we originally planned to play as a 3-way battle) where we all got drawn into the narrative and had a blast, I decided I am fine with being a "GM" and maybe even prefer doing that. The point is to have fun... for everyone at the table. The rules are just a framework for having fun.

[@artisticheretic338]

Recently I began playing battletech, and I love it because a lot of mechs haven’t changed since creation, plus the only time equipment changes is when the in-universe tech changes. It’s an overall fun game.

[@kostas225cmp]

I've run multiple narrative war game campaigns with my friends, acting as the referee or the "NPC" opposing forces. They were always fantastic. It warmed my heart whenever they would pore over the maps and take time to formulate strategies when working together--or scheme against each other when on opposite sides. For example, we played a 3rd ed 40k campaign where they played as the forces of the Imperium fighting in one specific warzone on a specific planet; their intel told them that a huge column of enemy reinforcements were approaching from one of the major highways, and they knew they'd be in trouble if it linked up with the enemy already in the AO, so they devised a plan: their closest troops quickly dug in where the highway would pass through a marsh, so the enemy was funneled and couldn't bring all of their forces to bear since they couldn't just move around it. Tanks that were knocked out would further clog up the road; one player rushed to get reinforcements onto trucks, braving artillery coming from the enemy's lines; another player drop-podded his space marines at crucial moments to block off attempts to flank them from the hills, and on and on. We ended up playing out several battles taking place in that one map hex just because it was so crucial, but they always prevailed. They even said they felt like I was going easy on them, but I explained that this is the result of *their own planning and tenacity*, not arbitrary rules. That's a narrative war game: agency and immersion that creates a story.

[@murphy7801]

Idea of it going towards the competitive scene is very new.

[@StoneCresent]

A good ruleset is the backbone of any game. Finite rulesets and abstractions are useful for keeping the complexity of game down. A game too complex may take too long to resolve a turn; it could also cause analysis paralysis in players.

[@iiJDSii]

Very important video, thank you! The competitive focus is something I thought I wanted a few years ago but very quickly realized it's the wrong direction for wargaming. The thing about 10th is that none of my games are memorable! It's just a bunch of dice, wounds going down, models arbitrarily moving to table corners and other places to score "points", etc. I'll tell you what I do remember: the 2nd ed battle report I saw the other day. The Marine player's landspeeder took a bad hit, and with a scatter dice hurled itself 2d6" into a ruin, and the crew got out. Then the Marines retaliated and shot dead the driver of an Ork transport who got stuck in the middle of the field, so the Megaboss had to slug it on foot, as he took fire from a devastator squad in a bunker, etc. Was it perfectly balanced? Almost certainly not. Was it fun and interesting and created a memorable battle where both players had a level of ownership and interaction to craft their stories? Absolutely. Unfortunately I don't know what the solution is at this point - 40k crusade mode (supposed to be more narrative/casual) is a weird afterthought and will never be as memorable with the game mechanics and lack of depth as they are. GW is trying to turn 40k into an e-sport, which I thought a few years ago would be great, but after being in the thick of it, oh man how I see things differently.

[@majortom7186]

Companies focus on the competative versions of their games because those are how the games are most often played in big public environments. Those events are huge adverts for the games, so for the companies that's where it makes most sense to focus.

[@Farmers-Almanac]

i love wargaming tournaments. especially skirmish wargaming tournaments

[@alex.ebasta]

I agree, it's also difficult to find good content on KZbin of battle reports, in the majority of them there are just 2 people that show the dice results instead of narrating what happens between the 2 armies, very boring..

[@jasonwatts3920]

Competitive play is pushed by companies as a way to generate further income. Tournaments and online videos act as free advertising, always needing to be the winner means constant upgrades to your army/new army purchases.

[@CaesarSa1ad]

My friends and I were playing a campaign of Worlds Without Number which involved our characters being in the middle of a messy colonial war with many different factions, and decided to resolve each battle via a wargame using the rules from Warlord Games' Black Powder. The games mostly involved 3 or more factions where each player was given stratagems to represent either magic or pre battle preparations. Not only were the games great to play, but when our characters got news of the battles it made us feel more connected to the events.

[@GuyRiessen]

It's interesting to hear this from the wargaming community--especially with comparisons drawn to the RPG community. What has allowed the boom in the RPGs over the last ten years, is exactly this sort of combination play, as well as standardization of the rules ala competitive play. D&D, and rapidly followed by most other RPG systems, created their "Adventurers' League" because of the problem that want-to-play customers had in finding a regular GM and group. So they created a resourcey-tracking-thing which allowed for drop-in play in overarching narrative play that was driven by a series of monthly releases of modules. Any player could bring their AL character, which was created and run from level 1, to literally any AL game and sit down and play. The system was "relatively" balanced, and was tracked by the player, and included only the resources which were presented via the season's modules. Such a thing would be easily implementable in any wargame system and has been dabbled in, kind of, by GW...just not well. They have run seasons that tracked results and had a teensy bit of resource tracking, but it could be done much better. It's just waiting for someone to take a full look at Adventurers' League and directly apply the same thing to a skirmish game. Big battles ala 40k are not really conducive to the same gameplay as skirmish games are...that will take more creativity.

[@StorminWolf]

Warhammer Fantasy, (Other issues here as well, but the community turned it into mathhammer/listhammer) Warmahordes and Guildball are just three of many examples why a wargame focusing on balancing and the tournament crowd will die, rather sooner than later. You do however need events like tournaments to draw people in. Almost all wargames at least have campaign systems available. Problem is setting those up and having people commit. That issue has not changed in 30 years.

[@PlanetToborTV]

Great video! Agreed. I've been saying this to my friends for a while now; especially after reading Tony Bath's Ancient Wargaming (with the campaign stuff in there - from his Hyboria campaign). A buddy of mine and I are undertaking an experiment - mashing together Warhammer Fantasy Battle 3e with Mighty Empires, and WFRP 1st edition to handle smaller skirmish-y adventure situations.

[@nobribefoul]

Blood bowl manages to keep flavor extremely well imo. If you're playing the league rules the teams are tiered but there is no adjustment to their strength so a team of halflings fighting a team of orcs has a bit of an uphill battle when it comes to being smashed and the injuries and progression are permanent. The newest team is Gnomes which have woodland creatures, including a fox with a unique rule called "My Ball!" that prevents the fox from passing the ball or handing it off so the only way to get it is to knock it down. The game is grid based do no arbitrary measurements. The "combat dice" tell a story in themselves of who knocks who over with different skills affecting how it plays out. Overall it's a very narrative game based on its mechanics telling a story organically. There is also tournament play and stories from tournaments almost become legends in their own right (I document those stories on my channel). I think a tournament is the story of the players and a narrative game is the story of the fictional world. I also would asterisk the claim that most people favor narrative play. Unclear rules and someone's time spent hobbying a model with care can feel completely wasted when someone arbitrarily decides it doesn't do what it should. When you describe boardgames as having solid rulesets I profoundly disagree. It has been a long time since I purchased a boardgame that the manual wasn't somewhat vague and required looking up clarifications online due to timing rules or the like. Anyone I've personally met that says they love boardgames is a casual player and that's the appeal.

[@kapitankapital6580]

The comments have raised legitimate questions about how you actually deal with the logistics of this kind of thing, and I think the answer lies in looking at the RPG space. DnD has managed to make tabletop roleplaying, which faces many of the same challenges, mainstream by focusing on accessibility and unique styles of promotion. I think historical wargaming in particular really suffers from a lack of accessible on-boarding options partly because the market has so few big suppliers. My dream would be to see box sets containing rules, equipment and pre- or easily assembled/painted models based around famous battles like Waterloo, Cannae or Agincourt which kids with their parents or a group of friends can just pick up and play out of the box.

[@helbent4]

Not to lay this problem at GW's feet but I can see how they would like to focus on competitive play. They can provide a gaming experience that's more standardised and familiar to players (like McDonalds). On the business side they can control the flow of minatures by adjusting the army lists and supply of figs (aka "minis") adding, subtracting, etc. to maximise profits. I'm old and saw what GW was doing back in '89 and was never surprised. As for your suggestion of a GM'd game, fantastic! I can sympathise with all the commenters who struggle to consistently find players, enough for even 2 players and 1 GM. Although there is no reason you can't have 1 player, 1 GM. You are just going head-to-head with the GM.

[@generalsmite7167]

I think historical war gaming is a best look at how it should go. People who replay historical battles or campaigns gives a mix of narrative and competitive experience. My favorite war gaming channel is little wars tv which do narrative battles of history but they try to win

[@brokengalaxygames]

Brilliant video man. I'm in the early stages of making my own war game in a sci fi setting I'm creating. I may try to impliment some of your ideas. What I'm actually hoping happens long term is that the players can contribute to the over arching universal narrative as inspired by how the legend of the five rings was. But, encouraging people to do narrative play and reporting results and then coming up with storyline developments for the entire universe may be fun. Anyway, Have a great day.

[@michaelsblyth]

War of The Ring 2nd ed, is one of the most perfect tabletop experiences ever crafted

[@wilhelm992]

Narrative is so much more fun but its so hard to cordnate :(

[@alexfilmwriting]

We run 2v2s with usually the odd man out as the GM. It's like an overdone DnD encounter with 40k (well, really OPR) rules. Works great and for sure drives at the style of mass warfare everybody wants. Just big DnD encounters with maybe two minutes of backstory.

[@eternalgardens7016]

“The skillful exercise of the important office of Referee requires not only a special aptitude, but it is indispensable that he, of all others, should be thoroughly familiar with the principle and methods of the Game. Referee decisions are generally premature, a tendency which must be carefully guarded against. To derive the most good from such a study, the office of Referee should be regarded, not so much in the light of an adviser, as of an arbiter. He should bear in mind the principle that anything can be attempted.” -Charles A. L. Totten, Strategos

[@lordkonzilla7890]

the best way to play war games is against myself

[@bigpoppa1234]

40k was fine with "matched play" back in 3rd/4th edition when everyone showed up to the game store or games club with an "all comers" list of 1500k as their default, where special characters weren't allowed (and everyone had "your dudes" armies with their own written fluff), where almost no-one had invulnerable saves, or worse, "feel no pain", re-rolls were rare, Marines didn't have two wounds, you had to be tactical with your shooting because you couldn't split fire, vehicles were just big creatures with wounds and you could flank them to kill them and where the game rules were succinct and have nonsense like "strategems" and "detachments" that completely changed the way an army played by giving them extra special rules, instead of just being a thematic list made by picking specific units more than others. 20 years ago if you told someone you houseruled your ork army to have EVERY MODEL WITH A 5+ INVULN you'd get laughed out of the store/club. Now it's just metachasing netlisters having to memorise the way 5 different special rules interact with each other, everyone getting re-rolls from auras from primarchs and trying to pile onto shitty looking "objectives markers" on crappy battlemats filled with generic L shaped ruins as the only terrain.

[@henryktzschoppe7995]

You ever played Advanced Squad Leader? For me one of the best wargames ever

[@josephercanbrack8393]

For the same reason people don’t like to GM: We all have busy lives, few people share our hobbies, and that’s a lot of work for little time

[@magimon91834]

I played a 6 month long, 2v2, Middle Earth campaign with a DM and it was the best wargaming experience I have ever had

[@davidcashin1894]

I think the lean towards tournament gamers, by the companies, is because they buy lots of armies either for variety or chasing the newest armies and rules changes. $$$

[@stonehorsegaming]

Great points. I think a 2 player game can solve a few of the issues you mention without a referee. •hex based boards/abandon the tape measure. •pre determined forces. •asymmetrical missions that are hidden. •deck of random events that happen when certain things happen.

[@jamesstricklerii5384]

I agree with you in so far as for non-competitive scenes. I am an old school RPG gamer, and the story and ways that battles could be won are always more interesting to me than the crunch of the game only. The only issue I see with this mentality is when it comes to competitive tournaments where there is a prize. Unfortunately, these tend to be better for the classic matchups of competitive games rather than full on campaigns, because there is a sunken cost bias involved. Players don't like to pay real world money to enter tournaments, to then be pitted in "unfair" scenarios.

[@TurpDotNet]

The lust for "balance" is why it feels this way. Plus you have the internet, where everything gets pulled apart, dissected and metas emerge. It influences people. I always go back to the introduction in the first DnD player handbook, these rules are a set of guidelines to help.

[@MatthewBreck]

The problem with wargaming is the price gouging all someone interested has to do to be turned off is look up the average cost of a warhammer army and they are out

[@ThePingasMightier]

Competitive games can do a lot more with the same amount of content than narrative games. The more onus there is on players to come up with their own fun, the more more work they have to do to play a game that already asked them for hours, days, weeks of work between studying rulesets and painting minis. One of the things that sunk Heavy Gear Blitz for me (other than a dev team from hell that lost its actually-competent members a few months ago) was that it was neither competitively balanced, nor did it have any pre-existing "narrative play" content whatsoever. As for referees...I love it, and I think it would be great, but...the referee isn't having the same kind of fun that the other two wargamers are having, especially not if they aren't (eg) playing the game as those auxiliary forces that you mentioned. This further complicates group-making. We can't forget that there are (deservedly) professional GMs out there - it's *a lot* of work that isn't the same kind of experience as playing the game as a player.

[@Andrewlik]

How does Battletech and it's Chaos Campaign format fit into this?

[@thejuiceking2219]

i think something that could help is the use of random elements, especially at the start like you roll a die, look at a table and it's something like 'oh no! there's an earthquake! all the terrain is now difficult terrain!' or something like that

[@czrall]

You gave me a great idea. SOLO/COOP RPG form of content creation could be an amazing tool for narrative play in wargaming! Gonna explore that in my next project. ;D

[@Bluecho4]

I think one reason the competitive scene dominates discussions is because they have the most to talk about. Which, due to how algorithms work, means casual players or fans inevitably gravitate towards them. They're constantly monitoring and reporting on points changes, new models, new rules, discount deals, etc. There's always something for them to talk about. And thus, simply by volume, it draws people in. Creating a feedback loop where people think about their wargames the way the competitive scene thinks about them, in turn perpetuating that mindset among other new fans.

[@alexloudenslager4224]

This is such a great video, I've been considering developing a wargame that plays more like an rpg scenario with a Game Master. I'm glad I'm not the only one who has thought about this.