Solo Wargaming

As a latecomer to the hobby of wargaming – board wargaming, at least for the present – I am rapidly finding that my reach is exceeding my grasp. I am fortunate to have friends with whom I can play wargames on a regular basis via VASSAL, but I'd like to be able to play more often. Partly, this is a case of my simply wanting to play catch-up on decades of games I've not yet played and partly my desire to experience different design approaches to strategic and tactical events. 

It's my latest obsession and I've observed, in the course of having played Falling Sky and Liberty or Death!, that there's a lot in these and other wargames that can serve as inspiration for RPGs. That only makes sense, of course, given that roleplaying games arose out of wargaming (primarily miniatures, it's true). Despite the decades of formal separation between these two types of games, I'd like to think that there are still lessons they can learn from each other, which is why I'm making a strong effort to educate myself after years of neglect.

For example, I've learned is that there's a long tradition of solo wargaming. in both the miniatures and board wargaming fields. Despite the cover I've used to accompany this post, my present knowledge of the topic, such as it is, comes largely from the world of board wargaming, though I do hope to change that. From what I have learned, there are, broadly speaking, two types of solo wargaming. The first is when you a single player chooses to play a game by himself. The second is when a game is designed to be played by a single player. 

I had a brush with the second type long ago, in the early 1990s, when GDW published Phase Line Smash, a solitaire game of the Gulf War. At the time, my friends and I joked that the real Gulf War was itself a one-player conflict, given how comparatively ineffectual the Iraqi forces were, so the design of the game made sense. What I didn't know at the time was that this was no innovation of Phase Line Smash but rather a not uncommon design choice in wargames design. More recently, I learned that many of the COIN games include "bots," programmed choices for each faction that allow it to participate in a game with fewer than the recommended number of players. I'd never heard of such a thing before and must confess to being amazed by the existence of such an option.

The first type, in which a single player takes on all the sides in a wargame intrigues me. On the one hand, it strikes me as if it'd be very difficult to do this effectively, since, in my own experience anyway, one quickly comes to identify with one's side and do whatever one can to ensure its victory. Would I be able to play each side equally effectively? On the other hand, one of the points of wargaming of any kind is to come to a better understanding of the conflict being simulated. "Cheating" by playing one side better than another defeats that purpose. More to the point, what's the fun in stacking the deck? One of the things I've most enjoyed about the wargames I've been playing is the way that I can be surprised by the interplay of events. Indeed, I'd go so far as to say that that's a big part of why I enjoy roleplaying games too. The emergent "story," for lack of a better word, that comes from the protean interactions of choice and randomness is intoxicating to me. I also very much enjoy looking back on those interactions after the fact and pondering what might have ben if things had gone differently.

For that reason, I'm starting to consider seriously picking up a board wargame or two and playing it solo. I'm not yet sure which games I might choose and have been asking for advice from anyone who might be willing to offer it. Most people I've asked have said that it's more important to find a game whose subject matter interests me than to worry about other factors, though game mechanics do, of course, matter. I've taken this to heart and begun to consider my options. In doing so, I realize that I'm not all that interested in ancient or medieval warfare. Instead, the wars of the early modern era, such as the Thirty Years' War, the English Civil War, and the Seven Years' War hold much more appeal for me. I'm investigating in print wargames that cover these conflicts and trying to settle on one or two that I could devote myself to in the weeks to come. If anyone has any suggestions on this score, I'd love to hear them.

The ultimate goal in this exercise is to come sufficiently comfortable with playing a solitaire wargame that I might be able to develop something wargame-y that could aid me in simulating large scale events in my various ongoing  campaigns. I'm particularly keen to figure out something that might work with my House of Worms Tékumel campaign. There are a number of high-level events brewing in the background, such as the start of the war between Tsolyánu and Yán Kór, that I'd like to adjudicate in an "objective" and genuinely unpredictable fashion. I don't want things to turn out according to my own designs but according to the inexplicable designs of Fate. If this sounds like I'm beating a dead horse, you have my apologies. Like a dog with a bone, I can't let go of this idea, which has seized my imagination in a powerful way. Solo wargaming is yet another avenue by which I'm grappling with it.