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

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

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