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Broken Loose posted:It's worse than you think. Sounds like it's not necessarily a game problem, then? I suppose that it's built into the game that a player may have no way to win and may try to tank the game, but this one seems like a player going off-rails more than anything else. CaptainRightful posted:Kingmaking, like quarterbacking, is not a game design flaw. It's a player flaw. Disagree, quarterbacking and kingmaking are both player problems that can be exacerbated by design choices. Good design sidelines these issues as much as possible, bad design encourages, requires, or enables them.
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Jan 4, 2017 23:51
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"X is a player flaw, not a design flaw" is like saying that as long as chicken's involved, we're just gonna have to deal with salmonella. It's possible to cook chicken in a way that avoids salmonella. There are good meals that aren't cooked this way, but don't lie to my face and tell me that salmonella is an unavoidable consequence of chicken. There are ways to prevent assholes from ruining your game. I don't know what my opinion is on New Angeles, right now. I'd have to think and type a ton more than I'm willing to do at the moment.
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Jan 5, 2017 00:03
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Ragnar34 posted:It's me, I am the Eldritch Horror fanboy. I even preordered something at at FLGS for the first time, the new Dreamlands expansion coming out tomorrow, because it was a hobby store full of fat old people who care about different model paints, and yet they were playing Black Sabbath over the store radio. Hey, I'm new to all this. Do fat old model-painting people secretly... rule?? Liking Eldritch Horror is good and fine (says the guy who PBP'd it 5 times). It's a solid step up from Arkham and while luck can still gently caress you over it's generally much easier to be in a position where you can still do things, when compared to Arkham Horror. If you've found a shop of friendly old guys who love painting models, never let them go. Offer to pay them to paint your poo poo, it can make some games shine. Before I moved I was playing Imperial Assault with a friend who'd painted everything beautifully, and swapped out the crate tokens for little blocks painted as clunky blast-marked plasteel, and made little console props. It was amazing.
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Jan 5, 2017 00:04
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Broken Loose posted:"X is a player flaw, not a design flaw" is like saying that as long as chicken's involved, we're just gonna have to deal with salmonella. The way to prevent assholes from ruining your game is removing all player agency. Candyland is rear end in a top hat proof.
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Jan 5, 2017 00:06
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Impermanent posted:Disagree, quarterbacking and kingmaking are both player problems that can be exacerbated by design choices. Good design sidelines these issues as much as possible, bad design encourages, requires, or enables them. The only way I can see to eliminate kingmaking is either to make players incapable of affecting other players individually or to make winning equally possible for all players up until the last move of the game. Both of those are pretty severe restrictions.
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Jan 5, 2017 00:10
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Evil is a necessary companion of free will.
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Jan 5, 2017 00:10
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Bottom Liner posted:it's you, you are the fat old model-painting people It's more of an aspiration actually
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Jan 5, 2017 00:12
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al-azad posted:The way to prevent assholes from ruining your game is removing all player agency. Candyland is rear end in a top hat proof. Tell that to my nephew who I caught cheating at Candyland.
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Jan 5, 2017 00:16
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are there any games with player elimination but the game ends when the first player is eliminated because that seems like a good way to handle the problems with both elimination and kingmaking
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Jan 5, 2017 00:28
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Games that enable king making and/or quarterbacking can still be great games, they just put more burden on the players for an optimal experience. Intentional kingmaking or assholish quarterbacking should never be tolerated, but those types of people would probably ruin games without those " design flaws" as well.
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Jan 5, 2017 00:34
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Big Ol Marsh Pussy posted:are there any games with player elimination but the game ends when the first player is eliminated because that seems like a good way to handle the problems with both elimination and kingmaking Puzzle Strike, I'm sure plenty of others I can't think of.
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Jan 5, 2017 00:34
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Big Ol Marsh Pussy posted:are there any games with player elimination but the game ends when the first player is eliminated because that seems like a good way to handle the problems with both elimination and kingmaking Mansions of Madness ends after the first player dies
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Jan 5, 2017 00:35
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al-azad posted:Candyland is rear end in a top hat proof. You have obviously never played Candyland with a 3 year old.
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Jan 5, 2017 00:35
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Big Ol Marsh Pussy posted:are there any games with player elimination but the game ends when the first player is eliminated because that seems like a good way to handle the problems with both elimination and kingmaking Uno
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Jan 5, 2017 00:35
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edit: oops
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Jan 5, 2017 00:42
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drat Dirty Ape posted:Tell that to my nephew who I caught cheating at Candyland. I cheat at Candyland every chance I can get. Yeah, I'm gonna stack the deck so one of us takes the fast track to Queen Frostine and this game ends in 5 minutes instead of 20.
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Jan 5, 2017 00:43
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Okay, cheating is 100% player fault. But Candyland offers no avenues to boost or hinder another player incessantly.
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Jan 5, 2017 00:44
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Broken Loose posted:It's worse than you think. Reminds me of the time one of my friends played a Fail card during an early round of The Resistance as a Resistance member because she "thought it would be hilarious." Or that time my other friend tanked skill checks in BSG as a human because he was bored.
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Jan 5, 2017 00:52
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Radioactive Toy posted:Reminds me of the time one of my friends played a Fail card during an early round of The Resistance as a Resistance member because she "thought it would be hilarious." Still beats someone wailing "I DON'T GET THIS GAME THIS IS STUPID" whenever anyone tries to explain the game to them, and then essentially turning into dead weight on the couch and moaning until someone brings out "Adult Loaded Question" because The Resistance is too hard. I literally had this happen on new years eve.
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Jan 5, 2017 00:57
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Big Ol Marsh Pussy posted:are there any games with player elimination but the game ends when the first player is eliminated because that seems like a good way to handle the problems with both elimination and kingmaking Some 18xx games end when any player goes bankrupt.
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Jan 5, 2017 01:04
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One of the roles of good design is to mitigate player malice, either by making sure cheating is impossible without deliberate sleight of hand or out of game manipulation, or by building safeguards to prevent malicious player behavior. Some entire genres of games, like 18xxs, are vulnerable to kingmaking of certain varieties. This doesn't mean that they're poorly designed. Players are just willing to accept this due to the central part of the game requiring all players to have high impact on each other's play. In fact, people play those types of game because of that high level of impact. With certain groups, kingmaking will never be a problem in a game. This doesn't mean that designers don't need to pay attention to the issue and challenge themselves to limit it as much as is reasonable given the bounds of the design they are working with. However, I don't see kingmaking or quarterbacking as things that completely invalidate a design. If you want to play games that necessarily involve a lot of negotiation, kingmaking will factor into them. I can't think of one off the top of my head where it is impossible for a player to spitefully throw another player points or resources, and designing around the idea that one player would play like the way BL points out is absurd, because that player has completely broken the social contract that allows the game to be played in the first place.
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Jan 5, 2017 01:08
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CommonShore posted:Still beats someone wailing "I DON'T GET THIS GAME THIS IS STUPID" whenever anyone tries to explain the game to them, and then essentially turning into dead weight on the couch and moaning until someone brings out "Adult Loaded Question" because The Resistance is too hard. I guess I should count myself lucky. I spent about 6 total hours between setting up Eclipse, getting bitched at by a friend of a friend because my rules explanation took too long, then getting bitched at again when they claim I made a rules error because they jumped to an absolutely unimaginable conclusion on their own and also getting bitched at for thinking on my turn when they would forget to turn her pass marker over so we knew they were actually done, all while having a very unlucky, uninteractive and unfun game. But I also got to play Can't Stop, Alhambra, and Glory to Rome so that was nice.
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Jan 5, 2017 01:13
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I think the "problem" with king making is people getting too butt-hurt if they lose. Its just a boardgame, no need to get your feelings hurt just because everyone unfairly dogpiled your Mage Knight or whatever! Just be chill and get them back on the next game 
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Jan 5, 2017 01:20
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Bottom Liner posted:Games that enable king making and/or quarterbacking can still be great games, they just put more burden on the players for an optimal experience. Intentional kingmaking or assholish quarterbacking should never be tolerated, but those types of people would probably ruin games without those " design flaws" as well. I mean, there's a spectrum. I am a "problem quarterbacker" when playing Pandemic (and don't play Pandemic for this reason) specifically because Pandemic is mechanically a single player game, and has fairly shallow strategic decisions. If I see a better move I will point it out. I don't have that problem in Mechs vs Minions because a) each person will be most acquainted with the general flow of their own program so they'll genuinely have something valuable to offer even if I am a better player and b) the decision space is deeper. (also c) there's time pressure at one specific point in gameplay, but that's only a small part of it). I'm also not a problem quarterbacker when playing Hanabi, for obvious reasons. And in Captain Sonar you can't be one without being godlike at the game, so there's always room for weaker players to contribute. So yeah, I consider it a design flaw. If Pandemic was advertised as a solo game, or if it was more complex, it wouldn't force me (and others) to choose between being antisocial and losing.
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Jan 5, 2017 01:27
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Dancer posted:I mean, there's a spectrum. It helps if you use visuals  (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jan 5, 2017 01:35
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Rutibex posted:It helps if you use visuals gently caress off
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Jan 5, 2017 01:39
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quote:With certain groups, kingmaking will never be a problem in a game. This doesn't mean that designers don't need to pay attention to the issue and challenge themselves to limit it as much as is reasonable given the bounds of the design they are working with. However, I don't see kingmaking or quarterbacking as things that completely invalidate a design. If you want to play games that necessarily involve a lot of negotiation, kingmaking will factor into them. I can't think of one off the top of my head where it is impossible for a player to spitefully throw another player points or resources, and designing around the idea that one player would play like the way BL points out is absurd, because that player has completely broken the social contract that allows the game to be played in the first place. Pretty much all multiplayer games are going to have some amount of politics - but even within those games, the way those politics express themselves in play is going to vary a lot based on players. It's perhaps worth thinking of "prominence of politics" as a line charted against an x-axis of "player disposition" or something. Like, there's lots of games I play where politics is normally low - but where a determined player could potentially ruin a game for someone else if they really wanted to. For example, if you are intent on screwing a specific player in Food Chain Magnate, you could probably ensure that you both lose. But while these games might spike at that end of the graph, the line swerves down pretty fast - and in the section of the chart that includes "normal play with non-vigilantes", the level is lower. It doesn't bother me that players "could" make the game a political turd, as long as they don't tend to in actual play. Dominion is pretty low across the chart - even if you're pretty determined, it's hard to screw a specific other player. This makes it a good choice if you have people for whom politics will be a problem. Risk is going to be high across the chart; there's not a realistic way to play that doesn't involve hurting or benefiting other players. This makes it a no go for many groups. Other games function at different parts of the graph for different groups. Ticket to Ride and Carcasonne both work in high or low politics modes. Obviously different players like different levels of politics, and that's fine (though I think most people here, and most people who play a lot of games over time eventually lean towards "low politics" in multiplayer games). What I think doesn't work well for almost anyone is where the line is fuzzy, and especially where the game forces players to bounce around artificially. For example, Mandatory Quests in Lords of Waterdeep are a good example of a game that ends up operating at different levels of politics, but at the behest of card draws rather than player agency. In other games you see this happening based on player performance over time - eg. games where nobody wants to fight because it's mutually destructive, but eventually the player who's losing is going to pick a fight just to take some chance. Other games are political throughout (eg. Catan or Cosmic Encounter), but players don't "feel" it until the last turn, when someone effectively decides a winner. These imbalances I think are what makes these games particularly unsatisfying for people; players can deal with high politics if that's what the game is, but it sucks getting jerked around. Anywho, I think this is something that designers will continue to innovate on. I think Tash-Kalar style "beating up blue" points are great. I think King of Tokyo style role-rotation is clever. Eclipse combat VP and economic setup work pretty well to smooth things out there (especially in a game where combat is usually a political mess). Team games sidestep the issue completely. There's lots of good ideas floating around, and it's definitely something that multiplayer games should be cognizant of.
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Jan 5, 2017 01:58
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CaptainRightful posted:Kingmaking, like quarterbacking, is not a game design flaw. It's a player flaw. So wrong it hurts me.
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Jan 5, 2017 02:10
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I came to post that Dominion, King of Tokyo and Tash Kalar are I think good examples of games that dodge the targetting players for attack issue and some sod not only beat me to mentioning those games but also explained it better too!
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Jan 5, 2017 02:26
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About halfway through last year I mentioned I was going to pick up Mage Knight Lost Legion and could anybody share their customers inserts as I want to build one out of foam board. Someone answered saying they could share later in the year. Wondering if that person is still about or if anyone else has custom inserts to share. I got MK:LL to play, and bizarrely enough I'm currently more into building the insert than playing!!!
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Jan 5, 2017 02:29
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Fat Turkey posted:I came to post that Dominion, King of Tokyo and Tash Kalar are I think good examples of games that dodge the targetting players for attack issue and some sod not only beat me to mentioning those games but also explained it better too! I agree that Tash Kalar is pretty well designed for a multiplayer deathmatch game, but ironically just last weekend it sort of fell apart in a game for me. Whenever it was my wife's turn, one player would passive aggressively grumble stuff like "I don't know if I like this game because I feel like you can get picked on" or threaten a retaliation whenever it was my wife's turn to attack someone, so my wife would naturally just attack me, lol. Even when she was ahead on "blowing up fosbourne" points. I don't completely blame my wife because I think she just didn't want to deal with that whiny personality. So in a sense, my wife and the free-for-all mode are probably at blame, but practically speaking, I just don't want to play games with that other player anymore and we'll be fine. TK + Wife can stay.
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Jan 5, 2017 02:54
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Dancer posted:I mean, there's a spectrum. I am a "problem quarterbacker" when playing Pandemic (and don't play Pandemic for this reason) specifically because Pandemic is mechanically a single player game, and has fairly shallow strategic decisions. If I see a better move I will point it out. I don't have that problem in Mechs vs Minions because a) each person will be most acquainted with the general flow of their own program so they'll genuinely have something valuable to offer even if I am a better player and b) the decision space is deeper. (also c) there's time pressure at one specific point in gameplay, but that's only a small part of it). I'm also not a problem quarterbacker when playing Hanabi, for obvious reasons. And in Captain Sonar you can't be one without being godlike at the game, so there's always room for weaker players to contribute. Yeah pandemic (and pandemic legacy on particular) would benefit from anti quarterbacking measures. I love space alert for this reason, you can quarterback a bit (who deals with what) but mostly you just panic and run around
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Jan 5, 2017 02:57
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So I found a copy of Fury of Dracula the other day at my FLGS and grabbed it while I still could since its going out of print. It looks like I might get it to the table tonight for the first time. I seem to remember some people in this thread saying you should play with some of the advanced rules the first time through so Dracula isn't completely gimped. Is there a recommended starting set of rules for the first game? e: The people I am going to be playing this with tend to like Ameritrash games with heaps of miniatures whereas I am all about crunchy, deterministic euros. I don't think I'd have a problem with the full rules but I also want it to be approachable for them. I feel like Fury of Dracula should strike a good balance by being a good game with tons of theme. KongGeorgeVII fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Jan 5, 2017 |
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Jan 5, 2017 03:06
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I have found a deal on Forbidden Stars. Do I want to get it, as a fan of Chaos in the Old, Kemet, and wargames? What are the game's pros and cons? Does the order system create a huge last player advantage? Is it all very random? Faction balance, etc.? Player count requirements for the best experience?
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Jan 5, 2017 03:10
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CommonShore posted:Still beats someone wailing "I DON'T GET THIS GAME THIS IS STUPID" whenever anyone tries to explain the game to them, and then essentially turning into dead weight on the couch and moaning until someone brings out "Adult Loaded Question" because The Resistance is too hard. This is me but instead of ruining everyone else's time I'll raid your fridge for beer. The Resistance is stupid.
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Jan 5, 2017 03:13
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Big Ol Marsh Pussy posted:are there any games with player elimination but the game ends when the first player is eliminated because that seems like a good way to handle the problems with both elimination and kingmaking Clash of Cultures does this, and even theoretically gives eliminated players a route to win.
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Jan 5, 2017 03:13
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al-azad posted:This is me but instead of ruining everyone else's time I'll raid your fridge for beer. The Resistance is stupid. i love resistance but it relies on being in the right mood and having the right personality. so if anyone is against it well just play codenames instead.
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Jan 5, 2017 03:45
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Straight White Shark posted:Clash of Cultures does this, and even theoretically gives eliminated players a route to win. I still desperately wish I could find the expansion for CoC in print anywhere. I've got the tools to run it but I'd really like to play it in person with people, and it's basically vanished from everywhere at this point.
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Jan 5, 2017 03:54
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Thoughts on Fury of Dracula vs Letters from Whitechapel? Planning on getting a hidden movement game sometime soon, those both appeal equally right now.
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Jan 5, 2017 03:59
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SuperKlaus posted:I have found a deal on Forbidden Stars. Do I want to get it, as a fan of Chaos in the Old, Kemet, and wargames? What are the game's pros and cons? Does the order system create a huge last player advantage? Is it all very random? Faction balance, etc.? Player count requirements for the best experience? It's better than chaos and Kemet, and I like both of those. It's essential
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