Paradox of Modern Wargaming

The paradox?  Speed vs. Journey in the Digital Age.  

As the Palouse Wargaming Journal passes its thirteenth anniversary, these anniversaries often bring up a time of reflection on the past.  Reflections this year saw a return to one particular post I wrote more than two years ago on how battle reports are read (see Reporting from the Front: How are Battle Reports Read).  Besides a perceived change in writing and reading battle reports, has the underlying wargaming landscape, likewise, undergone change in how we participate?  For these reflections, I refer to these perceived changes as "modern" wargaming.

The modern wargaming landscape presents an interesting paradox that hits at the core of wargaming's identity.  We dedicate months, sometimes years, to painting armies, researching historical uniforms, and crafting detailed terrain.  All of these time-consuming preparatory activities result in bringing the efforts to the gaming table in a game that frequently can be completed in under an hour.  This contradiction raises fundamental questions about whether we've lost sight of the journey in favor of quick results, and whether the very tools meant to enhance our hobby experience have inadvertently diminished it.

Rise of the Quick-Play Culture
The trend toward quick-play wargames and rules has become undeniably to the fore in recent years.  This reflects a broader shift in gaming preferences, with players increasingly gravitating toward games that can be completed in two to three hours or less.  The Great Wargaming Survey supports this notion with only 17% of respondents saying that a game longer than three hours is preferred. 

The market has responded accordingly.  Wargames designated as "small footprint" and games designed to be "quick play" have proliferated.  Systems like One-Hour Wargames or the many One-Page rules promise battles that only take about one hour to fight to conclusion. This compression is not only limited to casual, pick-up games.  Even complex historical scenarios are being redesigned for rapid consumption.

The Commands & Colors Revolution
Perhaps no single system better exemplifies this shift than Richard Borg's Commands & Colors series.  I have introduced a number of gamers to historical miniatures gaming through Commands & Colors.  The appeal is clear.  These games provide the feeling of playing a mass battle game while allowing players to refight the entire historical battle in relatively short time.  Often, we can complete four or five games in a single three-hour gaming session.

The genius of Commands & Colors lies in its ability to deliver satisfying tactical decision-making within a streamlined framework.  Players experience interesting tactical decisions despite rules' simplicity.  This combination creates a perfect melding of boardgame and wargame.  Rarely are two games played the same.  With the success of this system, countless other designs have followed a similar path.  Adding miniatures into the mix makes a solid system even better.

The Attention Span Crisis
This shift toward game length brevity may reflect broader changes in human attention patterns.  Research suggests a significant decrease in focused attention.  Decreased attention span is not confined to gaming but surfaces across all digital platforms.  The digital age creates environments where stimuli constantly compete for our attention.  This competition leads to frequent task-switching and cognitive overload.

The push toward shorter duration games leads game designers to create experiences that captivate players without overwhelming them.  Designers must create a balance between engaging gameplay and the brain's need for managing cognitive loads.  This reality suggests that the trend toward shorter games isn't merely preference but an adaptation to fundamental changes in how our brains process extended engagement.

The Painting Paradox
The most striking contradiction in modern wargaming lies in the seeming disconnect between our dedication to army preparation and actual gameplay.  While game size has decreased with an increased tendency toward skirmish games, wargamers continue to invest enormous amounts of time to painting.  Some paint hundreds or even thousands of figures per year.  As supported by the Great Wargaming Survey, for many, painting is the hobby and represents their primary source of satisfaction.

Yet this same community increasingly seeks games that can be completed in a fraction of the time spent preparing armies for battle.  Have the visual and creative aspects of painting and building armies become more important than the gaming experience itself?

The Tournament Mindset
With a move to decreased game length and simplified rules, have we all become tournament players without realizing it?  The emphasis on quick resolution, standardized rules, and efficient gameplay mirrors competitive tournament formats.  Traditional narrative gaming, with its emphasis on story development and immersive experience, requires time and patience.  These attributes seem increasingly scarce.

The tournament approach prioritizes clear winners, efficient mechanics, and reproducible results.  While these aren't inherently negative qualities, they represent a significant departure from the storytelling and narrative-building traditions that historically defined miniature wargaming.  The question becomes whether we're losing something essential in this transition.

Historical Perspective and the Path Forward
Looking at this trend historically, it's worth questioning whether our time constraints are genuinely different from those of previous generations. Wargamers of the 1970s and 1980s faced similar challenges of limited time and competing priorities, yet they typically maintained longer, more involved games. The difference may lie not in available time, but in our expectations and attention patterns.

The solution isn't necessarily to reject quick-play systems.  Many of these innovations represent genuine improvements in accessibility and enjoyment. Rather, we need to consciously preserve space for deeper, more involved gaming experiences that justify the enormous investment we make in army preparation.

Perhaps the answer lies in recognizing that different types of games serve different purposes.  As mentioned about Commands & Colors earlier, quick-play systems excel at introducing new players, providing weeknight entertainment, and exploring new periods or rules.  Quick-play systems, however, should not completely replace the longer, more involved games that allow armies to truly shine and narratives to develop naturally.

The wargaming hobby is broad enough to accommodate both approaches.  What we must guard against is the unconscious drift toward speed and simplicity at the expense of depth and immersion.  The months we spend painting and preparing should lead to gaming experiences worthy of that investment.  We should foster experiences that prioritize the journey as much as the destination, and that create lasting memories rather than merely efficient outcomes.

In the end, the choice between quick results and meaningful journeys isn't binary. Diverse gaming communities will likely embrace both, often in harmony.  I enjoy both types of games and each has its place.  The purpose of the game and available resources should determine the choice of gaming system.  Our beautifully painted armies deserve nothing less than this thoughtful balance.