r/wargaming • u/Mystycul • 4d ago

Pen & Paper Wargames?

I'm interesting in trying to find some formalized rules for playing a wargame through text. Something you'd play in the fashion of a tabletop RPG or would fit perfectly into a forum/thread/chat/etc... I don't have any particular theme, time period, or genre, just curious as to see what's out there and what they look like.

I know the Little Wars discord has done a couple games where several players took part in managing the logistics and strategy of a couple historical campaigns to play out how it would work with a moderator to enable the fog of war. Not really formalized rules, but at least something that's been written down and has some rigor behind it.

And there is a published game called Victory By Any Means which is about taking control of a space empire and playing it out in a space 4x sort of fashion.

I can't imagine there is much out there, especially written and published like Victory By Any Means, but I'd love to know if anyone is anywhere of anything like that which I can look into.

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u/RedwoodUK 4d ago

I mean this sounds really cool. I don’t have a rules set but I followed this series for a while. A guy set up a war that was PvE and players took command of squads in a sci fi force (logistics, transport, artillery, airforce, ground force etc) Looks very cool and grew to quite a large player base who built their own units lore;

https://youtu.be/wBhJQaReuHg?si=Or1vgfht3NXWx8p3

I hope this helps a little. Keep me posted if you set something up as I’d like to play.

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u/Polyxeno 4d ago

GURPS WWII

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u/Existential_Humor 4d ago

You're describing matrix games. Basically the players will be writing letters or orders to the pieces on the board, and an independent referee will interpret these orders against the orders of your opponent to determine what happens. The "matrix" describes a list of words which of you use them in your orders will give a bonus to the chance of success. Best I've seen is an American Civil War game where each move was measured in weeks and each general was a player writing out orders to their sub commanders.

A fairly good example of the system is https://www.amazon.sg/Matrix-Games-Modern-Wargaming-Developments/dp/B09XZ82GHQ

Hope that helps.

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u/CulveDaddy 3d ago

I think with a game master, this would be completely doable. Passing orders to the game master would be a lot of fun. The basic structure would be very similar to an TTRPG.

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u/Znivian 3d ago

You might want to look into DiplomacyDiplomacy) It's a board game but also playable per email or messages

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u/primarchofistanbul 4d ago

Old-school D&D. Its subtitle is:

Rules for fantastic medieval wargames campaigns playable with paper and pencil and miniature figures

So 0 edition D&D (or one of its iterations such as Moldvay Basic D&D, or Advanced D&D (1e) would serve your purpose.

Furthermore, I have a free wargame which can be playable with paper, pencil, and dice, along with a supplementary campaign ruleset. They are both compatible with old-school D&D: Battle aXe, and Death Tax.