Is it a matter of ethics or preference to play one period over another.

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Please see my comments on yesterday’s post for the background to this.

I game lots of periods from prehistoric cavemen to conflicts in the 40th millennium. I play these games because I enjoy them, I love the toys, and the social aspects. I see no link between “the game” and “the reality”.

My ethics are not challenged by this in fact in some cases gaming a period has made me more sensitive to the impact of these on modern society. Gaming the Queensland Frontier War is a case in point. Many of my recent posts have been book reviews and my comments on the experience Queensland First Peoples and the First Nations peoples of North America.

This is not a justification but a comment on my personal experience.

I am playing with toy soldiers not impacting on the lives of real people and sending them to their death. There are many that have a different view and I respect those views. I just cannot agree with them.

I understand that many gamers have family members that have been impacted severely by conflicts from the second World War to today and understand how this effects their willingness to play some periods and not others. That is their choice.

I just cannot understand the logic that one period of gaming is more ethical than another. War is horrible whether it be cavemen clubbing each other to death or trying to stop a “Death Star” from obliterating your planet.

Game what you enjoy.

I have decided to allow any comments to speak for themselves and will not comment.

So ethics or preference?

19 thoughts on “Is it a matter of ethics or preference to play one period over another.”

  1. They’re games.
    As a video gamer as well as a miniatures gamer that plays across genres and periods, I don’t see a morality in it. I can see how some people might find certain periods tasteless, or upsetting, and that’s fine. I personally have thing about playing as the Japanese in WWII games, though I harbour no ill-will towards Japanese people today (or the average Russian or Chinese citizen, for that matter!)
    Ultimately, it might be a thing people talk about online, but as long as products exist, people will do what they want.
    Am I going to run out and 3d-print a bunch of T-84U’s and T-14’s and play with homebrew Team Yankee rules? Unlikely, but even if I did – it wouldn’t actually be making the world a worse place (or a better one), just the same as if I fire up Battlefield 4 and kill some “Rooskies”.

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  2. Gaming is supposed to be fun, and not a morale debate, game what you want, and worry about the real world as a separate issue. A apt quote ” Those who fail to learn from history, are doomed to repeat it’s failures”

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  3. This is a difficult subject for me. I am much more sensitive in what I game, computer or tabletop, and historically re-enact. In my youth I was of a mind that it was just gaming/recreation and was harmless. However, over the years I have had several experience temper my original blasé view.

    From wearing insensitive Halloween costumes to playing airsoft in a politically contentious outfit. I have seen real neo-Nazi mask their views as WW2 re-enactors. I have seen people use their tabletop gaming to push the neo-Confederate “Noble Cause” myth.

    Gaming, movies, comic books, larping… all can be harmless or harmful. It really depends on the intent of the participants.

    In a way it reminds me of the D-Day museums I visited in Normandy. There were interesting and respectful displays regarding both sides of the conflict without glamorizing Nazi politics.

    A year ago I could not see myself doing WW2 tabletop gaming. Now, I am getting back into it as I try to navigate a difficult gaming topic, especially as an American living in Germany. Weirdly there are times I wish I had decided to do the Pacific theater instead given where I live but the Pacific theater was also quite nightmarish as well, on both sides. There is just a certain “distance” to it.

    The same way that to my mind, before the current political situation in America the Civil War was sufficiently “distant” through time if not space for me to game recreationally. Now I am uncomfortable gaming that period for fun. Too much emotional investment I guess.

    Emotional investment. That, like the intent of the participants, affects recreational gaming for me. It is emotional investment in racial justice for example that makes the US Army of the 40’s problematic for me… despite being a “Cold War” US Army Infantry veteran.

    But yes, it is ironic that given all war is horrific that we discuss which war we are ok with gaming recreationally.

    Gaming is to many, including myself, an art form and it can be difficult at times to separate art from politics and emotion.

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  4. Enjoyed this post and comments so far! 🙂 I think if I hadn’t taken up wargaming I’d have gone with model railways, so it’s probably a creative thing for me, although wargaming had more of a social contact aspect (geek versus geek)! I’ve tended to go with armies and periods that I’ve wanted to find out more about, although as a kid WW2 was always going to be an easy starting point due to the presence of Airfix products (in the late ‘60s). And maybe it’s always good to have the thought in the back of my mind that those who don’t learn from history’s mistakes may be destined to repeat them (as Dave Stone has already mentioned)!

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  5. Very interesting post, I’ve been enjoying reading through the comments too. Personally I don’t “do” historical wargaming; I’m strictly into fantasy and sci-fi. That may change over time of course. Mostly for me it’s aesthetic choice, I paint what I think looks cool and I like having the freedom to paint things the way I want, and not worry about all the pedants who’ll have a meltdown if you paint your general’s socks in slightly the wrong shade of green (let’s be honest here, we’ve all met ‘em!).

    There certainly isn’t an ethical aspect to it for me, I think you hit the nail on the head when you said “I am playing with toy soldiers not impacting on the lives of real people and sending them to their death”. However, if I ever did step into the world of historical gaming I’d be a lot more cautious about who I shared it with. We live in a world where frank discussion is abhorred, where the “no debate” mob will scream for a person to be killed or imprisoned for the most harmless and innocent of comments and, in my country at least, the police and criminal justice system seems to be very much on their side. Meanwhile there remain plenty of people who’d be keen to refight any number of historic campaigns outside a pub of a Friday night. To give a personal example a good mate of mine is looking at getting into playing Bolt Action. For a while last year I was looking very seriously at buying a bunch of Russians so we could play battles around the Stalingrad campaign, something he has a huge knowledge of and interest in. We still haven’t done it, and both of us are well aware that people would have been yelling at him “Oh, you’ve painted some Nazi’s have you?! You should die in jail you filthy Nazi!”. Of course, even a quick glance at the global news at the time was enough to warn me of something that has now proved true – if I’d painted those Russians people would be saying the same things about me.

    Do I worry particularly over what idiots think? Not normally, no, but it adds to my feeling that historical wargaming isn’t really for me at the moment. Orks and aliens are just more interesting to me as subjects to paint, and (AoS vs WHFB fanatics aside!) no-one is likely to tell me I’m perpetrating evil for playing the wrong side! 🙂

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    • I think as you said, it depends on who and how you share this sort of thing. I don’t hide nor advertise my model collection to outer-family nor people at work, etc (because who else is going to know me to judge?) People at work know I play video games, and I tend to leave it at that for most of them because it’s easy – they understand what they are. If asked about my hobbies, I tell them I also paint models “like model planes and stuff” which again – is something normies can understand.

      If it comes down to it, I’m in a position where I’ve got enough models that anything else mixed in just becomes part of the mass. Sure, I have a WWII German army. I’ve also got a WWII British army to go opposite them on my own table. Along with space soldiers and aliens and Lord of the Rings and Dungeons and Dragons and zombies and such… your collection is pretty much just as diverse!

      I have to admit, I don’t quite get the level of paranoia in your post – unless you’re posting it on Facebook along with photos, your real name/face and a bunch of questionable bits of iconography I don’t really get who those “people” screaming at you and your mate for being Nazis or Soviets would actually be in real life? – nor how the cops or ythe justice system comes into play when you’re painting some Panzers of T-34s?

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      • Once again we seem to be in general agreement on things. To clarify I think if I was painting historical miniatures (regardless of nation or time period) I’d be happy enough to blog about it as I’m not using my own name but I’d be very cautious beyond that. Am I being paranoid? Possibly, although I think I’m just being careful. Certainly I’m not alone in feeling this way. In the last few years, and particularly since the pandemic and all the lockdowns, there have been an increasing number of people who become aggressive and hysterical over even very minor differences of opinion. I’ve had it happen to me and I’ve lost friends over it, and I know I’m not alone in this (not by a long way). As for the police we have something here called “non crime hate incidents” combined with some very strict hate crime laws. People have had police turn up at their work and some have even been arrested for doing things which might be perceived, if looked at through the right lens, as potentially causing offence (note that here causing offence is the issue, and intent has no bearing). Often the so-called “offences” are a lot more innocuous than painting little models of WW2 Germans etc. It’s a bit crazy but sadly it is what it is. I’ve got a family to look after, no point in putting a target on my back more often than I have to. 

  7. A good post and comments so far. For me it is interest in some cases and morality in others. Mainly computer games in the latter. I, like John was brought up on Airfix kits. So my Armies were either British or German, funnily enough I wasn’t allowed Japanese as, according to my mother, they were cruel and nasty people. I moved on through various periods, my 6mm Army was 1943 German my mate was 43 Russian…as I had Tigers then they were SS. There was no angst or worry. As to me it was just a gamecwith little metal men. As I was doing Roman reenactment I ended up rebuilding the 20th Legion in 15mm… technically I was playing the bad guy both as myself and with my little men… again no angst, but as a legionary I would tell people all about the period from the historical point. I actually had a Texan force for AcW games at the club. This was for a couple of pragmatic reasons… one.. Confederate troops are more interesting to paint than Union… two… there was a lack of Confederate players. War is not nice, it us brutal and horrible, but me pushing little men around is not glorifying it, it is simply a more interesting version of chess in my mind. If I hadn’t got into toys soldiers it would have been trains or dioramas. Now in respect of online gaming, it is a bit more interesting. I always take the moral stance, always try to do the right thing in the RPG style games. In Red Dead Redemption 2, I got the nice grave on the mountain, meaning I had indeed found redemption. I won’t touch GTA at all, as an example. Battlefield 5 I play quite happily as an American or Japanese soldier and help the team out to win.

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  8. ***sreeech (sounds of internet soapbox being pull to center stage), stepping up onto soapbox***

    One. Great post, I love posts that make me think as much as like looking at greatly painted models and figures.
    Two. Morality/Ethics, for me, have no place in gaming, other than don’t cheat or rules lawyer!. I generally find myself drawn to the aesthetics of a miniature or vehicle or robot or whatever. Which is why I started with Brettonia, then moved on to Steel Legion, when I started tabletop wargaming. I enjoy playing the Super-villains and much as the Super-heroes in MCP.
    Three. These “moral police” can kiss my ass. I love building, painting and displaying WWII German armor and planes, because I love doing the historical research and they just look damn cool to my eye. If I’m building an Axis airplane from WWII it better damn well have a swastika on the tail!
    Four. Growing up in America and living in the Bible belt as an adult, I see more damage being done by regulus people than us gamers that want to push little plastic or pewter “people” around a table for an hour or two.
    ***steps off internet soapbox***

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  9. I think the ethics come down to, as what Brian Train dubbed, the indecency of recency.

    Nobody care about what their Viking games actually represent but won’t play ‘moderns’ – there is a video to that effect on my blog some years ago.

    Cheers,

    Pete.

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  10. When I run my Spanish Conquest games, I always tell the players “there are no good guys”. History is brutal, and needs to be remembered and understood. There’s a world of difference between playing a game and adopting an ideology.

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