Pointless Views: Don’t Need No Dang Imagination?
January 24, 2020 by crew
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Until we get a machine that can deduce the existence of Taxation and rice pudding, I don’t think we have real AI.
Why’s the table so wobbly? Hasn’t one of you got access to a screwdriver? 😉
It will take at least 20 men!
Good God, I just drove back to Sydney whilst listening to the podcast and I don’t think I’ve ever heard “Acre” mentioned so many times in an hour before in my life. It’s a city that was sieged many times (several times during the crusades) and each time its largely the same result. The siege of Damascus is far more interesting. If the Crusaders had won the 2nd crusade would have continued. In regards to the topic, if historical gaming isn’t about imagination then what is it? Even if you are re-fighting a historic battle you are trying to “What… Read more »
And I suppose this line right here “the siege of Damascus is far more interesting” cuts straight to the heart of the conversation. Regardless of how much time and effort I have been putting into finding a cool battle to base my project around (and I’ll admit its not a lot but probably a little more than I can really afford to spare), it will pretty much always feel like an old nag in a horse race (not that I’m competing but I’s struggling to find another analogy) Now we go back a good long way so I know where… Read more »
One thing I don’t think you covered in the vid about imagi-nations is a sense of ownership of that imagi-nation. And whilst I think about it, the creativity of coming up with the background, however deep you want to go. I’m getting more onboard with the notion of gaming telling stories, and even creating them, depending on how much of one’s self is thrown at a game… If one is to create characters for all of one’s commanding officers, there might come a point in a game where the commander of a unit would, given their character, declare a charge,… Read more »
Very true, well make sure that goes into next weeks show about the positives of imagi nations 🙂
I guess may advice or response would be “Why Acre?” If you like the crusades and you fear historical gamers knowing more than you then why isn’t it just a “ A siege set in the crusades? Think about FoW or BA. Are every battle there historical re-fought battles OR are they battles set in that WWII setting. I once fought Chinese communist troops with my early war Germans. It never happened in history but we made the story that my Germans were left over trainers of the Nationalist Chinese Army. Ask Gerry would he have been happy to add… Read more »
Sorry mate I’m being really dense here but I dont understand what point you are making?
The point is a historical battle is a refight where the forces, terrain etc are set and at least one of the sides is trying to change history.
The rest is fiction. I think most of us prefer fiction because it’s not a accurate refight and we can do as we like in a historical setting.
If you like historical refights then the historical knowledge and accuracy are necessary. You are trying to replay or change history.
If you like a setting then you don’t need in depth knowledge, what you need is an interesting scenario and players.
“If you like historical refights then the historical knowledge and accuracy are necessary”
And who decides when that requirement is met.
For example what specifically was wrong with my description and potential interpretation of Acre 1191?
I don’t think I said there was a problem did I? I said I thought the siege of Damascus was a more interesting siege because it was historically pivotal to the 2nd crusade.
Sorry mate I interpreted this… “Ask Gerry would he have been happy to add Gatling guns to Rorkes Drift? Zulu cavalry? I doubt it. In short if you are doing one of the sieges of acre, shape the game around the facts, character’s, troops, starting positions and changes (such as relieving forces) for the scenario, because if you don’t it’s not one of the sieges of Acre. If it’s a siege that you’re setting during one of the crusades, then you can do as you like!” That i had got it wrong and was sticking the equivalent of a gatling… Read more »
But Acre is very exciting and Damascus is very boring. This is a wargame you know not a case study. Plus Damascus ruined the Crusades because of “off table” political infighting not a crushing loss in battle. Acre has Siege Towers, War Machines, fighting in the Fortifications and outside of them. At Damascus they did some basic fighting then settled in for a siege then just went home all in a few days. Not exactly the same level of excitement of flaming siege towers and actually taking a position. In the reverse Albuera (Napoleonic Spain) would be a lot of… Read more »
@horus500 that’s what @warzan is going to do. He is going to base his games around Acre with the Siege Towers and the other related events. For One you can’t “Wargame” a Siege in the way we wargame. Sieges go on forever what we can wargame is the “Escalation” part of the siege and we can add some pre-game decision making to that to make it more fun. So long as everything either happened or is reasonably likely to have happened then it is still Acre. Right but Warren isn’t trying to play a points match here he’s trying to… Read more »
the British don’t need any help at the Drift, I may give one to the Zulus next time though 😉
I think both myself and Elessar made the point during the show that Imagi-Nations are very different, and that Warren’s Siege of Acre is just a historical game but in the gaps.
I think the definition of Imagi-Nations blurred a few times beyond why the phrase was coined.
@avernos to be ‘historically accurate’ dont you need the Zulus to have an Elephant with a very worried look , a big spear in its trunk and a Zulu be behind with two bricks?
Napoleon Blownapart?
FFS LOL
I see the appeal of historicals; and there are plenty of people out there who will jump all over your ideas for a “historical” game because it’s historically inaccurate, you just need to decide “does it matter?” A little while back, I was creating a Wild West tabletop game. I didn’t really know much, but I quite liked the Young Guns movies in my youth (not so much as an older viewer) and I thought the Fistful/Dollars “trilogy” were amazing (again, as an older man watching The Good The Bad And The Ugly, I was less impressed by two hours… Read more »
Have you seen the post on the internet about betelguse may have been eating up a neighbour star @warzan ???
I read what Ryan puts in the descriptions – Swans are evil, they win!
tee hee hee 😀
I think Joe would be quackers to put himself in that situation…
You never see anybody playing many table’s of WWII Japan v Russia as they were blood baths in real life.
A thought provoking episode. Regarding historical games – imagined or not – the only thing I would get annoyed about is someone claiming something is historically accurate when it blatantly isn’t. There is also too much snobbery surrounding historical games – people criticise KoW historical saying it isn’t the way battles were fought… no shit Sherlock, it isn’t meant to be a simulation, it is a set of rules that easily allows you to play games with historical armies. Do I really want to play a naval simulation or do I want to play Black Seas… one is going to… Read more »
If I remember right Featherstone came up with Imaginations as he loved the Lace Wars period (early horse and musket) so he could have British line, Austrian Grenadiers, French Hussars all in the same army.
A Great show guy’s loved the interaction with the guest’s @elessar2590 and @laughingboy certainly got more fire into the talks.
I read a book written in 12century I believe, could be wrong by Geoffrey of Monmouth entitled The History of the Kings of Britain. In that book he suggested that they were descended from Trojans who fled the fall of Troy. So this got me thinking about a campaign of Greeks/Trojans conquering Britain. I knew that Cornwall at that time was trading tin into the Med. So I decided that they’d logically land in Cornwall. I created a Greek/Celtic state set in Cornwall for the purpose of the campaign. I wrote all this up and can be found here in… Read more »
To me imagin nations is all about the campaign. Most wargamers especially in the ancient period have done battles that would never have happened for decades and for most periods as well but… Imaginations is all about a small tweak of history and creating a logical and believable campaign based on a what if. AVBCW is a prime example Edward VII doesn’t abdicate and you run with it . When Grant or Young wrote the definitive imaginations it was based on 7YW and the players created there own uniform colours the army OOB even the history and economy of the… Read more »
On coming to things from the movies, is it the Perry range that has the choice of the movie Rourkes Drift characters and the actual characters? It may be Empress.
Empress is the movie set, although they do the historical version as well
I have both, if you’re going to match to plastics though, Perrys are huge compared to the Warlord plastics which were made to match the Empress range. Bear that in mind
I knew someone did it. I have a box of Perry British and (I think) some Zulus too so I’m stuck with those. I say stuck, they have a great range.
@warzan interesting pointless views , perhaps the most enlightening thing about the topic isn’t so much is imagination in games required , more the fact that we feel we have to do it. We could just get too forces and bash them together as Justin says for fun, but most of us both fantasy, sci fi and history gemers etc feel we have to not so much justify what we are doing ( I gave that up ages ago, sod off I play with toy soldiers), but perhaps to make a little world for our little wee fighting men. Made… Read more »
A good person to interview about the benefit of Imagi-nations in the grand tradition of Don Featherstone would be Henry Hyde of https://battlegames.co.uk/
He has run several old-school Imagi-nations games and campaigns and is an excellent and very knowledgeable fellow,as well as a great raconteur!
@warzan essentially it’s what you want to do and can you convince, threaten, bribe someone to play. You will always upset someone, and everyone has different ideas on what’s right for them. Couple of examples – flags and banners, typically will come for xx battalion at Waterloo, and it’s the wrong flag to use for the peninsular, or you have flags for A B and C but they never were in the same brigade for example. Secondly why only look at battles of the period to game. I think it was in MW mag years ago someone did Waterloo but… Read more »
I like seeing and hearing things of history and I have an interest in it.
But like laughingboy, in my games I just want to do things that are fun and I enjoy and that my opponent enjoys even (and most of the times) aren’t historically correct. Because isn’t that the point of our hobby?
And everybody should play/hobby in the way they like without all the “critique” on others.
You can give some pointers or ideas but it isn’t necessary to break other people down for doing what they like.
Interesting discussion guys, I might chime in with my own thoughts here if I may,…… Imagi-nation, at least my understanding of it was as a training platform for military s to train to fight a proposed/imaginary enemy/threat (weapons & doctrine) without actually naming them, ie “The Musurin’s” were a common “enemy faction for training years ago when I was in the A-Res (Australian army reserves). Call it gaming the gaps, undocumented history/historical gaps, or whatever, wargaming (NOT war simulation) is the practice of the what-if scenarios with as many of as few variations that you want to use to play.… Read more »
While I can appreicate the fun of playing historically accurately, or replaying famous battles, I do have to wonder why some people can’t just enjoy the game without getting upset or needing excuses as to why my brisith force is fighting your british force, or why half my army is in winter gear while the rest have shorts on (although I’m sure collectively we all know enough people so we could field a real unit of shorts during a russian winter), etc. I understand there’s fun to be had playing thematically, but it is not the only fun. Don’t let… Read more »
Only 7.8 billion? I thought we were 9?