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Michael: VICE has published some good stuff and not so good stuff, but Zacny himself is an established and respected game commentator, and his piece ought to be judged on its merits, not on where it appeared.
The issue of attitudes within the hobby isn’t just discussed at VICE, moreover–it is discussed all over the place, especially in professional contexts. I’ve known it to be raised in multiple defence ministries, multiple professional wargaming conferences (in multiple countries), among wargame designers, etc.
Moreover, almost all of those who express concerns over this are hobby wargamers themselves. Heck, even the comments above include Brian Train, one of the most influential contemporary wargame designers around. They’re not outsiders, any more than Zacny is an outsider.
It may be possible for someone to write a completely accurate article about wartime Nazi Germany and manage to capture all its nuances, and do it in just a few paragraphs. But any author that manages the feat will not be working for VICE. Rex, you’re being disingenuous about the reaction on Facebook – though honestly, it’s hard to understand why you would report on it at all. If a scholarly journal or even a hobby magazine had been doing serious reporting on the VICE article, one might take that seriously. But to report that VICE managed to inflame passions on the internet – sorry, that’s a bit like telling us the sky is blue. You seem unfamiliar with VICE’s mandate – they make money on a crusade of exposing anyone they think is an “extremist”, and if they can’t find any, well, it’s easy to paint anyone whose hobbies lie outside the mainstream (wargamers, reenactors, sport shooters, etc.) as just that.
The previous commenter, Krenn (one wonders if the one is of the line Rustazh) offers interesting ideas, at least at the operational level of game. An equivalent at the tactical level could be: “Companies B and C have lost a platoon each because they were seconded to support the Einsatzgruppe operating in your sector. Remove one platoon from each company before play begins.”
What the Times article describes isn’t the only instance (set of instances?) of things that (a) should probably be thought about more in wargames, and (b) are hard to think about because of where they lead. Start with the general premise: Here we sit, in our HQ or command post or the cupola of our command tank or whatever, making decisions that are going to lead directly to the deaths and maiming of young men under our command.
This was driven home for me years ago, in a really well-designed miniatures scenario set in 1944 in which my German infantry battalion was tasked with defending the firing ramp for the Karl mortar (which was supposed to waddle up the ramp and lob some shells in the general direction of Antwerp). The frontage I had to hold was really more than my rather-the-worse-for-wear battalion could cover, and I had too few anti-armor assets to deal effectively with the quantity of Allied armor coming my way.
About halfway through the game, as my casualties began to mount, I started thinking to myself, “I am responsible for these German boys being ground to paste and pink fog for the benefit of some ***holes in Berlin who want to satisfy their scientific curiosity about whether Karl is good for anything.” Toward the end I had just about talked myself into saying to hell with it, pulling my battalion out of the line, and home to Germany, but in the end I decided I owed it to the other battalions holding the line to stay and fight on. Our club’s “refgod” (gamemaster — we take turns putting on games) outdid himself that day. It was a profound experience, and I hated every minute of it at the time.
Another example is found in the older Avalon Hill generation of games. The rules typically required that all adjacent enemy formations/units be attacked, so players would have one defending unit attacked at something like 1:6 odds in order to get better odds against the defending units where the main effort was to take place. It had a name: “soaking off.” Okay, I understand blocking forces and spoiling attacks, but the whole thing smacks rather of Task Force Smith to me. Going in against odds may be necessary, but I always want those under my command to have some kind of chance to come out the other side in one piece. I had already started thinking about this a few years ago (better late than never), but the enlistment (US Army) of my own older son last year plus a visit to the Great War memorial in Edinburgh Castle got me thinking a lot harder about these issues. I started working on an article — haven’t had time to get very far — for the club newsletter, said article to be titled “You Will All Be So Kind As to Lay Down Your Lives,” about the morality of the soak-off attack.
It’s hard to handwave past it once you start thinking about it — you (the editorial you) are doing your best in service of what might well be a very poor cause (the Confederacy, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, pick any side in the Great War you care to), and even if your heart is pure and your cause just, a lot of other (metaphorical) people are going to foot the ultimate bill for you.
Maybe some sort of atrocity card deck, drawn from at the beginning of each turn? one deck per side, but strongly based on historical precedent, so the historically more atrocious side generally gets more atrocious cards?
Things like “Orders from high command direct you to devote 1 brigade to massacring civilians. -1 victory point if you disobey, -1 supply if you obey, and obedience requires at least one brigade to spend one turn in a city hex, taking no other in-game action”
It’s ironic, the wargames group is kicking people out of the group just for sharing this story
What a bunch of children
Well said, Rex.
And not for the first, nor the last time….