

Volko Ruhnke's Modern Wargames - smacktoward
http://www.shutupandsitdown.com/blog/post/interview-volko-ruhnke/

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splawn
If you are curious about modern boardgaming shutupandsitdown.com has some of
the best (by "best" I mean funny and entertaining) videos and blog posts on
the subject, IMO. Cool seeing it on HN.

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oldmanjay
>"That's a big hitch with digital games. They are inferior to physical games
in showing how and why the player’s inputs produced the outputs that they did.
I cannot really see the model, nor access it to modify to improve to my
understanding of history or the world."

Intuitively, I don't agree with this, but I'm not sure what the actual
argument is. My sense is that he was making a statement about his own
mentation but couching it as a statement about humanity. Rather strong bias if
so.

~~~
aspirin
I believe he means that in digital games the model stays hidden most of the
time. You only see the inputs and outputs.

In physical games the players have to enact the model themselves by following
the rules at every step. Without exact knowledge of the model, the gameplay
cannot even start.

~~~
TillE
Yes. With computer games, the actual rules are almost never completely
described somewhere. They must be divined by trial and error.

A good example is Hearthstone vs. Magic: The Gathering. Hearthstone has all
sorts of non-intuitive edge cases and unwritten rules. M:TG needs to be fully
understood by all players, so complex interactions are still resolved with a
fairly simple set of rules.

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bjelkeman-again
Thanks. That looks very interesting, as a tool to try to understand a complex
issue. But it probably is a bit like reading the Economist. You have to be
aware of the inherent biases, and even when you do you get influenced by them.

~~~
VLM
"You have to be aware of the inherent biases"

That is part of the victory conditions and gameplay of the COIN series. On one
hand, you can't leave the fire in the lake game without understanding the ARVN
point of view, at least not if you're even trying to win. On the other hand,
you only get one fixed point of view WRT ARVN motivations and goals. Each
faction has totally different victory conditions and rules. This is somewhat
new in board gaming and I think the reason why has to do with computerized
simulation in order to create something close to a balance.

Where "games as a simulation" usually fail is when designers try to balance
too hard. Nothing could stop the German in early WWII, thats just how the
world works. And that is the appeal of "walk in hitlers shoes" appeal of
playing the Germans in WWII games, you get to experience the whole spectrum
from utter military superiority to utter failure by the end. It can be quite a
roller coaster, which in itself is the dramatic experience of the game. The
native american experience vs euros post Columbus as a theme doesn't have
quite the roller coaster, so thats why it doesn't work as well as a game
theme.

~~~
smacktoward
This is part of what I found interesting about Ruhnke's approach: he
acknowledges his own biases and provides copious designer's notes so the
player can judge how they affect the game for themselves.

I've long been of the opinion that every simulation game design is basically
an argument -- a statement that "I think this slice of human experience worked
this particular way." But usually the argument is only made implicitly; you
have to tease it out via gameplay. I like when designers make it explicit
instead by telling you up front why they made the decisions they did.

