Micro-Blog: The Skirmish Game as a Sims-Like

The Sims is a series of games that despite its obvious "genre" (that of simulation) actually has a lot going on that defies neat categorization. While players have the opportunity to sculpt their Sims, shape their preferences, decorate their homes and give them simple commands, the titular dolls of your dollhouse still act (and act out) independently of what you might think is best. To be a player in the Sims is less to "simulate" a life for yourself, but rather to be the "handler" of the lives of others. Which brings us to war games...

There's this habit in tabletop spheres of defining tabletop games, especially tabletop roleplaying games, as "collaborative story telling games." It's a habit I myself used to fall into, but these days I do my best to push back against. While I think tabletop games can be about shaping a collaborative story, scripting character arcs to be played out at the table, collaboratively writing worlds to be engaged upon, this represents only one possible permutation of the strain. The games I'm most drawn to (and my favorite narratives drawn out of them) are systems through which a story can emerge from play rather than where one is prescribed by the table. Where the consequence of making interesting game-level decisions at the table and submerging yourself into a world in which you have limited authorship, is that you step away at the end of the night primed to start a sentence with "it was so cool when" or "I can't believe that." This is one of many reasons I tend to prefer playing in a blorbed setting that can surprise me, rather than a team-built setting that I feel I've helped author. If I know the play is in our control and we get full authorship of where things are going, what's there to find out?[*1] Which brings us also to war games...

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In a skirmish game you have your squad of fighting little figures - On the highly formalized end these are a mix of faceless stats and occasional named characters all with highly detailed and immutable lore all packaged in a deliciously overproduced codex of some kind. Maybe you give them some personality, or paint them odd colors, but that's on you. On the incredibly loosey goosey end each model functions as a miniature art project, each detail hand-crafted by you with (or without) care, each battalion packed with as much or as little self-contained personality and "lore" as the player themselves cares to give them. So where's the Medium Spicy equivalent here? Mordheim might fit the bill, with a rich and detailed setting, plenty of room for character customization, and some exceptionally good mid/between match rules to make each model feel unpredictable[*2]. Mechanically it's still not 100% my jam but the heart is absolutely there.

What I yearn for (what I'm begrudgingly designing between a myriad of other things) is a game that firmly separates the player handler from their temperamental and unpredictable units, their Sims. You can help shape what these Sims look like, how they sound, their flavor, the gear they sortie with - You can give them orders, feel the kick of their new thrusters, watch in awe as your coordinated pincer attack works - But you can never quite predict when they'll act out, fall in love, break down, blow up. I've been slowly reading through Romance of the Three Kingdoms and it's made me realize just how much the human element can bring a battle to life. Morale rolls are great, but I think we can do better (heck Joel Happyhil is already pushing this boundary with Dollhouse).

I want a Skirmish game where I can break my pilots' hearts to make them fight harder, where they can lock-in when death faces them down or eject far before intended, where they cling to their rival and refuse to fight anyone else. I want my Skirmish scrimblos to feel like Sims I manage and watch evolve, rather than overwritten pawns that move and act with cold unalive precision. Because it's not about the tactics nor the flavor for me, it's about the moment we all pause after the dice settle and say "well... that just happened..."

[*1 : To be clear this isn't an inditement of that kind of play - I find it fascinating and try it on occasion! In fact City of Winter has been incredibly high on my list of games I'd like to play... Granted it's still built around the idea of surprising yourself and your table in a collaborative story-telling exercise, where small decisions will have massive ripples for the world you weave.]

[*2 : An aside here: While the War Game is ostensibly "competitive," to me the goal of something like Mordheim is not to win so much as it is to play - "Winning" in this context means "I made something cool happen and I walked away from the table having seen some awesome stuff" - Much in the same way that there are "scenarios" you can "win" in the Sims, but ultimately many people simply play it to enjoy the moment-to-moment nuance and surprises.]