The Problem with Game Length

Once upon a time, a game called Caylus (2005) was released, and it was quickly lauded as the best game ever. It soon climbed the ranking charts on BGG, and there was much hysteria about whether it would surpass Puerto Rico (2002) as the new #1. (Spoiler: it did not.) And so when I sat down to play it on December 14, 2005, I had high expectations.

They were not met.

OK, I’ll admit, I didn’t understand at the time that the hype was over the worker-placement mechanism, which created a whole new industry of eurogames, including ones that I quite enjoy such as Agricola (2007), Le Havre (2008), and A Feast for Odin (2016) — which seems to suggest that I particularly enjoy the somewhat smaller Uwe Rosenberg worker-placement game industry. But I also love Viticulture (2015) and much of Richard Breese’s Key series, depending on how you define “worker placement”. I mean how many games can say they were the basis of a mechanic tag on BGG? (Dozens, I suppose, with pointless arguments over whether a game was “first” or not, when it’s really a question of whether it was “inspirational”*.) And how many games can say they created stupid arguments over terminology started by people too lazy to understand the words they’re using? Continue reading

The Design of a Soulless Euro

How To Make Euros (Take One)

Components. Any soulless Euro starts with components. You’ll want a board, of course, with lots of different spaces. Don’t worry if it coheres or not: the play’s the thing. Then you’ll need some pieces to move around that board. For classic euro style, use cubes. New-fangled games shape those cubes into wheat or cows or bricks to pretend they have theme. Don’t fall for this trick. For modern euro style, use meeples.

If shouldn’t need to be said, but your cubes and meeples must be made out of wood. Don’t even think of using plastic. In fact, if you try to offer painstakingly molded plastic bits as  a Kickstarter upgrade, your backers will probably insist that you offer wood as an alternative, and then they’ll never use those plastic bits that you spent months molding and OKing, at the cost of your schedule. Continue reading

What Makes a Great Gaming Community? (or: “Thanks, Endgame!”)

This blog is primarily about game design: how and why games work. However, games themselves are only half of the gaming equation. As Satre (almost) said: gaming is other people. In other words, there’s another crucial element of gaming fun that I’ve touched upon here and there, but that too often goes unspoken: community.

Designing a great gaming community can be every bit as hard as designing a game itself — as I was reminded this last Friday, when I learned that Endgame, my most beloved gaming community ever, is shutting down. This announcement is heart-breaking for the numerous gaming groups that have blossomed at Endgame: the roleplayers, the war gamers, the Magic players, and my own boardgamers. And that heartbreak reveals what a great job Endgame did.

To remember what a great gaming community Endgame has been, and why I’ve been a regular attendee there for 14 years, I wanted to talk a little bit this week about what makes a great gaming community. And, it need almost go unsaid: I learned most of these lessons from Endgame itself. Continue reading

Defining Worker Placement

Would worker placement by any other name smell as sweet? Perhaps. But there’s power in names: they allow us to develop a common vocabulary, so that we know what other people mean, permitting us to set our own expectations.

That means that a big kerfluffle about naming conventions is significant, such as when a notable board game show says that a non-worker-placement game is one of the top games in that category of play. Because it muddles our meanings, it impairs our communication, and it sets incorrect expectations:  if you loved worker-placement games and picked up the game in question based on a recommendation, you might well be disappointed (or not: it’s a great game otherwise).

So this week I wanted to give my own definitions of worker placement, starting with a look at its history. Continue reading

The Alpha Player Problem (or: How to Avoid Controlling Co-Ops Without Even Trying)

The biggest problem with cooperative game design is the issue of the controlling player — or if you prefer, the alpha player. It’s such a big problem that some players won’t play co-ops because of bad past experiences with controlling players. Meeples Together, my upcoming book on cooperative game design, offers eight game-design solutions to this problem: play patterns that designers can include in games to deflate or deemphasize alphas.

However, there’s a flip side to this. Few co-op designers with perfectly resolve the controlling-player problem, and some with accept it as the price of creating the sort of game that interests them. In fact, some of my favorite co-ops like Pandemic (2008) and The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Games (2017) have styles of play where alpha players can rise to power. And I know, because I’m one of them. When I play these games I end up fighting not just against the challenges of the game system, but also about my own urges to tell everyone else what to do.

And fighting is the perfect word, because I believe that if you’re a cooperative gamer who suffers from alphaplayeritis, it’s your duty to make the game more enjoyable for everyone else by avoiding controlling the game as much as possible.

Here’s how you do so in 10 easy steps. (And if you’re not an controlling player, this really doesn’t apply to you!) Continue reading

Don’t Be that Gamer

I game to be around people. It’s the prime purpose, ahead of intriguing mechanics and evocative settings, even ahead of beating the snot out of my friends, competitively. But, I work from home, and I’m not a natural socializer, so it would be all too easy to withdraw from society. Hence, I game.

Most of the people that I game with actively improve that experience, with clever moves and amusing wit, with fun anecdotes and interesting lives, with emotive sensitivity and over-the-top punning. But people can also negatively impact the gaming experience, sometimes in small ways and sometimes big, sometimes for a few minutes and sometimes for the length of a game, sometimes on brief occasion and sometimes whenever they play. So, in my continuing guide to board game etiquette, I want to say, don’t be that gamer — with a description of 16 specific things that in my opinion you really shouldn’t do. (Feel free to disagree or add more personalities in the comments below.) Continue reading

I Poison My Games with Expansions

I love game supplements. If there’s an expansion for a game that I enjoy, I’ll buy it instead of a new game every time. It’s a blasphemous offshoot of the Cult of the New: I want to see what’s new and exciting in the euro field, but I prefer to do it from the comfort of my familiar, well-loved games.

And when this works, it really works. I’ve recorded exactly two games with more than 100 plays: Pathfinder Adventure Card Game (2013) and Dominion (2008)Both are picture-perfect expandable games that have huge variability without changing the complexity or core values of the game.

Conversely, I’ve recently realized that I also poison my games with expansions. I have multiple well-loved games on my shelves that I’ve stopped playing because the last expansion I put into the box made the game either less fun to play or more complex to teach. Race for the Galaxy (2007) suffered from expansion #3, The Brink of War (2010), which introduced a “prestige” mechanism that was just one complexity too many. It’s only been brought out one or two times since that expansion went in. 7 Wonders (2010) might have suffered the same fate after expansion #2, Cities (2012). went into the box, as it added punitive take-that mechanics that made the game not-fun for players who ended up on the short side of the taxation stick, but fortunately I had the presence of mind to toss that bad expansion out. Carcassonne (2000) recently didn’t go on a family trip, because I thought that the inclusion of the first two expansions made it too difficult to teach to newcomers, even if I do think that’s the perfect balance for thoughtful play. Eminent Domain (2011), complete with Escalation (2014) and Exotica (2016), almost suffered the same fate due to my own intimidation at the multiple rule sets, but I eventually pushed through to relearn how variable ships and mining worked and was able to successfully bring it to the table, but it was a near thing and the huge piles of technology cards still caused problems.

In other words, though I uncritically purchase new expansions for my best-loved games, I think it actually would serve us all to be critical about what expansions we buy, because some can increase our enjoyment of those games, while others can be silent killers that consign their games to never leave their game-shelf homes behind.

Continue reading

The Tao of Board Gaming VII

The Tao of Board GamingKoans I-III can be found in The Tao of Board Gaming I (December 2009). Koans IV-VI can be found in The Tao of Board Gaming II (April 2010). Koans VII-IX can be found in The Tao of Board Gaming III (October 2012). Koans X-XII can be found in The Tao of Board Gaming IV (May 2014). Koans XIII-XV can be found in The Tao of Board Gaming V (December 2014). Koans XVI-XVIII can be found in The Tao of Board Gaming VI (April 2016).

XIX. The Buddha Nature of Cooperative Games

One day a seeker came to speak with a lama about the Buddha nature of cooperative games.

Continue reading

Making the Dick Move

Hollywood Blockbuster CoverWe were attending the last party in Hollywood Blockbuster (2006). That’s the Reiner Knizia game of auctions and moviemaking that’s also called Traumfabrik (2000) and Dream Factory (2009) because name changes sell games. I’d finished all my movies except one, and I hadn’t started that last one, so I had no use for any of the resources being offered.

Two players were going after me, and I glanced at each of their movie boards. One had a movie that was nowhere close to completion, but the other needed just a single audio effect to finish a film. I grabbed the only audio effect chit at the party, then tossed it to the side, unused.

That was the dick move. Continue reading

The Tao of Board Gaming VI

The Tao of Board GamingKoans I-III can be found in The Tao of Board Gaming I (December 2009). Koans IV-VI can be found in The Tao of Board Gaming II (April 2010). Koans VII-IX can be found in The Tao of Board Gaming III (October 2012). Koans X-XII can be found in The Tao of Board Gaming IV (May 2014). Koans XIII-XV can be found in The Tao of Board Gaming V (December 2014).

XVI. The Buddhist Nature of Munchkin

There was once a gamer who seemed to have a perfectly Buddhist nature. When he played Monopoly he simply nodded as all of his money was stolen away by fat cats. When he played Risk he had a light heart when his armies were cleared from the map of the world, even unto Australia. When he played Munchkin he smiled when he lost cards, and even levels, as his opponents cried out, “Take That!”

However the Buddhist gamer’s nature seemed to crack when his gaming group began to change their play from American games to their European brethren. He was still able to accept the loss of a meeple in Carcassonne, of a route in Ticket to Ride, or of a hex corner in Catan. However, he then took no joy as he collected his points, completed his tickets, and built his civilizations. Worse, he became agitated and unhappy, losing the Buddhist nature that was his core. Continue reading