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