Board Games 5E: I thought I was having fun but it was my brain tricking me

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Traditional Games > Board Games 5E: I thought I was having fun but it was my brain tricking me

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jmzero: Jul 24, 2007

armorer posted:

I've just posted a bunch of text explaining how one can be seen as a subset of the other. I even admitted while doing so that I didn't expect you to be satisfied by the answer, but there is still a difference there. The fact that the exceptions are exceptions shows that the two things are not actually the same.

Your very specific idea of an RPG is hardly standard though.

Lots of groups - I'd say around half? - play RPGs with defined start/end conditions (eg. a D&D group is going to roll up new characters for a "Curse of Strahd" run). I'd say pure "theater of the mind" is a minority of RPG play - with most D&D groups using either "minis on a map" or a digital approximation (and very few are playing a truly component-less "pure story" type game). Some groups are very into the "pretend"/"in-character" stuff, while others play detached, third person, and very "gamey". But I wouldn't hesitate to call what those groups are doing "RPG"; and they're not exceptions - they're either the majority, or at least "mainstream RPG" players.

More than that, it would never occur to me to use this sort of distinction in a definition. We're playing a one-night campaign with a specific goal.. therefore it's not an RPG? What?

On the flip side, lots of groups play Gloomhaven with the kind of openness you describe in terms of characters/missions/goals. Avalon has a board, but you could play it without it without changing the game. And lots of groups play a game like Eclipse "in character" for negotiation and what not. But I'd describe all of those as firmly on the "board game" side of the distinction. And to me that comes down to all "decision resolution" being controlled by explicit mechanics. To me, that's a real breakpoint in terms of defining what you're doing. Are your interactions all governed by explicit rules, or are you deciding some things based on "what I think would happen next in the story?"

But... again... that's not a clean distinction in terms of actual usage. Some people think of Gloomhaven as an RPG despite having all "explicit mechanical resolution" - and certainly on the computer side, there'd be very few "RPG"s by this sort of definition.

Edit: Maybe an example would make this clearer. Suppose I'm playing Agricola-ish, and I say "Since I have both the [horse] and [plow] improvements, I think I should be able to plow 3 fields instead of two". If your group has to think about whether you should be able to do this, and if that comes down to whether it's the right kind of plow to be pulled by a horse, you're playing an RPG. To me, that's the kind of clean stroke you want when you're making a definition; that single thing is different, and bam you're clearly on the other side of the line.

Edit 2: Consider "Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective". To me it's clearly a board game, not a role-playing game... and if our distinction calls would call it a role playing game, then that distinction is not doing its job.

jmzero fucked around with this message at 19:18 on Feb 6, 2023

# ? Feb 6, 2023 18:47

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# ? Jun 6, 2024 04:35

Azran: Sep 3, 2012; And what should one do to be remembered?

Yeah the openness of the ruleset is definitely one of the key difference IMO. In an RPG you have codified actions that act as a framework, but no one would ever argue that you can't drink something just because there's no 'Ingest Liquid' action or whatever. If someone were to suggest in Gloomhaven that they want to pick up another player character and throw it against an enemy because their character is big and strong the other one is smaller and scrawny, people would go 'nope, not in the rules' and that would be that. Same reason why people who go into GH with the RPG mindset can't comprehend why coins left on the floor fade out of existence when you clear a scenario.

Azran fucked around with this message at 22:01 on Feb 6, 2023

# ? Feb 6, 2023 21:58

The Eyes Have It: Feb 10, 2008; Third Eye Sees All
...snookums

There's a scale with one end labeled "Rules as Written" and the other end as "It's Your Game, Do What You Want" and the further you move from one end to the other, the further along the continuum of RPG<->Boardgame you slide (and coincidentally also the further one drifts from God's Love)

# ? Feb 6, 2023 22:04

armorer: Aug 6, 2012; I like metal.

jmzero posted:

Your very specific idea of an RPG is hardly standard though.

Lots of groups - I'd say around half? - play RPGs with defined start/end conditions (eg. a D&D group is going to roll up new characters for a "Curse of Strahd" run). I'd say pure "theater of the mind" is a minority of RPG play - with most D&D groups using either "minis on a map" or a digital approximation (and very few are playing a truly component-less "pure story" type game). Some groups are very into the "pretend"/"in-character" stuff, while others play detached, third person, and very "gamey". But I wouldn't hesitate to call what those groups are doing "RPG"; and they're not exceptions - they're either the majority, or at least "mainstream RPG" players.

More than that, it would never occur to me to use this sort of distinction in a definition. We're playing a one-night campaign with a specific goal.. therefore it's not an RPG? What?

On the flip side, lots of groups play Gloomhaven with the kind of openness you describe in terms of characters/missions/goals. Avalon has a board, but you could play it without it without changing the game. And lots of groups play a game like Eclipse "in character" for negotiation and what not. But I'd describe all of those as firmly on the "board game" side of the distinction. And to me that comes down to all "decision resolution" being controlled by explicit mechanics. To me, that's a real breakpoint in terms of defining what you're doing. Are your interactions all governed by explicit rules, or are you deciding some things based on "what I think would happen next in the story?"

But... again... that's not a clean distinction in terms of actual usage. Some people think of Gloomhaven as an RPG despite having all "explicit mechanical resolution" - and certainly on the computer side, there'd be very few "RPG"s by this sort of definition.

Edit: Maybe an example would make this clearer. Suppose I'm playing Agricola-ish, and I say "Since I have both the [horse] and [plow] improvements, I think I should be able to plow 3 fields instead of two". If your group has to think about whether you should be able to do this, and if that comes down to whether it's the right kind of plow to be pulled by a horse, you're playing an RPG. To me, that's the kind of clean stroke you want when you're making a definition; that single thing is different, and bam you're clearly on the other side of the line.

Edit 2: Consider "Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective". To me it's clearly a board game, not a role-playing game... and if our distinction calls would call it a role playing game, then that distinction is not doing its job.

Based on the things you say after seeming to disagree with me, I clearly wasn't clear. I'm not saying that an RPG has to be played completely in the mind's eye, I'm just saying that it can be done. I've played every version of D&D since the paperback level range books (except 4th), Rifts, Gurps, Toon, Shadowrun, Pathfinder, Battletech, Vampire, and a whole bunch of others I'm forgetting over 30+ years. I've run campaigns in almost all of those, both home brew settings and off the shelf stuff. I've played on modern VTTs, with and without miniatures on battle grids, with terrain, etc.

I also own over 200 board games at present, and host frequent board game days with ~10-20 people. RPGs and board games are simply not the same thing. The point I was trying to make is that if you try to specifically make one into the other, you can kind of do it given a lot of constraints (in the case of RPG -> board game) or by house-ruling a bunch of stuff to be allowed (in the case of board game -> RPG). I don't think that if I actively pretend to be a world renowned ornithologist (the R in RPG) while playing Wingspan that is somehow enough to make Wingspan into an RPG for example.

Edit: Perhaps it will make my point better to say that you can, in an RPG, play a board game. Like you can literally say "Hey I want to play chess with the barkeep" and the DM can go get a chess board and you can play chess, and if you want to make it so it's your character's chess skill against the barkeep's chess skill, you could let two chess AIs play each other and have that be the outcome.

armorer fucked around with this message at 22:17 on Feb 6, 2023

# ? Feb 6, 2023 22:12

Pryce: May 21, 2011

armorer posted:

Based on the things you say after seeming to disagree with me, I clearly wasn't clear. I'm not saying that an RPG has to be played completely in the mind's eye, I'm just saying that it can be done. I've played every version of D&D since the paperback level range books (except 4th), Rifts, Gurps, Toon, Shadowrun, Pathfinder, Battletech, Vampire, and a whole bunch of others I'm forgetting over 30+ years. I've run campaigns in almost all of those, both home brew settings and off the shelf stuff. I've played on modern VTTs, with and without miniatures on battle grids, with terrain, etc.

I also own over 200 board games at present, and host frequent board game days with ~10-20 people. RPGs and board games are simply not the same thing. The point I was trying to make is that if you try to specifically make one into the other, you can kind of do it given a lot of constraints (in the case of RPG -> board game) or by house-ruling a bunch of stuff to be allowed (in the case of board game -> RPG). I don't think that if I actively pretend to be a world renowned ornithologist (the R in RPG) while playing Wingspan that is somehow enough to make Wingspan into an RPG for example.

Thanks for supplying your bona fides, your award for True Gamer is in the mail.

# ? Feb 6, 2023 22:16

armorer: Aug 6, 2012; I like metal.

Pryce posted:

Thanks for supplying your bona fides, your award for True Gamer is in the mail.

You're welcome. That's mostly my way of saying that I find this whole thread of discussion totally ridiculous.

# ? Feb 6, 2023 22:18

jmzero: Jul 24, 2007

armorer posted:

Edit: Perhaps it will make my point better to say that you can, in an RPG, play a board game. Like you can literally say "Hey I want to play chess with the barkeep" and the DM can go get a chess board and you can play chess, and if you want to make it so it's your character's chess skill against the barkeep's chess skill, you could let two chess AIs play each other and have that be the outcome.

I think if you squint, you can view RPGs as being a superset of board games. Something like "board games are a subset of RPGs where all game-state decisions are expressly bounded by rules".

But your example here is kind of spurious. Like, you could also have your accountant character keep a full set of books for a greedy dragon (and do so using "real" accounting rules in Quickbooks... or fantasy ones or whatever). But that doesn't really tell us something interesting about how accounting and RPGs are related.

quote:

There's a scale with one end labeled "Rules as Written" and the other end as "It's Your Game, Do What You Want" and the further you move from one end to the other, the further along the continuum of RPG<->Boardgame you slide (and coincidentally also the further one drifts from God's Love)

Yep. Though I would say that (to me) boardgames are very tightly packed on one side; if you're getting significant wiggle room where game-state-affecting rules aren't defined, then to me it feels like you either have a "defective boardgame" or an RPG (or both!).

# ? Feb 6, 2023 22:40

armorer: Aug 6, 2012; I like metal.

jmzero posted:

I think if you squint, you can view RPGs as being a superset of board games. Something like "board games are a subset of RPGs where all game-state decisions are expressly bounded by rules".

But your example here is kind of spurious. Like, you could also have your accountant character keep a full set of books for a greedy dragon (and do so using "real" accounting rules in Quickbooks... or fantasy ones or whatever). But that doesn't really tell us something interesting about how accounting and RPGs are related.

Yep. Though I would say that (to me) boardgames are very tightly packed on one side; if you're getting significant wiggle room where game-state-affecting rules aren't defined, then to me it feels like you either have a "defective boardgame" or an RPG (or both!).

It tells us that RPGs can include accounting, in whatever level of detail you want them to as part of your experience. You've actually just provided another example that makes my point.

# ? Feb 6, 2023 22:45

Blamestorm: Aug 14, 2004; We LOL at death! Watch us LOL. Love the LOL.

This is a very weird discussion. Of course board games and RPGs are different things. Of course there are board games with RPG-like elements and RPGs with board game like elements. But I feel like you could be having this same discussion about whether Golf is a board game, just because its a really big board and there are dexterity based board games with similar rules, QED. Except that would be an exceptionally odd thing to argue for obvious reasons.

Can I suggest the discussion move on to the REAL big question: whether 'card games' are a subset of board games, vice versa, or simply related. They are sold in board game shops! But there is no board! And many board games use cards! What's the answer??

# ? Feb 6, 2023 22:51

jmzero: Jul 24, 2007

armorer posted:

It tells us that RPGs can include accounting, in whatever level of detail you want them to as part of your experience. You've actually just provided another example that makes my point.

Well, but the question wasn't "can you play boardgames (or do accounting) in an RPG?", it's "what is the distinction between a board game and an RPG?". And even if we say that boardgames are effectively a type of RPG, we could still ask "what makes something a boardgame specifically?" (assuming we don't think that board games and RPGs are exactly the same thing).

I think this is an interesting question, and I have thoughts about a useful answer. I agree with homullus about some things that are not usable answers/distinctions (eg. "pretending"). You apparently don't think this is an interesting question. That's fine.

quote:

Of course there are board games with RPG-like elements and RPGs with board game like elements

Yes... I agree? But also this sentence is meaningless unless we have a sense of what defines a "board game" or an "RPG". If the answer is "everyone knows" or "nobody cares", then cool for you - but I think it's an interesting question in game design.

jmzero fucked around with this message at 23:10 on Feb 6, 2023

# ? Feb 6, 2023 23:03

Eraflure: Oct 12, 2012

A deck of cards is just a pile of small flexible boards

# ? Feb 6, 2023 23:03

!Klams: Dec 25, 2005; Squid Squad

!Klams posted:

I think a large part of the distinction, is that an RPG is basically open ended. There's no clearly defined 'finished' state.

I think also, RPG's are essentially 'collaborative storytelling', with the rules primarily concerned with the limits of what can and cannot be part of the story, rather than to do with actions that you can or cannot take to maintain the game state.

Like, in most RPG's, you can perform essentially any action you can think of. The only thing stopping you is whether or not the internal logic of the story you are telling can carry that, whereas with a board game, an action is ok or not based on whether the rules of the boardgame can carry that.

In conclusion, ^^ this was correct to begin with, on that we can all agree. To sum up: The RPG vs Boardgame distinction is exactly the same as porn. (I'll know it when I see it).

In other news: I got Kemet: Blood and Sand, and was happy to find out it was actually the kickstarter version (picked it up second hand) which has, for some inexplicable reason, Shai Halud as one of the monsters in it! So, even when I'm NOT playing Dune, secretly I'm playing Dune. Hooray!

We played a bit of the old one, so I'm pretty familiar, and yet quite a bit of it seems new. Anyone got any strategy tips / advice, or combos that they like?

# ? Feb 7, 2023 01:12

PRADA SLUT: Mar 14, 2006; Inexperienced,
heartless,
but even so

!Klams posted:

The RPG vs Boardgame distinction is exactly the same as porn. (I'll know it when I see it).

You got that right:

quote:

Alcohol does not exist, but chocolate milk has the same effect. Magically imbued chocolate milk can also provide spell like advantages or penalties to players who interact with them.

PRADA SLUT fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Feb 7, 2023

# ? Feb 7, 2023 01:40

Captain Theron: Mar 22, 2010

I agree that it's partly about the open-endedness rules, but I think it also depends on your proximity to the character you're playing. In most boardgames, even if you are playing a single person, you're generally somewhat removed from them, their feelings and drives don't really matter, only the actions they can take (and often then only the a tions that directly contribute towards victory). In an RPG you are generally closer to the character/s, and more likely to consider their own motivations when deciding on a course of action.

Of course, it's a spectrum, so things like the gloomhaven event cards might lead you to make more character driven choices, and Rpgs can motivate you to ignore the character's desires to achieve some personal ooc goal.

# ? Feb 7, 2023 03:41

PerniciousKnid: Sep 13, 2006

Chess is my favorite RPG. I identify very strongly with White Knight.

# ? Feb 7, 2023 04:04

Ojetor: Aug 4, 2010; Return of the Sensei

Megasabin posted:

Not sure what your situation is, but if you have board game meets ups near you, with some effort I bet you could find the subgroup of people within one of those meet ups to play. It�s a lot of pre work for one game though.

I live in Mexico, there aren't that many board game people around. It's even more of a tiny niche hobby here. It's fine, I can survive playing dungeon crawlers and MWEs with friends and get my heavy game fix from solo and online.

!Klams posted:

I had the first version. I tried it with my friends, who are pretty seasoned board gamers, but they just couldn't get it. Because, you play it once, and it feels arbitrary. I got it pretty quick, because I play mobas. You have to spend more time looking at what your opponents options are than your own. This was totally alien to my group, and they would not have it.

4 games in, I was explaining everything that was going on on the board, what everyone should be considering, just quarterbacking the entire game for both sides, not because I wanted to, but because they just couldn't grasp that there was a game here,saying things like "it doesn't matter what i do, someone just kills me out of nowhere" and I'd have to be like 'you're talking about that one sniper card, and look, it's used, they can't use that again'. Etc etc etc.

Its a bit like playing chess, but every peice has like 8 moves it can take. That's a huge decision tree, so the immediate reaction from everyone is to think of it as random. But in practice, working out that tree is the entire game.

And yeah, the issue is you need like 6 people that can deal with that, and enjoy it so much that they'll persevere for a large number of learning games (like, 5 or 6) for it to get good.

Yes, this is exactly the scenario I envisioned when I decided not to back the game. Not in small part because I've had this experience almost down to the letter attempting to get people into Mage Knight or Dominant Species or TTA.

# ? Feb 7, 2023 07:20

Blamestorm: Aug 14, 2004; We LOL at death! Watch us LOL. Love the LOL.

jmzero posted:

Yes... I agree? But also this sentence is meaningless unless we have a sense of what defines a "board game" or an "RPG". If the answer is "everyone knows" or "nobody cares", then cool for you - but I think it's an interesting question in game design.

They are largely arbitrary terms used to define market categories. They are both tabletop experiences and there are conventions aligned around consumer expectations and tentpole products that make the majority of sales in each category (d&d, catan/pandemic/ticket to ride/carcasonne). They are largely defined by what experience people want from them - a rules based competition on one hand and a collaborative story telling exercise, typically with combat on the other. There are tons of crossover and related genres like tabletop miniatures games, card games, etc but all that really matters to define them is which area of the store they are stocked in and what consumers expect when they go to buy one. You can easily design a game that is is equally both RPG and board game and one that is absolutely one and not the other.

# ? Feb 7, 2023 07:27

Orange Devil: Oct 1, 2010; Wullie's reign cannae smother the flames o' equality!

PerniciousKnid posted:

Chess is my favorite RPG. I identify very strongly with White Knight.

Constitutionally incapable of sacrificing your queen.

# ? Feb 7, 2023 10:15

FulsomFrank: Sep 11, 2005; Hard on for love

Got a play in of 1882 on the weekend, 4P. Life has been very busy so this is the first time I've been able to get trains on the table in a couple of months. I really like this one, unsure why it has this weirdly negative rap in some places. It is basically a faster version of 1830 with more obvious replayability insofar as the semi-randomised private makes sure that most games will be different from each other as well as the extra train that may or may not show up. The game was played very very suboptimally since none of us are sharks but my one friend for some reason triggered the auction when all of us had one bid on everything except the not-B&O so I felt like he basically handed the game to me from the get-go since I had the not-C&A for just $5 over.

And then he deliberately bought the not-B&O.

Anyway, great game, had a great time, really could see this taking <2hrs with experienced groups and people really pushing the envelope with how risky they're playing things. Everyone except myself ended up paying out of pocket for diesels at some point.

VVV yes forgot about that, the "no city tile available" happened the first time we played but honestly, I think unless I was playing with people who really know what they're doing and deliberately playing on the knife's edge I'd probably stop what we're doing and say, uhhh do you know you wouldn't even be able to run a train right now? It was actually quite a nice time since it was the much valued mix of drinking, socialising, and train shuffling.

FulsomFrank fucked around with this message at 17:18 on Feb 7, 2023

# ? Feb 7, 2023 16:43

silvergoose: Mar 18, 2006; IT IS SAID THE TEARS OF THE BWEENIX CAN HEAL ALL WOUNDS

I think the bad rap is mostly in spaces that go *really hard* into trains and, well, if I played 18xx multiple times a week and then decided certain games weren't good at that level of play, sure. But I'm 99% sure I'm never going to be at that stage of my life.

It's fine as a shorter 30 with some specific traps to avoid (don't float a company that you can't lay the home tile for, basically, due to no yellow cities left) as far as I've gotten, for sure.

# ? Feb 7, 2023 17:05

Morpheus: Apr 18, 2008; My favourite little monsters

Picked up a copy of Parks yesterday and drat if nothing else that game is well made.

# ? Feb 7, 2023 17:06

Admiralty Flag: Jun 7, 2007; to ride eternal, shiny and chrome

THUNDERDOME LOSER 2022

Morpheus posted:

Picked up a copy of Parks yesterday and drat if nothing else that game is well made.

It really is a beautiful game in all sense of the phrase, from the art on the cards to the fitting of components in the box.

They tried to go in a different direction for the artwork for about half the park cards in the Wildlife expansion, and while the cards themselves are lovely, they don't fit with the established aesthetic, and they just threw everything in the box for that xpac -- no thought to having everything fit together.

Nightfall, however, has the same high quality aesthetics and packaging as the base set. If you like the base game, I'd advise you pick up Nightfall, as it makes several changes and improvements to the base game that are worthwhile, plus adds a bunch of missing parks.

# ? Feb 7, 2023 17:20

Jimbozig: Sep 30, 2003; I like sharing and ice cream and animals.

As someone who is playing around in the boundary between RPGs and board games, I think homullus' question was a good one. I'd also add to it, are minis games board games? Or is that a different hobby? If we're thinking of these as marketing categories, then they are clearly distinct. But from another perspective it seems like they are clearly board games.

I'm curious how people would classify my latest game. Is it an RPG? An RPG with a board game portion? An RPG with a minis game attached? A minis game with an RPG phase?

If you play what is pretty clearly by this thread's definition a board game (or minis game) for 2 hours and then play an hour of what is clearly an RPG, but it's all one game, what have you played? Does having the RPG phase make the game wholly an RPG even if that was the minority in terms of time spent?

# ? Feb 7, 2023 20:48

the holy poopacy: May 16, 2009; hey! check this out; Fun Shoe

Jimbozig posted:

If you play what is pretty clearly by this thread's definition a board game (or minis game) for 2 hours and then play an hour of what is clearly an RPG, but it's all one game, what have you played? Does having the RPG phase make the game wholly an RPG even if that was the minority in terms of time spent?

I think games with multiple distinct phases that comprise their own sub-games are going to resist categorization. Otherwise, would chessboxing be a board game or a combat sport?

# ? Feb 7, 2023 20:58

Perry Mason Jar: Feb 24, 2006; "Della? Take a lid"

Anything with professionals is a sport. Role-playing is a sport. There's a popular bar sport which is just a dexterity board game with a twist (board is placed on the wall).

# ? Feb 7, 2023 21:18

Bodanarko: May 29, 2009

pool is a board game if crokinole is

# ? Feb 7, 2023 21:25

the holy poopacy: May 16, 2009; hey! check this out; Fun Shoe

When you think about it, what is a football field but a giant board?

# ? Feb 7, 2023 21:26

papasyhotcakes: Oct 18, 2008

Ojetor posted:

I live in Mexico, there aren't that many board game people around. It's even more of a tiny niche hobby here. It's fine, I can survive playing dungeon crawlers and MWEs with friends and get my heavy game fix from solo and online.

Hey fellow mexigoon! Unfortunately this has been my experience as well. Unless you live in cdmx, mty or gdl boardgame groups are few and far between. Have you tried Facebook groups? I have had a little more luck finding other people looking into heavier games but you also get an increased risk of weird not in a good way people.

# ? Feb 7, 2023 22:21

PRADA SLUT: Mar 14, 2006; Inexperienced,
heartless,
but even so

someone settle this with a board game alignment chart like sandwiches

# ? Feb 7, 2023 22:23

PerniciousKnid: Sep 13, 2006

Jimbozig posted:

As someone who is playing around in the boundary between RPGs and board games, I think homullus' question was a good one. I'd also add to it, are minis games board games? Or is that a different hobby?

I've seen people refer to Classic BattleTech as a board game and the gridless streamlined variant using the same minis (Alpha Strike) as a miniatures game. Categories are never perfect, there's always some overlap, they're useful generalizations at best.

# ? Feb 8, 2023 04:26