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I'm generally a big fan of asymmetric co-operative games - in both board games and tactical RPGs - but I'm getting really tired of the "coaching" problem which comes up in them - where one player ends up making the decisions for everybody and everyone else just has to go along with them. (In RPGs we also called it the "symbiosis" or "symbiote" problem because it gives the feeling that the players are parts of a single giant hive mind rather than individual characters.) I know some people say it's a social problem and the cure is to tell the coaching player to stop it, but in my experience that doesn't work. Not because the coaching player refuses or is an rear end about it, but because usually the players talking amongst each other about their tactics is intended to be a highlight of the game and effectively gagging one of the players, or putting arbitrary and undefinable restrictions on what they can say ("so I can't say I need energy for my actions this turn because that is effectively the same as telling him to run the generator?") damages this. The problem seems to stem for the tendency of game designers to come up with a menu of actions that might be needed to resolve an encounter and then thematically distribute them amongst the player roles without considering if the result has sufficient independent choices to actually require an individual players engagement. In other words the ideal situation is that the coach is not able to order other people's other actions because doing so is too complex for him/her as well as dealing with their own actions. Some games try to fake this by forcing players to hide information from each other but this never works because it is in the interest of all players to share the information so they generally find a way of signalling (like the infamous "I have a really weak man-at-arms, a slightly above average one.." in Shadows Over Camelot). The usual way around _that_ is to add a traitor or individual objectives as in Dead Of Winter, but even then the rules have to be carefully designed to prevent "if you won't tell us you must be the traitor" (Dead of Winter actually does this quite well). But in most RPGs even these aren't addressed and there's just no way around. So does anyone have any tips for house rules or social rules to prevent this?
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Jun 25, 2015 19:09
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| # ? May 4, 2024 12:43 |
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What is the "weak man at arms" problem in Shadows? I've played it, but not run into this particular issue.
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Jun 25, 2015 20:29
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Loxbourne posted:What is the "weak man at arms" problem in Shadows? I've played it, but not run into this particular issue. I assume it's the tendency for players to say "I have a weak man-at-arms" rather than "I have a 1 point man-at-arms", because the rules prohibit the latter when you're going for things like the 1 through 5 run against the Picts/Saxons and the like. You're not allowed to reveal your hand, so people instead strongly hint at what is in their hand, often enough that they might as well just reveal their hand.
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Jun 25, 2015 21:33
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Taran posted:I assume it's the tendency for players to say "I have a weak man-at-arms" rather than "I have a 1 point man-at-arms", because the rules prohibit the latter when you're going for things like the 1 through 5 run against the Picts/Saxons and the like. You're not allowed to reveal your hand, so people instead strongly hint at what is in their hand, often enough that they might as well just reveal their hand. Yea, basically. The rules explicitly state that you can't say the values of your Fight cards, but you are absolutely supposed to discuss your strategies with other players, and the examples they give are "my men-at-arms stand ready" and "what a laughably puny Black Knight". But the nature of the game is that players will inevitably try to reverse-engineer numbers from these statements, meaning they end up being treated as codes for numbers whatever you do.
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Jun 26, 2015 00:03
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Play a good co-op/team game, that's the solution. For example, Space Alert doesn't have quarterbacking problems because the game is designed in such a way as to prevent the game from being entirely solvable from a single perspective within the time constraints. If the players get good enough that such a thing is within the realm of possibility, then the game has multiple ways to increase the difficulty to compensate. Battlestar Galactica doesn't have all the stupid degenerate bullshit Dead of Winter has, and there is a definite air of paranoia in the pre-reveal portion of the game followed by competitive tension in the post-reveal portion. Shadows Over Camelot doesn't stand a chance in comparison, either. Don't blame players for the problems of a game.
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Jun 26, 2015 05:54
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The problem with Galactica is that it's terribly vulnerable to card-counting. Since the target audience tend to be nerds, there's a statistical likelihood that some arse will meticulously explain how X, and only X, can be the Cylon based on the last five turns' card draws. That's happened to me or in front of me enough times to turn me off altogether. Dead of Winter's marketing materials seem to amusingly make "being bullied by the table loudmouth" an explicit failure state.
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Jun 27, 2015 10:52
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The issue is that the rules have little to nothing to do with this behaviour as it is a result of group dynamics. Someone will always take a leadership role in any co-operative endeavour, regardless of the rules involved. It is how most co-habitative communities of social animals behave. If you want the players to act more "independently" i.e. engage in action that may conflict with the actions of other, then you need to give them some reason to do so. This generally means introducing a competitive element as well. If you want people to not act as a cohesive group of people then you need to introduce elements that incetivise the players to act against the group as well. surmasampo fucked around with this message at 23:28 on Aug 16, 2015 |
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Aug 16, 2015 22:38
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surmasampo posted:The issue is that the rules have little to nothing to do with this behaviour as it is a result of group dynamics. Someone will always take a leadership role in any co-operative endeavour, regardless of the rules involved. It is how most co-habitative communities of social animals behave. This is like saying cheating isn't a rules issue because cheaters are just gonna cheat anyway. Games can be designed to be more conducive to cheating, to the point where people will "accidentally cheat" or someone who has basically zero chance of being caught might fudge a roll somewhere where that same individual wouldn't in the vast majority of games. Rules absolutely can shape the social environment around a table.
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Aug 17, 2015 01:55
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surmasampo posted:If you want the players to act more "independently" i.e. engage in action that may conflict with the actions of other, then you need to give them some reason to do so. This generally means introducing a competitive element as well. If you want people to not act as a cohesive group of people then you need to introduce elements that incetivise the players to act against the group as well. To elaborate, a reason to do so that is stronger than the social stigma of being 'that guy' who can't work cooperatively in coop games. You know, the one you never, ever play Monopoly with.
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Aug 17, 2015 04:42
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Loxbourne posted:The problem with Galactica is that it's terribly vulnerable to card-counting. Since the target audience tend to be nerds, there's a statistical likelihood that some arse will meticulously explain how X, and only X, can be the Cylon based on the last five turns' card draws. That's happened to me or in front of me enough times to turn me off altogether. No, it's not. We have a huge BSG community here on SA if you want proof, with over a hundred reviewable playthroughs that prove that card-counting is not a vulnerability in the game. The only way I can conceive that you could come to that conclusion is if you're breaking the secrecy rules. surmasampo posted:The issue is that the rules have little to nothing to do with this behaviour as it is a result of group dynamics. Someone will always take a leadership role in any co-operative endeavour, regardless of the rules involved. It is how most co-habitative communities of social animals behave. You literally ignored my entire post. There are many examples of games that alter group dynamics using rules and mechanics. Timed coops stand out heavily because they actively prevent a single player from solving the game through mechanics. Countblanc posted a great example of this, as well-- games can prevent cheating by reducing the avenues by which players can cheat. In fact, there are games that have absolute tonal differences from nearly identical games due to mechanical means. Resistance: Hidden Agenda and One Night Ultimate Werewolf are both short-length (<30m) team traitor games. Resistance: HA reduces individual player awkwardness by mechanically increasing individual player information and trust vectors, thus making more introverted players feel more comfortable contributing to the discussion. ONUW begins the game with a near drought of information all-around, which stymies discussion among players that have difficulty starting a conversation from scratch. Modern board games are a treasure trove of finding new and exciting ways to enhance the experience for the players and allow a wider variety of groups to equally enjoy them.
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Aug 17, 2015 08:18
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Broken Loose posted:No, it's not. We have a huge BSG community here on SA if you want proof, with over a hundred reviewable playthroughs that prove that card-counting is not a vulnerability in the game. The only way I can conceive that you could come to that conclusion is if you're breaking the secrecy rules. No, I didn't ignore your post, I disagreed. Here is an example of how people will find ways to communicate information that isn't part of the game design: a card game called 500. Go watch some people who are experienced play that game. The players reveal the most important elements of what they have through the bidding system, which isn't part of the design it is just how people have created a subtext to communicate their hand to their partner. This information exchange method is so accurate that most hands are only played through for the first half then all the rest of the tricks are known as the order that cards are played also communicate more information. Would making each card play time limited help to reduce this, no, the bidding takes more time than it takes to play the hand. Time limiting actions just pushes up the barrier to entry for skilled play, it does little to negate mechanical decision making. Our regular board gaming group plays Hanabi about once a month in the rotation. This is a game that intentionally limits information exchange and once you understand the information exchange economy and metagame, you will find your group scores pretty consistently without any tabletalk and games flow pretty fast. Game rules can be designed to promote or dissuade particular social behaviours without the use of an incentive or penalty, everything else is just a problem that players will try to solve in order to be better at the game. If the objective is to get goal A and providing information B increases the chance or success but rule C says that I can only communicate via method C then using strategy D will allow then to transmit the core aspect of information B either by manipulating rule C or circumnavigating it. Rules that hinder the players ability to win are barriers to overcome not absolute delineations of behaviour. A co-operative game that expects it's players to not try and co-ordinate as a group (the issue in the OP) is bound to run into issues if there is no actual incentive to not co-operate and that means competitive elements. Any other rule that places an artificial limitation on communication will end up being overcome by skilled players seeking ways to be more efficient at communicating through the games mechanics. In RPG's, where social interaction is a core element the idea that you can eliminate coaching when people are engaging in a co-operative endeavour isn't going to survive actual play.
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Aug 18, 2015 01:05
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Wait, so you disagree with my statement that games can alter group communication dynamics.... by claiming that games can alter group communication dynamics, and producing examples of that?
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Aug 18, 2015 01:21
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Broken Loose posted:Wait, so you disagree with my statement that games can alter group communication dynamics.... by claiming that games can alter group communication dynamics, and producing examples of that? Rules and many other factors can influence how a group functions but does not change the nature of group dynamics. I provided examples of how limiting the methods of communication does not prevent information that is intended to be restricted from being communicated. The original post was about preventing helping other players in decision making and information sharing (I assume that is what is intended by the use of the word coaching) and am pretty sure I demonstrated my point in relation to that. Simply put, my point was that to increase the likelihood that players in a cooperative game act independently rather than collaboratively towards the goal, that competitive elements need to be implemented. Limiting rules just serve to funnel information and not prevent it so it just requires more skill to play the game effectively.
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Aug 18, 2015 03:24
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I believe the main reason of quarterbacking is neither badwrong mechanics nor player attitude (though these factors can certainly make a bad quarterbacking experience worse). The true culprit of quarterbacking is skill difference - just as skill difference naturally leads a better player to trash the other one, it leads to correcting your buddies in a co-op. There is very little difference between the two dynamics, even if oftentimes it is erroneously thought that the competitive variant is okay (nobody likes losing to someone playing worse) while quarterbacking is inherently bad. The truth is, they are both okay - and dare I say, perhaps even desired! - in relatively small amounts (you both generally want the better player to win in a competitive game and you want to have some discussion and coordination to feel you're co-oping, rather than everyone playing their own minigame), and getting worse the starker the difference is (it's neither fun to be quarterbacked all the time, nor keep losing a game 100% of the time with a noobie basher). This is understood in the world of competitive gaming, where designers take care to rubber-band the extreme cases of snowballing, keeping the impact of skill disproportion within acceptable (i.e. FUN) levels. Note that going overboard with rubber banding (i.e. trying to reduce the disproportion as a meaningful factor) is universally panned by the non-zombie crowd. This is the heart of what I think is the misguided approach to quarterbacking elimination. For example: - Limiting communication (the Hanabi/Shadows of Camelot way) tries to aim at the symptom (ability to quarterback ofthe better player) rather than the cause and ends up this horrible metagame mess all the time. - The time limit is a good solution, because it limits the quarterback at its extremes, rather than trying to eradicate it in its entirety. Like, you still order confused noobies around in Space Alert, it's just that there's an upper limit to what you can do, ensuring the minimum amount of independence left to have fun. This is exactly the same as rubber-banding in competitive games. - Similarly, games with non-poo poo communication limitations (Space Alert, Final Attack!) pull it off, because they treat the limits as a form of general obstacle for everyone to coordinate (just like an extra enemy on the board is just a universal obstacle), rather than aiming at limiting the quarterbacks in particular. - I personally don't consider traitor games/semi-coops to be a solution to quarterbacking. That is, they do work in that regard, but they're already another genre at this point. Though it probably should bear noting that they do fit my theory: it helps only as long as the uncertain loyalty fuzzes the lines of skill difference - if the game is logically solvable in some way (e.g. it is possible to card count with certainty in some situations) it instantly returns to being quarterbacky as gently caress.
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Aug 18, 2015 15:49
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| # ? May 4, 2024 12:43 |
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The Sentinels deckbuilder avoids quarterbacking, in theory, by giving everyone different decks. Unfortunately, it's a react-to-the-deck game, so "Let's do what we did last turn" can be the predominant strategy. Especially if you have a healer, a damager, a negator and a predictor, in which case the game is more of an assembly line.
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Aug 18, 2015 18:55
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