by RockyMountainNavy, 21 November 2024
A common refrain we hear in the hobby wargaming community is that it is a graying hobby with too many older players. The question is often asked, “How can we recruit new wargamers into the hobby?” As often as we hear that question the days, the reality is that the issue of recruiting new wargamers as been with the hobby as long as it has been around. In 1986, Fire & Movement magazine, then-edited by Rodger B. MacGowan, issued a special publication “Fire & Movement’s Staff Study Nr. 1” further titled, Beginners’ Guide to Strategy Gaming. Looking at this magazine offers not only a trip down memory lane but also lessons—and cautions—that contemporary hobby wargamers might also use to recruit a new generation of players.
The Beginners’ Guide to Strategy Gaming is broken down into ten sections each of which focuses on a particular question or topic of relevance to new gamers. Note my shift in wording from “wargamers” to simply “gamers.” Though wargamers were certainly a core audience for Fire & Movement, by no means did the editor or writers try to limit themselves to just that niche of the hobby. Let that be the first lesson gleaned from this Special Staff Study.
Carrying through on that strategy-over-wargaming attitude is admittedly uneven in the Beginners’ Guide. Though the Table of Contents list the preface title as “Welcome to Strategy Gaming” the actual preface is titled, “Welcome to Wargaming.” I see even the great Rodger B. MacGowan was not beyond the occasional need for some errata.
The preface to the Beginners’ Guide, though written in 1986, sounds like it could be used today with little to no updating necessary:
“Yes, the hobby has changed a bit in the twenty-five years since we got started. There are so many wargames on the market that it’s hard to know which one to buy. So many of them have thousands of counters and rulebooks that defy understanding (at least for a newcomer). How do you find one that will be understandable, playable, and hold some interest for you? Where can you find other gamers; experienced gamers who are more than wiling to help you through the Rites of Passage? How canyon find out what is going on in the hobby? And what the hell is a “CRT”? Well, these are just a few of the questions that we hope to answer here in this Special Study Nr. 1. Let us add quickly that we have tried to design this issue to be of interest to experienced gamers as well as the novice. An experienced gamer is always looking for new opponents, and anyone might be a wargamer in the rough; if only the right game could be found to convert the curious, intrigue the dubious, and interest the indifferent. If you have ever had a friend express an interest in wargaming and had nothing in your closet to offer but Atlantic Wall, then this guide is for you, too.” (BGtSG, p. 9)
Section I of the Beginners’ Guide is titled, “The Basics.” This section is actually three articles; “The Basics”, “An Introduction to ‘Gamespeak,’” and “Wargaming Symbols: The Graphics Approach to Military History.” The first two explore the lexicon of wargaming. Interestingly, the first term explored is “wargaming.” This is what “The Basics” has to say about the term:
“The term ‘wargaming’ can be very deceptive. Many people think that anyone involved with such a hobby must certainly be a warmonger. I suppose this is understandable, but it is not true. Most wargamers are pleasant, well-educated people. We enjoy our hobby for a variety of reasons. Most obvious, of course, is the love of military history. Then there is the fact games allow one to use his mental abilities to plan and execute strategies and tactics. Some gamers find it a great way to relax.
The game we play allow us, in a way, to become involved in the past. We place ourselves in the same situations that the great military leaders of the past were once in. That ‘past’ maybe anywhere from a few decades (with General Patton) to thousands of years (with Alexander the Great).”
Most important of all, we learn things. Our hobby gives us great satisfaction and we are proud of it.” (BGtSG, p. 10)
Intrigued by the “warmonger” reference in the Beginners’ Guide, I went in search of a source for that perception. I also was interested given my recent reading of Maurice Suckling’s book Paper Time Machines: Critical Game Design and Historical Board Games (Routledge, 2025) which talks, in a very negative manner, to the close involvement between the U.S. Department of Defense and commercial wargame designers and companies during the Vietnam War.
In the course of my search I came across a 1976 interview James F. Dunnigan gave to Roy Easton, Robert Livermore, Mark Saha, and…Rodger MacGowan. In an interview titled “Pearls Before Swine” that appears in Fire & Movement Nr. 2 (Jul-Aug, 1976), this exchange takes place:
“Rodger: In a recent Harpers magazine (April), I noticed that the article on wargaming referred to Origins I. The writer wrote something to the effect that as he was wandering around the tables, he noticed that there was hardly anyone there with short hair, and that most of the gamers had long hair. And he noted that when questioned, the gamers came off as ‘pacifists.’ Do you think a wargamer can be a pacifist? Do you think most of them are?
Jim: I think most of them aren’t exactly flag-wavers. Most gamers are a little more knowledgeable and realistic about war. Realistic in the sense that they haven’t got a bunch of half-baked ideas, they have firm ideas — they know what a division is, to a certain extent — more so than your average civilian. They can say they’re pacifist and be able to back it up more readily than other people who are not as familiar with the elements of war.
Rodger: When the Vietnam War was going on, SPI was growing and establishing itself. Was there an anti-war feeling at SPI?
Jim: Yes, from a military point of view, it was an awfully dumb thing. From a military point of view, from a political point of view, from a humanitarian point of view — it was just the wrong war, altho the wrong place, at the wrong time. Ho Chi Minh could have been on our side, if we hadn’t blown it in ’47 by backing the goddamn French, who’ve never done us any good turns in the last hundred years.” (BGtSG, p. 21)
Granted, this section of the Beginners’ Guide was written when the ‘state of the art’ of wargaming was mostly hex & counter with a CRT [Combat Results Table] but it is not exclusively so. Other wargames like Diplomacy or terms like “Area Movement” are called out. Oh yes, the graphics approach again presents the stat-of-the-art of the day which means the use of NATO symbology. As much as it is criticized today, it is easy to forget that graphic design in the olden days was not down with computers but often with pre-printed, stock materials. Do any military veterans of the time remember ChartPak?
The idea presented in the Beginners’ Guide that wargamers are not ‘warmongers’ deserves more attention in the current day. As contemporary accounts like Paper Time Machines show, it is easy to label the older generation in derogatory ways. The politics of modern wargamers is likely more complicated than those from the 1970’s and 1980’s; the degree of political awareness—with opinions across the entire political spectrum—should be viewed as a positive in the hobby; that is, as long as the entire spectrum of wargamers remains welcoming even of those with an opinion that differs.
The next section of the Beginners’ Guide is titled, “I Have Met the Enemy and He is Me: Notes on Solitaire Play” by Bruce Johnson. This advice column is as valid today as it was nearly 40 years ago. It is interesting to see that the “problem” of solitaire play is really nothing new. Likewise, the solutions (playing a solitaire game or playing both sides solitaire) are as old as the problem. Then again, perhaps this column is a reminder that solo play always has been an acceptable part of the hobby. Efforts to eradicate it are certainly welcome, but yet again we are reminded that forced solutions are not necessarily a fit for all members of our hobby then, or now.
The next section of the Beginner’s Guide moves away from strict wargaming with “A Guide to Multi-Player Grand Strategy Games.” As the introduction relates, “You’re entering a field of games simulations [emphasis in original] that has been used by world military and political agencies for years as a way to study the effects of proposed policies or military maneuvers on the future, and to investigate possible alternatives” (BGtSG, p. 16). The games mentioned are perhaps not what a strict wargamer might expect: Avalon Hill’s Machiavelli and Kingmaker along with Rise and Fall of the Third Reich, Games Research Diplomacy, Waddington’s 4000 A.D.(sci-fi, not historical), and even Milton Bradley’s Conquest of the Empire.
Of all these titles, I note that Suckling in Paper Time Machines only mentions Diplomacy as a “political military” wargame worthy of note in the time before We the People (Mark Herman, Avalon Hill, 1994) forever changed the hobby (at least, in Suckling’s view) by becoming the first real political-military game. It seems that G.L. Wright in 1986—eight years before We the People—held a different opinion that we might consider even today. A pull quote from this article stands out to me as an important observation we should consider: “One great thing about these simulations, however, is that you don’t need to know a lot about history, war, or politics to play them and win” (BGtSG, p. 18). A good ad-phrase for today, perhaps?
The mid-1980’s was also the time of the rise of the personal computer. Russel Sipe, Editor of Computer Gaming World magazine, contributed the next article, “A Novice Guide to Computer Wargaming” to this special Beginner’s Guide. The summary is worth quoting at length because, once again, it illustrates the precognition of the wargamers of that age:
“Computer wargaming has matured into a hobby and industry that equals and often exceeds, in unit sales, its counterparts in board wargaming. The advantages listed here have brought many traditional board wargamers into the world of computer wargaming (where they join a growing number of wargamers whom a computerized wargame was there first experience).
The disadvantages to computerized wargames as cited in this article are not of the nature that they could ever outweigh the advantages. They are itemized here, first, in the hope that you can recognize certain potential weaknesses and therefore adjust to them; and, secondly, to make you aware of the problems the designer’s must address in developing games.” (BGtSG, p. 23)
The next section of the Beginners’ Guide talks directly to the navy in my RockyMountainNavy heritage. “An Argument for Naval Supremacy” by Ron Jongling is by its own admission not just for the novice wargamer but for the experienced wargamer as well:
“This article is more for the person teaching the novice rather than the novice himself. After all, newcomers don’t pick their games, they want YOU to pick one you think they’ll like and teach it to them.” (BGtSG, p. 24)
The key according to Jongling is to find games, “of generally low complexity which make an ideal introduction to what the educated among us know is a superior form of recreation.” They also make a point that indirectly acknowledges (and then deflects) the “warmonger” image by writing, “Naval gaming also has the advantage of being ‘antiseptic.’ You don’t visualize burning bodies or blood and guts… just ships in graceful conflict” (BGtSG, p. 24). That certainly sounds like the World of Warships approach so maybe it is still applicable to the modern day.
The next section of the Beginners’ Guide, “Battle Report: Battle for Moscow” doubles down on using a low complexity game to introduce novices to the hobby of wargaming:
“If you are a novice and you picked up this issue without knowing a veteran wargamer, even the rules in a basic game like Battle for Moscow may be a bit hard to pick up. Sure, you read through them and they seem to make sense, but are you really interpreting everything right? Well, get out the game components, lay them out, sit down, and let’s play through a couple of turns, ok? We’ll just play both sides and work through the mechanics of the game.” (BGtSG, p. 25)
The modern counterpart to this Battle Report is a ‘How to Play’ video on the web. A common gripe I have with the video approach is that they ofter are nothing more than a performative version of the rulebook; the key to understanding any game is not just reading (or listening, or seeing) the rules but understanding, to grok the game concepts as expressed by those rules (but not in them). A guided tutorial, like this Battle Report, is in my opinion a better method of teaching one how to “play” a game, or more accurately how to “manipulate the model” in accordance with the rules. Then again, I am a grognard that actually reads rules, a learning approach I am constantly told is old fashioned. I eagerly await the AI overlords arrival that will jack the rules for a game directly into my cranium (not!).
The next four content pages of the Beginners’ Guide is the four-page rulebook for Battle for Moscow. Designed by Frank Chadwick for GDW, this game is used to this day as an introductory wargame. More than a few times I read the early section of the rules, “How to Learn the Game,” but never paid attention to it until now. This is a good time to review the lessons it teaches:
“How to Play the Game
If you have never played a wargame before, the ideal way to learn is to have an experienced player teach you.
If you don’t have an experienced player handy, just read the rules once through, paying particular attention to the examples, and start playing. Be sure to follow the sequence of play exactly (it’s given in How to Play below). Refer back to the rules whenever you have any questions.
Experienced Players: When teaching the game to a novice, you should play the Soviets; your opponent will have more fun attacking than defending. Reduce the Soviet replacements from five per turn to three. You might consider coaching your opponent a bit if he’s about to make a mistake that will cost him the game, but otherwise let him play his own game” (BGtSG, p. 32)
There are many lessons to unpack in these few words. First, find a veteran gamer to teach you. If one is not found, read the rules (apparently a novel idea in today’s world). Your first play will NOT be perfect; you are learning. For experienced players, it is more important to help the novice in early games than to compete.
“Principles of War for Wargamers” is the next section in the Beginners’ Guide. Of all the sections presented, this one is perhaps the most wargamer. The “The Basics” and “An Introduction to Gamespeak” much of the lexicon of wargame design, or the game mechanisms, were discussed. This “Principles of War” focuses on those principles and then challenges players to figure out how to use them in a wargame. For myself, the application of the principles of war is the raison d’etre of wargaming. For myself, I don’t play a wargame to optimize the application of a particular game mechanism to bring about a victory; I strive to apply the principles of war to achieve a victory. The modern historical board game design movement that touts the use of novel game mechanisms in some cases leads to the very Eurogames so many try to avoid becoming. In a wargame like Twilight Struggle victory comes from optimizing your game engine, not from applying force in accordance with the principles of war.
The penultimate section of the Beginners’ Guide is a “Wargame Library.” These seventeen pages (the single largest article in the entire magazine) provide capsule reviews of 25 different wargames covering period from Ancients up to Modern. There are actually more than 25 games mentioned as some reviews name adjacent titles. interestingly, not all the games listed are kinetic hex & counter wargames. Milton Bradley’s Conquest of the Empire (mentioned above) gets a shout out, as well as Avalon Hill’s Kingmaker and Conquistador. The decidedly non-traditional design of Ace of Aces from Nova Games is here, along with Games Research/Avalon Hill’s Diplomacy. Milton Bradley makes a return appearance on the list with Axis & Allies. Those six titles alone constitute nearly 25% of the list provided and clearly show that the hobby, even back in those days, was much more than just hex & counter with CRT as many modern critics want us to believe.
The final section of the Beginner’s Guide is titled, “Where Do I Go From Here?” and is part appeal and part community building. First, the appeal:
“But what good is all this information about games if you do not have someone to play against? Yes, the players! So far we are missing the people! The heart and soul of wargaming is interpersonal contact; playing against someone. It can be a social pastime or quite competitive; it can be just two people or a multi-player umpired game with six on a side; but the birth of wargaming was in its people. In the last few years, solo gaming has come into the spotlight with computer games and board games designed specifically for solitaire play. These are great games which have been a boon to the hobby, but they are not recommended as the only gaming experience for the novice gamer. You need an old pro show you around, let you browse though his collection, and show you how much more effective a 3:1 attack becomes when you have surrounded the enemy. What you need to progress the hobby is people.” (BGtSG, p. 58).
The community building in aspect comes from the friendly shout-out to all the other gaming magazines besides Fire & Movement that are part of the greater gaming hobby. Heck, even Dungeons & Dragons (a wargame, mind you) gets a shout out.
The ultimate lesson, however, in the Beginners’ Guide to Strategy Gaming is, “What you need to progress the hobby is people.” As far back as 1986 the grognards of wargaming made an attempt to share what they saw as the essential needs for growing the hobby. Today, we have fourty more years of hobby growth and experience to call upon. We have technology that has progressed far beyond what was barely (if at all) imagined in the mid-1980’s. We have many valuable lessons to build upon if we accept the goodness of the past. The grognards of the past were not perfect; I am sure some take exception to the constant use of the “him” in the Beginners’s Guide over more gender-neutral terms. Those issues certainly should be acknowledged but they can be improved upon, that is, if we keep an open mind towards being truly inclusive and diverse in our hobby rather than acting in divisive ways.
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