I just want to note that I used to be in the anti-dice crowd (which seems distinct from the “anti-luck” crowd) and I think it might have been Twilight Struggle that won me over, helping me to realise that luck from cards, hidden information, simultaneous action selection, etc. isn’t better, it’s just different.
I still do generally gravitate towards games that don’t have dice-rolled outcomes, but these days I’ll tend to prefer a dice-heavy game over a low interaction game.
I think we are ready to spill forward.
First, we haven’t explicitly talked about this but I think we’ve touched on it and discussion won’t expand on it:
Luck provides two things: unpredictable outcomes, which excite us as humans and level the playing field, and unexpected situations, which provide novelty and allow us to test our mental reflexes in handling novel challenges or adapting to problems.
Human interaction or unmasterable difficulty can provide these effects similarly to randomness, perhaps with a slightly different flavor.
Can we explore the different flavors and kinds of luck, including hidden information, RNG, opponent action and inaction? How might these be categorized and/or scaled?
(The last part will be what you like and where you’ve seen all this well or poorly implemented. What’s your flavor.)
That was a bit vague and verbose. Let me rephrase:
If someone were to ask you to create a rubric explaining the different flavors and functions of luck (which could include non random effects that share the same function), what might you propose?
At a minimum
First the “why is luck bad” question.
I sometimes get a feeling that these are the same people who prefer strategic planning over tactical reactions. Longterm plans work better when you have less luck involved–except of course that the entropy caused by other players sometimes acts in the same way as luck namely by destroying your plans.
Games with a high amount of luck can be swingy and give players a feeling that they lack agency. It doesn’t matter what you do, the luck will decide the outcome. Games with a lot of dice rolling can be the prime example given for these cases.
Except good games will include ways to mitigate and play around the luck-based sub-systems just like you need to mitigate what the other players do.
And because people realized at some point that swingy games can be frustrating, the next thing we know is games that attempt to reduce luck (I am not talking about abstract 2 player games with no hidden information like the Gipf Project) sometimes so much that through the reduction even player entropy aka interaction is removed.
I hope we’re past all that in an age where game design walks the path of compromise and thoughtful use of random elements to give us the best of both worlds.
I’ll try to get to the next question later.
I always feel like games with a LOT of dice rolling follow probability distributions and are pretty dependable. Risk. Catan (I know, sometimes Catan goes wonky and the order of rolls matters as well, but it evens out).
Where even I get a little uncomfortable are games with a little dice rolling. I do like Polis but when you roll the die 10 times in a game, and the outcomes can destroy your chances, man that’s a whack. The 2e rules fix this a bit. Learning how to play (don’t roll the dice early!) helped.
Quantum was good but also had this, where a few dice rolls during the game determined major outcomes. While I like Quantum, I’ll admit I’ve put time into thinking about a better die mechanic.
Cyclades gets around it, the 0-1-1-2-2-3 die makes rolls less volatile and the “lose just one piece” consequence brings it back into the fun zone, lending excitement rather than frustration.
Maybe that’s it, the more volatile the probability, the less severe the consequence can be. Not inconsequential, but bearable.
I am not anti dice, don’t get me wrong. They aren’t my favorite randomizer but they are pretty decent especially if well implemented with a good mathmatical model (say hi to the good Doctor from me). And lots of them… I agree tend to do better on the probability curves.
I just wanted to say that dice are the most well known and obvious entropy machine in games and dice are so easy to blame.
Luck flavors:
I guess that is not the aim of the question. I’ll try again and find which ones come to mind or have previously appeared in this thread. Luck can be generated by:
Dice and card draw are just two classic variants: Dice roll independent of previous “draws” while card draw is not leading to completely different models. Card draw seems less chaotic usually. Although increasing numbers aka rolling more dice and increasing the stack of cards (aka the TM effect) moves the perception of how much entropy they generate closer together.
Opponents might be the least chaotic and least “fair” because some people can just play/manipulate and read their opponents better giving them an advantage that the other variants do not have.
Just some first thoughts (workbreaks …)
My hackles rise when I see a game say “roll a d6, get that many whatevers”. Too much variation, especially if you’re only doing it a few times in the game.
But “roll a d6, 5+ to succeed”? Fine.
This is a review of some quacks like game. There’s discussion about the game from about 11 mins. I like how Chris is on one side of bad luck when it comes with busts (he likes the busts softened) and Mike (he likes that some busts will just hose you for a round but perhaps this is a risk open to all).
I think intellectually I want my gambles to a feel as hard edged as possible and this softening nonsense feels like something I should have no truck it. I’m not hundred percent sure however my tune stay the same if it happened to me.
The other thing I’ve seen in this review (and elsetimes) is that this idea that you should get over bad luck (bad design?) because a game is short. You can get over your bad luck because the game you played doesn’t matter because it’s short is my reading of the implication here. I prefer the Knizia attitude of calling what may be considered a “full game” just a round out of a series. I think if lost cities comes out today you can imagine a scenario where the “keep track of your points” doesn’t happen and each “round” is actually considered a single “game”.
If I’m going to be hosed by bad luck, I’d rather have it be over in 20 minutes than 120 minutes. It’s not that the shorter game doesn’t matter, but I don’t feel like I’ve wasted my time and energy. The bad luck isn’t as painful because it lasted for a shorter time.
I get this and have used the argument myself. However if I think back to the 4 hour war games I’ve played with many dice rolled and people enjoying long games of Eldritch Horror I’m not sure it’s this simple. I think there’s something about the promise, premise and execution as part of how acceptable the randomising element deciding the outcome is.
2 examples. For me Lisboa got a bit frustrating when a long complex euro game asked you to think deeply through systems and make long chains in your brain and that feeling arbitrary became an issue for me. It had other things that after a bunch of plays became problems but that’s an issue. However Cthulhu Wars I think about long chains and it’s not an issue as the dice are front and centre and my plans include balancing probabilities. Also the hidden draw if some victory points works really well for some tension and some obfuscation of who is and might win. This is acceptable to me and I love the game. Most game are 90-120 minutes.
There is a difference between a deep/long strategy game that uses dice and a simple push-your-luck game. Some games aren’t worth a 90-120-240 minute investment. Could you imagine having to play Gardlings for that long for a single game?
Another comment after having played Oceans three times in a row the other night with friends that had never played it before.
Some games give you the ability to play even if you get dealt a bad hand (poker, or mechanisms where you ditch cards for actions, etc) and some games lock you in to your luck.
In Oceans, if you are unlucky enough to not be able to allocate “satellites” to your main species (parasites, symbiotics, shark or whale cleaners) that allow you to keep more species aging (and scoring you points), you might get a bit stuck with your engine. And it is all dependent (very much) into how lucky you are to get those cards when you take from the basic traits deck. So your gameplay is very much locked to what cards you are dealt, with hardly any leeway to manoeuvre.
This has been on my mind this weekend:
0: No randomized elements, no hidden information (e.g., Chess or tic tac toe, Hive)
1: No randomized elements, asymmetric information (e.g., LOTR: The Confrontation, Kemet)
2: Randomized events, players given tools to adapt (e.g., Castles of Burgundy, Dominion)
3: Randomized results, players manage probabilities or large sample size (e.g., Quacks, Catan)
4: Randomized events, players given limited options to adapt (e.g., Sorry!, Kahuna)
5: Randomized results, players given limited or no options to control (e.g., Bingo, Chutes & Ladders)
Of course it isn’t a clean vector. What about a game like Gaia Project, where there is only a randomized setup and no in-game randomized events, no hidden information, but you have limited ability to adapt to player blocking? It could feel like a 0, 2, or even 4 depending on what transpires.
And the things I’ve included aren’t all exclusive, they can be combined in different ways.
I think a barer scale would be “No uncertainty but your opponent’s decisions, Hidden information, Disruption with either mitigating mechanics or normal curve predicatablity, disruption for disruption’s sake.”
There’s a place for all of these. I can have a good time winning or complaining about Bingo. Each just has to be wrapped in an appropriate wrapper. I’m drawn again to cite Polis’s D4 rolls for siege which are a level 5 element in what should be a level 1 or 2 game. I still like the game, you just have to adjust your approach (or use the 2e houserules) in respect of the gamebreaking volatility.
However, I tend toward the middle, 1-3, all things considered. 0, as @yashima stated, can just be stressful and more combative than I want. At level 1 I really enjoy the mindgames of trying to anticipate what your opponent has. At levels 2 and 3 I really like the chaos and testing myself against shifting ground, whether it is game or opponent driven.
OK, new week, finishing same topic:
Given all this, what are your personal preferred modes of luck/randomization/disruption?
Any that you actively dislike?
What games have a really good / favorite / intriguing use of luck (and possibly luck management)?
Any that are bad enough to make you put the game away?
(oi, triple post)
Just as I wrote the question, I was thinking about the last one. There’s a certain category, of which Kahuna and A Brief History of the World cover, where what you are allowed to do is dictated by card draw of a very specific nature. Both of these are area control, though I don’t think it’s limited to area control.
In both cases, my experience was looking at the board, knowing what I should do, and having cards that only allowed me to interact with the board elsewhere.
I thought this was stupid.
Small World killed Brief History, as a very similar game that allowed you to choose where to enter the board. Then it died itself for other reasons.
That’s actually a thing that gets to me in some of the small elegant modern combat game school (e.g. Wildlands) and their overlap with card-driven history type games: I want to do an obvious thing like moving my troops from A to B. But I can’t do that because I don’t have a “move troops” card in my hand. I mean I can understand it if you’re reflecting domestic politics that the general on the front can’t influence, but it’s not fun, and when it’s four cutesy fantasy characters trying to walk up a flight of stairs?
Small World’s dead?
But - we played it the other week and had a good time. We thought so, anyway…
On repeat plays I found the decision of where to attack “solved” and, of course, the combat is deterministic. Which meant the remaining interesting part of the game were the choices of which race to take and where to enter the board. Since you only make this decision 2-3 times per 60 minutes, I couldn’t bear playing the rest of it anymore.
That said, I enjoyed it for a time and my blessings to any sessions that are still in the honeymoon!