Simulating the World (Pt. 1)
My pathways to roleplaying games through wargaming and other tabletop adventures…
I might as well confess from the beginning that I did not grow up playing tabletop (pen and paper) roleplaying games. I was a war gamer from an early age. I played behind grand armies, rolling dice to decide the fate of entrenched enemies, and even my soldiers, for that matter. I came to roleplaying games at a critical juncture in my own life—a time when I was bored with wargames and needed some form of mental stimulation that went beyond what television and video games could offer me at the time. Roleplaying games, to me, signify a significant step in a process of self-exploration through games and gaming—a sort of natural progression from one gaming genre, such as wargames, to the next, roleplaying games.
Mage Knight
I roll the dice—they’re high numbers—what exactly, I can’t recall after nearly fifteen years. Probably a six and a five on the six-sided dice. All kill shot, I remember. I also remember the ugly orange carpet of the room and the dozen or so people crammed into the tiny spare room in my junior high school. My opponent’s face, a fuzzy, easily forgotten face, scowls at the loss of her Mage Knight miniature, her prized soldier on the battlefield. She removed the plastic warrior from the table, which is decorated with sand table terrain—i.e., stone masonry structures, such as fortified walls, square towers,m and sagging buildings with thatched rooves all of which are fashioned from painted soda box cardboard. I’m winning at a game that is, at its heart, very much like chess, although it’s different. In other words, it’s hard to say it tastes like chicken, when, in fact, it isn’t chicken, doesn’t even come close, in many respects. The endgame is the same as chess: Kill off your opponent’s pieces until s/he capitulates. It’s a game my pubescent self prefers over chess because of the options available to one playing the game. No more strict movements on an undecorated board. The pawns of war move in ways that chess pieces only dream of, duking it out over neatly modeled sand table terrain. Dice rolls act as the great equalizer, as much as a good strategy. (And good strategy doesn’t hurt either.) Chess, after playing Mage Knight, feels anachronistic and tastes bland.
There’s a catch to playing Mage Knight: I have to keep it secret because it is one of those things forbidden in my household. It’s far too similar to a game called Dungeons & Dragons in my father’s eyes. When he finds out that I want to play this game with my friends, and on a Sunday of all days, he flips out. My old man decides the best punishment is to force me to read aloud Bible passages. He thinks, hopes, that this activity will purge, scrub away with an intellectual version of a wire brush, any interests I have in such games. My father hands me an old Bible and says, “Here, read this. Make sure I can hear you reading this from in the living room.” I ask him why. He says, “Because I told you to. Now read!” My father truly believes the rumors and theories surrounding the connections between devil worship and suicide among those who play games like Dungeons & Dragons. This is strange to me. My father doesn’t treat my younger brother in the same way. He can play with his friends on a Sunday, and so can my sister. Instead of playing with my friends, instead of playing a harmless game of Mage Knight, I read from Judges, and the fantastical stories from this part of the Bible only serve to kindle my interest in playing out such stories in game form. I can almost imagine reenacting the battles with my miniatures, bought with earned and stolen quarters, all in the name of G-d.
Wargames
Military modeling and simulation is the technical term for what hobbyists call war gaming. M&S, as it is more commonly known, has been around for millennia. Human beings, from ancient Egyptian pharaohs to Mesopotamian kings to Prussian military officers have all tried to simulate combat without the risk associated with actual warfare. The answer to this dilemma of simulating a part of the real world was not what we would call LARP-ing—live-action roleplaying—, complete with mock swords and shields and cheesy acting to boot. Instead, ancient and modern civilizations alike developed board games using intricate and not-so-intricate playing pieces, along with wooden, clay, or stone boards. What started as a training tool for the ruling and military elite soon became a pastime of those who had little interest or knowledge in the affairs of war and peace.
Wargames are a permanent staple of modern-day gaming hobbies. Popular wargames fill the shelves of big box stores and hobby and specialist shops alike. Entire conventions are dedicated to the wargaming hobby in the civilian world. Names like Avalon Hill, Games Workshop, and Fantasy Flight Games (FFG), conjure up images of miniature warriors duking out over sand table real estate. Players rely on dice and pre-established statistics to determine the odds of combat and movement on the board. In some cases, wargames are quite elaborate, with miniatures, realistic, war-torn landscapes, and complex formulas as part of the overall gaming experience. However, other wargames are quite simple, with said games being fashioned from inexpensive cardboard cardstock or plastic tokens. Nevertheless, whether it is elaborate wargames or cheap cardboard ones, many civilians know war gaming simply as a hobby they love and spend countless hours on. Few know about the origins of war gaming, the grandfather of roleplaying games, especially when it comes to its political and military origins.
Wargames have been around for as long as human beings have fought wars against one another. Such games offer players a chance to experience combat against an opponent without the risks associated with real war. Wargames, like chess and Go, have become permanent fixtures of the civilian world, as ultimate games of strategy, patience, and mental endurance. Entire libraries have been written on games like chess. However, the war game as we know it is a relatively modern invention. The wargaming hobby is in debt to the likes of Prussian military strategists, who first developed and used the game Kriegsspiel (i.e., literally “war game”) to train military officers in strategy and tactics. This pedagogical method is pregnant with possibilities and problems. Officers, and even the political elite, are better able to get a grasp of combat, which is fraught with unknowns, unknowns that must be anticipated by the commander in question. These same games, however, can create a sort of myopia within those who play them, allowing the officers in question to believe they are best prepared for the situation at hand, when, in fact, they haven’t.
Jackson Kicked My Ass
I’m at my friend’s, Jackson’s, house, an old riverfront Victorian. Jackson is this tall, lanky character, with combed hair, a goofy smile, and the mouth of a sailor on shore leave. We’ve brought together a collection of Warhammer 40K miniatures my grandmother, on my father’s side, bought for me, along with some old hardbound books, clean coffee mugs, and a handful of six-sided dice. The books and cups serve as ad hoc terrain, the best we can come up with, considering the circumstances. Cups serve as towering mountains, and the books are grand mesas, tableland on some alien desert world. The books and cups are organized in such a way that the middle of the table is the narrowest point, with the top and bottom ends widening out enough to allow for our troops to be placed in their start positions. I play a small squad of Space Marines. Jackson plays a squad of Tyranids, an alien insectoid-like race. We’re using our own rules this time because I’ve forgotten the rulebook at home, which is hidden from my father’s prying eyes. I position my Space Marines in a firing line, just before the narrowest point on the table, getting ready for Jackson’s insectoid swarm. Once it’s his turn, he unleashes his horde, charging toward my Space Marines. Both sides are equally matched, considering. It’s my turn again. I roll to fire on the Tyranids, killing three off the bat. Jackson curses under his breath. It’s his turn again. His alien horde attacks my Space Marine line, full force. He rolls and kills two of my Space Marines. It’s my turn again. I find that my Space Marines are in an optimal position. Jackson’s troops are being bottlenecked by the terrain and my soldiers are ready to take them on. I decide to roll an attack against Jackson’s troops. I roll low, really low. So low, it is laughable now that I think about it, some fifteen years later. Jackson laughs. It’s one of those laughs that sounds like monkeys fighting one another over forage. He knows his troops are safe, for now. It’s his turn. He rolls for attack, and he manages to kill four of my courageous Space Marines. I wince as this takes place. Jackson feels victory coming.
“You ready to surrender, bitch?”
“Fuck you, man,” I retort.
“You kno’ I’m gonna fuckin’ win, bro. Just admit it.”
“Fuck off, Jackson.”
It’s my turn. I roll. Again, the numbers aren’t in my favor. I don’t manage to kill or wound any of Jackson’s horde, which appears to be more ferocious than it did a few minutes ago.
I move my Space Marines back some, giving myself breathing room. Jackson moves closer. I roll for an attack, and I only manage to kill one of his hordes. I feel the sweat dripping off my brow, my hands are shaky, and my heart rate is through the roof. I can’t let this cocky fucker win, I think to myself. Jackson moves in for the kill. He manages to finish off the remainder of my Space Marine squad. In my mind, I can hear the shrill screams of grown men being torn apart by an alien horde. They cry out for their God-like emperor to save them, but their cries fall on deaf ears.
Jackson’s smiling at the end, all of his front teeth, pearly whites even in the dim light, are showing. He reaches over to shake my hand. I take it.
“No hard feelin’s, bro?”
“Sure, no hard feelings.”
“Another round, dude?” Jackson asks.
I nod, and we begin setting up our soldiers on opposite ends of the table for another battle.
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