The heyday of my fascination, o.k. obsession, with playing these games was in the 70’s through the mid 1980’s. My first wargame, which I got for Christmas in 1973, was France 1940. The rest I bought myself over the next 12 to 13 years. My favorites and the ones that I tended to play a lot, were Third Reich, Victory in the Pacific, Squad Leader/Cross of Iron and War at Sea. That’s not to say I didn’t play the others but the majority of my gaming time was spend playing these 5 games. This time included not only playing the games but pouring over, interpreting and trying to properly apply the rules. This “golden age” of playing wargames on boards with cut out cardboard pieces predated the internet and personal computers (for the most part). There were no interactive forums to easily and quickly get your questions answered. If you had a rules question that had you completely baffled you had to hand write your question, mail it in with a self addressed stamped return envelope and wait, at best, for your answer to come in 3 or 4 weeks. This was also the time that you had to setup the game yourself hunting through the 100’s of counters for that 7-8 armor corps or the US heavy cruiser Chicago. Fortunately, both my patience and, more importantly, my eyesight were much more suited for that then than now.
After college and graduate school and at the beginning my work career in 1981 I found I had more money to support my hobby so I increased my collection of wargames and also took out a subscription to The General, which I keep until the late 1980’s. Flipping through my collection these magazines takes me back to a time where draft articles were handwritten and reviewed by editors before being sent for type and publication. Articles in The General, ran the gambit from rule clarifications/errata lists, strategies, tactics and opinions. Some of the articles on strategies and tactics came with tables and graphs that would have made a PhD in mathematics or statistics proud. Learning the rules, strategies and tactics of a game was like preparing for a college final. And in some cases it was so much so that during term I wouldn’t play my wargames because I was already overloaded with college work. Even after college I would skip playing these games because it felt like I was putting in overtime at work. Thank goodness for quality computer wargames, like those put out by Slitherine and Matrix, that removes the burden of physical setup, hours of reading through rules and hours of arguing over the correct interpretation of a given rule and whether or not your opponents move was legal. Now, thank goodness, the computer handles all this for me; but this is a necessary, but NOT sufficient, condition for me devoting my time to playing these games. The computer games that I play also must be balanced and historically realistic. This brings me to the subject of this article, which is, “What Type of Gamer are You?”
I was recently thumbing through one of my issues of The General (Volume 19, Number 6) reading articles on VITP and I ran across an article by Seth Owens, “A Historian’s Guide to Avalon Hill Wargames” that struck a cord. In it he gives a letter grade (A-F) to over 40 Avalon Hill titles from an “Historian’s” perspective. In the introduction to this article he references a book by Jon Freeman, “The Complete Book of Wargames”, in which seven labels (or categories) are defined by those who have an interest in wargames. They are:
1. The Historian. They value the realism and accuracy to historical fact the most and are also the most likely to use the term “simulation”.
2. The Military Enthusiast. They value the tactics, technology and regalia the most and tend to enjoy games on contemporary or futuristic wars. They also tend to prefer the term “simulation”.
3. The Assassin. Winning is the only thing!
4. The Competitor. A challenging and balance game is critical to keep this gamer’s interest.
5. The Hobbyist. A collector, analyzer and philosopher of the wargaming hobby.
6. The Gamer. They just like to play games (any games) and the social interaction that goes along with them.
7. The Specialist. Wargames are just one part of their interest in history.
So I thought it’d be fun to ask the community what type of gamer are you. Personally I see myself in 1, 2, 4 and 7; but if I had to pick one I would have to pick, "1, The Historian." Though, achieving some balance is important to me too. But if the choice was between a perfectly balance game (i.e., 50/50) with a C for historical accuracy and a slightly imbalanced game (say, 30/70) with an A for historical accuracy I would chose the later, which I guess puts me in category 1.
So, what type of gamer are you?
The rating scheme that Seth Owens applied in his article for historically accuracy was based on historical accuracy in four areas (Order of Battle, Map, Tactics and Strategy). My five favorite AH games were given the following grades: Third Reich – B, Victory in the Pacific - C, Squad Leader - B, Cross of Iron- B and War at Sea – F. That's a 2.20 GPA, which would have gotten me kicked out of Graduate School.
Any interest in deriving “community” letter grades of this sort for computer games?
