Scott's primary objection to solo war gaming is rooted in what he believes is his inability to "get into" a game for which there is no opponent. An "automatic" opponent would not thrill him, he claims, and, without the threat of losing to another human being, he cannot imagine that there would be much tension to maintain his interest. These concerns, I told him, I had heard before and, in my early attempts at solo gaming, I had even shared.
So, since I had been there myself, I knew salvation existed for my game-deprived friend. Scott is in no way a closed-minded individual; he merely lacked the inspiration that would lead to his engagement in a fruitful solo war gaming experience. The answer, I knew, could be found within Scott's toy box.
In Scott's collection of miniatures, one will find an interesting mix of gaming possibilities: a set of crudely painted Civil War soldiers, some gorgeous science fiction-themed characters, and a horde of fantasy minis of every scale imaginable. I took out one of the too-blue Union infantrymen, held it up to Scott, and asked him for the name of the soldier. Scott said that the piece did not have a name.
To that, I replied, "What if he did?"
Then, I started recounting the tale of Stephen Crane's main character in The Red Badge of Courage, a young lad whose fantasies of heroism are crushed by the brutal realities of war. After coping with the secret guilt of abandoning his troop mates during combat, Crane's hero returns to the fold and makes up for his private cowardice with an act of bravery that inspires his fellow soldiers on to victory.
I held up the smurf-ish Union soldier mini once more and asked, "What if that was this soldier's story, too?" Now, I had gotten Scott's attention.
Tension in a solo gaming experience will never perfectly mirror the tension created when two people sit at opposite ends of the playing table. Outthinking another human being of a similar or better skill level than oneself is a thrill unlike any other. So, the tension created during a solo wargaming scenario should not strive to mimic what it feels like to go against a person; it must draw its suspense from another source.
I told Scott to consider the Union soldier again. Imagine that he is no longer Infantry Blue Blob #5. He is Luke, former farmhand who thought a war would be more fun to play at than pitching hay, so he joined up voluntarily. Last week, Luke secretly shamed himself when faced with a real battle. Running scared from the firefight, he tripped and banged up his noggin on a log. No one saw it happen so they all thought he had been wounded in combat, but the guilt and shame eating him up is too much for him. He needs to make amends to himself. He needs to be a hero.
I maintained that there was no need to write any of Luke's backstory down...it just had to be mulled over while looking down at the miniature. Giving that miniature a story and allowing that story to be a motivator for the actions that the miniature would take during a game would create a new dynamic during play; the story would transcend the existing mechanics of the rule set and the inherent strategies of force vs. force to create a new kind of tension for the solo gamer that boiled down to a single question:
Can Luke be a hero?
A solo war game played at the skirmish level allows an adequately bright light to shine on the single miniature that is Luke, and the story that precedes that game will serve as the fuel for the alternative tension the solo gamer needs to maintain interest. Imagine a scenario in which Luke is part of a small contingent of soldiers that, in a moment of desperation, is ordered to capture a strategic farmhouse concealing an unknown number of enemy soldiers inside. The player will use the solo version of his favorite rule set to play out the scenario, but not every decision he makes will be based upon optimized strategy. Sure, the goal is to take the farmhouse, but another goal is to make Luke the hero of the day, if possible. Luke's drive and the guilt he harbors create a new kind of tension for the player through an unusual war gaming goal - the desire to see a person redeemed.
Donald Featherstone referred to this as "personalized wargaming." It occurs when the anonymity of game pieces gives way to what I call "narrative imperatives" that imbue the miniatures with their own individual roles to play in the unfolding story that is the game itself. In his classic Donald Featherstone's Solo Wargaming, Don wrote that, when personalized wargaming is attempted often enough, "...the wargamer will realize that he has achieved a stimulating sense of self-identification with his little plastic or metal men so that he views their activities with compassion and commits them with a real-life reluctance for fear they will be killed." That reluctance is the tension that a new solo war gamer like my friend Scott needs to seek out. When mission objectives and optimal strategies clash with narrative imperatives, the drama that ensues may be the stuff of myth and legend...or terrible tragedy.
I think we all create narrative imperatives to some extent in our gaming, both in solo play and in games with opponents. We have our favorite pieces; they have their stories. Some have a long history in our games. Others mean little to us and are easily made cannon fodder again and again for the good of the mission. However, some players, especially those to whom solo play is utterly alien, need to be more aware of the intriguing in-game possibilities that could exist in a solo game that is preceded by a narrative, even a narrative as simplistic as Luke's.
Think about it. Trying to get a miniature's narrative imperative to succeed while also trying to fulfill the mission's objective forces the solo player to game creatively and to make tactical decisions that would never arise during a standard one-on-one battle. Radically different strategies and situations emerge, and the solo player suddenly becomes a strange hybrid of armchair general and spontaneous storyteller.
This happens when Luke's story is "layered over" the mission objective, and questions naturally arise: How will Luke attempt to rise above the status of an ordinary grunt to become a hero? Will his drive and guilt jeopardize the mission? How will the other soldiers react to his potentially unorthodox - even insubordinate - behavior? Can the player succeed at both the mission and Luke's imperative? Within the answers to these questions hide the tensions of a truly engrossing solo game experience.
In Donald Featherstone's Skirmish Wargaming, the concept of a preceding narrative is taken to great lengths with substantial stories that do everything from giving personal backgrounds for troop members to detailing the history behind a conflict to characterizing the very soul of a group of men faced with glory or death. Of course, solo gaming should be convenient and quick to engage, so there is no need to actually take finger to keyboard and tap out a novella before playing out, say, the conflict over a small supply line bridge (unless you want to), but the stories in Don's text serve as wonderful inspiration for those who have never consciously enrobed a game's crunchy mechanics in a sweet narrative shell.
Does one need to contemplate a story for every solo skirmish game ever initiated? Of course not. However, when a gamer like my friend Scott finds himself longing to play but unable to do so in his traditional manner, when solo skirmish gaming may be the only answer for the time being, and when engagement in a solo war gaming pursuit is a challenge to begin with, the solo player must put something else on the line other than a mission objective:
Redemption. Revenge. Faith. Potential. Truth. Honor. Heroism.
Start with a narrative imperative instead of the rules by themselves, and "getting into" a solo game won't be much of a problem at all...
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