What is Normal

It's springtime, and I'm looking out my window at a snowy ground on a cold, dreary day. I thought we were past snow by this point in the season, but apparently not. This whole spring has been very odd; we've been alternating between nice summer-like weather and this. My new job is largely dependant on the weather; when it's cold and unpleasant, my shift is usually cancelled. This, like our current weather, takes some getting used to, but like any new job it takes a bit of time to adjust to what is 'normal' for that business. Mostly, it's the little things that take the most time to learn; things are done in a certain way, and it isn't always explained to new employees. The basics, like running the till or how to request time off are covered, but the minor things that are just done a certain way, the minor specifics, need to be learned as you go. Working at a new business, especially when it's in an industry that you haven't worked in before, really helps to highlight those minor differences groups have.

It's the same when learning a new game, or when playing with a new gaming group. Learning the mechanics of a game is comparatively simple to learning what the common tactics and play styles (the 'metagame') is for that game and that group. That is to say, you can easily be taught what moves are legal, but learning what moves are good takes time and experience. The varied metagames for groups is particularly apparent in board games that use an auction mechanic. In most other games the metagame is confined to deciding on the best moves on a given turn and prioritizing resources. The importance of certain resources at different stages of a game can be explained to new players, as can the optimal moves, but providing new players with specific values for auctioned items can be difficult.

If it is an item that can be sold for a profit later in the game, you can gauge its worth by how much it will sell for (i.e. don't pay more than what you will sell it for), but you can't do that when the item being auctioned is more abstract, like turn order. How valuable is going first? It varies so much that pinning down a specific value is next to impossible. Mercante and Masterpiece auction off items that are then sold for a profit; the games provide values associated with the auctioned items, such as the 'true' value of a painting or the price of goods at the market, and these values can help new players estimate what a good bid would be. Meanwhile, Planet Steam has players bidding on turn order and platforms, the value of which is highly subjective.

This subjectivity is especially obvious when a new player joins the group; after playing a game a number of times, a group establishes its own 'market value' for abstract game elements, but a new player, who is unfamiliar with their metagame, can shake things up considerably by over-valuing and over-bidding compared to what the group is used to. When one or two players consistently bid higher than what was considered 'normal' it can completely change things; suddenly auctions become much more expensive, and even when a 'true' value is provided, if a player is willing to have smaller profit margins the entire table has to adjust to compensate. It is difficult for the values to go down, however; consistently underbidding might have players second guessing their high bids, or the low bidders will simply have to make their own adjustments if they want to collect anything.

Many game reviewers look down on auction mechanics, finding them tedious. I find them to be a useful tool, and many games have added interesting restrictions to keep the game flowing, such as minimum bids, or blind auctions. Mercante, for instance, has a once-around-the-table bidding system, which eliminates drawn out bidding wars; either you out-bid the last bid, or you pass, but you never get to up your bid. The auction mechanic is especially interesting when played with a variety of groups; is this group a bunch of penny-pinchers, or are they willing to break the bank to go first?

13/13

A Quick Change of Plans

Last week I got sick. I lost my voice at the end of my work week, and it came back just before my next shift. It was a lovely weekend of miming and being reduced to a whisper. Unfortunately, with my new work schedule, plus getting ill, my post last week went up late. I'm still trying to get used to this new schedule, so the post is also late. This was not my plan when I started this blog.

I've certainly played many games where my initial plan was ruined. Sometimes it was just the luck of the dice, while sometimes it was my opponents shutting me down. Regardless of how it happened, the question always became whether or not I could change strategies in time to catch up. I usually couldn't.

It's not an easy thing to do, especially when my strategy early on does well. Getting an early lead is great, but often that rush style needs to be followed up with preparations for a longer game, just in case the quick win falls flat. Otherwise, a loss is all but guaranteed. Games of Magic: the Gathering are particularly indicative of this, where rush strategies are often compared to a flip of a coin: either those decks win early, or they lose horribly. There is no middle ground, and a good aggro deck doesn't usually have the tools required to survive a late game; it's all-in, and every card is there for the quick win. If their opponent survives to find their an answer, the rush deck has basically lost.

I've certainly struggled with trying to change strategies in other games, too. In games like Eclipse, Planet Steam, and a lot of resource management games, I so often focus on one strategy, and when it falters I don't usually know what to do. I've spent too many resources, committed too heavily on a particular plan, and, like the rush deck, I no longer have the ability to do anything different. Collecting a diversity of resources and leaving yourself open to that change in tactics is clearly the way to go in these longer games; I just have a bad habit of tunnelling in one plan. I will aggressively collect one resource, which will become devalued as the game goes on. My economic bubble will burst, and then what can I do?

This isn't really a problem with these games, though. It's just my approach to them that is the problem. I do have a lot of fun gobbling up sheep, or minerals, or water, or whatever resource I have (over)valued in a game, but I know from experience that unless I can trade these resources away for moderate value, it will end badly. Some games leave this option very open; Settlers of Catan has its ports, Ad Astra has cheap trading with the bank, and Lords of Waterdeep have quests for each resource. Each of these games makes it easy to adapt and change your strategies by making each resource roughly of equal value, and somewhat interchangeable, throughout the game.

Meanwhile, games like Puerto Rico and, to a lesser extent, City necessitate specific resources at specific times in the game, and if you find yourself unable to get the resources in the correct order, you will struggle. In games where resources are best collected in a certain order each time you play, I have to question granting access to these resources to players randomly throughout the game, especially if there is no way to swap what you have for what you need.

At least for the player who built the aggro Magic deck he chose what cards to include. Without any sort of agency over what resources you can collect, or at least some ability to get what you need when you need it, you can be shoehorned into a bad strategy for the whole game. Some variation is welcome in these games, making resources occasionally harder to get early on helps to prevent a game from getting stale. But this is best when balanced with some way to adapt strategies and to change plans on the fly.

13/13

Meeting Expectations

This week I got to help play test Keet, my contribution to The Red Dragon Inn. (I wrote a bit about how I came up with his design here and here.) During testing, something came up that I hadn't considered before: the importance of players' expectations. There are a couple of cards for Keet that do things that haven't been done in the game before, and while the rules can be written to make it clear what they do, for them to make it to print they will have to work in a way that players will expect without having to look up the rules.

Every player, no matter their experience, has expectations of how a game will work. As soon as you start to describe a new game to someone you can see them wrapping their head around what you're saying. Experienced gamers will often start comparing mechanics to games they've already played. I know I'm particularly bad for this habit, and I also know I'm not the only one who does it.

When given new information, most people try to liken it to what is familiar to them. So, when learning a new game, it's a lot easier and faster to describe its mechanics as being similar to other titles: “You use your resources to build things, like in Settlers of Catan,” or “If you don't complete your goal you lose points, like in Ticket to Ride,” and so on. Games can frequently be described as a mash-up of existing mechanics; the industry builds on itself as it grows. Even when a game does something new it will often be described as being similar to something else. I've seen this with Five Tribes: its core game mechanic, dubbed 'worker displacement', has been described as a combination of the 'worker placement' mechanic seen in many titles, as well as the bowl-filling of Mancala. The mechanic is new, but it can be described easily by highlighting its similarities to what has been done in the past. Personally, when learning Five Tribes I compared it to the action circle in Trajan.

The problem is that when you are working on a game to be published, you can't always describe it in terms of other games. Reviewers and play groups can, but a publisher can't. Not only does it make a game look derivative, but it narrows its audience by requiring people to have played the games used in the comparisons. So how do you make something original, and still make it easy to understand? Expectations are there, even from people who have never played another game before, so how do you make the mechanics clear to everyone?

One option to meet player expectations with new mechanics without using comparisons to other games is by having a strong theme. By applying a clear theme to your mechanic to can make something that would otherwise be odd to players can seem familiar and far more intuitive. You want a value to decrease over time? Perhaps it is a falling object, and your value is its altitude. You want to hide information until players perform a specific task? The players must do research and 'learn' what is hidden. Keeping the theme in mind can make mechanics resonate much better with players.

Games that are designed around a theme allow oddball mechanics to be included, and if the theme is strong enough those strange mechanics can be what makes the game truly shine. A game that starts with solid rules can play very nicely, but without a suitable theme, even the cleanest mechanics can seem confusing; if a player cannot make connections to anything familiar, then a common avenue of comprehension will be blocked, making it difficult to understand what is going on and to remember what to do. New games that are too abstract have trouble finding an audience, and need a way to stand out to be successful. Games with loose mechanics but a strong theme, like Munchkin, find an audience quickly and thrive. Still, even a light theme, if it is especially fitting, can be enough to garner clarity.

13/13