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I just discovered, by simply hovering around wikipedia, that H.G Wells was the pioneer of recreational wargames - how cool is that?

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/3691/3691-h/3691-h.htm

Not sure if this counts as a discussion but I couldn't find a similar post to the origins of wargaming & just found it interesting is all. Thought I'd share it with you guys who may not have known...or cared for that matter

I had his book, Little Wars.

He wasn't the first player of wargames, however. If you read Harry' Pearson's Achtung Schweinhund, he goes into a number of people who were playing recreational games before HG Wells.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Achtung-Schweinehund-Harry-Pearson/dp/0349115680/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1285862271&sr=8-1

Well's contribution was to codify and publish the rules.

I love this quote at the end: "This is a game like real war, played against time, and played under circumstances of considerable excitement, and it is remarkable how elastic the measurements of quite honest and honourable men can become."

So, even in 1913, players had rubber tapemeasure syndrome.. awesome.

Thanks for the link! I just never really thought about it before for some reason

Well's contribution was to codify and publish the rules.

That's quite the contribution though!

I think you mean codify and publish the rules for civilian use... Military powers around the globe had codified and published rules for easily a century before H.G. Wells had finally got around to it. Unless you were a military officer, I can't imagine getting hold of those manuscripts would have been an easy job though.

chaos0xomega wrote:I think you mean codify and publish the rules for civilian use... Military powers around the globe had codified and published rules for easily a century before H.G. Wells had finally got around to it. Unless you were a military officer, I can't imagine getting hold of those manuscripts would have been an easy job though.

Yes, but Wells' publication opened it to the audience of "boys from twelve years of age to one hundred and fifty and for that more intelligent sort of girl who likes boys' games and books" - leading to it's gradual acceptance to a broader audience, and eventually.... us.

Modern wargames are simply an extension of ancient wargames played by generals.

Does this make me on par with Alexander?

WarWizard91 wrote:Does this make me on par with Alexander?

Only in your dreams.

And let us not forget that the next evolution after Wells was Gary Gygax and his group, who made the more personalized RPG aspect of wargames become prevalent.

I find it hilarious that soon after the birth of codified wargaming, women turn up to roll their eyes and wave it away.

. . Attempts to realise the dream were interrupted by a great rustle and chattering of lady visitors. They regarded the objects upon the floor with the empty disdain of their sex for all imaginative things."

HG Wells is a massive fricking nerd. This made me giggle.

"I have nearly five hundred men, more than a score of guns, and I twirl my moustache and hurl defiance eastward from my home in Essex across the narrow seas."

Keep dreaming the wargamer's dream.
"It can be played by boys of every age from twelve to one hundred and fifty ... by girls of the better sort, and by a few rare and gifted women. "

WarWizard91 wrote:Does this make me on par with Alexander?

Good news: Yes. Yes. It does.
Bad news: Alexander is the 5 year old neighbor kid who eats paint chips.

; )


Eric

Did I miss something or does it not tell you what happens when you shoot another model?

Edit: Lead paint good

You shoot using a Britain's model naval gun (I have one) which fires matchsticks.

The other kind of game people are talking about is the Kriegsspiele, which was developed in the middle 19th century.

Little Wars is at the game end of the spectrum, while Kriegsspiele is at the simulation end.

Kilkrazy wrote:You shoot using a Britain's model naval gun (I have one) which fires matchsticks.
quote]

I had a Matchbox [I think] 25 Pounder that did that. Flaming matchstick of doom.

I missed that gun when mum took it away.

Edit why am I trapped in this box?

H.G. Wells?

OK. i'm fine with that.

I had one of those matchstick guns when I was young.

It's interesting to see where wargaming appears in popular culture on TV and in film. I saw that the villain was playing a wargame at the end of the Bond film The Living Daylights recently which I had forgotten about.

An earlier film featuring wargaming heavily is the 1974 film Callan, based on the TV series and starring Edward Woodward. In this film the villain which Callan has to assassinate is a big wargamer. While trying to befriend the man Callan plays several Napeolonic wargames with him making them a prominent feature of the game especially towards the end of the film.

Bit of detail on it on this blog.
http://wargamingmiscellany.blogspot.com/2009/12/callan-wargamer-part-2.html

WarOne wrote:And let us not forget that the next evolution after Wells was Gary Gygax and his group, who made the more personalized RPG aspect of wargames become prevalent.

I have the feeling you skip a step.

between H.G. Wells and Gary Gygax there has to be some guy who merges Little Wars and kriegsspiel to produce the historical wargames with dice, stat-lines and big (and small) rulebooks... I'm pretty sure wargaming didn't go from shooting toy soldiers with match-stick-hurling toy cannons to THAC0

but who? who?

The point of Kriegsspiel is blind, umpired, map games based on real world stats, for instance marching speed, combined with fairly rules light adjudication of combat results.

There were many people who developed the wargame during the 20th century, especially after the 2nd World War -- they are pretty well covered in the Harry Pearson book. It is well worth reading.

There were fantasy and skirmish games before Gygax. D&D developed from a mediaevil skirmish game.

The key thing D&D introduced was the idea of a character who continued from one scenario to another while growing in abilities from his encounters.

Since D&D RPGs have diverged between strongly rules based, combat oriented systems, and rules light, scenario oriented systems which are closer to guided free form acting than a wargame.

Wargames, though have other forms than the tabletop and map systems we are familiar with. Megagamers, and Paddy Griffiths, have pioneered free form games which are perhaps the equivalent of the scenario based RPG. Read Paddy Griffiths's Sprawling Wargames for more info.

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Sprawling-Wargames-Multiplayer-Wargaming-Griffith/dp/1445202999/ref=sr_1_5?s=gateway&ie=UTF8&qid=1285961088&sr=8-5

Apologies for interrupting the flow of this thread.

However, would anyone have any prior references to the teachings of Sun Tzsu? Im sure the autour of the Art of War may have practiced something similar to wargames when instructing the forces of the Emperor?

Great stuff! i've enjoyed the read!

Kilkrazy wrote:

I got one like that!

A lot of writers have been gamers.

Some years before Little Wars there was a book published describing Robert Louis Stephenson's wargames.

Between Wells and Gygax, I think you'd have to consider the contributions of Fletcher Pratt, Jack Scruby and Donald Featherstone, to name just a few.

notprop wrote:

Kilkrazy wrote:You shoot using a Britain's model naval gun (I have one) which fires matchsticks.

I had a Matchbox [I think] 25 Pounder that did that. Flaming matchstick of doom.

I missed that gun when mum took it away.

Edit why am I trapped in this box?

There is an unclosed quote tag that is 'hanging' and preventing the inner quote box from closing. Where KK says 'You shoot using a Britain's model naval gun (I have one) which fires matchsticks quote]';

You need to close the quote tag so it says (/quote) substituting square brackets for the round ones.