Follow up to an old thread on Gathering of Engineers:
1. Dave Wilson, like me, distinguished between "after" and "before" luck. This follow-up is meant to clarify this.
Consider the following two games:
A) Each player tosses a beanbag onto a rectangle with ten squares numbered 1-10. Then a card is drawn from cards numbered 1-10. If your beanbag is on the square picked, you win.
B) A card is drawn from cards numbered 1-10. Each player tosses a beanbag onto a rectangle with ten squares numbered 1-10. If your beanbag is on the square picked, you win.
Game A is entirely luck. Game B is entirely skill. What's the difference?
In Game A, players have no information on what card will be drawn, nor any control over what card will be drawn, nor any ability to plan probabilistically for the card draw. After the card is drawn, there is no opportunity to respond. The game is already decided. Your initial toss, therefore is not the result of any meaningful decision.
In Game B, the randomness only serves to vary the game each time, after which each player can react as they like; the randomness does not determine any hardship or boon for any player. The game is entirely about meaningful decision and skill.
Now consider the following games:
C) As in game A, but the deck contains 1 of each card numbered 1, 2 numbered 2, and so on.
D) As in game B, but the field is large enough so that some of the squares are closer to some people than to others.
In game C, the results are still luck, but enough probabilistic information is given that players can make a meaningful decision to try to hit areas 9 or 10. As a Eurogamer, I would then be happy to end the game after the bags are thrown and just say that the players who hit 10 are the winners. Nevertheless, many games then require you to flip the card to determine the results (e.g. Louis XIV).
In Game D, the random draw has hindered some people and has helped others, but each player still has the opportunity to win. It's just that some have an advantage. If the advantages and boons are slight, and the game were extended to a long series of such draws, and the determination of exactly who benefited and who didn't were more hazy, the game would still interesting to the players (e.g. Puerto Rico).
2. Greg Aleknevicus said about the possibilities for cards vs dice:
Much better are the games in which no single card can be said to be better than another. Consider Titan: The Arena. Is the 10-Titan better than the 5-Titan? Not absolutely; in some circumstances it will be better but in others it will be worse
Consider the following Game X: A player must draw one of ten cards. After drawing the first card, the cards are shuffled together and the player must again draw the same card in order to win.
In Game X, each card is of equal value, but the value of a card depends on the circumstances. Yet, Game X is entirely luck.
It makes no difference that some cards are better than others in certain circumstances. All that matters is that you do or don't get the cards you need when you need them due to luck of the draw, and whether you can do anything about it; either by planning to increase your odds of success, or by reacting to the draw without undue advantage or disadvantage.
To be fair, I know nothing about Titan: The Arena, but I assume a mitigating fact is that you can draw the cards and hold onto them until you need them, so that it is less a matter of which cards and more a matter of timing.
Yehuda
Previous post by me on this topic: Dice, Luck, Bah Humbug
Technorati Tags: luck, randomness, game design, games,
Tuesday, January 03, 2006
Right on Cue
The Cue
Many moons ago I acted in a play called Tevye Comes to Israel, an amateur sequel to The Fiddler on th Roof. In TCtI, Tevye finds that the horrors of Russian pogroms and the loss of his daughters to assimilation are nothing compared to the difficulties of surviving Israeli bureaucracy. After being visited by a slew of tax collectors, Tevye sings a song about how happy he is that he's not a rich man so that he doesn't have to pay much taxes.
When you perform or produce a play, you become familiar with a specialized guiding force that exerts major control over your actions: the cue. You may want to be listening to the whole play from the wings of the theater, but you can't get lost just listening to the play as a whole. You need to recognize the phrases and movements that occur on stage when they are relevant to your own entrance. You need to wait patiently while someone still has more to do or speak, and you need to act when they are done, knowing what to do and speak at that time. It doesn't matter what part of the play you are involved in: acting, directing, costumes, scenery, lights, or sound. Each part plays a coordinated role, and each one needs to know its cue. Once the momentum starts, you are carried along for the ride at the pace of the play.
The Game
A well designed game is a play. Forget about opponents, confrontation, theme, and so on. A game is a story from beginning to end. With improv.
The play begins with a prelude: you take it off the shelf and set it up. After being opened and set up, the first act finds the players getting a feel for what is going on. By act two, you may already be familiar with the characters in the play. You can now see their character development deepening, either through position or through acquisition. In act three, the plot turns; major characters fall or rise, major transitional scenes occur. In act four, each player faces off his or her character flaw against his or her own dramatic conflict. The conflict may be one of their own failings or an external conflict with another character. Resolutions occur. Act five sees the mop-up; the good guys win. Peace is restored to the world. Epilogue: The villains have been vanquished and the hero returns home. The game is put away.
The scenes that occur in a game have to hit the right cues. If the resolution walks in during act two, the game is ruined. If you skip right to act four, your game lacks tension. This doesn't mean that all games have exactly these scenes in exactly this order, or that each of these scenes must be exactly the same size. There are as many types of stories as there are cultures and peoples. But a good story is a good story. The cues have to be hit in the right order, and at the right time. When you play a game with a bad script, you wonder what you're doing.
The Players
If you are a player in the game story, you have a job to keep the story moving along. Don't start rolling the dice when it's not your turn. Don't wait for people to say "Hey! It's your turn!". Don't miss your cues.
The other part of making a good story is that the story should be interesting. What is interesting depends on the story being told.
In your home, if you have the opportunity to lock a player out of the game at the beginning of the game, it doesn't make a good story. Sometimes it is best to find an alternative. After all, the story is the important part, not who actually ends up on top.
On the other hand, in a tournament, one game might be only a scene in a longer tale, in which case you may need to take that advantage early in the game. You don't ruin the story by doing this, you only create a dramatic turn of events.
Whether you are creating a game from the game point of view, or acting the game from the player point of view, the goal is the same: make it a good one.
Yehuda
Technorati Tags: board game, board games, game design, games, gaming,
Many moons ago I acted in a play called Tevye Comes to Israel, an amateur sequel to The Fiddler on th Roof. In TCtI, Tevye finds that the horrors of Russian pogroms and the loss of his daughters to assimilation are nothing compared to the difficulties of surviving Israeli bureaucracy. After being visited by a slew of tax collectors, Tevye sings a song about how happy he is that he's not a rich man so that he doesn't have to pay much taxes.
When you perform or produce a play, you become familiar with a specialized guiding force that exerts major control over your actions: the cue. You may want to be listening to the whole play from the wings of the theater, but you can't get lost just listening to the play as a whole. You need to recognize the phrases and movements that occur on stage when they are relevant to your own entrance. You need to wait patiently while someone still has more to do or speak, and you need to act when they are done, knowing what to do and speak at that time. It doesn't matter what part of the play you are involved in: acting, directing, costumes, scenery, lights, or sound. Each part plays a coordinated role, and each one needs to know its cue. Once the momentum starts, you are carried along for the ride at the pace of the play.
The Game
A well designed game is a play. Forget about opponents, confrontation, theme, and so on. A game is a story from beginning to end. With improv.
The play begins with a prelude: you take it off the shelf and set it up. After being opened and set up, the first act finds the players getting a feel for what is going on. By act two, you may already be familiar with the characters in the play. You can now see their character development deepening, either through position or through acquisition. In act three, the plot turns; major characters fall or rise, major transitional scenes occur. In act four, each player faces off his or her character flaw against his or her own dramatic conflict. The conflict may be one of their own failings or an external conflict with another character. Resolutions occur. Act five sees the mop-up; the good guys win. Peace is restored to the world. Epilogue: The villains have been vanquished and the hero returns home. The game is put away.
The scenes that occur in a game have to hit the right cues. If the resolution walks in during act two, the game is ruined. If you skip right to act four, your game lacks tension. This doesn't mean that all games have exactly these scenes in exactly this order, or that each of these scenes must be exactly the same size. There are as many types of stories as there are cultures and peoples. But a good story is a good story. The cues have to be hit in the right order, and at the right time. When you play a game with a bad script, you wonder what you're doing.
The Players
If you are a player in the game story, you have a job to keep the story moving along. Don't start rolling the dice when it's not your turn. Don't wait for people to say "Hey! It's your turn!". Don't miss your cues.
The other part of making a good story is that the story should be interesting. What is interesting depends on the story being told.
In your home, if you have the opportunity to lock a player out of the game at the beginning of the game, it doesn't make a good story. Sometimes it is best to find an alternative. After all, the story is the important part, not who actually ends up on top.
On the other hand, in a tournament, one game might be only a scene in a longer tale, in which case you may need to take that advantage early in the game. You don't ruin the story by doing this, you only create a dramatic turn of events.
Whether you are creating a game from the game point of view, or acting the game from the player point of view, the goal is the same: make it a good one.
Yehuda
Technorati Tags: board game, board games, game design, games, gaming,
Family
Naturelich received the two copies of the Menorah Game that I sent to him; I hope he enjoys them.
The Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club web site will be at http://www.freewebs.com/jergames until further notice. Please adjust your links accordingly.
My wife's mother, Margaret, is here for a visit. She's a sweetie; the type who is always supportive and happy to do just about anything with anyone in the family just for the together time.
Also visiting is my good friend Shlomo, who visits me whenever he is in Israel and also shows up for game nights. I invited him over for dinner.
To that end I dragged them both into playing/they wanted to play/ the Menorah game. We played four ways: myself, Shlomo, Margaret/Rachel, and Saarya (who was home on his last day of vacation from school).
The game was slow, but intense and enjoyable, as both Shlomo and Margaret learned the ropes. Margaret and Rachel spent a lot of time huddling and trying to decide what to do with the candle they flipped up each turn. It was also an unusual game where a lot of candles got bought out of discard piles, when that is usually a rare occurrence (sometimes not at all during a game). We all got hit with exactly one soldier during the game.
Despite Margaret/Rachel having two wilds and lots of cash near the end of the game, I managed to pull off a victory through a combination of luck and planning; I had also saved enough cash to buy my last candle out of a discard pile, if necessary, but instead I just flipped it up and bought it to win the game.
As a small aside, my office had a little game during its latest work "pow-wow". We played a small combination of trivia followed by pictionary with Hanukkah/work related themes. I should really volunteer my services for the next "pow-wow".
Yehuda
The Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club web site will be at http://www.freewebs.com/jergames until further notice. Please adjust your links accordingly.
My wife's mother, Margaret, is here for a visit. She's a sweetie; the type who is always supportive and happy to do just about anything with anyone in the family just for the together time.
Also visiting is my good friend Shlomo, who visits me whenever he is in Israel and also shows up for game nights. I invited him over for dinner.
To that end I dragged them both into playing/they wanted to play/ the Menorah game. We played four ways: myself, Shlomo, Margaret/Rachel, and Saarya (who was home on his last day of vacation from school).
The game was slow, but intense and enjoyable, as both Shlomo and Margaret learned the ropes. Margaret and Rachel spent a lot of time huddling and trying to decide what to do with the candle they flipped up each turn. It was also an unusual game where a lot of candles got bought out of discard piles, when that is usually a rare occurrence (sometimes not at all during a game). We all got hit with exactly one soldier during the game.
Despite Margaret/Rachel having two wilds and lots of cash near the end of the game, I managed to pull off a victory through a combination of luck and planning; I had also saved enough cash to buy my last candle out of a discard pile, if necessary, but instead I just flipped it up and bought it to win the game.
As a small aside, my office had a little game during its latest work "pow-wow". We played a small combination of trivia followed by pictionary with Hanukkah/work related themes. I should really volunteer my services for the next "pow-wow".
Yehuda
Monday, January 02, 2006
News: a new game journal
A new board and computer game journal is trying to get off the ground: Game Journal. Note: this is not a rebirth of The Games Journal. However, I have been made to understand that Greg Aleknevicus, formerly of TGJ, was approached to edit the board games part of the new journal; I'm six-pointy-star-ing my fingers that this happens.
The journal will be covering, quote:
unquote. They are looking for quality submissions, particularly academic game theory stuff, but also practical game reviews, design, strategy, and so on.
That's about all I know. Good luck to them. Time to brush off my academic quills.
Yehuda
Update: Greg comments on this post in the comments, saying he will probably not be getting involved.
The journal will be covering, quote:
Game Theory
Online Gaming
Board Games
Pen & Paper Games
Console Games
unquote. They are looking for quality submissions, particularly academic game theory stuff, but also practical game reviews, design, strategy, and so on.
That's about all I know. Good luck to them. Time to brush off my academic quills.
Yehuda
Update: Greg comments on this post in the comments, saying he will probably not be getting involved.
Sunday, January 01, 2006
JIB competition
Many of the posts competing against me for best article are quite good. Among my personal favorites:
Air Time:
Friday Night Races
Elms in the Yard:
When Bad Behaviour is Kosher
Lab Rabbi:
My First Date at a Morgue
Mirty's Place:
Things that Change your Life
Orthodox Anarchist:
On Becoming Shomer Shabbat
Orthomon:
Orthomon 9/11
Treppenwitz
Daddy Syndrome
Yehuda
Air Time:
Friday Night Races
Elms in the Yard:
When Bad Behaviour is Kosher
Lab Rabbi:
My First Date at a Morgue
Mirty's Place:
Things that Change your Life
Orthodox Anarchist:
On Becoming Shomer Shabbat
Orthomon:
Orthomon 9/11
Treppenwitz
Daddy Syndrome
Yehuda
2005 JSGC Nickels and Dimes
It was a good year at the Jerusalem Strategy Gaming Club. We rarely had less than five people, and we managed to play straight through summer vacation, only to skip a few weeks during BGG.con.
Speaking of BGG.con, the first post of my trip to BGG.con was nominated for a Jewish and Israeli Blogging award. Of course, I nominated it :-) . But it still had to make some sort of cut, so, yippee. My friend David also submitted this post for nomination for the Board Game Internet Awards.
Anyway, the following list, as usual, represents only games played at the club. I may add notes about my personal plays. Note: If a game has few plays, it doesn't mean that we didn't like it. It may mean that we haven't had the game long, or that only some of us like it or that it is hard to find time to play.
I mark with a "+" games that we will surely play again, "+/-" for games that will be played if the mood strikes, and with a "-" games that we surely won't play again. If, "-", I explain why. "Not right for us" means that we think the game is good but not our style. "Flawed game" means we think the game is bad, but that shouldn't stop you from liking it.
10s (all +'s)
---
Puerto Rico x 26
San Juan x 25
Geschenkt x 22
The Menorah Game x 19
Settlers of Catan x 13
Dvonn x 12
Pente x 12
Amun Re x 11
5s
--
Taj Mahal x 9 (+)
Boggle x 7 (+/-)
Bridge x 7 (+)
Princes of Florence x 7 (+)
Tikal x 7 (+)
Yinsh x 7 (+)
El Grande x 6 [once with K&I] (+)
For Sale x 6 (+/-)
Go x 6 (+/-)
Louis XIV x 6 (+)
Traumfabrik x 6 (- sold)
Web of Power x 5 (- returned to owner)
Just missed
-----------
Advanced Squad Leader x 4 (- players no longer attend)
Cities and Knights of Catan x 4 (+)
St Petersburg x 4 (- flawed game)
Starfarers of Catan x 4 (- returned to owner)
Tigris and Euphrates x 4 (+)
Others
------
Attika x 3 (- flawed game)
By Hook or By Crook x 3 (- not right for us)
Cribbage x 3 (+/-)
Havoc: The Hundred Years War x 3 (+)
Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation x 3 (+)
Magic: the Gathering x 3 (+)
Traders of Genoa x 3 (- returned to owner)
Alhambra x 2 (+/- needs expansion)
China Moon x 2 (+/-)
Cosmic Encounter x 2 (+)
Domaine x 2 (+/- need to try again)
Gin Rummy x 2 (+/-)
La Strada x 2 (- needs expansion)
Modern Art x 2 (+)
Primordial Soup x 2 (+)
Torres x 2 (+)
Abalone (- flawed game)
Billabong (+ need to try again)
Can't Stop (- not right for us)
Checkers (+/-)
Chess (+/-)
Crossword Squares (+/-)
Evo (- not right for us)
Flinke Pinke (- flawed game)
Gobblet (- not right for us)
Grave Robbers from Outer Space (- not right for us)
Hansa (- flawed game)
Oasis (+/- bad first experience)
Oceania (- traded, ok game but too slight for us)
Othello (+/-)
Quiddlers (- flawed game)
Ra (Lo Ra) (+)
Railroads of Catan (+/- needs retry with shorter variation)
Technorati Tags: board game, board games, games,
Speaking of BGG.con, the first post of my trip to BGG.con was nominated for a Jewish and Israeli Blogging award. Of course, I nominated it :-) . But it still had to make some sort of cut, so, yippee. My friend David also submitted this post for nomination for the Board Game Internet Awards.
Anyway, the following list, as usual, represents only games played at the club. I may add notes about my personal plays. Note: If a game has few plays, it doesn't mean that we didn't like it. It may mean that we haven't had the game long, or that only some of us like it or that it is hard to find time to play.
I mark with a "+" games that we will surely play again, "+/-" for games that will be played if the mood strikes, and with a "-" games that we surely won't play again. If, "-", I explain why. "Not right for us" means that we think the game is good but not our style. "Flawed game" means we think the game is bad, but that shouldn't stop you from liking it.
10s (all +'s)
---
Puerto Rico x 26
San Juan x 25
Geschenkt x 22
The Menorah Game x 19
Settlers of Catan x 13
Dvonn x 12
Pente x 12
Amun Re x 11
5s
--
Taj Mahal x 9 (+)
Boggle x 7 (+/-)
Bridge x 7 (+)
Princes of Florence x 7 (+)
Tikal x 7 (+)
Yinsh x 7 (+)
El Grande x 6 [once with K&I] (+)
For Sale x 6 (+/-)
Go x 6 (+/-)
Louis XIV x 6 (+)
Traumfabrik x 6 (- sold)
Web of Power x 5 (- returned to owner)
Just missed
-----------
Advanced Squad Leader x 4 (- players no longer attend)
Cities and Knights of Catan x 4 (+)
St Petersburg x 4 (- flawed game)
Starfarers of Catan x 4 (- returned to owner)
Tigris and Euphrates x 4 (+)
Others
------
Attika x 3 (- flawed game)
By Hook or By Crook x 3 (- not right for us)
Cribbage x 3 (+/-)
Havoc: The Hundred Years War x 3 (+)
Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation x 3 (+)
Magic: the Gathering x 3 (+)
Traders of Genoa x 3 (- returned to owner)
Alhambra x 2 (+/- needs expansion)
China Moon x 2 (+/-)
Cosmic Encounter x 2 (+)
Domaine x 2 (+/- need to try again)
Gin Rummy x 2 (+/-)
La Strada x 2 (- needs expansion)
Modern Art x 2 (+)
Primordial Soup x 2 (+)
Torres x 2 (+)
Abalone (- flawed game)
Billabong (+ need to try again)
Can't Stop (- not right for us)
Checkers (+/-)
Chess (+/-)
Crossword Squares (+/-)
Evo (- not right for us)
Flinke Pinke (- flawed game)
Gobblet (- not right for us)
Grave Robbers from Outer Space (- not right for us)
Hansa (- flawed game)
Oasis (+/- bad first experience)
Oceania (- traded, ok game but too slight for us)
Othello (+/-)
Quiddlers (- flawed game)
Ra (Lo Ra) (+)
Railroads of Catan (+/- needs retry with shorter variation)
Technorati Tags: board game, board games, games,
Weekend Gaming
The Kids
A weekend with all of my kids is a rare and wonderful thing.
Ariella and Eitan are half-time with their father. When they are not with him, they are often with friends. Rachel insists that that be kept to a minimum, however. Saarya is at a sleep-away school that has him coming home two out of every three weekends. Unfortunately, one of those two is to his mother, and one is to me. So that's one out of every three weekends. Tal is with me one out of three weekends.
Of course, all of the above have numerous exceptions: the party, the bat-mitzvah, the visiting relative, and so on. Which means we are lucky to have them all together one out of every six weeks.
A little truism for you: if you are still married to your children's other parent, you dream about getting away from your children. If not, you dream about having your children more often.
No matter how you slice it, after a divorce, your kids have gone from fourteen parental units of attention each week to only seven. Step-parents can be good models and influence and make a huge difference in their children's lives, but it is rarely the same.
So anyway, this weekend of Hanukkah was one of those syzygies.
Tal specifically likes to play games with me. Usually Saarya does, too, but he spent his time reading. So I played with Tal:
Spit (Speed): Tal beat me for the very first time. We were playing with plastic cards (not plastic coated). They were hard to grasp.
Settlers of Catan: Tal won again. I used to find this game slightly boring two player, but now I find it more than slightly boring. Tal took longest road early enough, but never solidified it enough. I was all set to sweep in for a victory by stealing it, but she won before I could do it.
Yinsh: Tal surprised me by winning this one, too. I think I underestimated her. This game is harder for me than Dvonn. I'm still playing with the failing tactics of getting four in a row whenever possible, even though this is pointless when she can just break the line apart again. In the process, I missed Tal's winning lines.
This is a known psychological problem that people have in games: hoping that reality won't disturb your wish that a play will work, when there is no hope that it can. What is really going on is that you are too lazy to actually work at finding a winning strategy. This happens to many people at the end of Puerto Rico games ("if I craft, will you ship?").
Cribbage: I taught this to Tal. I almost lost this one, too. It came down to the wire, and she only lost by two points.
Chess: I won this one, but only through mutual takebacks. Chess is hard for me. However, Tal is only beginning to explore how the pieces interact.
Late at night, after I had gone to bed, I understand that Tal and Eitan played some games of spit and chess, or something like that.
The Concert
Sat night our new shul put on a benefit concert to raise money. It was very good. The musicians were world class, and the program was very unusual, a wierd mix of different styles of music from different millenia.
One of the singers was my friend Rachel Jaskow, of the renowned blog Elms in the Yard. Nice to see/hear her again.
I snapped some pictures which are on the shul site's navbar (Lhadlik1-3).
Yehuda
Update: Added link to Haaretz article for concert.
Technorati Tags: board game, board games, games, gaming
A weekend with all of my kids is a rare and wonderful thing.
Ariella and Eitan are half-time with their father. When they are not with him, they are often with friends. Rachel insists that that be kept to a minimum, however. Saarya is at a sleep-away school that has him coming home two out of every three weekends. Unfortunately, one of those two is to his mother, and one is to me. So that's one out of every three weekends. Tal is with me one out of three weekends.
Of course, all of the above have numerous exceptions: the party, the bat-mitzvah, the visiting relative, and so on. Which means we are lucky to have them all together one out of every six weeks.
A little truism for you: if you are still married to your children's other parent, you dream about getting away from your children. If not, you dream about having your children more often.
No matter how you slice it, after a divorce, your kids have gone from fourteen parental units of attention each week to only seven. Step-parents can be good models and influence and make a huge difference in their children's lives, but it is rarely the same.
So anyway, this weekend of Hanukkah was one of those syzygies.
Tal specifically likes to play games with me. Usually Saarya does, too, but he spent his time reading. So I played with Tal:
Spit (Speed): Tal beat me for the very first time. We were playing with plastic cards (not plastic coated). They were hard to grasp.
Settlers of Catan: Tal won again. I used to find this game slightly boring two player, but now I find it more than slightly boring. Tal took longest road early enough, but never solidified it enough. I was all set to sweep in for a victory by stealing it, but she won before I could do it.
Yinsh: Tal surprised me by winning this one, too. I think I underestimated her. This game is harder for me than Dvonn. I'm still playing with the failing tactics of getting four in a row whenever possible, even though this is pointless when she can just break the line apart again. In the process, I missed Tal's winning lines.
This is a known psychological problem that people have in games: hoping that reality won't disturb your wish that a play will work, when there is no hope that it can. What is really going on is that you are too lazy to actually work at finding a winning strategy. This happens to many people at the end of Puerto Rico games ("if I craft, will you ship?").
Cribbage: I taught this to Tal. I almost lost this one, too. It came down to the wire, and she only lost by two points.
Chess: I won this one, but only through mutual takebacks. Chess is hard for me. However, Tal is only beginning to explore how the pieces interact.
Late at night, after I had gone to bed, I understand that Tal and Eitan played some games of spit and chess, or something like that.
The Concert
Sat night our new shul put on a benefit concert to raise money. It was very good. The musicians were world class, and the program was very unusual, a wierd mix of different styles of music from different millenia.
One of the singers was my friend Rachel Jaskow, of the renowned blog Elms in the Yard. Nice to see/hear her again.
I snapped some pictures which are on the shul site's navbar (Lhadlik1-3).
Yehuda
Update: Added link to Haaretz article for concert.
Technorati Tags: board game, board games, games, gaming
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