I am bit of a avid wargamer, I must admit; and I enjoy wargames very much (or else I would not play them). When I was younger, I just played them without giving much thought about their implications; in fact, I was naive enough to think that somehow, war was like a big show. However, as time passed, I came to realise that the counters moved across game maps represented real men and that I was pretending to march these men off to death. Of course, I knew this before; but all of a sudden, at some point, the fact that I was getting entertainment in simulating war struck me. By then, I had come to see that war is not pretty at all, but a gruesome affair. I began to ask myself if playing wargames was morally wrong. Apparently, this is a concern shared by many other wargamers.
In the discussion forum of the Wargamer, a website dedicated to wargaming which I frequent, there was a thread posted by someone asking people what they think about the morality of wargames (click here). Of course, the users of the forum agreed that they enjoy wargames purely for their entertainment value - one said that wargames are nothing more than a 'hugely more complicated game of chess' - and that they would not like to be in the shoes of the soldiers who fought in real wars. In fact, some went as far as to claim that wargamers are more sensitive and opposed to wars, because they know well what war entails, than clueless hotheads, in the spirit of the Latin maxim coined by Erasmus - "Dulce bellum inexpertis (war is delightful the inexperienced)". Another commented that wargamers usually grow respect for those servicemen who died to defend our liberty.
It must be kept in mind that these are the opinions of people who are keen wargamers themselves; obviously, none of these people had a pang of conscience serious enough to drop wargaming altogether. One could say that these wargamers are merely rationalising their immoral hobbies. Yet at any rate, I am inclined to agree, for I am not yet willing to give up my favourite pastime.