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[MadMAxJr]

There are two fundamental parts of game design.  I am going to use a deck of cards as an example.  A deck of cards represents a pile of resources that players have to work with.  It is randomly shuffled.

The card game war relies on splitting the deck up equally among players, and then flipping the top card over.  Highest number wins.  There is no decision making in the game.

Go Fish relies on players taking a set of cards from the deck, and use of information gathering to accomplish the goal of completing sets of cards.  There is some decision making, but not a whole lot of strategy.

Blackjack has fewer cards in the hands of the player.  A player skilled in figuring out the odds based on what cards he has and what cards he can potentially get has effective strategy.

The two fundamentals are randomness and strategy.

A game that is 100% random causes the players to feel detached, as they have no control over the outcome.

A game that is 100% strategy will end up with an always-win tactic, since there are no random variables to account for.

A decent game must have a balance of the two.  RPGs are very large mixes of these things.  Unless you get every single item, max level every character and have done every last thing.  In which case you're one of those die hard NIS fans and you defy logic anyway.



Thoughts?

[Kazz]

Yup.  It's Candy Land vs Chess.  However, I'd argue that the sort of person who always wins at Chess is an obsessed genius, which levels out casual play.

I think Blokus is a good example of a diceless board game that still features a lot of strategic variables, primarily because there are three other players.  However, even two-player Blokus is unlikely to see an always-win strategy, because a player who lost the previous game will probably try something new.

In most of my homebrew wargame designs (none of which have ever seen the light of day) I have a simple system for resolving combat.  One class of unit might have a roll of 1d6, and another might have a roll of 1d8.  If the 1d6 unit attacks the 1d8 unit, you roll both dice.  Higher number wins.  In the case of a tie, the defender wins.  Then you just add a bunch of abilities to modify this system and slap them onto units as you please.  Strategic enough that you don't feel powerless, but even a 1d2 can beat a 1d8 given a little luck (or a veritable swarm of 1d2s).

[Classic]

I would actually argue that there are games with no random elements which it is impossible for player 1 to have a flawless victory strategy for.

I am also most comfortable with modeling games as sets of distinct states with expectations for actions in equivalent states being invariant.
I think this very broad and vague definition encompasses every game we could ever conceive.

According to Reiner Knizia, the way to make a fun game is to give players the illusion of control.

[MadMAxJr]

American board games tend to eliminate players from the game while the game progresses.  (Monopoly)

European board games tend to keep everybody at the table until the end. (Settlers of Catan)

[Kazz]

That's because American board games start you with something and take things away until you have nothing, and European board games start you with nothing and give you things until you have enough.

[Kayin]

My take is a little different, though I mostly agree.

To start I'll agree with Classic. Even though Checkers has been solved, it hasn't stopped being a competitive game, so lets not even consider games like Chess and Go. now include any double blind games. The problem is, these games generally aren't every friendly and require a lot of knowledge and experience. The reason they're unfriendly is not due to flawless victory strategies, but in that it is very difficult to overtake an opponent who's even mildly better than you.

Randomness makes the difference of skill a lot less meaningful and allow even a weaker player to occasionally be successful. Even among serious players of a game with randomnness, there is the added benefit of randomness introducing new situations that keep a game from being predictable.

While it may seem randomness in some degree is sometimes good, Fischer Chess might help. Fischer Chess is Chess with a randomized back row, with the hopes of removing the huge sequence of openings to remember. While that was successful, the game introduced and unprecedented amount of draws in a game that had already been plagued by them by giving little for experienced players to rely on.

While this wasn't a failure, it really only replaced one problem with another. In truth, the only reason openings are even an issue in chess is because of how obscenely old the game is. Any game of adequate complexity can forgo the need for randomness in it's design -- though again, this adds to the friendliness issue.

Also Knizia's 'quote' sort of bugs me. :(

[Kazz]

Munchkin is a great example of Knizia's "illusion of control" done totally wrong.  The random element comes into play like three or four times a turn (card drawing or dice rolling), making short-term strategy moot, and the best long-term strategy is to be ignored so people don't do evil stuff to you.  Even though the random element SHOULD make each session feel different, it doesn't, because in a given Munchkin game, you're going to go through the whole damn deck and everything will come into play at some point.  Most importantly, I never had any sense of meaningful control.

[McDohl]

Unless you are crazy like we were once and dumped Munchkin, all its expansions, Star Munchkin, all ITS expansions, and (I think) Super Munchkin in to one deck.  It was insane.

[Kazz]

Anything can be fun once.

[Kayin]

Even prison rape?

[Cannon]

If you play some card or board game first, with the loser becoming the bitch, sure. Why not?

[Kazz]

I believe that custom originated among the Aztec...

[MadMAxJr]

Actually, a number of inherent flaws in a game can be overcome by a fun theme, but this will decay rapidly after a few tries, varying on how much fun you get out of it.  Generally I will play any game with orcs in it no matter how bad it may really be.

Chess was discussed.  Imagine if WOTC made their own chess.  You'd have sets of pieces.  You'd have a tournament format where only the last three/four sets of pieces were valid for play.  You have a standard set of rules, but changing resources.

(And of course, so they don't bitch, you have an 'open' format where all pieces are welcome and let those people pretend they're just as important as those on the other format.  Generally you will watch this devolve into a handful of pieces that outshine all.)

Better example, what if there was a Catan set that replaced forest tiles with REDWOOD tiles, that yield 2x wood, and BLACK SHEEP tiles that produce x.5 sheep.  The game changes.  Are some people going to find it fun?  Are some going to complain on forums about taking up arms, overthrowing the company, and then shoving their clearly superior own home rules into the game?  Yes.  But, is it still Catan?

[jsnlxndrlv]

Actually, a number of inherent flaws in a game can be overcome by a fun theme, but this will decay rapidly after a few tries, varying on how much fun you get out of it.  Generally I will play any game with orcs in it no matter how bad it may really be.

The counterpoint to that is that heavy theming will not salvage bad design.  It can make a good design even better, but no matter how appealing the initial aesthetic and theme and vision is, people aren't going to stick with something that isn't any fun.

[MadMAxJr]

Thank you for what is quite possibly the most relevant link on the boards I've ever gotten to read.

[Burrito Al Pastor]

Actually, a number of inherent flaws in a game can be overcome by a fun theme, but this will decay rapidly after a few tries, varying on how much fun you get out of it.  Generally I will play any game with orcs in it no matter how bad it may really be.

Chess was discussed.  Imagine if WOTC made their own chess.  You'd have sets of pieces.  You'd have a tournament format where only the last three/four sets of pieces were valid for play.  You have a standard set of rules, but changing resources.

(And of course, so they don't bitch, you have an 'open' format where all pieces are welcome and let those people pretend they're just as important as those on the other format.  Generally you will watch this devolve into a handful of pieces that outshine all.)

Better example, what if there was a Catan set that replaced forest tiles with REDWOOD tiles, that yield 2x wood, and BLACK SHEEP tiles that produce x.5 sheep.  The game changes.  Are some people going to find it fun?  Are some going to complain on forums about taking up arms, overthrowing the company, and then shoving their clearly superior own home rules into the game?  Yes.  But, is it still Catan?

Wait just a damned minute.

Did you really just lead this thread down the road of "is fourth edition really D&D?"

[jsnlxndrlv]

I was intentionally avoiding the whole subject of WotC in the hopes that the discussion wouldn't move in that direction.  C'est la vie.

The thing about the products that Wizards of the Coast is involved with is that, invariably, someone somewhere will accuse them of trying to make one of their products more like one of their other products.  Whether they're making Magic more like Pokemon, Magic more like D&D, or D&D more like Magic, any change to any of their products is inevitably greeted with suspicion and condemnation.

All of this regardless of the fact that, as entertainment products, WotC's games must be constantly evolving in order to remain relevant.  Even Settlers of Catan has a panoply of expansions and add-ons, and yet how much money do you think you've converted into profit for the company that originally released it?

[Detonator]

American board games tend to eliminate players from the game while the game progresses.  (Monopoly)

European board games tend to keep everybody at the table until the end. (Settlers of Catan)

You may be right, but I'm still pretty annoyed that you think mentioning one example of each constitutes a trend.  It's not hard to find counterexamples for either side.

[Brentai]

European [board] game designers reportedly take "don't eliminate players" as a conscious rule.  The most you can say about Americans is that they don't care one way or the other.  Scrabble, Pictionary and Trivial Pursuit* don't necessarily eliminate players, though I'm not sure if that's the type of board game you guys are thinking of.

* Canadian.

[Detonator]

The only European game I can think of that eliminates players is Risk, and I didn't even know that was European (French, to be specific) until I looked at Wikipedia.  Though Wikipedia also says that "no player elimination" is a German Style feature, and not European as a whole.

And the irony has been noted that the Germans would develop a game where your army can't conquer anything.