--- title: "All tactics and no roleplay" subtitle: "Sometimes you just want to game" author: Seth publish_date: 2025-02-26 08:00 date: 2025-02-26 08:00 hero_classes: text-light title-h1h2 overlay-dark-gradient hero-large parallax hero_image: boardgame.webp show_sidebar: true show_breadcrumbs: true show_pagination: true taxonomy: category: blog tag: [gaming, tip, meta, wargame] --- I've written about [roleplay](http://mixedsignals.ml/games/blog/blog_your-wargame-roleplay-character) and [roleplaying in reverse](http://mixedsignals.ml/games/blog/blog_reactionary-rpg-roleplay-in-reverse) in wargames, but the only reason I have the luxury of waxing poetic about additional options for wargaming is because it's such a flexible system. Roleplay can fit nicely into a wargame, just as much as a wargame fits nicely into an RPG (that is, most RPG combat systems), but it can be comforting to know that a wargame doesn't need roleplay. (In fact, sometimes roleplaying games don't even need roleplay.) And that's not a bad thing. A wargame is a ultimately a board game. The "board" is often large, and it's usually uniquely assembled by the players. Whatever it looks like, it's a defined physical space. Unlike a roleplaying game, you can't wander off into the mountains (unless you built mountains into your battlefield). A wargame has a specific scope. A wargame also has a defined turn structure, and a specific set of possible actions. Here are 6 ways a game's "limitations" can be, paradoxically, liberating. ## 1. You can do anything, as long as it's 1 of these 3 actions You probably have lots of examples in your own real life when you were overwhelmed and confounded by too many choices. A list of _everything_ is a very long list indeed. Even in roleplaying games, players tend to fall into a pattern of certain, sometimes informally standardised, actions. There are few gaming groups that actually choose to open an imaginary business, complete with legal licensing and accountancy. There are few gamers who take up game time describing how a character folds laundry. There are lots of things you can do in an imaginary world, but in the end you probably focus on 10 or 20, and even those with varying degrees of detail. Most roleplaying systems self-correct down to a set of actions defined in a rulebook. Wargames don't need to self-correct, because that's already the game. There are defined tactical moves your army can make, there are actions specific to the type of army (aim, attack, reload, and so on), and there are saves based on widely-accepted army behaviour (armour saves, morale checks, falling back, and so on). When you recognise and accept the scope of a wargame, you end up with a pretty manageable set of buttons you can push to make the game progress. That can be refreshing, compared to a near-infinite list of possible and usually irrelevant actions. ## 2. Goals are good When you're playing a game, you generally want a goal. The implication of a "game" is that there's a win and lose condition. Your goal might be to win, or it might be to stress-test the game system in a way that interests you. In a roleplaying game (or a wargame in which you're adding roleplaying elements), goals can shift based on personal interactions or story developments. That evil necromancer seems less evil after you hear his story of how his family was killed by the ostensibly kind villagers. The hidden treasure you're searching for seems less important after you've discovered a portal into the feywild. Anything is possible, so everything looks like a win condition. Once or twice is fine, but eventually you get tired of a moving goal post, even when you're the one moving it yourself. In a wargame, you have a mission objective, or a series of objectives. Those don't change, because you're an army and you have orders. You're free to focus on the goal, even if the goal doesn't actually matter and you were cannon fodder all along. ## 3. Guardrails In pure roleplay, it can be difficult to test the boundaries of the game system. When your Game Master is able to arbitrarily pronounce that either your character or the dragon you're fighting is instantly dead, the victory or defeat can feel a little shallow. That's not how a _good_ roleplaying game works, of course, and it's why most roleplaying games have actual rules. Still, there's a lot of potential human intervention in an RPG, and that can sometimes feel dangerous. It's a real balancing act to try to play in a way that doesn't make everything too easy, but also not too difficult. And that in itself can be taxing. In a wargame, there's a rule for every legal action. You can't be stunned by fear unless you fail a morale check. You can't turn and run without taking a fall back action and saving against opportunity attacks. All interactions are codified, and it makes for system just strict enough to assure you that you've had to work hard for your victory. ## 4. Let's get this over with Gameplay in a wargame can be fast, if you want it to be. There are often a lot of miniatures to manage, and lots of rules to know, and a lot of strategising and planning, but if you and the other players know the rules and keep your armies well-structured, each turn can progress at a steady pace. ## 5. Play the game, not the metagame Unlike an individual character, most armies are infamously disposable. When you play a wargame, you don't have to roleplay decisions, you don't have to justify your actions, you don't have to pretend like you don't see what's on the other side of the ridge [for fear of metagaming](http://mixedsignals.ml/games/blog/blog_metagame). You can just move your army figures across the battlefield, roll die to hit, roll die to save, and tally the score. It's perfectly acceptable, and it happens all the time. The enjoyment of tactics is reason enough to play a wargame. ## 6. The story can be a burden Scheduling games is really hard. When your game turns into a campaign, new variables get introduced that make it even harder. When just 1 player can't make it, the game gets cancelled for fear of encountering a major plot point, or a villain that'll be over-powered and break the group's delicate balance. When the Game Master hasn't had time to prepare, the game gets cancelled because, well, the Game Master hasn't had time to prepare a game. An ongoing campaign is fun, so I understand why this happens. There's a simple alternative. Play a game without a story. It can be a surprisingly satisfying game experience. It's like chess or [Mansions of Madness](http://mixedsignals.ml/games/blog/blog_review-mansions-of-madness) or whatever board game you enjoy. Everything fits in a metaphorical box, and you can set aside the pressure of "telling a good story." Or you can practise retroactively telling a good story, by letting a story emerge from what the dice rolls dictate. ## Tactics and more tactics Everything I've described in this post, for me, is equally true for wargames as it is for roleplaying games. While I'm not actually an extremely tactical player, I do often enjoy a game where roleplay is set aside to focus on tactics and strategy. I don't particularly care whether I'm good at tactics and strategy, but the ability to just focus on game mechanics is sometimes refreshing. It also usually means I can get more gaming done, because it's a simple way of playing. There are few circumstances the game system can't account for, so everything runs relatively smoothly and then the game is over, which means there's probably time for another game.