Discerning Reality in the Fog of War

“Many intelligence reports in war are contradictory; even more are false, and most are uncertain.”

— Carl von Clausewitz

Games remain excellent learning tools to help train our minds to estimate the situation presented by the current game state and devise a course of action to pursue on our next turn. People use these skills of observation, collation, and evaluation all the time in various everyday situations. Some make a career out of it, like intelligence analysts, military commanders, and political decision makers. Others take a more carefully considered approach to make decisions in their everyday lives: how to find a job and whether to take one offered; how to use one’s finances to best improve one’s situation; how to proceed on an academic or career path; how to approach and resolve interpersonal conflicts. Games offer a “safe-to-fail” environment in which to practice our observational and decision-making skills, but the real world often remains unrelentingly merciless when we make mistakes. But too often the “fog of war” hinders our ability to clearly discern the reality of various situations. And while games can help hone our skills in evaluating factors in our decisions to move forward, the real world presents us with far too many uncertainties, biases, and even “bad players” intent on distorting and influencing our perception of the situation.

Gamers have it a little easier than the real world, working within limited, abstracted models (some might say “simplified” models), most of which incorporate varying degrees of uncertainty, the fog of war.

At the very basic level, in games that offer “perfect information” like chess, we still wrestle with the mystery of what the opponent intends in their pursuit of victory. Many games offer a What You See Is What You Get (WYSIWYG) view of the play situation on the table. Chess clearly shows each piece’s identity and disposition on the board. While this makes the immediate game state evident, one still experiences uncertainty in how the opponent might pursue victory. No matter what game we play, the mystery of the other’s strategy and practical methods pursuing success remains a constant challenge (though we might think we discern it in small portions from their previous actions). Ultimately we strive to discern information about other players in competitive games. The opponent remains the principle form of “fog of war” we face on the game table.

Games withhold information through other mechanisms even while still providing players with a visual representation of the commonly understood game state. Concealed card hands hide a player’s resources and capabilities. Upright blocks in board wargames keep unit strength and composition hidden. Even pieces in plain view don’t always display their strength, capabilities, or damage sustained.

Certain mechanics infuse games with further uncertainty beyond player intentions. The random nature of game elements represents what von Clausewitz called the “friction” of war: the factors that determine success and failure that remain beyond our control. We draw from card decks with a vague notion of what might lie in store, the exact card always a mystery until revealed. We try to discern or calculate the chances of success on a given die roll probability. We hedge our bets employing special abilities and known capabilities to gain an advantage...yet a chance for failure usually still exists.

Perhaps roleplaying games offer the greatest enshrouded territory on all fronts. They still rely on uncertain outcomes with die rolls randomly determining success (despite our heaping modifiers on such rolls). Players don’t always know each other’s motivations and methods, especially those of the gamemaster. Beyond the commonly known aspects of the imaginary setting and its inhabitants, players often know only what the gamemaster reveals to them in their characters’ explorations and interactions in that game world. Most information flows from the gamemaster, subject to bias, misdirection, and the hidden agendas of non-player characters. The gamemaster creates much of the hidden backstory to a scenario, which the characters may or may not reveal through their actions. Even then these lead to further adventures in which they must uncover new locations, allies and adversaries, and the behind-the-scenes schemes working against them.

If we put our minds to it, we can appreciate most games offer us a safe-to-fail environment to explore how we evaluate information through the fog of war. It’s a convergence of imperfect information, different perspectives, other player’s hidden strategies and goals, and random elements driving the friction. But reality isn’t constrained by a game’s mechanisms for interacting with the game state on the board and with other players. People discern reality through the fog of war every day, though it might not be an integral part of their existence. Military personnel navigate conflicts large and small based on information available to them and their own awareness of their capabilities. Political leaders survey the popular and legislative landscape, trying to determine the best course to improve their constituents’ lives (ideally), or more often solidify their hold on power. Law enforcement personnel often faces incomplete situations where they must somehow determine the details of and even a more compete picture of a crime, often without having been present to witness it themselves.

We examine what’s evident before us, but also evaluate information that comes our way from all sources for its authenticity and the truthfulness of its source. We struggle to understand and determine what we don’t know. Evaluating the information that stumbles out of the fog presents challenges in a world oversaturated with information sources and parties seeking to manipulate them for their own ends. It’s bad enough the fog of war conceals a clearer picture of a situation from our perspective; but worse when sources themselves give in to bias and misinformation muddling the view, forcing us to question the reality we take great pains to perceive correctly.

This isn’t something easily simulated in an abstracted game experience...but our game playing activities can help us become aware of, reflect on, and learn how to better deal with the fog of war, the uncertainties we face but must account for, as we estimate situations in our daily lives and determined the best course of action.

“Play is training for the unexpected.”

— Marc Bekoff