Saturday 15 October 2016

More Spiritual Wargaming

There is usually a range of opinion regarding some of the posts I make to this blog, and last week one on ‘The Spirituality of Wargaming’ is no exception. As you have probably already noticed, the term ‘spirituality’ was intentionally left vague. Any attempt to nail it down runs the risk of becoming like those sociologists of religion who try to understand what people mean when they say they are ‘spiritual but not religious’. To be honest, that expression reminds me of a Not the Nine O’clock News sketch called, I think ‘The Agnostic’s Creed’, which began ‘I believe in God, or at least it stands to reason that there is something out there, doesn’t it; did you see that program on BBC2?’ I dare say someone can dig up a YouTube clip of it….

Anyway, I chose the term ‘spiritual’ to differentiate some parts of wargaming, those which go on in our heads, from the material components of wargaming, the soldiers, terrain and so on. One of the things that does go on in our heads is the narrative component of the game. Someone on The Miniatures Page commented that the last post was a long winded way of saying that we liked the narrative part of the game. That would, I think, be true (I’ve never made claims to brevity, here) but I do not think it is the whole story.

Another comment was to the end of someone plonking badly painted figures on the table and attempting to use all the rule tricks in the book to win the game. There is nothing, I suppose, intrinsically wrong with that, but it is not really helping anyone else whose interest might be in the narrative flow, the imaginative parts of the game. We could describe our figure plonker (for want of a better expression) as a wargaming materialist, in the sense that the other aspects of the wargame mean less to them. That is not to say, I suppose, that winning is a material aspect of the game, but that the material parts, such as just using the figures as counters, count for more.

This is, I think, where it starts to be shown that even the material aspects of the game have a spiritual expression. The Estimable Mrs P used to tease me massively about the advent of ‘Grey Armies’, those unpainted figures that you just wanted (at least, in the first flush of youth) to get onto the table and have a game with. Maybe it was an expression of enthusiasm, or youthful callowness, but now, as a solo wargamer, I still shudder a bit to recall that I did use unpainted figures. It is not something I would consider doing now.

The point, at which I am slowly and long windedly aiming, is that the material components of the wargame can also have a spiritual dimension. In the book about the Spirituality of wine, which started this whole idea, the author comments that there are few pleasures in the world better than slowly sipping a glass of well-crafted wine in good company, and preferably with good food as well. In terms of human social activity, she is probably right.
In terms of wargaming activity, what is the equivalent? I think, and I am becoming more convinced of it as I get older, that a wargame with nicely painted figures on nicely made and laid out terrain, with a good reason for having a wargame (a scenario or as part of a campaign) is probably as good as wargaming gets. The rest is down to the company. Using half- or un-painted figures detracts from that. Having a game just because you want a game also detracts from it. It is not that such a sort of game is a bad thing, but that it is not the best. In the same way that industrial-technology wine turned out by the million bottles is better than no wine at all, any wargame is better than none, but should we not, as wargamers, be aiming for the best games that we can have, the best overall experience?

Most wargamers, I think, would agree. The quantity of effort that goes into, say, demonstration games at shows is remarkable. The figure painting, terrain making and so on are true creations of a craft form which, in many other walks of life, is being squeezed out. And, perhaps, there, in that last sentence, it the key to the pleasures of wargaming, and also, maybe, to the paradox of the hobby.

If nothing else, wargaming, as I have described it, is creative. We create our soldiers, our units, our armies. Even though many of us buy toy soldiers, their painting and basing is our creation. The terrain too is ours. The Estimable Mrs P looked in on a Fuzigore game once, there the Romans were being ambushed, and noted that the terrain was creative, the game narrative was so as well. As a hobby, wargaming can release our creative expression, even if the rest of life consists in sitting in front of computer screens.

The paradox this reveals, of course, is that warfare is anything but creative. Wars, at least as they have been practiced in the twentieth century, are the ultimate in the capacity of the human race for destruction. Even before the unleashing of the destructive powers of the military-industrial complex, wars could be seriously destructive. You only have to read Geoffrey Parker’s Global Crisis to realise that.

And yet some part of humanity can work with that destructiveness and turn it into something creative. Even a Second World War Russian front game can have an aesthetic creativity to it. It is most emphatically not my thing, but I can accept that, to those interested, the wargaming activity can be a thing of aesthetic pleasure. Perhaps it is just that there is nothing so awful that humanity cannot redeem it a little bit. I am not sure. But I can see it happening.


So I shall leave this one on this note of paradox. Creativity in chaos; a wargame full of craft and aesthetic delight from a field of destruction. What will we think of next?

17 comments:

  1. And now I understand better your notion of spirituality. Yes, the creative process, the narrative, the company can all contribute to a game that is greater than the sum of its parts. One might even call it art.

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    1. Glad I've arrived at some sort of clarity! Yes, the stuff that goes on in our heads is at least as important, if not more, than what happens on the table.

      And yes, we can call it an art, at which we can also say that painting etc could be a craft. But I've never much liked the Arts and Crafts movement. Too fussy.

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  2. I always felt that when you put on a game you are actually producing and directing a stage play with the gamers being both actors and audience. This means that the staging has to be great, the script has to be stimulating with a beginning, middle and end, and the director has to be able to choreograph the action to maximize the entertainment of the audience. I guess that's my spirituality.
    Dick Bryant
    No scenario survives first contact with a wargamer"

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    1. Heh, your last line reminds me of early D&D days. The game would begin "You are standing outside a dungeon. You have been offered XXgp to clear it out." The player's response would be "Right, we'll head off in the opposite direction and see what else we can find." :D

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    2. For me, it used to be:
      'You all meet in an inn'
      'I get drunk'.

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    3. I think that we have to emphasis the narrative function of a good game, whether we call it a film, novel or play. It does raise interesting questions of how we 'frame' the action - in a film there is always a window through which we observe as audience. Occasionally film makers play with this, characters addressing the audience directly and so on. But, I wonder, is there something similar in wargaming. Not exactly our model Napoleon addressing us about the positioning of the Imperial Guard, but how does the table frame the wargame? I'm not sure I know.

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    4. We were too young at that point to meet in an inn. :)

      Good question about the table framing the game. It quite literally frames the game in that most games see anything moving out of the frame as no longer existing for purposes of that game. It also frames it in terms of providing a window on a much wider area of operations, an issue that you have previously mentioned with WW2 gaming. The choice of frame defines the units that feature in the game and to a large extent shapes the narrative in doing so. However, the choice is not always completely free. Available table size and choice of game rules will affect what you choose. Thus there is a conscious process of framing going on. I'd not thought of it like that before. Interesting. I hope you will address this issue in more detail another time.

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    5. I think framing is an interesting thing; Gadamer says something about it in Truth and Method, applied to stage plays. Stuff happens off stage (sex, murder and so on) and is referred to by the actors.

      Of course, the actors give an extra level of complexity, playing a role. Probably our toys don't do that.

      I'll have a bit of a think, but it is complex, both conscious and unconscious.

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  3. I fundamentally agree that there can be what we might call a spiritual side to wargaming but it seems to me that it is not necessarily the same for all.

    You mention the aesthetic appeal of well painted miniatures and realistic terrain, but that is at least partially a learned appreciation. I have encountered people in the toy world, esp in the US with an appreciation for 60's Marx and other mono-coloured plastic toy soldier playsets who seek to reproduce that look and find it more appealing. Others get pleasure from staging wargames that look improvised, perhaps factory painted vikings taking cover behind books and coffee cups as they close in on an imagined saxon village. A far cry from the more conventional expectation of what a wargame shoul look like but still valid as a source of stimulation for the spirit and imagination and as a source of visual, tactile and spiritual pleasure for the participation.

    On a slightly different tack, it may be the pleasure of the company and the mental stimulation or challenge of the game that provides the spiritual element. A lot of the games that focus on the appearance of the game tend to lack in drama, excitement and mental challenge compared to more basic set ups designed for the play value and to be flexible. In this case the one may be a mediocre vintage in an exquisite goblet with polite conversation vs an intense, challenging debate with good freinds while enjoying an exquisite vintage in a cheap mug.

    Lastly, there is the sort of competitive game which is sport rather than spectacle. Is there not a spiritual side to chess? Like any sport, those who derive the greatest pleasure get it not from cheap victories but from testing them selves against the toughest competion and constantly striving to improve themselves. The better the opponent and the tougher the struggle, the greater the immersion of self with time and space being obliterated in the concentration and adrenelin and the appreciation of the cleverness and challenge of the opposition. Agony and ecstasy.

    I can't think that the hobby would be worth the time, money and effort if it did not reward this with some sorg of spiritual, sensual or intellectual satisfaction and I'm not sure those three can be completely disentangled.

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    1. I agree that there is every possible flavor of wargamer out there. For instance, counter to your theory about the "pleasure of the company..." there are a very large number of solo gamers out there. Some are so because of necessity but many have no interest in gaming against a live opponent ( see the vast increase in computer gaming against an AI)>
      Dick Bryant
      Charge! There are no lead widows

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    2. I suppose that we are looking at some sort of balance here, between aesthetics, strong narrative, company and the always elusive personal preference.

      Ross suggests, I think, that there can be a good wargame with coffee cups as terrain so long as the narrative is strong. The Mad Padre's example from last week was of a wargamer who had neither the interest in the aesthetic nor an interest in the narrative, but simply wanted to win by the shortest route.

      Solo gamers are not, I think (speaking as one) outside this structure. Perhaps the goal for many gamers is the wargame which accurately reflects what could have happened, gives a satisfying narrative and conclusion.

      In my experience, playing in a group does lead to discussion about whether what has just happened could have happened. In that sense, a wargame is like a film. you can rewind it and try out a different reality....

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  4. A tough crowd over at TMP. :)

    Perhaps the "Joy of Wargaming" is a slightly different way of looking at it. We all enjoy different aspects of the hobby.

    I find a sense of happiness and calm in creating the backgrounds for my armies, planning and buying the figures and then painting them.

    Sometimes the games at the end seem to be a bit of a chore. Which is the opposite of my youth when I would play the game first with unpainted figures.

    Anyway, thank you for an interesting blog and everyone for the comments and something to think about.

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  5. A tough crowd over at TMP. :)

    Perhaps the "Joy of Wargaming" is a slightly different way of looking at it. We all enjoy different aspects of the hobby.

    I find a sense of happiness and calm in creating the backgrounds for my armies, planning and buying the figures and then painting them.

    Sometimes the games at the end seem to be a bit of a chore. Which is the opposite of my youth when I would play the game first with unpainted figures.

    Anyway, thank you for an interesting blog and everyone for the comments and something to think about.

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    1. I confess that I paint (slowly) a lot more than I wargame, but painting is easier to set up and take down, plus I find it a good way to de-stress.

      Wargaming is perhaps too exciting for me, so I have to limit my number of games. Or, maybe, I have so few that I want them to be 'right', so spend time making bespoke terrain for them, and painting exactly the right troops for the encounter.

      But then again, as someone observed of me at work a bit ago, 'You may be odd'.

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  6. >painting exactly the right troops for the encounter.<
    I once new a gamer (many years ago and have lost track of him) that was so "anal" that he would not use British troops in Belgic shakos in a Penninsular Napoleonic game! Whereas I used Austrians as Spanish (they were in white uniforms , after all - close enough!>
    Dick Bryant

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    1. I'm not that bad, but I do like to have, say, enough German cavalry for the Rome vs Germans clash. So painting enough hoplites for assorted Greek vs Greek city clash too a while. About a year, I think. i paint slowly.

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    2. I can relate to your gamer, Dick. My Great Northern War collection is themed to 1710 and the Battle of Helsingborg. When I started preparing for Gadebusch, I had to paint some of the same regiments again, but in the uniforms (either worn out or new issue) that they had for Gadebusch in 1712. Fortunately, sanity and practicality won out when I remembered how much I dislike painting.

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