One of the biggest problems any wargame designer faces is determining how complex to make their game. Is simulation fidelity more important than playability? I would argue it’s a fine balance that’s not always an easy choice to make and can even be subject to the market forces of the day (e.g., the “monster game craze” of the 1970s and 1980s).
Conversely, it’s actually quite easy to design a complicated game. Just keep piling on rules until, well, you have an unplayable mess people will buy, and then wonder why they did (my guilty pleasure there was SPI’s Next War.) This article is, in some ways, an outgrowth of a phone conversation I just had with someone in the industry. Someone I won’t name mainly because it’s not my place to. He’s a game designer of note and not a little bit of skill who’s had a number of his games re-released recently.
He and I spoke about complexity and what the market needs. I argued that what the market, and most especially, wargamers like me need, is more elegantly designed games of moderate complexity about 20th Century mechanized battles, like France ’40 or Barbarossa? Jokes about “Oh God, not another Eastern Front game!” aside, he saw my point, as he’s designed two modern games. Both are elegant, fast-moving games with a real sense of realism. But one is more complex than the other. Naturally, I like both designs and see a place for them, but I see a real place for the simpler one.
I personally feel in many cases that we’ve fallen in love with our own creations, and though we’re in another “golden age” of board wargaming, I worry we may fall into the trap that ended the last one. We make the games too complicated to play. But that said, can we dumb them down too much? The answer is an emphatic yes.
To paraphrase the designer, “I’m trying to construct a maze for the players, and I want them to discover that maze as they play and have multiple solutions to the problems they face during play.” What he meant, and what I agree with, is that balance, complexity, fidelity to what’s being simulated, and playability are a square, and I tend towards playability and fidelity, which are really hard to get right. Playtesting is a big part of this process. As my friend put it, “It’s not a game system till you have playtested it.” If anything, I don’t think my original article did a good enough job stressing that. So, I am going to say it here: Playtest it!
Now, why am I wary of complexity? Well, it’s often been my own LD playing games, and in some cases, meeting some folks who used some of that complexity in some rather negative ways. One that stands out to me was when someone who had been rather nasty to me at a gaming club once taught me to play Advanced Squad Leader (ASL). I was shocked and astounded as to this turn of fortune. It turns out there was a side bet that this guy thought himself so good a teacher of ASL, that he could even teach me. He “won” his bet, sadly, and I found out from a friend who was pretty pissed off about the whole thing (Advice: Don’t do this, kids, it’s mean and being a poor ambassador for the hobby.)
But complexity for its own sake isn’t bad if, like everything else in the game designer’s toolbag, it’s used elegantly. Elegance in game design is our goal. I am a fledgling game designer with two scenario books to my credit, and I’m working on my first set of rules. Do I think myself the next Frank Chadwick or Joe Blakowski? Nope. I’ll be happy if I am fondly remembered at the Historicon bar!
But elegance in design is all about using the four elements: balance, complexity, fidelity to what’s being simulated, and playability. Designers have to use these tools to make the thing work, and skimping on any of them is going to make a game nobody’s going to want to play. Look at A House Divided. The rules are dirt simple. But the situations the game presents? Not so. I played a friend’s copy a number of times and enjoyed the hell out of it (and this at the height of my own prejudices about area movement!)
Complexity, for its own sake, is to be avoided. Complexity to provide a challenge to the player is not to be avoided, and a good designer is someone who can tell the difference.
At Epoch XP, we specialize in creating compelling narratives and provide research to give your game the kind of details that engage your players and create a resonant world they want to spend time in. If you are interested in learning more about our gaming research services, you can browse Epoch XP’s service on our parent site, SJR Research.
(This article is credited to Jason Weiser. Jason is a long-time wargamer with published works in the Journal of the Society of Twentieth Century Wargamers; Miniature Wargames Magazine; and Wargames, Strategy, and Soldier.)