Ruthless Civility

Conflict can be a lot of fun.  It can also make some people really uncomfortable.  I'm talking about conflict in board games, mind you.  You definitely want to choose a game that aligns with the players' desire for conflict.

Conflict is a type of interaction.  Many of the most fun games keep the players engaged even when it is not their turn, often by allowing them to trade with or respond to actions taken by the turn-taking player.  Plenty of games provide player-to-player interactions without conflict, including interactions that can be mutually beneficial, co-operative, or at least not outright hostile. In other games, this engagement comes in the form of falling under direct attack--that's a conflict.  Some conflict roils beneath the surface and can be far more subtle, such as laying claim to territory on the board that limits the options available to another player.

I have found that some players have difficulty separating the conflict in the game from real life emotions.  For example, I've seen a(n unnamed) mother express extreme psychological displeasure in having to attack her opponent (and real-life child) with a volcanic repeating arms pistol (in Bang!).  Fortunately, there are plenty of board games that have player-to-player interaction yet do not require (or allow) players to single out individuals for a thorough thrashing.  When playing with loved ones, sometimes it is better to keep the conflict games in the closet.

Little Gray Tokens by Another Name

As I started reading this article, I feared I might have sleep-plagiarized it in my previous blog post.  I knew I was safe when the author recommended backgammon as offering the right balance between choice and randomness.  I won't pretend that I've every played backgammon correctly.  Not that I didn't try as an 8 year-old kid when my only alternatives were Monopoly and Chess; however, we always seemed to have the board and pieces but not the rules.  After reading this article, I'm beginning to think backgammon may have been a lost artifact from Atlantis--the last relic from the first Golden Age of board games.

Even if I'm missing out for never having played backgammon, certainly no one can blame me for not getting excited over the THEME, which is non-existent.  Theme and presentation (game pieces, artwork) is an important factor in the gaming experience, and the old standby games have been hit or miss in this category (Monopoly and Life are okay, Chess is passable, while Sorry, Checkers, and backgammon are atrocious).  There is nothing inherently wrong with a simply presented game with a killer game mechanic.  But to me, playing a game that is just colored squares on a board or just cards with numbers is kind of like work.  The game becomes all about figuring out the mechanic, doing the mental calculations and statistics, and trying to optimize (like Poker, which I hate, though maybe also because I always lose).  Those are elements of the experience, but a great board game allows you to do all those things in a way that aligns with the theme.

Part of the fun is building the story around your game play.  Which sounds better to you: being the player that won for collecting the most little gray cardboard tokens, or being the scientifically-minded, inter-galactic species called Hyrda Progress that conquers the galaxy by focusing your research on critical technologies, creating an intricate web of diplomacy, and turning traitor at the last moment to crush a player with an inferior star fleet (after which you earn all the little gray cardboard tokens and win!)?

Choices and Randomness

Chess is almost always almost no fun to play.  Overlooking the fact that "three's a party," a core problem is that Chess requires very specific skills and knowledge.  When two opponents with different skills and knowledge levels are matched together the result is very lopsided. The game is abundant in choices but lacking in randomness.  This tends to discourage new players, as the ones that are most excited to play with them are often going to beat them up on the game board.

On the opposite end of the spectrum is Monopoly.  Okay, its not completely opposite, but I LOATHE Monopoly for many reason (captured very well here).  Monopoly has abundant, if boring randomness (all movement defined by rolling dice), and only a very few choices (buy property or don't buy).  There is the arranging of the BIG trades, but these are so few and far between and so painstaking to orchestrate that it is almost never fun for everyone involved.

Luckily there is an abundance of very fun games, mostly designed in the last 20 years, that fill in the spectrum between these two extremes very nicely.  Over the next several entries I will be laying out my perspective on board gaming in general as well as providing a few reviews of fun games with an explanation of what type of gaming experience they provide.  I hope this might inspire folks to play more games--and help them choose the game with the right balance of choice and randomness rather than merely choosing a game at random.