Tiny Brush Strokes on the Larger Canvas

 “There is nothing insignificant in the world. It all depends on the point of view.”

— Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

People sometimes say we need to see the bigger picture, the forest from the trees, the larger canvas. Such phrases always remind me of Georges Seurat’s masterpiece of pointillism, A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. Stand back and the viewer takes in the entire painting, which, at 10 feet wide, is quite a canvas. Step closer and one sees the tiny points of paint which make up tge larger characters, landscape, and the overall picture. Ferris Beuller’s Day Off artfully demonstrated this during the tourism montage scenes. Historically themed games allow us to explore new perspectives, form connections with the subject matter, and hopefully gain a greater understanding of events...notably the people involved. Many such games focus on the big picture — abstracted political factions, military units, entire regions of geography, and other broad generalizations — but a contrast between that and the finer details (and everything in between) helps us better appreciate the whole on different levels.

We often find different approaches when learning about history. Some resources cover broad subjects for a knowledgeable overview. Some offer very specific details, though they often require familiarity with the big picture to put the smaller stories into context. A good history resource covers many perspectives, broad and focused, to provide a more complete picture of events. Some sections cover the larger political or military movements, while looking at personal experiences, quoting diaries and letters, gives us a sense of how individual people felt as such events occurred around them...or spurred them to action.

For example, I’m currently following the Warsaw Uprising Day-By-Day Podcast. Each episode includes some insights about the overall action each day illustrated by personal accounts of the uprising, both from German commanders and members of the Polish Home Army. To help orient myself I picked up a used copy of Warsaw 1944 from Osprey Publishing; it offered a clinically tactical look at the military aspects of the uprising, though I was looking more for maps to help orient me to events I heard about in the podcast. It’s a basic military history of the event. But the podcast and supporting social media posts by co-host Alina Nowobilska and resources at the Warsaw Rising Museum website draw our attention not to the wider battle and larger issues, but to individuals: their names, photos, some details about their lives...and their deaths. What makes the greatest impression, what brings the uprising alive to me as a person, are the first-hand accounts of fighters crawling through sewers to escape the Germans, tending the wounded, navigating city streets in rubble to carry news and supplies, or losing their best friend to a sniper. The big picture is important, but we identify most with how other people like ourselves endured these horrors. Maybe this helps us appreciate our own lives and the societies in which we live today. Perhaps this gives us some understanding or empathy with the plight of others surviving horrifying events in our own world.

Games based on history can also present events at the “big picture” level or focus on a more personal perspective. Early wargames allowed players to experience the broad canvas of battles, fighting actions with entire armies: Waterloo, Gettysburg, D-Day. Even at such a large scale, companies like Avalon Hill still marketed wargames as a personal experience placing players in the roles of the key generals in ad campaigns claiming “You are in command!” Though generals have their own personal experience of combat, it’s rather unlike what the typical soldier endures; goodness knows few of us have positions on par with a “general” in our real lives. Leaning toward the larger canvas in historical wargames certainly seems more practical. Commanding entire armies plays into a fun power trip and enables us to manage the course of a massive event. It’s easier for designers to look at orders of battle to simulate units, to map out battlefields (often done quite well by historical resources), and determine the results of all those factors interacting during the game. This also makes it easier for us to have “fun” playing at war, when we focus on the broad picture but not on the individual, personal cost.

Focusing on more detailed elements requires greater design consideration and invites deeper introspection. Many of us have impressions of how sweeping battles played out thanks to our historical reading; but we need to search deeper to discover the personal experiences and impressions of those individuals on the front lines, carrying out attacks with their compatriots and falling under enemy fire. A personal connection can help us understand people’s actions and emotions from a different perspective that might broaden our overall understanding of an event.

I can think of only a few historical games that impart an up-close connection to individuals involved in events simulated in play. My first was Avalon Hills classic solitaire game, B-17 Queen of the Skies, which I’ve discussed before. Although the player commands a single Fighting Fortress on missions against Germany in World War II, the game requires one to track each individual crew member on a flight roster. This personal level of involvement becomes real when game events — attacks from enemy fighters and blasts from flak — injure or kill crew members. This brings home the personal fear and sacrifice many felt during these raids; quite a different game experience when juxtaposed with Avalon Hill’s Luftwaffe and other titles depicting the Allied strategic bombing campaign

Although I’ve not seen or played it, I’ve heard excellent reviews of David Thompson’s Lanzerath Ridge from Dan Verssen Games. This solo game focuses on a small group of American soldiers resisting German attacks at the start of the Battle of the Bulge. The counters aren’t just generic infantrymen, but soldiers with names and photographs, raising the stakes of victory or defeat to a highly personal level. Other games like Maquis (which I’ve occasionally mentioned) focus the action on unnamed individuals and their specific tasks building up toward victory. Similar games like Comet and Dutch Resistance: Orange Shall Overcome! include names and photos of historical figures who experienced the events these games cover (aid to downed airmen and resistance in Holland during WWII), making the stakes more personal.

I have endeavored in some of my own games to impart a sense of the personal in the context of larger events. My “Game which Will Live in Infamy” allows players to take part in a small episode in the attack on Pearl Harbor, focusing on the USS California as well as the USS Nevada. After the game the “briefing” cards I give to players offer some personal connections to the battle, especially for the American players; they learn about individual heroes who took off in airplanes or stayed at their posts aboard battleship anti-aircraft guns. I am certain other games exist that focus on individuals to better give players a more personal sense of the historical events through which they lived.

In everyday life we must often remind ourselves to “see the forest from the trees” or look at the smaller bits that make up the larger picture. We need knowledge of the whole to provide context for the individual stories that help us make connections...and encourage understanding.

“Every man’s life ends the same way. It is only the details of how he lived and how he died that distinguish one man from another.”

— Ernest Hemingway