I've wrestled with this for a couple of days. This is going to be all I say about this. Probably.
The nominees
for the Charles S. Roberts Awards for Excellence in Conflict SimulationGames were announced on Tuesday (Wednesday, Adelaide time – you can find a
list of the nominees here). Cue discussions online and (presumably across
tables, over beers, at watercoolers… you get the idea) about what constitutes a
wargame, or a “conflict simulation game,” and why wasn’t X-game nominated and
how could anyone seriously think Y-game deserved a nomination, and “Why do we
need a category for ‘Best Political, Social, or Economic Game’ anyway (this is
all Twilight Struggle’s fault [mutter mutter].”
In
terms of gaming, I’m mostly a wargamer these days. That’s what I play by choice,
but I’m happy to engage with Euro and Ameritrash games if that’s what’s on
offer. I still role-play with my Wednesday night group probably two or three
weeks out of five. This week we played The Godfather: Corleone’s Empire;
that was fun. If you get the chance, try it.
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| Bodies in the Hudson River after a particularly brutal Act III. I'm sure there's a metaphor in there somewhere. |
I’m not
involved in the selection or the CSR’s, beyond voting for the last three or so years
and taking a keener interest in them over the last two. But as a wargamer, I
look forward to all the announcements, and the final awards presentation
(Thanks, Dan P.) I’m deeply grateful they are still a thing for a couple of
reasons.
The most
self-serving of these is that I’m a wargame blogger and the Charlies are a good
source of content; in the past I’ve talked about what nominated games I already
own, what made the list, sometimes what didn’t make the list. Unboxings or
reviews get a header, “Nominated for the Charles S. Roberts Award for yada-yada,
20XX.”
Then
there’s recommendations. Like a lot of people, I’m sure, I tend to treat the
nominations like a referral list for new games, especially ones I haven’t come cross
before. I wouldn’t buy a game just because it received a CSR nomination – I’d
still do my due diligence (BGG, YouTube channels and other bloggers I trust,
you get the idea), but sometimes I’ll end up buying and – more to the point – enjoying
a game (and writing an unboxing article and a review about it; more content,
people!) that I hadn’t heard of because it made the nomination list.
 |
| We Are Coming, Ninevah (Nuts! Publishing, 2023). I just happened to order a copy two days before the nominees were announced. Definitely a wargame. |
I’m
grateful for the CSR Awards still being a thing, because for a number of years were
handed out between, they weren’t. No awards were handed out from 2013-2018. Eventually
some like-minded folks (mostly publishers as I understand it, so you could
argue they had a vested interest) chipped in some cash and talked Rodger
MacGowan into coordinating the whole thing. Since 2020, there have been Charles
S. Roberts Awards once more every year without fail. Thank you, Rodger.
But mostly,
I think it’s also important to celebrate the hobby and those that contribute so
much to it, and to once in a while, just point to someone of something and say,
“Good, that.” I don’t think we, as a community, do that enough.
As it’s
frequently pointed out, wargaming is a niche within a niche. The broader
community gets their own awards celebrations, and lots of them. Off the top of
my head there’s the American Tabletop Awards, Spiel des Jahres,
the Dice Tower Awards, and the International Gamers Awards, and
there are dozens more, all over the world. These awards celebrate some of the
best or most innovative games on the market. Of course, that attention and
popularity is going to be parleyed into bigger sales, but that’s the price of doing
business in Kansas. That doesn’t take away from the celebration and recognition
of the games, the designers, the illustrators, and others involved in the
production process, and occasionally that will translate into a newspaper
article on a slow news days reporting about the growth of interest in board
games. All this is positive for the hobby.
Like it
or not, the CSR Awards are the closest thing our slice of the hobby has to a
Spiel des Jahres. I’m not suggesting it’s perfect – I do think the current
categories are an improvement over Best Pre-WWII, Best WWII, and Best Modern
categories from 2013 – but it’s ours. I don’t think people should stop being
critical of the CSR Awards, but there is criticism and then there’s setting
fire to the building.
I’m
trying to tread gently here; I think that some of us may be too invested in the
“what’s a wargame” debate. In the Facebook groups, someone might post, “Hi, new
to the hobby. I don’t know where to start; maybe something with rules that aren’t
too difficult. Interested in the Roman Empire and maybe Napoleon. Any
suggestions?” And to this someone will reply, every without irony, “You need to play
ASL.”
I once
worked with a woman who, when I first met her, was deeply into the goth scene, until
she wasn’t. One day I got up the nerve to ask her about it. She told me, for
her at least, it had become progressively less about the music and the poetry
and the aesthetic, and morphed into an eternal discussion of how goth this or that
person was, and whether they were really goth or just pretend-goth.
I don’t
think the gatekeepers of wargaming are trying to keep people out. Everyone
wants to see new people entering the fold, but some folks seem to see
their role being Guardians of the Sanctity of Wargaming. To them, I would like
to say, with respect:
It’s great you have favourites. I do too. There’s also games I think are a waste of time. I know you think that because you can’t shut the fuck up about it. Anywhere. With anyone.
You want more gamers entering the hobby? Try being a little open-minded. Try to adopt a “live and let live” approach. Try to treat the hobby less like a religion with its own rituals and holy scriptures (I’m looking at you, GOSS).
Nobody is asking you to play Euro games dressed up as wargames. Or book-games, or post-card games, or any other game you don't want to play or have some kind of issue with. We’re just asking you not to eviscerate the folks who design them or the people that play them. It just makes you look like a sad reactionary, ranting about the good old days of poor component registration, and bemoaning the move away from good, honest. traditional CRTs.
All that time you spend spouting shit about everything you don’t like or think is wrong about the hobby is time you’re robbing yourself of that could be spent playing a game you do like, so it’s kind of like shooting yourself in the foot. Unless you’re more invested in identifying who’s a real wargamer and who isn’t, in which case, maybe you should ask yourself if it’s time to change religions?
To
everyone else, I’d like to say, enjoy what you like. Complain the Charlies don’t
represent your flavour of wargaming anymore, by all means. Take the CSR Awards board to task in a sternly-worded email. Then go out and buy one of those
games you like, or play the hell out of one you already have. Take some photos and put
them up on BGG or FB and show everyone what a riot it is. Start a blog or a
YouTube channel and talk about your favourite games. Convince people through
But
most of all, try to focus on the positive. It’s always much, much easier to tear
something down than it is to build it up. Don’t be lazy.
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