Wargame

Background

Escalated conflicts and strategies have always been part of recorded history, but modern wargaming was invented in Prussia in the early 19th century. The Prussian military adopted it for training and doctrine development. After Prussia defeated France in the Franco-Prussian War, wargaming was widely adopted by military officers in other countries. Civilian enthusiasts played wargames for fun, but this was a niche hobby until the development of consumer electronic wargames in the 1990s.

The Physical Toolkit of the Table

The components that make up a tabletop game form an almost astonishingly diverse toolkit, stretching from the ancient to the hyper-modern. At the most basic level, a game might rely on a board, a set of pawns or miniature figures, and a rulebook. But the full inventory of possible pieces runs far deeper.

Timing devices range from a simple egg timer to a stopwatch or hourglass. Scoring can be tracked with cardboard counters, dial counters, pegs, or a dedicated scoreboard. Randomness is introduced through an equally wide palette: standard dice, polyhedral dice, coins, spinners, tops like Teetotums and Dreidels, drawstring bags, and even the bones, cowrie shells, and stick dice that powered ancient games.

For card-based titles, the ecosystem expands to include collectible cards, card sleeves for crafting systems, shuffling machines, and stickers that mark progression in Legacy-style games. Role-playing and refereed games add their own layer: gamemaster's screens, campaign settings, scenario packs, and supplementary manuals. Even modelling clay and rulers find a place at the table, reminding us that the tactile, hands-on nature of tabletop play is a core part of its identity.

The Architecture of Uncertainty

Tabletop games can be sorted not just by what sits on the table but by how uncertainty is woven into their rules. Game theory identifies two fundamentally distinct kinds of chance that shape play. The first is outcome uncertainty: even when every player sees the full state of the board, the result of a given action may still be unpredictable. A roll of the dice or the draw of a hidden card introduces this randomness, and games built around such mechanics are called stochastic, in contrast to fully deterministic ones.

The second kind is state uncertainty, where information itself is withheld. An opponent's hand of cards stays face-down, a hidden position on the map cannot be seen, or moves are made simultaneously so neither player knows the other's choice before committing. These are partial or imperfect information games, as opposed to full or perfect information games where every detail is visible to all. A single title like Monopoly or a modern eurogame can blend both types of uncertainty, making it impossible to slot neatly into one category and highlighting how layered the design space of tabletop gaming truly is.

The Living Community

Beyond the table itself, tabletop gaming is sustained by a sprawling network of organizations, conventions, and grassroots groups. Major industry players like Wizards of the Coast steward the RPGA, while White Wolf Publishing's Camarilla has long served the role-playing scene. Board Game Geek runs BGG.CON, and PAX dedicates its Unplugged segment to tabletop play. Geek & Sundry champions an annual International TableTop Day, and the Historical Miniatures Gaming Society organizes events like Historicon specifically for wargaming enthusiasts.

For those still developing their designs, SaltCON LLC hosts both a convention and the Ion Award competition, which spotlights unpublished tabletop games. The Organization of Gamers and Roleplaying Enthusiasts, known as O.G.R.E.s, puts on events for OMGcon. Yet the most numerous layer is the local: countless independent, player-run groups gather in living rooms and community centers, and many colleges maintain student organizations devoted entirely to tabletop gaming. The Collegiate Association of Table Top Gamers, with chapters at various schools, is one example of how the hobby embeds itself in academic life.

Crossing into the Digital Realm

The boundary between physical and digital tabletop gaming has grown increasingly porous. Digital tabletop games encompass a broad spectrum of approaches, from straightforward digital reproductions of existing physical games to video games that borrow tabletop design principles as a core part of their mechanics. A third category, the tabletop simulator, offers a virtual table where players can conduct sessions of role-playing or wargaming entirely online, replicating the shared-space experience of a physical table without requiring everyone to be in the same room.

This digital layer does not replace the tactile world of meeples, dice towers, and paper rulebooks; rather, it extends the reach of the hobby. A player in one time zone can pass a virtual token across a digital board to a friend on another continent, or a game designer can test a prototype with a scattered group of playtesters. The result is a hybrid culture in which the ancient act of gathering around a flat surface to play has found new, screen-based expressions while retaining the social and strategic heart of the original tabletop tradition.

Did You Know?

• There is ambiguity whether activities where participants physically perform mock combat actions are considered wargames.
• Military field training exercises are sometimes called 'live wargames,' but the US Navy does not accept this term.
• Activities like paintball and airsoft are often classified as combat sports, though the War Olympics is colloquially referred to as wargaming.
• Professional wargames tend to have simple models and computations compared to recreational wargames, partly because military officers often have little wargaming experience.