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CitizenKeen posted:Can you explain why your definition of politics (jmzero) includes bash-the-leader but not strategic whining? In my mind it would be hard to distinguish between those two. Sorry, to be clear it's not my definition or something - I learned it out of the textbook I linked. When I say "bash the leader", I don't mean "telling someone to bash the leader", I mean "doing it". Bashing the leader is either something the mechanics allow you to do, or they don't. You can (often) bash the leader in Risk because you can choose who to attack with your dudes. It is harder to bash the leader in Dominion because you don't have the mechanical tools to single them out. That is why one is a more political game than the other. Strategic whining is not a mechanical thing, and is not governed by game mechanics. I think it comes up more often in political games, because there's more "targeting" behaviors you can try to change by whining. But in the end you can whine about anything - I've had people whine in Dominion.
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Sep 27, 2022 19:07
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If your definition of "political" is "has direct interaction", sure. I don't think that's a generally accepted equivalence.
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Sep 27, 2022 19:11
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Bottom Liner posted:I quoted your list of political game hallmarks, so yeah, I know what you're saying. The book you referenced is not concerned with mechanics but social dynamics creating a political experience out of game, and even agrees that those elements often devolve into the flawed chip-taking example. Kingmaking in Root is not political. It's a bad outcome of the design that sometimes rears its head. Kingmaking in Oath is political, because it can have in-game ramifications and reasons for why you would choose one player over another. Alliances are in-game, not above the table such as in Risk. The game itself is mechanically political. Sorry, I think I understand your idea of politics more clearly now - explicit negotiation, deal-making, or alliance mechanics. That is fine. As to what I'm trying to get at: when I gave those hallmarks, understand that those are not my definition of politics, but rather consequences that often accompany games with high politics. In a similar way "patchy hair loss" might be a symptom or hallmark of syphilis, but those aren't syphilis. Similarly, when the book talks about the way political games play out, that's illustrative example, not the definition. The definition itself is pretty simple. Again - a game (>2P) is political to the extent you can choose to harm or benefit specific other players. That's it. It's a characteristic of a game. Root is political by this definition because you have lots of choices about who to punch. Doesn't mean Root is bad.
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Sep 27, 2022 19:16
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That is navel gazing to the point of being completely useless when discussing game design.
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Sep 27, 2022 19:18
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silvergoose posted:If your definition of "political" is "has direct interaction", sure. I don't think that's a generally accepted equivalence. To be clear, this is not my definition - this is game design theory. It's not universal, no - but I will go to bat for the usefulness of this definition and in general I'll go to bat for using precise terminology when describing properties of games. "Political" is not the same as "direct interaction". Pandemic and Chess have direct interaction, but no politics (by definition, since Pandemic has only one effective agent, and Chess only one "target" to pick). That matters when it comes to understanding these games, comparing them to others, and predicting how players will engage with them. It'd be like trying to discuss car racing, and stopping at "fast". Unless you tease out "horsepower", "weight", "downforce", (and then much further, building on those concepts), then you can't make progress in understanding what makes "fast" happen. This definition of "political" is specific, and points directly to the way this characteristic impacts game play. Understanding "politics" is then a stepping stone to understanding further game characteristics (eg. "luck", whose game design definition you probably also would not like - but again is very helpful in understanding games). Bottom Liner posted:That is navel gazing to the point of being completely useless when discussing game design. See now I know you read my posts  . Pedantic, navel-gazing, useless... these are all valid charges. Like, I'm interested in game design but an absolute failure at actually doing it. I consider and theorize way too long instead of actually play-testing.
jmzero fucked around with this message at 19:31 on Sep 27, 2022 |
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Sep 27, 2022 19:27
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Game design theory is woefully incompetent and outdated when discussing modern board game design.
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Sep 27, 2022 19:31
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Bottom Liner posted:Game design theory is woefully incompetent and outdated when discussing modern board game design. Lol, now I know you're just trying to wind me up. It's working. I feel compelled to defend Richard Garfield's honor. But I'm also posting on work time so I should probably stop.
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Sep 27, 2022 19:34
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No, I genuinely admire an academic approach to thinking/talking about board game design. But that book, those definitions, etc are not helpful to doing that at all. In fact, as seen here, game theory just confuses things more because it muddies the waters of the game and the social space around the game. https://boardgamegeek.com/browse/boardgamemechanic BGGs mechanic tag initiative is a pretty interesting look at trying to have a taxonomy for game design, and was right to break up the concept of politics into different tags. It doesn't necessarily succeed very well, but it is a much better approach than using game theory terms that are not discrete. Bottom Liner fucked around with this message at 19:43 on Sep 27, 2022 |
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Sep 27, 2022 19:40
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jmzero posted:To be clear, this is not my definition - this is game design theory. Okay. "political" does necessarily mean "direct interaction in multiplayer competitive games", then?
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Sep 27, 2022 19:50
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silvergoose posted:Okay. "political" does necessarily mean "direct interaction in multiplayer competitive games", then? Yes? I guess it depends on your definition of "direct" (and maybe "interaction"). Like, the "direct" here would have to imply choice or targeting. For example, when you are King of Tokyo, you're having "direct interaction" (at least in some sense) with all the other players when you attack, but you can't choose who you're hitting, so it's not a "very political" action in the game. Or (to use another Richard Garfield game example), consider multiplayer Magic: the Gathering (which I'm not endorsing... just an example). With free-for-all rules, it's an "extremely political" game. With "attack to your left" rules it moves down to "very political", as you now have much less choice about who to punch. With emperor rules (2 teams) it's not political per se (as there's only 2 teams) - though it can still have some "I got singled out" bad feelings (as humans are not strategy robots). jmzero fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Sep 27, 2022 |
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Sep 27, 2022 20:08
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Be wary of politicks in pandemic, they're a powerful vector for transmission.
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Sep 27, 2022 20:34
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So basically your sole criteria is how effectively a player can choose to target interaction against a specific opposing player in a multi-player competitive game while still trying to win. By that definition Hansa Teutonica is as political as Blood Rage, and arguably more given how the Blood Rage draft is way more important to winning the game than any other interactive mechanic in the game.
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Sep 27, 2022 22:20
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golden bubble posted:So basically your sole criteria is how effectively a player can choose to target interaction against a specific opposing player in a multi-player competitive game while still trying to win. By that definition Hansa Teutonica is as political as Blood Rage, and arguably more given how the Blood Rage draft is way more important to winning the game than any other interactive mechanic in the game. Yep. And it can be hard to predict how political a game will feel into you play it some. Like, Kemet in practice is less political than we expected. Obviously there's times where it hurts to be attacked, and the end-game sometimes forces someone to choose who wins. But in general I think the designers did a good job of softening the blow of losing an army, and thus the game usually feels like it comes down to "what you got done" more than "how many times someone wrecked you". On the flip side, Keyflower is way more of a stab-fest than we would have expected.
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Sep 27, 2022 23:10
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I think this discussion can be tough because the word 'political' is both charged and liable to equivocation. It can relate to the theme (like Corrupt Bargain: The 1824 Presidential Election or Twilight Struggle), it can relate to a mechanism where political power alters the rules of the game (like Twilight Imperium 3E's laws) or it can relate to mechanical attempts to cajole or manipulate others on the table towards one's own end. That last one is where it becomes a real weasel word. For instance, are negotiation games (like Chinatown political? I'd venture to say not since negotiation is often about bilateral action, and what people mean when they say "political games" seem to me to be more about convincing another actor into unilateral action. But I really haven't given it enough thought to hammer it down much better than that. However, I will look askance at anyone trying to say that board games where you are free to break each other's poo poo and foil each other's plans aren't potentially political.
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Sep 27, 2022 23:13
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Too Many Scrolls preview up
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Sep 27, 2022 23:46
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jmzero posted:On the flip side, Keyflower is way more of a stab-fest than we would have expected. This matches everything I've heard about the game, I need to bug my pal into playing it next time we hang out.
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Sep 27, 2022 23:47
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PRADA SLUT posted:Too Many Scrolls preview up Wonder how many times they'll rerelease this one lol
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Sep 28, 2022 00:16
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Podima posted:This matches everything I've heard about the game, I need to bug my pal into playing it next time we hang out. It’s a knife fight worker placement game that plays 6 and has everybody paying attention to what everybody else is doing.
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Sep 28, 2022 01:11
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CitizenKeen posted:It’s a knife fight worker placement game that plays 6 and has everybody paying attention to what everybody else is doing. I literally can't play Keyflower with my gf because we get so mad about what's happening.
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Sep 28, 2022 01:14
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FirstAidKite posted:Wonder how many times they'll rerelease this one lol can’t wait for the realistic feet addon
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Sep 28, 2022 02:24
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Gross
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Sep 28, 2022 02:29
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I think aside from the semantic discussion, there is a “bash the leader” issue with Root which is compounded by information asymmetry between players based on how well they know the factions in play, and their general experience level with the game. I agree with Bottom Liner that it’s a basic problem with a lot of multiplayer area control / conflict games, especially with asymmetric factions or roles. I think other games do more mechanically to engage with this issue and it is a relative weakness of Root as a game. I tentatively think that a lot of the real pull for many people who like it is experimenting with different faction combinations, maybe a similar vibe to something like Cosmic Encounter where watching the combo play out (and essentially testing who masters their gimmick first) is the main draw. I think if one mostly played with the same factions and the same players a few games in a row it would probably get old fast - at least for me - and potentially devolve into “don’t get me, get him” style arguments, or blowouts where the winner is obvious early. And if the game is going to be about the former I think other games like Chaos in the Old World, Ankh or Inis have a lot more interesting tools to support that kind of play. I really like a lot of the ideas in Root but I don’t think it’s a great game for this reason. There is too much of an experience penalty for new players and not enough systems to allow people at temporary disadvantage to come back with good play other then relying on other players to let you do it. Relatively speaking.
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Sep 28, 2022 02:49
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The thing about the experience curve of Root is that things become a lot tighter as group experience goes up, which removes the social politicking and strat-whining as players learn the game more. It really becomes a tight efficiency puzzle with interesting gambits revolving around crafting and cards a lot more than when you're learning the game and don't value them appropriately, which is why having the Otters in play makes every faction stronger (and why they're so strong).
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Sep 28, 2022 02:56
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This may or may not be an equivalent analogy as I've never played Root, but the way you describe the experience curve over time reminds me of the difference between groups who played the BSG board game more casually (where humans lost more often than not) vs. when we played BSG on the forums with battle-hardened veterans (where win rates were anecdotally more equitable but angled towards humans winning). As the players get more of a deeper understanding of how the game works, it really comes down to minmaxing efficiency in any possible way.
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Sep 28, 2022 02:59
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I admit, I’ve only played it a few times and every time we had at least one new player or one new faction. So that might be influencing me, as I didn’t feel like any of the plays were that great experiences. I could think of other games which scratched a similar itch but were either more accessible or felt like they didn’t need added variety. (I really liked the concept of the vagabond but in particular as described earlier here it really frustrated me good).
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Sep 28, 2022 03:03
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"Root", as a verb, is an Australianism for "gently caress" Just putting it out there
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Sep 28, 2022 03:06
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Bottom Liner posted:which is why having the Otters in play makes every faction stronger (and why they're so strong). Conversely, this is why I never bother playing as Otters, because I’m always playing against people with limited experience who undervalue the cards.
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Sep 28, 2022 03:19
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Wrapped up my first board game night. Lovely group except for one obnoxious player. Five including me but was told repeatedly it was "extremely" unusual with the group usually being 10+. It was kind of a mess but it turned out for the best cause it being messy caused us to play a ton of games. We played Avalon, Skull, Outburst!, Codenames, Wits & Wagers and possibly one other I'm forgetting, in under three hours. Although it's hard to get into a game that you learn and play once then move on I appreciated getting to see what types of games different players preferred. Skull was my favorite with Avalon being second but deception games make me so nervous. I'm glad I didn't get the enemy role I'm a really poo poo liar. And of course we only played the one round lmao so phew.. All in all I had a great time and I'll head back next week! PS: My major motivation for going was to try out Spirit Island, which I didn't expect for today, but they don't have it for play or for sale so lmao Perry Mason Jar fucked around with this message at 04:02 on Sep 28, 2022 |
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Sep 28, 2022 03:39
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Kazzah posted:"Root", as a verb, is an Australianism for "gently caress" I’m Australian, isn’t that what we were talking about? Or is there a board game called that too?
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Sep 28, 2022 03:56
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Speaking of root, do you guys have any maps you hate/love/prefer?
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Sep 28, 2022 07:41
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Blamestorm posted:I think aside from the semantic discussion, there is a “bash the leader” issue with Root which is compounded by information asymmetry between players based on how well they know the factions in play, and their general experience level with the game. This is exactly how I feel about Root. Yeah, maybe there’s the potential for it to becoming more interesting if you have a single group with the same set of people who are willing to play it over and over. But without this level of experience it suffers heavily from degenerating into a Munchkin-esque end game of everyone use your turn to screw over the potential winner and whenever we run out of options, the next person wins. Pax Pamir has some of this too and I think in general Cole doesn’t do a great job of circumventing it because he accepts it as part of that genre of games. I think Inis and Ankh are better games than either.
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Sep 29, 2022 14:40
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Podima posted:This may or may not be an equivalent analogy as I've never played Root, but the way you describe the experience curve over time reminds me of the difference between groups who played the BSG board game more casually (where humans lost more often than not) vs. when we played BSG on the forums with battle-hardened veterans (where win rates were anecdotally more equitable but angled towards humans winning). As the players get more of a deeper understanding of how the game works, it really comes down to minmaxing efficiency in any possible way. There are times when I miss our BSG community.
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Sep 29, 2022 14:53
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Is there a way to filter games in my collection by recommended player count on BGG? Or some non-native way that I can?
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Sep 29, 2022 18:44
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Perry Mason Jar posted:Is there a way to filter games in my collection by recommended player count on BGG? Or some non-native way that I can? Not from the collection page, but if you go to the advanced search page you can filter by player count and then also constrain the search from there to games in your collection. It still seems to give me unexpected results sometimes, but that's the best way to do it.
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Sep 29, 2022 18:53
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Megasabin posted:I think Inis and Ankh are better games than either. Do you think that Inis does something differently that alleviates "bash the leader", or that it's just better in a general sense? If the former, could you expound on that?
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Sep 29, 2022 18:55
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Perry Mason Jar posted:Is there a way to filter games in my collection by recommended player count on BGG? Or some non-native way that I can? Use this instead https://geekgroup.app/
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Sep 29, 2022 19:13
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Radioactive Toy posted:Use this instead https://geekgroup.app/ geekgroup is amazing. I've set up automatic lists for each optimal player count and one for each regular meetup I do. every month they pull in my collection changes from BGG; makes choosing what to play a comparative breeze.
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Sep 29, 2022 19:59
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Got a question about the Lord of the Rings LCG: I broke out my old cards and played a few scenarios with my wife and I remembered I really like the game. I haven't bought anything for it since 2015 and I looked online and got immediately confused at the state of the game. Looks like they are publishing things still but they might be remakes of older sets? Looks like all the old sets are out of print- but are they out of print forever or are things just slow to replenish now? I've tried to find some info but I'm having trouble finding out anything more concrete than buzzwords and PR script.
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Sep 29, 2022 20:09
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Radioactive Toy posted:Use this instead https://geekgroup.app/ Fate Accomplice posted:geekgroup is amazing. I've set up automatic lists for each optimal player count and one for each regular meetup I do. every month they pull in my collection changes from BGG; makes choosing what to play a comparative breeze. This looks great. I need to play with it a bit more but from what I've tried on my phone it's not pulling anything in my Collection listed as Want to Play, and only pulling games Owned. Can you share those lists, Fate?
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Sep 29, 2022 20:36
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Enjoying Marvel Dice Throne so much that I've gone and ordered the battle chests for the two other seasons. £250 including shipping from the US. Could've bought all the characters separately for less in the UK but the battle chests are so nice. How is Dice Throne Adventures?
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Sep 29, 2022 20:47
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