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Solo wargame: Historical or Fictional?

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TargetBoy
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Joined: 08/13/2008

I am working on a solo wargame campaign. It will be very story-driven, with several pages of text between scenarios and a range of options, also with significant text, during each scenario. Individual personalities will be a big part of the story.

I am trying to decide if I should make it a historical game. I see three choices:

1) Depict actual historical events.
2) Use a historical setting but tell a fictional story.
3) Use a fictional setting and story.

I asked this question in the Armchair General forums (www.strategyzoneonline.com/forum, the Boardgaming forum) and the vote seems to be tending toward #1 and #2.

What do folks here think?

zaiga
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Solo wargame: Historical or Fictional?

I'm not a wargamer, but I would also vote for #1. I just love history and reading about historic events.

Brykovian
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Solo wargame: Historical or Fictional?

I would vote #2. It gives you the historical framework to hook everything to, but also gives you creative freedom to take the story where you want it ... best of both worlds, imo. ;-)

-Bryk

Challengers
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Solo wargame: Historical or Fictional?

I would do #3 for two reasons:
If you do a strictly historical simulation, you won't really be able to innovate.
If you do a fictional account in a historical setting, you have to worry about anachronisms and factual integrity.

With option 3, the only laws you have to obey are the laws of credibility!
(Game design is hard enough as it is.)

Cheers,

Mitch

Odat
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Re: Solo wargame: Historical or Fictional?

TargetBoy wrote:

1) Depict actual historical events.
2) Use a historical setting but tell a fictional story.
3) Use a fictional setting and story.

I actually find all three of these options fascinating, in their own way. I think if I were doing something like this, I would probably go for #3.

While there is definitly an allure to recreating historical events and seeing how you stack up against history, and I am really a sucker for "side stories" that occur alongside other well known events, I would rather go ahead and create a whole new scenario. It seems less restrictive than trying to fit my own ideas into history, and maintain that kind of continuity.

Plus, when it comes to games like this, I find science fiction a lot more interesting than science fact.

But then, that's just me.

larienna
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Solo wargame: Historical or Fictional?

There is 2 problems with historical missions :

- First, you must make do research to see what really happened at the specified time. You must also do some research about the topography of the terrain.

- Second, you are restricted with what exist. You must keep the balance of power of each country according to history, you must make the map according to the realy world, etc.

I my war game, I decided to make it fictional to have more freedom and less reasearch to do. I don't say that my countries does not look close to those in our world. But at least I can improvise the terrain and place them where I want in the world with whatever political position I want them to have.

Hedge-o-Matic
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Solo wargame: Historical or Fictional?

Well, you could have it include elements of both #1 and #2, if you've got multiple engagements involved with each scenario. Consider my standard "multiple scenario" chart:

Now, you could just decide that the "true" path (the one taken historically) is demonstrated by scenarios 1, 2, 5, and 8. The player could play through tme all, and not only see how well they would do from any given point in the evolution of the conflict, but see if they could do better than their historical counterparts. This would provide an interesting means to integrate history while creating a lot of replayability.

The only sticking point with this is that you have to commit to designing multiple scenarios. But that's what we live for, right? (Oh, and I also usually have rules that allow for an additional shift right or left for especially good or bad results in any given scenario.)

TargetBoy
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Joined: 08/13/2008
More detail about the solo game plan

To give fols an idea of what I am planning, here is an overview of a Wild West campaign:

1) Text: You are sheriff of a town in the american west in 1890 or so. Robbers hit the bank down the street.

2) Battle: Gunfight with Robbers, part of the gang escapes.

3) Text: You put a posse together and head out oafter the bandits. While following their trail, you see smoke off in the distance, away from the tracks.

4) Optional Encounter: Indian raiders attacking homestead. Get some new units, but may lose more than you gain.

5) Text: track robbers to hideout ...

That's how the plan goes. Think more of a computer RPG with a war game for the fights and you have the right idea. Battles with multiple outcomes will exist, but they will be small deviations from the main plotline. I certainly will not have a full decision tree. It will be much more common to get "you have died, try again at the beginning of this scenario."

So, the scenarios will not really be seperable from the campaign. Parts of the text simply will not make sense taken by themselves.

Anonymous
Re: Solo wargame: Historical or Fictional?

1) Depict actual historical events.
2) Use a historical setting but tell a fictional story.
3) Use a fictional setting and story.

What do folks here think?

I always love the the fiction stories! I want the games have the fantasy feeling! I love fantasy anyway...
But if you choose the "historical" way plz try to be true...
I have played many games with "historical" concept which all were lies...

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