First, is it miniatures wargaming or miniature wargaming or just miniatures? Something else?

We still haven’t thought up a name for our game, system, or miniatures. We are actually more arguing about what it is we are naming. This post is an attempt to clarify what it is we are trying to accomplish. Do we want to allow a theme or miniature type dictate the game or do we want a game system that can be used with anything? I lean towards the latter, but it may be too ambitious at this point. He is being more miniatures driven and is having a hard time understanding what it means to think in terms of a set of rules as opposed to the pieces of plastic themselves. I’m sure we’ll somewhere in the middle.

I don’t guess it matters. My son and I have been working on a rule system for our game we one day wish to formalize. But today he asked me what to name “his game.” After thinking about it, and in truth I had been thinking about it, I still go back to my other thought that a game system ought to not revolve around a particular set of miniatures, but instead around a game rule set. Although it may be the small figures that give miniatures wargaming its name, ultimately, I believe (naively perhaps), it is the game system that gives the game its existence.

This is the point I try to make in my previous post: Think in rule sets instead of simply miniatures. I’m not trying to discount the miniatures. How could I? That wouldn’t make much sense. But if you have a set of miniatures for wargaming, you love the theme, the background of real or fantasy history, but despise the game itself, you have a set of models instead of miniature wargaming miniatures.

It is here all games converge, whether it is a boardgame, RPG, or Miniature Wargame. There is a special convergence, however, with RPG systems, and I think it’s worth noting. Simplistically, in an RPG you have a theme and a gaming system. You might have paperwork to keep up with your characters and you usually have a fairly complex set of variables and modifiers by which to play your game. In a miniatures wargame, and here my lack experience will show itself, the rules don’t tend to be as complex. You don’t typically get down to the minutiae that an RPG does. And while miniatures always, I think, has miniatures, it could be played without them, and an RPG, while not requiring a miniature, can often time use them. There are many RPG miniatures on the market to enhance what could be a purely mental endeavor and there are lots of rule sets begging to be used with a set of miniatures. Without over analyzing I’m sure that both sides are saying, yet, but here… and that is just what I am talking about. They are so similar you can argue that way.

Though he just wants a name, I’m more interested in his understanding why we are naming what we are naming. I won’t be too hard or analytical, don’t worry. I don’t want him to be so lost he looses interest. We’ll keep it fun.

It’s the thought process behind the naming and game design that I hope can be appreciated in this initial stage. This is only the beginning.