The idea of emergent storytelling in games has become a cliché because everyone pretty much accepts that the cool parts of Civilization, for example, can form unique stories that are not tied to any preordained narrative. But nothing is as preordained as history that has already happened, which puts historical wargaming in a bind: hew too closely to history and you lose the storytelling, stray too far and you lose the history. But if you don’t stray far enough, you lose the ability to travel different paths down the historical trail that attracts many of us to gaming in the first place. Solving this problem is one of historical wargaming’s biggest dilemmas.

I’m not saying that Kim Kanger has solved this problem, but his games get closer to a solution for me than most others because he has a talent for taking historical considerations and weaving them into a game fabric that is both flexible and enduring. Each of his three games on the sunset of the French colonial Empire (Ici, c’est la France on the Algerian War, Tonkin about the First Indochina War, and The Final Gamble about the Battle of Dien Bien Phu) seems to capture what’s essential about the historical period in a way that leaves the player with a lasting impression. I played an entire campaign game of The Final Gamble face-to-face over four weekends against a friend of mine, and after we finished, he leaned back and said, “Wow, that game just feels right.” I knew exactly what he meant.

This is a feeling I didn’t get from the previous games in this video series about Dien Bien Phu, so it’s nice to be able to end the project on this note. It reassures me that there is a lot of game design talent out there, and if you look hard long enough, you’ll find it. Part of the point of this last video is to help you not have to look so hard.

This final installment of the series ran long for various reasons, one of which is that it’s always fun to talk about something you like. But even with the added time, I only mentioned in passing a game mechanic that I think deserves further attention, because it shows just how robust game systems can be in tackling thematic challenges. The French casualty problem at Dien Bien Phu was complicated not just by the lack of adequate facilities, but by the constant need for medical supplies to be dropped, which had to compete with all the other pressing needs of the isolated fortress. Kim Kanger’s solution to the supply question is a brilliant one, but the simple way he puts the casualty problem front and center makes me wonder why no one came up with this before. When a French unit is eliminated (unless it was Isolated, in which case it is destroyed), it is either “Gone” (on a roll of 5-6) or “Wounded” (on a roll of 1-4). Wounded units are placed in the Wounded box, which gives them the possibility of returning to play eventually, albeit at a reduced strength. The problem is that this costs a lot of medicine to do. So keep them in the Wounded Box? Well, for every five units (or fraction thereof) in that box, you have to spend a medicine point each turn. Given how many casualties the French will suffer over the course of the game, this will add up to a huge supply constraint. And that big chunk of medicine (6 points!) it costs to bring back a unit will often mean additional drops just to cover the resulting deficit. But the ability to bring back valuable high-morale units later in the game is a powerful tool.

What Kim does with this mechanic is evoke the French dilemma with wounded at Dien Bien Phu: they wanted to take care of their own, but realized what a burden those units would become. The Viet Minh knew it, too, and made a point of leaving wounded for the French to collect, instead of taking them prisoner. According to Martin Windrow in The Last Valley,

Personal appeals were broadcast by Professor Huard – doyen of the Hanoi medical faculty and former teacher of many of the Viet Minh’s doctors – that the enemy allow the air evacuation of wounded by machines clearly marked with the Red Cross, under guarantee that they would carry no medical supplies or non-medical personnel. However, during 17-19 March only three of eight attempted daytime ‘casevac’ sorities managed to land and pick up wounded, and these cam under shell and mortar fire. The enemy’s simultaneous handing back of French wounded, and denial of the opportunity to evacuate them, simply increased the burden on medical facilities and morale.

The way Kim Kanger does this wouldn’t be possible without the particular approach to the supply system, which affects every aspect of the game. In fact, it’s hard to peel apart the design layers without pulling on other threads. It’s the most challenging but almost most enjoyable type of game to analyze. Playing it is just the latter.

Full Dien Bien Phu video playlist:

Hell on a Very Small Map (Citadel – GDW 1977)

Vulture Culture (La vallée de la mort – Against the Odds 2006)

Area-Effect Gaming (Storm Over Dien Bien Phu – 2014)

Nothing Final Gambled, Nothing Gained (Dien Bien Phu: The Final Gamble – Legion Wargames 2014) ‎

I hope you enjoy the video and the series. If you have suggestions for other topics you’d like to see covered by this kind of video, please post them in the comments section.