Wargamers and RPers

[Blue Ghost]

I've been to a number of boards dedicated to the sim-game market, and it seems to me that RPers seem to be an easier going crowd than the usual wargamer. I personally used to prefer that because I had, at the time, always seen the traditional wargamer as being more grounded than the RPer.

However, coming to this board over the last couple of years I've changed my opinion on that. It seems like the RPer, and I think specifically the Traveller and/or Sci-fi RPer, is a bit more knowledgeable and easy going than a lot of traditional wargamers.

But that's just my opinion. What do you all think?

 

[Michael Taylor]

I am a wargamer and a role player. I use command decision III for WWI, WWII and ocassional moderns games. I like the fact CD is written by Frank Chadwick who also wrote some CT stuff like mercenary and traders and gunboats. I have no problem going between the two mindsets. I've been wargaming as long as I've been playing traveller, and I don't seem to have any personality disorders that prevent me from getting on with people. Wargamers are anally retentive on the rules compared to trav players, but in the heat of battle that's the way it should be.

 

[plop101]

Blue Ghost writes:

However, coming to this board over the last couple of years I've changed my opinion on that. It seems like the RPer, and I think specifically the Traveller and/or Sci-fi RPer, is a bit more knowledgeable and easy going than a lot of traditional wargamers.

But that's just my opinion. What do you all think?

Concur in part. I would say Traveller players are more knowledgeable than wargamers AND RPers. For that matter, most other gamers.

 

[Blue Ghost]

Michael Taylor; that's interesting. A number of years back I used to do some fantasy system with a couple of brothers, one of their girlfriends, and another good friend of ours. The guy running the show wasn't a wargamer at all, but he was into the whole medieval fantasy thing, and so, probably without realizing it, was into the whole art of war as it existed in the middle ages. He was pretty strict with regards to how he ran the game, this despite his political leangings. However we the players were a fairly carefree lot, and had a blast hanging out with one another despite his rigidness.

Another guy I know memorized the Star Fleet Battles rulebooks, which is quite a feet, and despite some leangings towards RPing, he's mostly a wargamer, and runs a pretty strict game. He's definately in the wargamer catagory.

The group I'm with now is a mix, but you can tell who the die hard wargamers and RPers are, as I think has always been the case. The RPers seem to like to ease into the game, and actually enjoy the experience of the game itself. That verse the wargamers who, to me at least, seem to be all about winning and staying within the rules.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

I started out as a wargamer, getting into RPGs a couple of years later. I don't think that's unusual (RPGs grew out of wargames originally).

There is an important difference between the two: wargames (and boardgames) are all about winning, but with RPGs there *are* no winners and losers, so cooperation is important.

 

[jfwking]

Actualy a lot of it has to do with the people here rather than the role-player/wargamer aspect.
Traveller is a (somewhat)hard sci-fi rpg that is also a wargame within the rpg. It is a more mature game and interests a more mature player. As you have noticed from the people who post here they cover a more technicaly aware/experienced section of life.
I wargame and role-play in equal measure and mostly these days play systems that allow both within the same system, Traveller/Battletech/AD&D etc.
There have been some games and boards that I have given up on due to the poor attitude of the players, both rpg'ers and wargamers having flame wars and generaly childishly insulting or spaming anyone that doesn't agree with them.
To me the differance is not between RPG and wargame but the type of game and the type of players it attracts.
Traveller has, to my mind, always drawn a nicer group of players from both sides of the fence.

 

[Jame]

I wouldn't say all of us are experienced, or mature, but most of us are either both or one or the other.

I've always been more interested in RPing, but haven't had any success until recently (no real gamers in my area). But I do have a Munchkin side...

 

[Andrew Boulton]

I think there's a little Munchkin in all of us.

 

[eiladayn]

If there wasn't a little munchkin in all of us we probably wouldn't be playing pretend--oops excuse me, role playing, would we? I think RP if more imaginative, but like most here apparently I started out as a wargamer.

Pappy

 

[PBI]

I find it interesting that wargamers and wargames are derided as being only about winning. For the immature wargamer, maybe. But immarute RPGers are just as bad.

I started out a wargamer and came to RPGs through wargaming. I still do both. Playing wargames, for me, isn't about winning or losing, it's a social activity, much like RPing, but instead of player a character in an ongoing story, when I play wargames I'm either put in a historical situation and trying to do better than what actually occured, or I'm attempting to solve difficult strategic or tactical problems.

It is true that wargames are much more strict in terms of following the rules than RPGs are, but that's because a wargame is attempting to replicate historical conditions and/or offer players an imaginary setting in which current (or past) doctrines and tactics can be examined.

Wargames and RPGs are a bit like apples and oranges, both fruit, but that's about it. I've played with RPers who were worse than wargamers in terms of maturity and strict enforcement of rules and vice versa.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

But wargames *are* about winning. Yes, they're a good excuse to hang around with your mates for a few hours, but the objective of the game is to win (or at least not lose too badly).

 

[jfwking]

Hey I never said completely mature, just more mature than the average new gamers I tend to meet these days. Mentioning no names gamesworkshop12yearoldmuppets.
Anyhow theres nothing wrong with having a bit of munchkin, we would all be playing strict historic recreations if not.

 

[alanb]

As has been pointed out, RPGs emerged from wargaming.

Specifically, they came from a fusion of skirmish games and larger scale miniatures campaigns that featured characterisation of the leaders of the opposing sides. The latter allowed diplomacy, intrigue, and general chatter and nonsense between players.

This latter aspect was so much fun that it began to overshadow the competitive aspects.

It's not at all surprising that you get a crossover between the two styles of games.

I began as a wargamer. I still am one, as well as a roleplayer.

Actually, competitive RPGs are quite possible and fun. This is where you get two different sets of players biffing each other. It makes quite a nice change. It's also a bit difficult to run, since you really need them to be in separate rooms a lot of the time, in order to allow them to plan. You only want them in the same room in a tactical situation.

Obviously a PBEM wouldn't have this problem. It would still be a lot of work for a single GM.

Hmm...

 

[Michael Taylor]

I wargame with a bunch of older types (like me) as well as teenagers. The teenagers are all about winning, us "oldies" like the look of the table as our 1:76 scale models sweep into battle against infantry/Tiger tanks/low flying mustangs or typhoons etc etc etc.

Im introducing the group into traveller as the young youngs have never heard of it. The only problem is the only stuff available is over the net - there are no shops I know of in NZ that sell traveller stuff anymore (sob).

 

[Michael Taylor]

Our wargaming group loves historical recreations. On June 7 we are recreating the 116th RCT assaulting Omaha (that's the ENTIRE 116th RCT with the 743rd tank battalion and the USS Texas offshore for heavy support). We have recreated the actual terrain from styrofoam for an exact recreation.

Should be a bloodbath...

 

[Gaming Glen]

I found a few wargamers many years ago in Miami. They were avid wargamers and hated role-players. Their term for role-players was "trolls", and not the internet-writing type, either. I told them I play both types of games. They stopped using the term in my presense. I encountered them at Origins 1988(?, in Atlanta) and when some RPGers walked by one uttered the word "trolls".

I haven't seen most of them since, and one occassionally for a few years after that. I don't miss them.

Glen

 

[Blue Ghost]

I think the Traveller breed of gamer is a little unique here, as was previously observed. Reading this board I get the sense that there's an almost innate desire to interpersonlize the wargaming aspect of Traveller, as is somewhat intended by various rules (Striker, Snapshot, broadsword).

I've always loved the cooperative aspect of adventureing with a group. I like wargames also, but sometimes people get so competitive that it's a wonder they took up the hobby at all. Then, again just from my experience, there seems to be a real hard nosed approach to gaming among the wargaming sect; designers and players.

Personally I've found a pretty good balance of players in the Traveller realm. Moreso than anywhere else. On some old D&D or fantasy forums I read (lurk mode only) it seemed like some folks were too into their character, however amiable they might be. This verse the real no-nonsense, and sometimes just blatantly rude (though not directly offensive), tones I've read on some wargaming forums.

Just my thoughts

In short I'm glad to have played Traveller, and stayed in touch with the various systems after all these years. There seems to be a good mix of folks in the Traveller scheme of things.

 

[alanb]

Rules Lawyering is the real problem with wargaming, of course. From what I've seen, though, it's not all that common, and the people that suffer from it get identified pretty quickly.

It's mainly a problem in competition type games. You generally avoid playing jerks in friendly games, just like you avoid playing with jerks in RPG groups.

An impartial referee can help with a lot of wargames too. Their job is, of course, to give both sides grief, and allow them to play situations more complex that "two equally balanced sides clash headfirst in broad daylight", which, after all, is a situation real military forces try very hard to avoid.

The attitude problem between roleplayers and "real wargamers" emerged in the 70s. It was rather similar to the way a lot of us tend to view the 12 year old Warhammer kids, only the roleplayers were the "Warhammer kids". There was also a degree of snobbery about the fact that RPGs tended to be fantasy games, rather than meticulously researched historical ones.

But then, there were tensions between miniatures gamers and board gamers too! The actual word "wargaming" was contested between the two. In the UK, miniatures gaming was dominant, while in the US board gaming was more popular. In each country, "wargaming" tended to refer to the dominant form, with the other being referred to as something slightly different.

Of course, in all of these cases, sensible people just went on playing whatever games they felt like, and left the pre-Internet flame wars to the pre-Internet trolls. (Pre-mass-Internet, of course!)

 

[PBI]

Shadowrun is an example of a competetive RPG that's usually played as a cooperative. Some of the best games of Shadowrun I've played in were those where we were in a competetive game and thought it was cooperative

 

[PBI]

Rules Lawyering is not a bad thing. How it's done is what makes it good or bad, I think. What's wrong with wanting to know the rules? I'm a bit of a rules lawyer in that I tend to make certain decisions about my character based on the rules, though I don't play my character as a set of facts and figures.

But if I know that certain weapons or gear will have certain effects or certain skills can be assumed and others can't, that will have an effect on how I build the character and it's annoying to procced on a certain set of assumptions only to find that the GM/DM suddenly changes his mind and makes no effort to adjust or compensate.

There are essentially two types of rules lawyers; the ones who want or need a more solid structure to their gaming because it increases the enjoyment they get from the game and those who attempt to manipulate the letter of the rules to win. The former are no problem, the latter are the ones that have given rules lawyers a bad name.