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Cthulhu Dreams posted:This is just playing snakes and ladders, which we all agree is terrible. I don't agree with that, necessarily. I certainly enjoyed many games of Candy Land as a kid. Not because it was competitive, but because I was engaged in the story that unfolded. Now, I don't think that Candy Land is the best possible example of such a game, but I still think that games can succeed as story-building devices. They don't need to be closely balanced, just balanced enough to keep the story interesting and engaging.
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Oct 1, 2019 23:05
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PerniciousKnid posted:I don't agree with that, necessarily. I certainly enjoyed many games of Candy Land as a kid. Not because it was competitive, but because I was engaged in the story that unfolded. I mean two things one serious and one mean: 1) Games have just moved on. Haba makes a range of kids games that blow snakes and ladders out of the water. 2) I am prepared to concede that maybe snakes and ladders can be an enjoyable game if you have the cognitive abilities of a small child. (Though I doubt it) We are not discussing that though. This is about you, now, today putting snakes and ladders on the table and enjoying the story (or not). You wouldn't if you did because you have no agency. Making snakes and ladders more baroque doesn't change anything though. Cthulhu Dreams fucked around with this message at 23:16 on Oct 1, 2019 |
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Oct 1, 2019 23:12
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Duck and Cover posted:Trying to calculate what is worth it this way is a mistake. Not because it isn't a valid thing to think about but because it often times fails to include quality and other factors. I also find when I start doing this I might not buy something I'd enjoy because it's not as efficient in fun as something else. Trying to minmax my fun is unappealing to me. Agreed on all fronts. I don't actually that kind of robotic minmaxing when thinking of purchases, I thought it was just illustrative of my general sense that games are a much more affordable hobby than say... going out to the bar, or going out to the movies (both things I enjoy doing). For me, I basically just need to know upfront that I'm going to enjoy a game and that it's going to get to the table at least a half dozen times, and then basically the cost is basically a wash. I'm lucky to have some disposable income in my life and other people with different economic circumstances may have to budget these types of things, but for me the determinative factor for buying a game isn't really "is it worth it?" because the answer is almost always yes from a pure money perspective. Is Arkwright worth it at $50 or whatever? No, because I'm literally never going to play it. Is Spirit Island worth it at $90? Yes, because paying $100 to have a fun night with 2-3 friends even a handful of times is worth it to me.
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Oct 1, 2019 23:19
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Oct 1, 2019 23:37
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:This is about you, now, today putting snakes and ladders on the table and enjoying the story (or not). You wouldn't if you did because you have no agency. But you have agency in games like Tapestry, even if they're unbalanced. There's more to agency than a numeric score.
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Oct 2, 2019 00:03
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Frozen Peach posted:But you have agency in games like Tapestry, even if they're unbalanced. There's more to agency than a numeric score. It sounds like if you play a certain factions, one player's 'agency' is three doors, all leading to a loss. If you're boned from the start, the choices you make in the game don't matter much. A part of agency is your actions mattering.
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Oct 2, 2019 00:20
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Frozen Peach posted:But you have agency in games like Tapestry, even if they're unbalanced. There's more to agency than a numeric score. Going back to your example: not matter what the player on 82 points did they lose. So as Ravendas says they have a false choice, like a choose your adventure novel where any of the choices leads to the same page, or a D&D campaign that is on rails and the same outcome will happen no matter what you do. A false choice is not agency. If your decisions have no impact on the outcome, then they were not meaningful choices.
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Oct 2, 2019 00:32
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:I mean two things one serious and one mean: Every snakes and ladders board I ever saw had pictures of a child doing something good at the bottom of the ladder and being rewarded for it at the top, and likewise for the snakes with something naughty and a punishment. So while the game was pure chance, the child playing would be instructed in actions and their consequences. That was its actual purpose, to which the game itself was mere trappings. Which brings us to the games under discussion. Is the purpose of a narrative game to provide a game, or to provide a narrative?
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Oct 2, 2019 00:42
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It's per taste, of course. For me, game first, narrative second.
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Oct 2, 2019 00:44
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Ravendas posted:If you're boned from the start, the choices you make in the game don't matter much. A part of agency is your actions mattering. Let's say I get "stuck" with an unbalanced 82 point faction in Tapestry. My agency might not come from being the best in that particular game, but instead from just doing the best I can with the faction I'm given. Maybe if my best score possible is an 82, and I manage to figure out how to get to that 82.
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Oct 2, 2019 00:45
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silvergoose posted:It's per taste, of course. For me, game first, narrative second. I think there is a different false choice in here too though: Gloomhaven is a good game that also has a very strong narrative. I think to be a great game (Gloomhaven, T&E, FCM, Pandemic Season 1) you have to do both. You can have your cake and eat it! Frozen Peach posted:Let's say I get "stuck" with an unbalanced 82 point faction in Tapestry. My agency might not come from being the best in that particular game, but instead from just doing the best I can with the faction I'm given. Maybe if my best score possible is an 82, and I manage to figure out how to get to that 82. What you are describing is literally solitaire puzzle and not a multiplayer game. It would be as if we all sat down and did a different random crossword puzzle independently against the clock. We cannot even compare our results. While I may derive satisfaction from completing the puzzle, that is not what most people would construe as a multiplayer game. I think for a game to be a game with agency you need be competing in a test of skill and that test needs to be comparable or compared against each other in some way. Cthulhu Dreams fucked around with this message at 01:01 on Oct 2, 2019 |
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Oct 2, 2019 00:52
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Frozen Peach posted:Let's say I get "stuck" with an unbalanced 82 point faction in Tapestry. My agency might not come from being the best in that particular game, but instead from just doing the best I can with the faction I'm given. Maybe if my best score possible is an 82, and I manage to figure out how to get to that 82. Pretty sure Tapestry isn't being sold as a roll and write though. That's what you're describing.
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Oct 2, 2019 01:00
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:While I may derive satisfaction from completing the puzzle, that is not what most people would construe as a multiplayer game. Game of Life and Uno are vastly more popular than anything discussed in this thread so I'm skeptical of your use of "most people" here.
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Oct 2, 2019 01:01
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Ravendas posted:Pretty sure Tapestry isn't being sold as a roll and write though. That's what you're describing. It's less interactive than even that: Roll and Writes are generally symmetrical, so you can meaningful compare scores at the end. Going back to my crossword puzzle example, it would be as if we agreed to do the same puzzle against the clock. Would actually be a competition! PerniciousKnid posted:Game of Life and Uno are vastly more popular than anything discussed in this thread so I'm skeptical of your use of "most people" here. Fair enough: I'm confident you're not going to sell your game collection and replace it with Uno though, nor is 'multiplayer independent crossword/sudoku solving' going to replace anyones board game nights. I think though what those games (and monopoly) have going for them is nostalgia. Cthulhu Dreams fucked around with this message at 01:14 on Oct 2, 2019 |
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Oct 2, 2019 01:11
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Ravendas posted:If you're boned from the start, the choices you make in the game don't matter much. A part of agency is your actions mattering. You're making an arbitrary assumption there, though, that whether or not you win the game is the only outcome that matters. In practice a lot of people get value from other outcomes in games, whether it's achieving self-defined goals, telling interesting stories, experiencing new gameplay and strategies, or just gambling for its own sake. There are games I play where I have little or no hope of winning - either because the game is unbalanced, or because the players' skill levels are too far apart, or because the game has no win condition to begin with - but that doesn't mean I have no agency to affect outcomes that matter to me. Certainly those games would not be worse if all players had an equally "fair" chance of winning, but they do not necessarily need that in order to have value as games.
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Oct 2, 2019 01:14
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You're conflating chance of winning (obviously someone who's never played has a much worse chance in many games than a veteran) with inherent unbalanced position at start. The former is not a problem. As you say, strive for your best, learn from someone better, there's even explicit handicaps in some games (Go). The latter is not good. How not good it is depends on the level of imbalance, the length of the game, your taste, the weight of the game, the people you're playing with, all sorts of things. But it's a little mind boggling to be told that it doesn't matter.
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Oct 2, 2019 01:18
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The Narrator posted:Played 3p aFfO with the Norwegians. One player was new but there's very little (if any) extra teaching time with the expansion so I just taught it like that. I won from an emigration-heavy strategy after starting with Refugee Helper - my first 3p win (and like second ever win overall...). First time leaning into a full-on emigration strategy. Still feel like emigration is super powerful - i know it's not overpowered and it's just a highly visible point source, but I still need to form competitive strategies in response to it. I think final scores were 107-99-94. The new player really enjoyed it and looks forward to trying it out again, so that's a win. He appreciated how open and individual your strategic choices are. A good island game is strong against emigrating. Usually, emigrating means you grab a bunch of stuff to build boats with, and can raid or craft with the leftovers, but you don't have the tilegen to fill an island and your main board. Norwegians is a real top-class expansion. It changes the way the game pays out a lot more than it changes how you play it.
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Oct 2, 2019 01:19
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NRVNQSR posted:You're making an arbitrary assumption there, though, that whether or not you win the game is the only outcome that matters. In practice a lot of people get value from other outcomes in games, whether it's achieving self-defined goals, telling interesting stories, experiencing new gameplay and strategies, or just gambling for its own sake. I think you can loosely divide the taxonomy here into three chunks: A) multiplayer competitive games (e.g. Tigris and Euphrates) B) Role playing games (e.g. D&D) C) puzzles (e.g. crosswords or Sudoku) Some exciting questions about where things fit include Pandemic, Gloomhaven and Descent, or playing Ganz Schone clever by yourself but whatever, Tapestry is clearly an A. Other stuff: like narrative games with no win condition e.g. D&D fits into another category. It's entirely reasonable to enjoy all those things (I do!), but the lines of argument being run are to me: Me: Tapestry fails utterly as a competitive multiplayer game Others: well if you treat it as a puzzle or a role playing game then it still has merit. Which is not a point I can really argue other than to say like, why not do an interesting puzzle or play a civilisation building RPG?
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Oct 2, 2019 01:28
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:What you are describing is literally solitaire puzzle and not a multiplayer game. It would be as if we all sat down and did a different random crossword puzzle independently against the clock. We cannot even compare our results. While I may derive satisfaction from completing the puzzle, that is not what most people would construe as a multiplayer game. I'm here to have fun while hanging out with friends. It's less a multiplayer game to me, than a shared activity for us to do while we talk and have fun. Sure, I like to win, and I try to, but that's secondary to every other goal I have, which is to have fun and hang out with friends. Cthulhu Dreams posted:Which is not a point I can really argue other than to say like, why not do an interesting puzzle or play a civilisation building RPG? Because Tapestry is an interesting puzzle? Frozen Peach fucked around with this message at 04:08 on Oct 2, 2019 |
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Oct 2, 2019 03:52
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You can debate back and forth until the cows come home, people are approaching board games from different perspectives, there isn't a logical argument to be won or lost here. People enjoy games in a multitude of valid ways - proving their skill via competition - either to themselves or to the group. - exploring systems to see how different parts can combo together as a whole - experiencing a series of events that play out into a narrative - socializing with a structured set of rules for interaction - sensing tactile components - riffling cards, clicking tiles, shaking bags, taking in visual spectacles Tapestry seems to be a game which is strong for experiencing, socializing, sensing, and maybe exploring. It doesn't seem optimized for proving your skill. One might think, let's make the game more competitively balanced - clearly that will fix the only flaw in this game! Now the best player will win! Wrong. Many people loathe games which are pure tests of intellectual mettle like the plague, for valid reasons. They aren't interested in mental warfare, but do enjoy board games for all their other facets. The hobby needs people like this (their money is green) and these people need games that are made for them. Multiplayer solitaire should not be a slur.
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Oct 2, 2019 04:56
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Lord Of Texas posted:You can debate back and forth until the cows come home, people are approaching board games from different perspectives, there isn't a logical argument to be won or lost here. Personally, lack of balance isnt a problem. I enjoy some games where scoring is dependent on card flips and dice, even longer ones (Twilight Struggle). Multiplayer solitaire is awful though, it takes the socializing and the narrative aspects worse too. Exploring a solo puzzle with nice components doesn't do it for me.. I wanna play a game WITH my friends, or AGAINST them. Not sit next to them while fiddling around. discount cathouse fucked around with this message at 05:14 on Oct 2, 2019 |
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Oct 2, 2019 05:10
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Lord Of Texas posted:Tapestry seems to be a game which is strong for experiencing, socializing, sensing, and maybe exploring If that were the case, then there are many options that do those things much much better than a slowly plodding puzzle game. That's the problem, Tapestry isn't an interesting puzzle, an engaging thematic game, or a narrative based game. Who is the game for? It seems the only players that will enjoy it are people with no sense of standards (I don't mean that as harshly as it sounds) that are just happy to move pieces around no matter the outcome? If that's the case, there are better sandboxes to explore that give you more interesting toys to play with. It is factually a competitive multiplayer game, so saying it's for people that don't care about "proving their intellectual mettle" is a cop out excuse for poor design. Conflating people that care about competitiveness with try-hard mentalities isn't a fair representation either. I never care about losing but I also care that I'm not shot in the knee from the start of a game and have a fair shot in the game. Bottom Liner fucked around with this message at 05:22 on Oct 2, 2019 |
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Oct 2, 2019 05:19
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Last week I asked the good folks on Discord to talk me out of purchasing Pax Pamir 2nd Edition. Anyways I'm excited for it to be delivered Thursday.
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Oct 2, 2019 05:47
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JM07lUytXA0 Sorry this has been stuck in my head this whole discussion Also who plays candyland once you're like 5 years old? Its literally a "game" in which no decisions are ever made And Pax Pamir is a good decision StashAugustine fucked around with this message at 06:19 on Oct 2, 2019 |
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Oct 2, 2019 06:17
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Hey y'all - I was thinking that it'd be fun to have an inhouse goon league for Through the Ages on the app. I also want to talk more about tier lists, expanding StashAugstines first ratings with a sort of general goon consensus complete with strategy/rationale. If that interests you, thread's here: https://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=3900168 If it doesn't, then at least you won't need to see TTA tier lists anymore in this thread, so you win either way!
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Oct 2, 2019 06:30
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Frozen Peach posted:Let's say I get "stuck" with an unbalanced 82 point faction in Tapestry. My agency might not come from being the best in that particular game, but instead from just doing the best I can with the faction I'm given. Maybe if my best score possible is an 82, and I manage to figure out how to get to that 82. So you've got 4 people playing solitaire to see if they can solve their own puzzles. Surely if you solve your puzzle better than everyone else you should win the game? And this game was play tested to be in this state?
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Oct 2, 2019 09:31
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Cthulhu Dreams posted:I think there is a different false choice in here too though: Gloomhaven is a good game that also has a very strong narrative. I think to be a great game (Gloomhaven, T&E, FCM, Pandemic Season 1) you have to do both. You can have your cake and eat it! But enough about A Feast for Odin.
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Oct 2, 2019 10:56
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I've always been someone that plays games for the competitive aspect, and I'll rightfully slate a game if it has some sort of asymmetry in which some sides are vastly over-advantaged over others (see, for example, Imperial Settlers). I do get the mindset in which sometimes you just want to have an enjoyable activity which is relatively speaking a little bit single player and you are just playing something to move stuff on a board and build stuff. I think the prime example of this for me is Caverna, which I've played and enjoyed in the past, although it felt more like I was doing my own thing rather than worrying about what other people were doing. I think it's still valuable to critique games for being essentially solitaire experience, but I can see why people would enjoy less competitive experiences.
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Oct 2, 2019 11:18
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So there are some good offers near me for Key Harvest and Keythedral. Has anyone played them and can comment on them?
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Oct 2, 2019 11:32
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Bottom Liner posted:If that were the case, then there are many options that do those things much much better than a slowly plodding puzzle game. That's the problem, Tapestry isn't an interesting puzzle, an engaging thematic game, or a narrative based game. Who is the game for? It seems the only players that will enjoy it are people with no sense of standards (I don't mean that as harshly as it sounds) that are just happy to move pieces around no matter the outcome? As the person who scored 81 and got beat, I couldn’t possibly disagree with this sentiment more. It’s absolutely an interesting puzzle, and we have found it to be capable of playing out an interesting narrative, and never “plodding.” It’s still fun, it’s still been out on our table for 2 weeks, and we’re still going to play it despite our lack of “standards”. we have gloomhaven and 50+ plays of it, we have spirit island and 20+ plays of it, we have Lacerdas & Rosenbergs & Pfisters and pretty much any recommended 2p game. But tapestry still provides an experience that other games do not. At the end of the day, we aren’t collecting a slate of perfect games with no issues, we are collecting games that we have fun playing.
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Oct 2, 2019 11:49
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Bodanarko posted:As the person who scored 81 and got beat, I couldn’t possibly disagree with this sentiment more. It’s absolutely an interesting puzzle, and we have found it to be capable of playing out an interesting narrative, and never “plodding.” It’s still fun, it’s still been out on our table for 2 weeks, and we’re still going to play it despite our lack of “standards”. I don't think anyone is saying you didn't have fun with Tapestry. People have fun at knitting circles, my nieces favourite game is hide and seek where she tells you where she's going to hide first. Things don't need to be competitive or balanced to be fun. But also undoubtedly Tapestry would be better game if it was balanced. You'd still have the fun of your solitare puzzle and other people would have fun trying to win. It's like Outer Rim for me, its not that balanced albeit better than tapestry but I had fun playing it. Our first thoughts were how to tweak the game to balance it, like everyone has a blank hero etc.
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Oct 2, 2019 12:16
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Balance is pointless to me unless you're making a 2-player abstract. I haven't played Tapestry but its issues don't sound balance related, it sounds like they stem from a lack of interesting choices which is the #1 most important element to game design. I don't care if I'm always on the losing end but the choices I make need to feel like they're contributing to the state of the board. Drawing a random card that says "you win/you lose" won't be fixed by balancing any element of the design, it's a flaw baked directly into the design that no other choice matters except draw a card and get lucky.
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Oct 2, 2019 12:37
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Eh it really boils down to "variable player powers/positions at the start is hard to make balanced" and that's always true. Doesn't mean a heavy lack of balance (in those areas) is ever a good thing though.al-azad posted:Drawing a random card that says "you win/you lose" won't be fixed by balancing any element of the design, it's a flaw baked directly into the design that no other choice matters except draw a card and get lucky. This though, if that card is "which player mat you get", that's...kind of a problem, yeah?
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Oct 2, 2019 12:46
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al-azad posted:Balance is pointless to me unless you're making a 2-player abstract. I haven't played Tapestry but its issues don't sound balance related, it sounds like they stem from a lack of interesting choices which is the #1 most important element to game design. I don't care if I'm always on the losing end but the choices I make need to feel like they're contributing to the state of the board. Drawing a random card that says "you win/you lose" won't be fixed by balancing any element of the design, it's a flaw baked directly into the design that no other choice matters except draw a card and get lucky. Surely choices become interesting based on how they affect the outcome of the game. A choice of no consequence is of no interest and that's balance related.
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Oct 2, 2019 12:51
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So what I'm getting from my two plays last week and this conversation is that Tapestry is the Cosmic Encounter of engine-builders  And yes, I mean that as a positive and a negative. We also started with two Tapestry cards instead of one at the owner's request and that mitigated a decent chunk of the early-game luck? I had a nice night with it at least and I couldn't stand Scythe after a handful of plays. The core mechanic is solid and I'd love to see a variant of it in an actual 4X. The capital city thing can burn in hell though. e: v but yeah I'm always down for more Flow, need an online version of that 
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Oct 2, 2019 13:17
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Play flow of history or antiquity instead  I’m actually wondering if BGG will be making another set of deluxe tiles for R&B. I’d get them too of course, since I’m dumb but I’d rather upgrade existing games than get new ones.
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Oct 2, 2019 13:18
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silvergoose posted:Eh it really boils down to "variable player powers/positions at the start is hard to make balanced" and that's always true. Doesn't mean a heavy lack of balance (in those areas) is ever a good thing though. Aramoro posted:Surely choices become interesting based on how they affect the outcome of the game. A choice of no consequence is of no interest and that's balance related. I disagree. If your game is 100% about asymmetric factions duking it out and a handful of factions are clearly superior then that's a balance issue. Take Cosmic Encounter: remove the politics and random cards and in any given scenario certain factions will always dominate others. That's a balance issue but Cosmic Encounter doesn't pretend to be a balanced game. But take something like a COIN game or really any historical wargame and the scenarios are intentionally lopsided to represent the situation at the time of the conflict. But there's more to these games than your faction, the map plays a huge role, luck is a varying factor, but skill and strategy are also elements. If a multi-leveled game like this doesn't factor all these elements that doesn't scream "lack of balance" to me but flawed design.
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Oct 2, 2019 13:22
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Yes, even the greatest game Napoleon’s Triumph has lopsided victory conditions that were carefully created to produce historical-ish results. Which is amazing given that both players know about Napoleon’s reserves. Similar accolades for guns of Gettysburg, as the random buildup and changing objectives really produces a satisfying set of variable constraints given that’s actually what happened there. In games like OCS, and I assume ASL but I’ve never played it, the overarching “political victory points” are out of your hands. That’s for the politicians to argue; your role and victory, how greatly they might demand your skill, might have narrative/VP effects of “maybe Germany won’t get spanked too hard in the ensuing treaties.” Luck is a big one I’ve embraced in these games because you might have incompetent subordinates but that’s just out of your control. In games where fairness is a factor, I’d hate that to be the case. That’s when I’d expect a draft or some compensation of resources (graduated market row with coins left on it, perhaps) to balance it. Chill la Chill fucked around with this message at 13:38 on Oct 2, 2019 |
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Oct 2, 2019 13:31
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The real point of a game like Talisman is not to win or lose but to pretend that it's a strategy game where your decisions matter until Richard gets pissed off and rage quits. gently caress Richard.
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Oct 2, 2019 13:54
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Bellmaker posted:So what I'm getting from my two plays last week and this conversation is that Tapestry is the Cosmic Encounter of engine-builders Ehhhhhh Cosmic Encounter is a bullshit game but it's also a game that rewards bullshitters. I think this is something new designers haven't gotten comfortable tackling because the past 20 years of boardgaming has been "how do we make every approach the same for all players?" I think this is really apparent in the difference between 90s Euros and 00s Euros. I was struggling trying to describe Catan to someone who has never played Catan because the game seriously defies description. It's not a trading game but there's trading, it's not a civ building game but you're building a civ, there's kind of an engine but it's not an engine building game... Catan isn't always fun to play but it's admirable to me because it's only concerned with being Catan. A Catan clone tries to "fix" Catan's problems but loses a whole slew of features along the way.
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Oct 2, 2019 14:06
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