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

It's Popular Because It's Popular

Every entertainment industry has trends; whatever is popular will inevitably trigger the creation of similar entities. The Simpsons and Batman Begins, for instance, helped to change the landscape of their respective mediums by their sheer popularity. Once upon a time the idea that a cartoon would be inappropriate for children was unheard of, as were dark, gritty superhero movies. The board game industry is no different; trends pop up just as often as anywhere else. There they usually play out either as a common theme, or as a common mechanic. Common themes usually coincide with what is popular in other media, like tropes of horror, fantasy, or superheroes. Common mechanics are usually the result of other companies emulating a popular game.

I first noticed board game trends a few years ago, around the time that Munchkin Zombies was released and The Walking Dead first aired. There had been a growing cultural obsession with Zombies, and it seem to come to a head around then. The undead were everywhere, and it didn't take long for a glut of zombie themed games to appear. The zombie craze has since petered out, and while there are the occasional new title, the market is no longer as saturated with them; it has moved on to the next trend.

Around the same time, about when zombie games were starting to trail off, deck building games were on a huge upswing. Dominion had been released a few years prior, but around that time it had hit a remarkable level of popularity. It seemed that every game company was pitching their own 'deck building game... with a twist!' Unfortunately, most of these games ended up feeling basically the same. The 'twists' never really pushed these games to be all that different. Even Quarriors, one of the more unique takes on deck building, is essentially just Dominion with dice. Don't get me wrong, I still enjoy a lot of these games, but they do feel somewhat derivative. It has taken time, but deck building is finally starting to move away from being the only core mechanic, which was what made these games all feel like Dominion, to being an interesting tool that designers can now integrate into other games.

I would be remiss if I did not touch on the recent craze of adult party games. They have been around for well over a decade, but it wasn't until recently that the genre became popular. One particularly offensive game exploded in popularity and spawned several copycat games aimed at being as shocking as possible. Personally, I'm sick of this style of game and look forward to them going away. My opinions aside, the genre is a good example of how the game industry latches on to a popular idea and produces as many games as possible to capitalize on it.

Once I started to notice the trendiness of game mechanics and themes with new releases, I started to look at older titles and saw it playing out in them as well. The most obvious example I noticed was shape of the classic Monopoly board. The spaces around the perimeter of the game board has appeared in countless titles over the years, like Careers, and stylistically they are clearly inspired by Monopoly. It is interesting to note that since the release of Settlers of Catan, the Monopoly-board design has given way to more games with hexagonal spaces modular boards.

Resource management, worker placement, and even cooperative games have all had their day in the sun. Themes come in bunches, as do mechanics. The market will always seek to make the most money, and looking at what is currently popular is a fine way to do that. (I'm expecting to see some variations on Five Tribes in the near future.) This isn't to say that this is a bad thing; it's just the nature of the industry. Still, it's always nice to see when something new comes onto the scene and mixes things up. And if you don't like the games that are coming out now, there is no shortage of older titles to play.

13/13

The Second Game Problem

During a game night I will occasionally play a game that ends far faster than usual. One player surges ahead and achieves a quick victory. When this happens it is fairly common for the group to decide that the game was too short, and to opt to play a second round of the same game. It is often assumed that because the first game was so short the second game should be about the same duration. This is never the case.

In my experience, when opting to play a second round of a game, it always takes far longer than a normal game. Munchkin is a particularly good example of this: the first game sees players levelling up with great haste, finding Potted Plants and Lame Goblins to slay, and getting to level ten with next to no effort. The group usually feels a little unsatisfied with the game; while everyone had fun, it just ended so soon. In my ten or so years of playing Munchkin (egads, has it been that long since high school?) I have learned the hard way that opting to play a second game of Munchkin in an evening is always a trap. For some strange reason, every single time one of my gaming groups starts that second game, it inevitably drags on for hours. It wouldn't be so remarkable if it didn't always happen, but it does. Every. Single. Time.

I used to think that it must have had something to do with the way we shuffled the deck; all of the cards that helped speed the game along, like the poor Lame Goblin, found their way to the bottom of the deck, clumped together with the other low-level monsters. This left the top of the deck filled with the nasty monsters, like the Plutonium Dragon and the Unspeakably Awful Indescribable Horror. To make matters worse, when not battling unstoppable monsters, all we would find would be Class or Race cards that were of no use to anyone (getting one class is great, getting four is not...)! I know that sometimes we could legitimately blame our setup, since we would occasionally opt to play with the cards we hadn't drawn yet (meaning if the first game had all of the little squishies, the second game would have all of the big bads), but even when we were thorough, and reshuffled everything for the second game, we still suffered the same problem: round two was too long.

This long-second-game phenomenon hasn't been limited to my games of Munchkin, either. I have seen it happen with Magic: the Gathering (particularly in games using the Commander format), too. There, the first game ends with a player winning early from an infinite combo or some other explosive play, so we play a second game which inevitably turns into a long stalemate. This past week I even experienced this strange phenomenon when my gaming group was playing Quarriors. Like my short, unsatisfying games of Munchkin from days gone by, or my remarkably quick Commander games, the first game of Quarriors this week was over all too soon. I had found a strategy that allowed me to gobble up points at an alarming rate, and we finished the game in only a few turns. We decided that a second round was in order, and we replaced the die that enabled that overpowered strategy. Unfortunately, what was supposed to be a relatively brief second round of Quarriors turned into several hours of a stalled game state. It got very late, and we had to call the game, since people had plans the next morning.

I do wonder if this long-round-two nonsense is just a matter of perspective. When the first round of a game is so short, the second game will always feel like it drags on by comparison. It's possible that the second game is actually of average length, and the fact that it starts later in the evening and is compared to the abnormally short game just prior to it means that it feels longer. In remembering, too, it may be that two rounds in a single night blur together to seem like one long experience. I'm not entirely convinced by this argument, but regardless, the fact remains that the second game always feels longer.

13/13

A Bad Start

Have you ever played a game where it felt like you had no chance of winning? Have you ever played one that gave you that feeling on the first turn? I have, and it's not fun.

Games like Puerto Rico and Settlers of Catan heavily punish players for bad choices or unlucky draws at the beginning of the game. In Puerto Rico, getting saddled with an unfavourable patch of farmland on the first turn will set you so far back that you may as well stop playing. In Settlers of Catan, if you place your settlements on the wrong numbers during setup you'll spend the entire game watching everyone else surge ahead while you wait.

These games are praised so highly, and yet they seem so unforgiving. Now, I will grant you that for years I enjoyed playing Settlers of Catan regularly, and I will still play it every now and again. However, the few times that I have played Puerto Rico, I had a miserable time. I have to wonder why I can find enjoyment in one of these games when they both can be such a punishing experience. It may be that my personal history with Settlers of Catan has granted my a bias: I learned how to play Settlers of Catan with my friends in high school, and I have good memories of playing it with them. Though my bias may be more shallow: I typically did well in games of Settlers of Catan, so I was infrequently the player lagging behind waiting for the dice to roll in my favour. Still, I feel that my ability to enjoy Settlers of Catan and not Puerto Rico may have more to do with the way the games play.

In an essay called “Stealing the Fun” Dave Howell suggests that “a game is not fun unless a player believes they have some reasonable chance to win until the moment the game ends” (p.84, The Kobold's Guide to Board Game Design. Open Design, 2011. ed. Mike Selinker). He notes that it is the mere belief that is important, not the probability. It can be extremely unlikely that the player in last place will win, but if that player *believes* it can reasonably happen, it is enough for them to have fun.

My experience would suggest that Howell is on to something; when I have been woefully behind in a game like Settlers of Catan, I know that the dice could eventually roll in my favour, and if it happens enough I could recover from a bad start. I've had the same experience with other dice-based games, like Blood Bowl and Warhammer. I have seen enough 1s rolled in a row (and enough 6s) to know that these statistical outliers do happen. If all I need to get back into a game is for someone to roll a 12 three turns in a row, I can hold on hope until the dice stop moving. It's very unlikely, buy it is reasonable!

Puerto Rico doesn't have that random element, though. The only randomness is drawing farm tiles to determine what resources you can collect, and it's that precise element that can make or break a game so early. Unlike Settlers of Catan, where each turn the game introduces a random element, the overall deterministic nature of Puerto Rico removes that 'reasonable chance' that Howell mentioned. It arguably makes the game more strategic, but I just find it unpleasant. Don't get me wrong, I like games with heavy strategy that require careful planning and forethought, but I like them best when you can make a mistake and still find a way to dig yourself out of the hole you have made for yourself. A single error early on should not completely ruin your chances at victory in any game.

My girlfriend dislikes strategy games, and it seems it is for this same reason; she does not feel that she ever has a chance at winning. I think she's wrong (she has the ability to win!), but it's this belief that keeps her from enjoying those games. It is important to note that actually winning doesn't factor in here; feeling that you can win is enough to enjoy the game. Actually winning is just a bonus.

13/13

How I Fail at Making Tea

Making a cup of tea is perhaps one of the easiest things to do. Boil water. Add a tea bag. Remove the bag. Drink it. And yet, for some reason I have failed at every one of those tasks on more than one occasion.

I've been known to go into the kitchen with the full intent of making tea, only to walk right back out again. Many times I have poured the water and stepped out before it boils, then proceed to forget about it as it cools; I've had to re-boil that same kettle three or four times some days. Then of course there's the tea bag; I once joked to a professor of mine that I make my tea so strong that I can stand the bag up in the cup. It was an exaggeration, of course, but I would routinely leave my tea bag in my cup for a good half hour before I would drink it. That is, if I remembered to drink it at all! Even now as I'm writing this I realize that I have a cup of tea beside me that has been there for quite some time. While I did manage to remove the tea bag, I suspect my tea is cold by now.... Yep. It's definitely cold.

My problem may be that I'm forgetful or easily distracted, but I think it goes deeper, that it stems from a general lack of conviction. I'll start many tasks, but finishing them is often a far greater obstacle; when something else comes along to draw my attention, I will too often set down the first project and never get back to it. It is particularly apparent when I can't even finish preparing a cup of tea, but I've noticed the same pattern with my hobbies, too.

For instance, several years ago I bought some plastic models to turn into an Elf team for Blood Bowl. I excitedly got to work cutting away weapons and carving out details. I had intended to use the team for the following season, about four months away. All I needed to do was finish assembly, prime them, and paint the sixteen models. It took three years to finish what was supposed to be a small project. Like my tea crafting, I set out to get the task done in a timely manner, but something happened. I stopped working on the models, and the project kept getting set aside for something else. I would think about it from time to time, but my excitement for it had faded. It wasn't until I decided it was finally time to use the models, ready or not, that I was able to get myself back into working on the team regularly.

So what got me back to work on that project? Well, primarily it was a deadline imposed by our Blood Bowl league; the rules state that models have to be 'table-legal' by the end of the season. That is to say, at the end of the twenty-six week period the models need to have at least three different colours on them and have finished bases. I had a very specific goal, and a very strict time limit to work with. It helped immensely.

I was always good at meeting deadlines in school, but it seems when deadlines are removed so is my motivation. The Elf team was by no means the only project that got set aside. I have boxes of models that are in various states of completion: some need only finishing touches of paint, while most still need to be assembled. It isn't limited to my models, either. Board game designs that I started years ago are collecting dust, and the piles of books I intend to read and board games I intend to play only grow. The obvious solution is to have self-imposed deadlines, but I often come to the same problem: if I miss my own deadlines, there are no consequences. That said, I get more and more frustrated by my inaction as time goes on, so I suppose there is one consequence. I am improving, at least, but it is taking time.

And on that note, I should probably go finish drinking that cold cup of tea.

13/13

Descent of the Dragons

This past Sunday I went to the Dragons of Tarkir pre-release for Magic: the Gathering. The set comes out this coming Friday, so this weekend was everyone's opportunity to preview the set and to play in a tournament using the new cards. Players were given sealed packs of randomized cards, as well as a faction-specific pack of cards, and from that pool built a deck to use in a series of best-of-3 matches.

The previous Magic pre-release, for Fate Reforged, was the first event I had attended at this particular game store, and I had a great time. For that tournament I had chosen the fast, raiding faction, called the Mardu, and the deck I built matched their style; I was constantly on the offensive, Dashing in creatures from my hand and killing anything that got in their way. I hit hard, and kept hitting. I really liked how my deck played, and by the last round I had gained a reputation as 'the guy with all the removal'. I lost a few rounds, but overall did pretty well.

This time around, the factions were slightly different; what used to be the Mardu had been replaced by the dragon brood of Kolaghan. It was still a fast, aggressive faction, though, and given how much I had enjoyed the Mardu I decided to do the same thing again. I had greatly debated this; I knew that if I picked this faction I would end up comparing my experience at this pre-release to the previous one, while if I picked a different faction it would probably feel more fresh and new. While there were other factions that looked interesting, I was still hard-pressed not to try and relive my glory of the last tournament. So Kolaghan it was.

After deciding on my faction, it was time to look at my pool of cards and build a deck. Just because you pick a certain faction, it doesn't mean that your pool will be best suited to that style of deck. My pool was actually fairly divided between several styles; I could build the fast, aggressive deck with a decent amount of removal that I had planned, or I could build a deck full of flying creatures that would have a lot of evasion but would have a harder time dealing with my opponent's threats. I even had other options, and I could have tried combining these strategies, but ultimately I stuck to the plan. The deck looked very similar to what I had done at the last tournament, but I wasn't as happy with it this time.

In round 1 I was paired against a player who remembered me from the last pre-release. I beat him then, but I lost here 2 games to 1, with both of us suffering from bad card draws. I made some tweaks to my deck after our first game, which helped, but not enough. I would have plenty of time to do more tweaks in round 2; I had a bye. I debated changing up the deck entirely, but decided against it. Round 3 went better, and was my favourite round all evening; I won 2-1, but the games were very close. Our decks were very similar, and it was only by luck and slight gains that either of us could win. I won round 4 quickly 2-0 against a different style of deck, filled with buffs and tricks from a different faction. Finally, in round 5 I was paired up against the player in the lead. Here, like in round 3, our decks were similar; we were both using the Kolaghan faction, but he had two advantages over me: his pool of cards was stronger, and he had a better idea of what he was doing. I made a few strategic mistakes and faltered against him. I don't know if I could have won if I had played better, but I suspect I would have struggled regardless. The final round wasn't much fun for me, but my opponent was nice and polite.

I would have preferred ending the tournament on a high note, and while I did finish 7th out of 27 players, I didn't enjoy myself quite as much as I did at the last pre-release. It was still worth attending, though, and I look forward to the next one. I'll pick up some of the new cards when the set releases on Friday and see what I get. Probably a bunch of dragons.

13/13

Gifts from the Past

Past me has been sending present me a lot of gifts lately.

I back a lot of projects on Kickstarter, and a few of them arrived in the mail this week. Most of what I back are board games, but a few are miniatures, or video games, or other geeky things. Crowd funding is a strange format; you pay for a thing, then have to wait for months (or in some cases years) before you get anything. The joke is that you pay to read endless updates about production delays, and that's not far off from the truth.

The projects with the most delays are usually the ones that are incredibly over-funded; they hit all of their stretch goals, and the project balloons well beyond its original scope. Creators now have learned from their predecessors, and are much better at tempering their enthusiasm with stretch goals, and at estimating how long a project is going to take, but this was certainly not the case a few years ago.

While these big projects do have a lot more to look forward to, several projects also compensate for the inevitable delays by providing regular updates showing their progress. Not only do these projects reassure backers that they are still working on their project, but they also provide a fascinating look behind the scenes; videos of the cards being printed (like updates for The Agents) or work-in-progress images of miniatures with notes on what changes are being made (like updates for Kingdom Death) really help show what the process is to develop and to publish a board game from start to finish. These snapshots are, for me, one of the more rewarding aspects of Kickstarter, and one of the reasons I keep coming back to it, even if I'm still waiting on projects I backed well over a year ago to finish.

One project that I feel has excellent updates like this was Xia: Legends of a Drift System. While this game was delayed by several months, the game designer posted regular updates detailing everything that he was doing to get the game made. Moreover, he would regularly ask for feedback from the backers to make decisions about the game. By including us, I was far more excited for this game to arrive than most other projects I've backed. I was not just a backer but was part of the team, voting on what to name certain ships, or what the logo should look like, and so on. It was not just a behind the scenes look at the making of a board game; Xia invited backers in to get involved. And it was fantastic.

All of this talk of delays is not to say that projects cannot ever ship on schedule. As I said before, project creators are getting much better at anticipating exactly how long it will take to finalize everything with their printers, and how long to expect shipping to take. I was taken aback at how quickly my copy of Stuff and Nonsense arrived, and I have found that the Dwarven Forge projects (Dungeon Tiles and Cavern Tiles) shipped in a timely fashion as well, especially given their scope.

At the end of the day, I back projects because I'm excited about them. The updates let me peek behind the curtain to see how the gears turn, and when I get a chance to contribute, even if it's just a vote, I'm all the more excited. And as time goes on for these larger projects, and the delays seem endless, it becomes less about receiving something in the mail, and more about hearing what the current hurdle is. And I mean that in a positive way; even if it's an update explaining why printing was delayed (again), I find it interesting to see what problems can arise when making something like a board game. The updates tell a story, and I'm eager to hear what happens next.

Plus, future me will be really happy when he finally sees what I got for him.

13/13

Legacy

In recent years a number of 'legacy' games have been coming out, with Risk Legacy being the prime example. These games all have the interesting mechanic that each game you play has an impact on subsequent games. Risk Legacy popularized it, but it certainly wasn't the first game to do that. Legacy game play is nothing new, the market is just seeing it implemented in new and interesting ways.

Role playing games like Dungeons & Dragons are perhaps the quintessential 'legacy' game. As the story progresses, the player characters gain experience and level up, and the plot moves forward. It's the story that really drives good RPGs, not the mechanics, and the best stories are always the ones that are derived from the narrative. Sure, tales of amazing dice rolls (both good and bad) are fun, but without the narrative these moments blur together over time. “I rolled a 20!” is great, but “I beheaded the dragon!” is better, and will be something players will talk about for ages.

There have been several good 'role playing without the role playing' board games out there that capture much the same feelings as traditional RPGs. The ones that stick out the most to me are the ones with campaigns, though. Good mechanics are important, as they are with any board game, but what sets a good RPG-style board game apart from an OK one is the ongoing story. Descent, Myth, and games like it that have chained adventures which help to highlight the epic deeds of the players by giving them a bigger context; an overarching story makes these actions both more memorable and more coherent because the players' actions have consequences. What they do in one game will be remembered not only for being a memorable moment in its own right, but because things are different in subsequent games because of it.

Table top strategy war games, like Warhammer, have also had campaign modes for what seems like forever. When these are done on the scale of an entire army, the deeds of individual units tend to get lost, but at a smaller skirmish level, like in the now defunct Necromunda, the scale is more manageable for keeping track of specifics. When the scale is reduced far enough, then the distinction between war game and role playing game begins to disappear; if each player is only controlling one character they are essentially playing an RPG. Even when players are controlling a small handful of models in a war game, it's a small enough scale for those good RPG-style stories to develop.

One of my all-time favourite board games is the Blood Bowl miniatures game, a game of fantasy football with Orcs and Elves vying for touchdowns. I've been playing it for probably close to seven years, and I'm enjoying it as much now as I did when I started, if not more so. The game play itself is great, but what keeps me coming back is the narrative that is created by the advancement of the teams. As they do well, 'players' gain new skills, but there is always a risk that these team members will suffer serious injuries or die. 'Coaches' have to make difficult decisions sometimes; is it worth trying a dangerous play to win a match, or should the team be more cautious to avoid injuries that could hamper them in later matches? The longer I have been using a team, the harder those decisions become, because I find myself more emotionally invested in the well-being of my players; if one of my team members dies, I feel guilty. But when they do well, I really do feel proud of them.

After Blood Bowl games, I've even written short little stories about what happened. Together with the other coaches in the league we have created a whole world full of whimsy and great memories. Because each match has permanent consequences, our world has continuity, and that allows the stories we write and the memories we create to grow and to expand that world.

13/13

Teaching the Game

I'm usually the person in my gaming group who teaches new games to everyone else. This is often because I own the game and have read through the rules already. I don't mind showing new players the rules of a game, but it does come with some unexpected challenges.

Most of the challenges with teaching a new game spring from the details: how in depth should I be when explaining a game? This obviously varies with the complexity of the game, but it also varies greatly based on the players. Some people I play with are happy to learn the structure of a turn and the victory conditions before diving into the game, learning the rest as we play the game. Some people, though, really don't feel comfortable playing a game unless they know how everything works.

The trouble is that games can get complicated, and explaining everything all at once can be both daunting and counterproductive. If I spend too long explaining every rule, players tune me out; they might not mean to, but they'll get bored with the long explanation and stop paying attention. Moreover, if I swamp players with information they may forget the basics and I run the risk of just confusing them. Of course, not giving enough information beforehand can also be problematic. Players get angry if you surprise them mid-game with a rule that hinders them, for instance. That said, I've often found that giving a brief overview of potential hazards that may come up is better than going into the specifics of what bad things will happen; a warning that certain actions carry risks is usually enough.

Oddly enough, the most difficult question I have to face when teaching a game to new players is not how specific I should be with my explanations, but whether or not I should try to win the game. I'll admit, I don't usually like losing, but more importantly, I don't want to feel like I've be patronizing to my friends; if I just let them win, their victory will be hollow. By contrast, they might not ever want to play again if I beat them. Usually I'm safe to try and win, but I it's always important not to be ruthless about it. Playing a new game should be fun regardless of who wins, which means that I can try to win, but I can't do so at the expense of another player's good time. This usually means I choose less optimal choices on my turn, which can be awkward for me, but I know it's worth it. Ultimately, a player's first game needs to be fun and memorable or they won't want to go back to it.

I've found that one of the hardest games to teach has been, surprisingly, one of the simplest to learn: Tsuro. Teaching the rules is very simple: Place a tile next to your piece and move your piece along the lines. If you fall off the board you are eliminated. The last piece on the board wins. Simple, right? The difficulty is not in teaching the rules, but rather in deciding whether or not to win. I've often found myself in a situation that would allow me to eliminate other players early on, but should I take them out? It's taken me several game nights to figure out a good balance with that game, choosing when to eliminate players. I found the best method to be to keep players in the game until right near the end of the game; at that late stage, if the opportunity presented itself I could eliminate another player, but only if the game was about to end anyway. This method gave new players a good taste for the game, and they almost always wanted to play a second round. Interestingly enough, keeping other players in the game longer is actually more fun for me than eliminating them early, which is a bonus.

Maybe I try too hard to win. And maybe I give too much information. I think I need to learn how to just have fun, and I know I need to learn to talk less. If I can learn to be more concise and to stick to the core rules, not only will it improve my ability to teach new games to people, but it will also improve my ability to write rulebooks for my own games in the future.

13/13

Designing Keet – Part 2: Artifacts

Last week I talked about my original idea for Slugfest Games' RDI 2014 Character Design Contest, and how I decided to change plans and build a deck for my goblin archaeologist, Keet.

When I started designing Keet's deck I had an idea for a secondary deck, similar to those found in RDI:3, but I wanted to do something different. I had an idea; archaeologists are always studying valuable artifacts, so why not replace Keet's gold with a deck of unique artifact cards?

I knew Keet was overly excited about mundane things, so it seemed natural that some of his 'artifacts' would be worthless, random pieces of trash that he had just found lying around. I loved the image of Keet proudly anteing into a round of gambling with an ancient shoestring, or being fascinated by a 'rare and mysterious' bent coin. I could just hear him: “It's not just any coin,” he'd say enthusiastically, “look at it it! It's bent!” to which his comrades would just look at him, unimpressed. Not all of his artifacts would be that terrible, but I couldn't resist the humour of it. Worthless items and cursed items were just entertaining. Of course, bad items also opened up the possibility of designing more powerful artifacts that balanced out the trash.

I liked the idea that Keet would have to carefully manage his artifacts, and cursed items played right into that. I've always been a fan of cursed items in stories and RPGs; I feel that they provide characters with a very difficult choice: are the bonuses worth the drawbacks? Keet's artifacts, even the good ones, would serve a similar role. Good items would have to be discarded to be used, meaning if Keet was running low on Gold it would be risky to use those artifacts. By contrast, Keet's cursed items would have a negative impact on his Fortitude or Alcohol Content, meaning if he was getting beaten up or drunk he would have to find a way to get rid of them.

With all of this in mind, I knew I had to give Keet specific tools to manage his artifacts. For instance, I knew I wanted the artifacts to start face down; I liked the randomness of not always knowing what Keet was using to pay the inn or ante into a round of gambling, but it wouldn't be fun if Keet had no control at all over which artifacts he anted. This meant that the deck would need some way of 'identifying' artifacts by turning them face up. This way, if the goblin was able to spend some time 'studying' what he had, he could pick and choose which artifacts to keep, and which ones to give away.

Keet's deck came together surprisingly quickly. Once I had a rough draft, I printed a copy and began testing as soon as I could. I scribbled notes on the cards with tweaks, corrections and more major changes. I did the same with the rulebook. After some feedback from testing, I added card types to the artifacts (Sometimes, Action, etc.) so that other decks could interact with them more, and I removed a problematic mechanic that turned face up artifact cards face down. Otherwise it was going very well.

One thing I knew I wanted to include were artifacts from the existing Red Dragon Inn universe. I loved the idea that Keet had 'discovered' treasures like Dimli's Great-Grandfather's Helmet and took them to study. Interestingly enough, these artifacts were the easiest to write rules for, since I was basically able to copy their effects from other decks. I also felt like adding them really put Keet in the RDI world.

I could go on, but I'll leave it here. I look forward to Slugfest's final version of my deck. They're making some changes, which is good. While I was pleased with my work, there is definitely room for improvement. I trust Slugfest Games to do a good job, and to take good care of my Keet.

13/13

Designing Keet – Part 1: Relic

Recently, Slugfest Games announced that I won their 2014 Character Design Contest!

When I got the e-mail letting me know that I had won I was giddy beyond compare. Heck, I still am! They asked that I not tell anyone that I won until they made their announcement, so I had to wait, but now that they've announced it, I can talk about it. Since the cat's out of the bag, I thought I'd talk a bit about the design process I went through to create Keet, the goblin archaeologist.

When I first heard about the contest, I jumped at the idea of turning one of my RPG characters into a deck. My initial plan was to make a deck for a completely different character than my winning entry: an ancient warforged named Relic. I had been playing this stoic character in a D&D campaign for some time, so I had a pretty good idea how I would translate him to RDI; I was going to make a tanky, durable deck that would win by attrition. It would be able to ignore drinks and fortitude loss very well, but would deal less damage than the other 'bashy' character decks. Relic was all about endurance.

With this plan in mind, the first step was to go through the existing Red Dragon Inn decks to figure out the card distribution of a typical deck; I knew that there were a number of cards that each deck had (“Gambling? I'm in!”, “Tip the Wench”, etc.), and each deck was 40 cards. How many of these common cards did each deck have, and what was the distribution of each other type of card? How often did the bashy decks deal damage, and how often did they prevent it? My girlfriend and I sorted all of the decks and I put our findings into a spreadsheet. I was surprised to find just how similar the basic structure of each deck was. This kept things simpler than I was expecting, which was nice; it meant that I had fairly rigid guidelines for the distribution of abilities in my deck.

During this grand sorting, and over the course of several days, I would periodically jot down ideas for card names and effects. While doing so, a few good phrases popped into my head that a different character of mine would say, and they sounded like they would fit into a Red Dragon Inn game quite well. In fact, they sounded far better than what I had been coming up with for Relic!

Keet, the other character, was one that I created for a short-lived RPG campaign last summer. We ended up only playing about two sessions, but I really enjoyed the character I had made for it. He was a hyperactive little goblin archaeologist, whom I described as “a bad Indiana Jones.” He was remarkably clever, and was a great researcher and appraiser, but he was also a handful. He was very energetic, and got extremely excited about the most mundane things, like libraries and ancient grain shipments.

In the end, I decided that I would set aside the deck I was making for Relic to focus my efforts on this new project. To be honest, I was unsatisfied with how passive Relic's deck was going to be, and Keet's personality would fit in far better in the Red Dragon Inn setting anyway.

Ideas for card names were coming easily for Keet's deck, but I still had a long way to go before I would have something playable. I had to work quickly, too; the deadline was looming.

Please join me next week for part 2 of Designing Keet.

13/13

Getting it Wrong

This past week I played a couple of games I had never played before: Five Tribes and The Ancient World. We read the rules, and we thought we understood everything, so we got started. There was just one problem: How were we supposed to score points, exactly?

In Five Tribes one of the ways to score points is by collecting resource cards in suits. We took this to mean several cards of the same type, so getting a lot of Grains was advantageous, but diversifying would not be as good. While playing, I started to notice small diamonds on the cards, and surmised that they must indicate how frequently you would see a given type of card. Gold, then, would only have two cards, while Grains would have several more. This didn't make sense, though. If that were the case, Gold could never yield as many points as Grains. Thematically, it was backwards.

I thought about it more and re-read the rulebook. After much head-scratching and discussion, my opponent and I determined that a suit in Five Tribes must actually be a collection of DIFFERENT card types: the opposite of the way we were playing. We discovered our mistake during final scoring, so we just calculated things the way it should have been.

A few days later, a group of us learned The Ancient World. Here again we were set collecting. Upon an initial read-through we determined that the scoring was similar to how Five Tribes was supposed to work: collect as many different colours of banners as possible. The scoring track was clearly marked on each player board, with points for sets ranging from one to six banners. We started playing, and all was going well until the second half of the game. By this time we had all begun to wonder what the sixth banner colour was, since we were all diligently acquiring as many different colours as we could, and none of us had gotten more than five different ones.

We had once again made a mistake. There was no sixth colour; we were supposed to be collecting banners of the SAME colour, and scoring simply capped at six banners per set. We still had a quarter of the game left to go before the end of the game, though, so we had to come to a decision: would we finish the game with the proper scoring, or would we finish with the scoring method we thought was correct at the beginning? We had a short discussion, and the table voted to use the proper rules, effectively changing the game for the second half.

We were lucky, all things considered; getting a scoring method wrong is far easier to correct than game play related mechanics. While it may have a larger impact on who wins, it has little effect on the flow of the game itself. I've certainly goofed with mechanics as well, whether with a new game or with a game that I haven't played for a long time. Almost always, the group chooses to finish the current round before making the necessary changes. If it's still early, and corrections to the board state can easily be made, all the better; doing these corrections is usually preferable to starting all over again. But this is always more complicated than changing the scoring method. The only problems I see with changing how to score is with competitive players. For them, it is likely better to finish the game with the scoring method agreed upon at the beginning; it will seem more fair.

These misinterpretations just remind me of the importance of good examples; even the best rules can be made clearer with them. Still, both these games were a lot of fun; I look forward to playing them again. Properly this time.

13/13

The Replay

Replay value is often toted as one of the most important considerations when making or buying a game. This is usually equated with variability; the more ways subsequent games will differ, the better. Modern games have been latching onto this idea by implementing elements such as modular boards, assorted scenarios, optional cards, different roles or factions, and so on. Even the concept of a board game expansion emphasizes the idea that a game is more fun when it offers something new and different each time you play.

This make sense; that feeling of discovery is great, and games with assorted ways of playing do well in reproducing it. This idea, though, that a game without all of these extras is somehow inferior has become so ubiquitous that it seems strange to see a new board game these days that doesn't have modular components of some sort. As things are now, adding in something like a modular board is perceived as being a trivial addition and is, in some consumer's eyes, mandatory for a game to be worth even considering. I know I've taken less interest in certain games because of that, which is unfortunate.

With that said, however, changing the board, or the scenario, or even what cards are being used from game to game is clearly not a requirement for an enjoyable game, or even for a successful game. Games like Go and Chess haven't survived for as long as they have because they encapsulate that 'new game feeling' every time you play. Enjoying these classic, high strategy games is far more about mastery than variety; playing them is far more akin to solving a puzzle. The sense of discovery that is implemented in modern games by changing how you play instead comes from moments of epiphany, when things click and you better understand the game. The replay value comes from getting better at the game each time you play.

Still, the modern, modular game is likely far more sustainable in the current market than a static strategy game, though this is perhaps a self-fulfilling prophecy; the more modular games that are created, the more gamers will expect them, and the more it will be associated with what a game 'should' be. Classic-styled games that do not incorporate a 'modular' element could get pushed out of the market entirely; as it is I am hard-pressed to name any that have come out recently; Knight Moves comes to mind, but it is already ten years old.

Couple this shift in the market with the ability for companies to constantly create new content for their popular games, and the gaming market starts to look like the movie industry: a sea of sequels, remakes, and spin-offs. Just look at popular titles like Carcassonne, Settlers of Catan, and Munchkin, to name a few. Each one not only has a multitude of expansions to modify the game, but each one also has whole spin-off games and re-themed versions. It is a robust business model, with far fewer risks than creating brand new titles, so it is no surprise that it seems to have been adopted by nearly every game publisher.

Now, don't get me wrong, I really do enjoy modular games. It really is a big selling feature for me, and I do feel that it is a simple, effective way for a gamer to get more out of their game. Expansions, too, are a great way to rediscover an old favourite. My concern here is really more in the style restrictions that have been placed on designers; it is expected that games have to be expandable to be successful; they must be modifiable and provide drastically different game play every time you open the box or no one will be interested. But really, there is room in every gaming collection for strategic, non-modular games like Chess, Go, and Knight Moves. They have remarkable replay value, and mastering these kinds of games can be very rewarding. Plus, since they don't have a pile of expansions, they will leave plenty of room on your shelves for other games, too!

13/13

Good Game, Well Played

I stayed up way too late playing Dominion Online last night. I was just going to take a quick look at it, since it's free to play, but I ended up in a vicious loop; if I lost a game, I'd feel the need to try again, but if I won, I'd be pleased with how I played and would want to try and repeat my performance. While I lost far more games than I won (I was impressed with the AI, actually), it nevertheless ate up my entire night.

So either Dominion is a highly addictive game, or I'm just really stubborn. Maybe I have that competitive urge that supposedly all male gamers have? It's certainly possible. I know that when gaming with my friends I really focus on the game and I almost always play to win. I'll certainly help new players when they want advice, and I'm usually rather open about my strategies, too. I mean, really, if I can help my friends get better at a game that I like to play, they'll be more likely to beat me, and thus will be more inclined to play again. Nobody likes to get trounced at a game, especially when they feel the winner had an unfair advantage, like experience. I can relate to this; I know that I can get a bit sullen when I lose, though I like to think I'm fairly gracious in defeat. Well, most of the time. At least, when I feel the game was a close one. Let's face it, when losing feels like a foregone conclusion an hour before you finish the game, I think everyone is entitled to be a bit moody when the final scores are added up.

Still, it's a bit funny; outside of gaming, I love seeing my friends do well. Their well being brings me great happiness, and I'm thrilled when they succeed. So isn't that always the case when I'm gaming with them? Is it because I know that there are no consequences if my friends lose? Or is gaming the one medium where I can vent my frustrations and indulge my repressed selfishness? (As a side note, this dichotomy may be why I like cooperative games so much; I can be competitive and try to win, but I also get to see my friends do well and succeed.)

At the end of it all, I'm not sure I'm the right person to answer any of these questions. For one thing, I'm still pretty tired from my night of constant Dominion. (Oh dear... Out of context that sounds really bad!) Still, I do know that when things are going well for me in a game, I get excited and really pleased. Seeing a deck that I've built hum along, even if it's just for a turn. Or seeing everything fall into place in a worker placement game. Or even correctly divining someone's play before they make it. These are all thoroughly satisfying to me, as is winning a close game. Mind you, I also get a similar satisfaction from the sound of rolling dice or the feel of shuffling a deck of cards. It might just be a mild obsession with order and things falling into place. I honestly don't know.

I think what I can take away from all of this is that I should be able to find a similar satisfaction in seeing my friends win at a game. And, thinking back, there have been times when that has been the case. There are games that I've simply enjoyed playing, and the outcome hasn't really been an issue for me. Win or lose, I did something fun during the game, and even if the scoreboard didn't reflect it in the end, I know it was a good game. By contrast, games where I've just stomped my opponent have never felt as satisfying; sure, I won, but there was no challenge, no uncertainly. I just got lucky, and my opponent didn't. It almost doesn't feel fair.

As for those nail biters, where it could go anybody's way, where everyone played well and can feel proud of what they did? Those games are always the best, no matter who wins.

13/13

The Joys of Limitation

I like building decks for trading card games. I've played a number of them, including the old Harry Potter TCG, the now defunct Warhammer 40k CCG, the discontinued World of Warcraft TCG, and the everlasting Magic: the Gathering, and I've enjoyed constructing decks in all of them.

For me, deck building is a creative outlet. Usually, I pick a theme, look at my card pool, and build a deck that fits that theme. Often this will be centred around a single card and built out from there, but sometimes it's around a combination of two or more cards, or more generally around a type of card or game mechanic. Occasionally, I look at my collection of cards and build the best deck I can with what I have. I enjoy that, but I usually get more satisfaction out of 'jenky' decks that have themes; they have more character to them.

When I was growing up, I was limited by my card pool when building decks. This was an interesting restriction, since I could obviously only build with what I had; I never was big on the trading aspect of these games, and would usually just collect the cards. As a kid, I could only ever get so many cards, but still, I enjoyed being restricted in that sense; it added a challenging element to building, and I didn't feel compelled to spend a fortune to find the right card to complete a deck. What I had would have to be good enough unless I got lucky opening a booster pack.

By contrast, when I started playing Magic: the Gathering a few years ago, my approach to deck building changed. While I still built decks based on a theme when I could, I was no longer limited by my card collection; buying specific cards was far easier with Magic than it ever was with other trading card games I played. This meant that I could look at a list of every card printed, find the card I needed for the deck, and pick it up from a local gaming store. This removed the restriction I had as a kid of a small card pool, and opened up far more opportunities for building those themed decks. If I had an idea for a deck, I could build it, no matter what my luck was in opening packs, or how old a card was that I needed. If the card was one I could afford, I could get it for my deck.

Magic is particularly interesting, however, in that it has several supported ways of playing. These formats are either 'Constructed', where players create decks from whatever they have in their collection, or they are 'Limited', where players are given a small number of sealed booster packs from which they build decks. Given the small card pool, Limited settings make building themed decks largely out of the question, so it falls to building the best deck you can with the limited resources at your disposal. Nevertheless, I find Limited environments to be quite rewarding; players only have a short amount of time to build their decks, and it forces players to use cards that would be passed over in Constructed games in favour of better cards.

I've heard it said that greater restrictions breed greater creativity. I'm not sure that it applies entirely with trading card games, but greater restrictions in TCGs certainly encourage greater resourcefulness. Building a deck out of whatever you want is a lot of fun, but building a deck out of a small pool of cards really does make you better appreciate a lot of otherwise uninteresting cards; sometimes you have to make do with what you have, and those mediocre cards may just be the best on hand.

13/13

The Oral Tradition of Games

How often do you actually read the rules to a board game? Usually, groups will have one person read the rules (usually the owner of the game) and then teach everyone else; this makes sense, since it takes less time to have one person learn the game first than to wait for everyone to read the rulebook. But what about older games? Have you ever read the rules for Monopoly? Yahtzee? Risk? What about all of those games you've played with a standard 52-card deck? There are so many games that people teach to each other without having read the rulebook first.

Classic games that 'everyone' knows how to play are an interesting breed; most of the time the rules of these games are passed down from generation to generation, or at least from group to group, as a sort of oral tradition. We are often taught these games when we are young, when our reading skills are just developing. This has the interesting side effect of feeding that sense when we grow up that 'everyone' knows how to play; we are astonished when someone doesn't know the rules of a game we've grown up with. These games were a part of our childhood, and we know how to play them by the time we would even think to read the rules, so it seems strange that someone else would need to read a rule book for them. We never bothered; why would we spend the time to read them when we already know how to play?

Add to this the fact that some of these classic games don't always come with rules, or if they do the rules that are provided are often on a small piece of paper that is poorly written. Chess sets in particular come to mind; the rules of Chess are remarkably complicated, but whenever rules are provided with a set they lack diagrams or seem to assume that the reader already knows how to play. Backgammon is no better; growing up I tried to learn how to play by reading several rule sheets, but the rules I read were always so unintuitive that I couldn't figure it out. It wasn't until later when I played Internet Backgammon on our family computer that it finally made sense; the tool tips provided were extremely informative and it showed just how straightforward the game actually was to play. Still, looking at how the rules for these old games are written, they seem almost to require a teacher to start playing them.

Standard 52-card decks of playing cards are similar to Chess or Backgammon sets in that they also rarely comes with rules. Of course, a standard deck of cards can be used for hundreds of games, and space is limited by the tuck boxes they are in, so you can't provide complete rules for every game in a pack. Nevertheless, the consequence of this lack-of-a-rulebook seems to be that players gravitate towards card games that they already know how to play, rather than seeking out rules for new ones. These games are almost always taught to people by family or friends instead of a book. For instance, I learned to play Cribbage from my family; I've glanced at the actual rules for it once or twice, and I know there are some house rules that we use, but I've never sat down and read through the rules in the same way that I do when I get a new board game.

By contrast, modern board games often have a compact, presentable rulebook that makes it easy to learn the game. They will usually have plenty of examples and diagrams to make things as clear as possible, and almost every game has an emphasis on spending less time learning the game and more time playing it. Some companies have gone a step further to that end by creating things like learn-to-play videos, which allow new players to have a game taught to them rather than reading the rules. This has proven to be a great way to learn a game, and seeing a game played can provide a sense of what good strategies are, too, making the first game less intimidating. So that's a bonus.

Still, even when learning a game from someone else, sometimes it's worth just reading the manual.

13/13

House Rules – The Great Divide

I like house rules. These unofficial modifications to the way a board game is played can be as minor as changing how one card works or setting a time limit on turns, or as major as changing the basic turn structure or victory conditions of the game. But regardless of how minor they are, I find them to be an interesting study in game design. What would happen if we changed this little rule? What about if things worked that way instead? How would strategies change, and would it break the game entirely? How fundamental is this rule to the flow of the game? At the end of the day, when I do implement my own house rules it gives me a satisfying feeling of creativity and of ownership over a game. I have contributed something unique, and part of the enjoyment I get from playing the game is directly because of the modifications I've made.

As much as I enjoy puzzling over possible house rules, however, not everyone shares this passion. A few people I know are dead set against house rules unless they are, as one friend put it, 'necessary.' But what makes a house rule 'necessary' for a game to be playable? I've usually found that if my gaming group has stumbled onto a dominating strategy or a loophole in the rules, a minor house rule can patch up the game. It prevents players from abusing the loophole or forces them to adopt new strategies, keeping the game fair and fresh. I've also adopted house rules to for players who have trouble seeing the board due to poor vision, or for younger players who will get frustrated by more complicated rules. These are all put in place to keep the game fair and enjoyable for everyone.

What about the house rules that make the game more complicated, or that are put in place just to 'spice up' the game? One could argue that these rules will make the game more enjoyable for the group, and that's certainly possible, but I find that house rules of this nature require a very specific group. Everyone at the table needs to be very familiar with the original game and needs to have played with this same group for a long time. This is especially true as these rules modifications have a tendency to compound and multiply, making the game ever more complex and daunting for anyone not part of the core group.

And that's where the problems arise; as soon as a new player is added to the mix, as an outsider, they'll see the changes to the rules as being pointless, confusing or frustrating. They won't enjoy it, no matter how much your gaming group assures them that these changes are the best thing since sliced bread. The catch, of course, is that the group will usually be so ingrained in their collection of house rules that they will refuse to play the game any other way because it's 'not as fun.' This can cause a great divide between players, isolating groups from one another, sparking heated debates about how to play, and even resulting in confusion about how the rules are actually written.

So are house rules a problem? No, they really aren't; play your games the way you like to play them. It's important to keep in mind, though, that just because a house rule works for you and your group doesn't mean it will work for every group or every new player. Their mileage, like yours, may vary.

13/13