We know how a certain Dr Reiner K. designs his games. First there was math… and then someone else drapes some theme over it to hide the math. Sometimes more, sometimes less successfully. Certainly not all boardgames are designed this way. But a great number of games has some amount of systems and math sitting underneath the colorful (sometimes beige) cards and boards…
My first idea for this thread was a bit different. I was going to start with a content warning for those of us who may prefer not to lift the curtain on boardgames and design. But then I thought: maybe that this is worth talking about on its own.
These thoughts came about this morning, as I read Dan Thurot‘s analysis of Twilight Inscription on Spacebiff (also read his discussion of The Wolves but that is a different topic).
It’s easy to see the appeal. The action is simultaneous, fast-playing, and highlights why “input luck” doesn’t feel unfair the way “output luck” does. Here’s a random number: put it to good use. (Unlike output luck, which says, Take your action: now here’s the roll to determine its outcome.)
All things considered this is a mild example of analysis. In this case, I had not previously thought about different kinds of luck in games in those exact terms. Now I cannot unthink them. I am fine with that.
But this will now always be at the back of my mind when I see random elements in games or when someone complains about bad luck. Is it this or that?
Having played 50+ solos of Terraforming Mars lately, I am starting to see numbers on the cards how much points this card is going to generate me depending on when I play it or which production I have. I want to win the solo so I use those numbers. But seeing those numbers then means that some games in later turns, I am not playing any cards at all because the math doesn‘t add up and it‘s all Standard Actions instead. I enjoy those games a little less because they lose some element of the game that I like: combining the cards to the best effect. I wouldn‘t win without seeing the math. But seeing the math also makes it that the actions I take are less fun. So is it worth it? (Note: I doubt I could do the same calculations for multiplayer games where there is more going on)
I remember several occasions of people complaining (not here but in general) about how mechanical playing games (also and maybe especially certain computer games) can become when you take away the thematic trappings and reveal the abstract systems underneath. Does a game then become a math optimization exercise or is it still fun to play?
I like analyzing games and I love having better terminology to speak about game elements. But I also noticed that as soon as I got to know names for certain mechanics, that a tiny piece of the magic of some games went away and how sometimes I get annoyed when I hear people speak purely in terms of this or that mechanic about a game. (I am probably guilty of this as well sometimes, which is surely part of the reason I get annoyed when I noticed others doing it)
Is there a point for you where there is too much analysis and it becomes a detriment to the game? Where is this point? How much analysis do you enjoy?
Personally I see games as mathematical problems to be solved to obtain the most of VPs (shorthand for winning condition, even a race game is fundamentally whoever gets the most VPs first wins). I cannot unsee that, particularly in the latter stages of any game. I have absolutely no problem in discussing games in purely mechanical turns. My enjoyment of games comes from solving the given setup the best. By way of an example I usually teach games with money that converted to VPs at the ends with the warning every time you spend it you better expect your return to better than the exchange at the end.
Of course, the setting in the game puts a nice wrapper on that problem that may help contextualise the VPs:Action ratio.
This is why I like high interaction games I guess. The other players give the VPs:Action ratio a certain level of fuzziness that removes the strict calculation.
I played a lot of Battletech back in the day (made the top 16 at the GenCon championship in 1988). But then there came a point at which my mental model shifted from “this is a good weapon at range 4-6” to a sort of non-verbal, mathematical impression of the damage spreads of various weapons at various ranges, interacting with enemy damage spreads, and I won a whole lot more… but it was much less fun.
Some games just don’t work at all unless you indulge in the theme, and I think there’s a correlation with classic Ameritrash. Battletech may well be one; once you’ve committed weapons to targets there’s a lot of dice-rolling that you have no further influence over, and if you don’t say “yeah, I got you” or whatever it feels like makework. Firefly, much as I love it, is definitely not mechanically elegant. The Red Dragon Inn, much as I dislike it, does have enough self-awareness to say that you should read out the title of the card (e.g. “Has anyone seen my poison? I left it in a mug somewhere round here”) rather than just the effects (“choose a player to take 2 damage”).
On the other hand take another game I love, Rallyman GT – that placement of gear and coast dice doesn’t really have much to do with what the driver would be doing on the track. That doesn’t get broken by analysis, and I wonder whether it’s because it’s already somewhat abstracted from the theme.
I kind of hate my brain when it starts looking behind the theme and analyzes the underlying math. It robs me of the joy of playing the game.
That said, my favorite part of playing games is developing heuristics and honing them as I learn and play more. But if I play any game too much, the math will start standing out and I lose the theme/setting and start focusing on min/maxing which just isn’t as fun.
My long bugbear with a lot of games is that they are essentially larger and larger and more complex equations to be solved. I think the games that get increasing buzz are just more complex but not emotionally more complex (ie a variation in feeling or depths of emotion).
One of my favourite tests of games is to see if I can analogise the decision test in a game with a decision test in real life. For example the game of Azul, for me, is something you might see at Christmas or whatever when people pass around chocolates. You can game passing around chocolates with the hope that you can have more (eg if people hate toffee, but you do, then you can gamble those will be left at the end) and Azul is a real distillation of that chocolate decision
(actually they’re making a chocolate version now so I think they even get it!).
Also once it becomes the case that there’s a “right way to play the game” that game is dead and is more of a memory test.
I like analyzing games and I love having better terminology to speak about game elements. But I also noticed that as soon as I got to know names for certain mechanics, that a tiny piece of the magic of some games went away and how sometimes I get annoyed when I hear people speak purely in terms of this or that mechanic about a game. (I am probably guilty of this as well sometimes, which is surely part of the reason I get annoyed when I noticed others doing it)
Is there a point for you where there is too much analysis and it becomes a detriment to the game? Where is this point? How much analysis do you enjoy?
After lifting the curtain, what is seen cannot be unseen. A lot of games do not feel satisfying to play. Even if I only played it once, I know enough that the tail-end will be just around the corner. And I don’t consider this a bad thing at all. That also means that I am all for full-on, hardcore, 18+, you-can-only-buy-this-in-the-back-alleys analysis.
However, there are different types of games that tries to achieve different goals. I am much more receptive towards Ameritrash because I am looking for thematic experiences. So even if the decision space isn’t there, I will still enjoy it if it continues to immerse me. The crucial thing here is to keep the system simple enough. If you’re put more work on calculation, the game becomes more on calculation. So, never let me lose my focus on thematic immersion.
EDIT: the more I think about this, the more I realise that the same idea works with RPG. I am not into D&D at all nowadays. Give me a lightweight RPG any time.
I think there’s an equivalence between having to pick up 8 of the same tile in Azul and having to choose between Bounty, Bounty, or Bounty in here somewhere
I absolutely love knowing how things work. When I go to the theatre with my dad we spend as much time talking about the lighting and the stage effects as the actual performance, and I find that increases my enjoyment rather than detracting from it (the barricade/street scene set in Les Miserables is a work of genius, and I will not be convinced otherwise).
I think this also applies to games for me. I am basically in awe that anyone can design a game at all, so knowing how they went about it is super interesting. The input vs output luck thing must have some neat psychology associated with it - do you need to understand how people think to make a good game?
Still, I definitely can’t be bothered to apply all of that analysis into optimising my turns. Shaky heuristics all the way for me
I have not run into the problem of analysis diminishing the fun of a board game for me. The chaos introduced by the other players tends to disrupt the mathematics of the game anyway.
I have run into this with regard to roleplaying games and I avoid the forums which go too far in their deconstruction and analysis.
That said, how well the mechanical parsing ties into the theme is also important for me. To answer yashima’s question, I don’t find that a purely mechanical analysis detracts from the theme at all, unless the theme is poorly pasted on. In other words, I always try to analyse to the maximum extent possible, but whether or not that is a detriment to my enjoyment depends on the quality of the game.
I like different things in different games - I love variable turn order as a mechanic and I think the way it is designed in El Grande is magnificent. When I thought about it and saw how it worked I was delighted.
A game I’m really into at the moment is Paint the Roses and I think a lot of my enjoyment comes from the fact it is a (fairly) solvable puzzle where you can see how everything fits together to make deductions.
Generally I like the theme to cover mechanics, although I do like learning games better through repeated plays. I’m not one to Maths out a turn generally. Because I tend not to be too good at games I tend to play quickly or make the most fun play, which tends to suit disguised mechanics.
I am a maths fan, so I like that the Good Doctor designs his games from a mathematical perspective; it makes me feel that the game is going to be balanced.
I have visions of being good enough at Gloomhaven to treat each turn as a dance, and choreograph the movement of the players and the monsters to make it as successful as it can be.
@Whistle_Pig I can delight you with some stories of how the theatre I used to work in was designed. My wife will be delighted to hear them again!
