User talk:SoCal Krieg

Kriegsspiel
Could you look over the rules summary I wrote for the Kriegsspiel article? I've never played Kriegsspiel, I wrote that stuff based solely on Reisswitz's manual. You, it seems, have actually played this game. Kurzon (talk) 12:49, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

Certainly, I would be happy to. I'll do this now.

You did a brilliant job! With some difficult source material, I might say. Very well done. I did make a minor edit regarding the materials used for the pieces. Plastic is not commonly used, at least not to my knowledge. Wood is. The pieces I often use do have a plastic finish on top, which is how the color is applied, but the plastic is on a wooden base. Typically, the pieces are painted wood blocks, or even metal can be used, but that's expensive and rare. I know one person who attached magnets to his pieces and mounts his maps on the wall with the pieces.

Anyway, excellent work and thank you!

- Marshall


 * OK. On to free Kriegsspiel, then. I bought a free Kriegsspiel manual by Verdy du Vernois from Lulu.com, but it didn't contain any rules or any sort of technical description like Reisswitz's manual. Rather, it contained a transcript of a game. I suppose Verdy thought the only good way to describe his game was to show an example. It was a rules-free game, after all. I have ADHD so it's too much for me to read the whole book and analyze its principles. Could you help me out here? Kurzon (talk) 15:54, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

I think I read this, but a really long time ago. I'm not even sure I actually did. Is it "The Tactical War Game"? What I know of his games is they relied entirely on the umpire's discretion. There isn't much else he contributed beyond that, to my knowledge, and there isn't much to say. If the book is The Tactical War Game, I might be able to say a few words, but in all he described an example game, explaining the process as he went. His contribution was concluding that Kriegsspiel could be played most efficiently without rules, as long as the umpire is sufficiently skilled and fair to conduct the exercise.

The So Cal System, which I devised, is basically the same thing, except I added dice back into the game to resolve combats. I did not want to arbitrarily decide the outcomes of engagements and thereby be seen as responsible for how a player performed.

Let me know if you want me to do more here.


 * Verdy must have had some general ideas of how a good game of free Kriegsspiel should be conducted. If not hard rules, did he not recommend any general principles for the game? Meckel identified two problems with rigid Kriegsspiel that affected the realism of the outcomes: the umpire couldn't apply his own expertise, and the real world is too complex and mercurial. So what kind of expertise should an umpire ideally have? What methods of reasoning should the umpire use?  Surely he didn't want an umpire to just flip a coin every time the umpire had to make any judgment. Kurzon (talk) 22:03, 5 December 2021 (UTC)

A Kriegsspiel umpire should be a lot like a Dungeon Master in D&D. Fair and consistent. And when playing it as a game, they should be friendly to all the participants, not overly strict or hard on the players. The professors from Army University use Kriegsspiel to teach hard lessons, so they approach it a little differently. They are much more strict on the players and provide minimal time to make decisions. Of course, they are playing Kriegsspiel as it was played by the Prussians, as a wargame to teach principles of warfare, and how to think and write orders under pressure. Still, they are generally fair, if tough.

An umpire should have a background in Napoleonic warfare or the form of warfare being gamed. This does not have to be professional. There are a lot of people who are experts without becoming professors on the subject just because they have read so many books, and possibly reenacted the tactics as a hobby. It also helps if a person has experience with wargaming in general and roleplaying. Both modern wargaming and roleplaying are descendants of Kriegsspiel. Kriegsspiel compiled standardized maps, grids, combat result tables, dice, and more in a single package. During the game the umpire will evaluate the situation the opposing units are in and must quickly calculate any relevant odds that will apply to combat resolution. Wargames do this all the time, so having wargame experience helps a lot. In Kriegsspiel, the umpire acted as a Dungeon Master, describing what was happening and what the player could see. The best umpires still do this, although it is something of an art. Despite my experience, there are some umpires in our organization who are quite better than I am at doing this. They are a pleasure to play with.

Umpires should be fair and consistent, never arbitrary. When making a judgment, they should either rely on their knowledge to reason out the manner at hand or if they remain uncertain, they should calculate odds and roll a die based on those odds to make an objective decision. Although many things in Kriegsspiel are approximated, (we sometimes call Kriegsspiel, "the land of fudge" because we approximate, guess, and hand wave a lot of minutiae!) an important rule is that an umpire must be able to give a reasonable justification for each decision they make. Although players are not permitted to challenge or question the umpire during the game, they may face questions afterward. In fact, each of our games ends with a critique by the umpires, then each player in turn is allowed to comment on their experiences. The umpire needs to be quick, clever, and able to explain themselves clearly, something that usually comes with considerable experience.

We train our umpires over time, and we require them to demonstrate their competence before we allow them to run their own games with our blessing and support. New umpires are carefully mentored and supported to ensure they build all these skills, regardless of their background.

To be concise, an umpire must be knowledgeable about the conflict they are presenting, they must be fair and consistent, they should be able to justify their decisions to players post-game, and they are well served by experience with wargaming and roleplaying.


 * Do you know any writings of Verdy that could share details of his philosophy? Perhaps in Militär-Wochenblatt? Kurzon (talk) 10:27, 6 December 2021 (UTC)

I have not, but he did write a book, "Studies in Troop Leading," which is translated into English. If I find a digital translation in the public domain, I would be happy to read it. That or even just notes. I will ask in my group. Additionally, you may be able to find more scholars and subject experts on our Discord. Or, I can ask on your behalf. (see: kriegsspiel.org for link to Discord.)

I can also ask around in our Facebook group, which has some solid experts.


 * Verdy wrote his free Kriegsspiel book after 50 years the original rigid Kriegsspiel was developed. He used Reisswitz's Kriegsspiel as a frame of reference. If he had written his free Kriegsspiel before Reisswitz, would people have understood what he was talking about? Kurzon (talk)

12:21, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

I doubt it. I speculate, if he wrote earlier, he would have been at odds with the rigid wargaming traditions that predated Kriegsspiel. By the time Verdy wrote, the value of Kriegsspiel was demonstrated. However, the game was cumbersome and time-consuming. As a teaching tool, an expert knows what lesson they want to teach, and they know how a fight is likely to unfold, given all the variables (e.g., a unit attacked on the flank will refuse, and perhaps fall back if not reinforced, and so on...). Therefore, there was little need to spend time on rules when the result is the same. We encounter this very same thing in the IKS. Newcomers arrive and suggest we dive into what I call "minutiae." They want to track ammunition, individual casualties, morale, weapon types, and more. They have the notion this bookkeeping will be enjoyable and if they master it, they will "win" their games. Of course, all this does is slow down the processing of each turn so the game runs slow, which is boring, and the game never finishes, so you don't get the benefit of knowing whether or not your tactics were truly sound. You get all of the cost and none of the advantages.

So, Kriegsspiel only needs to be umpired, double-blind, with an emphasis on the fog of war and delayed messaging. Verdy was the first one to truly appreciate that. As for myself and my fellow umpires, we learned this for ourselves without reading Verdy, as a result of experience.

I do think Verdy would agree strongly with our methods. I also know the professors from Army University take an almost identical approach to ours, despite both groups maturing separately.


 * OK. My question really was Verdy got rid of the rules, but what did he want to preserve?. This is a decent analysis, all I need now is some writings by Verdy to corroborate it. Kurzon (talk) 13:49, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

Exactly! The problem is, I have not read enough of him to cite a source. We infer this from his approach, but there must be someplace where he explained it. After all, at some point he had to justify to someone why he was shredding the rules. I wish I could be more helpful.


 * What do you mean by "double-blind"? Do you mean that the umpire must be kept ignorant of some things? Kurzon (talk) 13:57, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

This means the players do not see what the other team is doing. Both teams are "blind" when it comes to the other. Obviously, when you play most games you see all of your opponent's moves. But in Kriegsspiel, you can only see what you would see in real life, from your position on the map. Even your own units may be removed from the map if they are out of your sight.


 * Right. In science, "double-blind" means that the guy running the experiment is also kept ignorant, as well as the test subjects (eg, in a clinical trial of a new drug, not even the guy handing out the pills knows which ones are placebos). Kurzon (talk) 08:54, 8 December 2021 (UTC)


 * In free Kriegsspiel, it seems that Verdy preferred the players have conversations with the umpire rather than written messages. What do you know of this? Kurzon (talk) 20:05, 7 December 2021 (UTC)

I foind my copy of Verdy.

"The question, however, arises, whether the Game might not be made even more useful than it is if the difficulties of execution and the expenditure of time, which the above-mentioned devices involve, could be avoided. Experience shows that this question must be answered in the affirmative." "THE TACTICAL WAR GAME." - A TRANSLATION OF GENERAL v. VERDI DU VERNOIS' "BEITRAG ZUM KRIEGSSPIEL." 1884 p. xi

His book also features conversations with the players. I know original KS emphasized written orders, but when we play, (since we are playing it as a game) we are quite liberal. We accept orders verbally, by picture, and by writing, whatever is easiest for the players. We don't have a particular syntax for orders either, but they do need to include basic details, such as name, time, recipient, units involved, task and purpose.

It is conceivable to me that Verdy would have done the same to save time. But I don't have time at the moment to reread his book. I did scan it, but found no statement that suggests umpires should simply dialogue with the players. Nonetheless, a dialogue is excellent as a teaching tool, since it allows you to better understand what a player is thinking, right or wrong.


 * If the players can talk to the umpire, how do they prevent the opponent from eavesdropping? Kurzon (talk) 16:51, 12 December 2021 (UTC)

The players are seated in different rooms, or far apart to allow the umpire to speak to them without the other team hearing. In addition, players can be taken aside somewhere to speak to them, so their own teammates cannot hear. We deal with this all the time.


 * Ah. I remember reading somewhere that in Verdy's take on Kriegsspiel, each team had their own map, and the umpire placed on the map all the pieces that the team were aware of (their troops and visible enemy troops); and the umpire had his own map in a separate room where all the troops in the battle were visible on the umpire's map. Is this true?  I imagine that since Verdy alleviated the umpire of the hassle of rules, he had more flexibility to use multiple maps. Kurzon (talk) 15:29, 14 December 2021 (UTC)