The latest JSGC session report is up here. Games played: Hearts, Tigris and Euphrates, By Hook or By Crook, Winner's Circle, Modern Art, Caylus, Havoc, Settlers of Catan.
Yehuda
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Background Discussions
I've got some larger posts brewing in the background, again.
Meanwhile, I wrote to the author of a mainstream article about Business games. He wrote that there aren't any business game produced today, other than Monopoly. I am trying to clear the issue up with him (Cash Flow, Acquire, Power Grid, etc.). Someone on BGG also picked it up. I sent a link to this thread to the author, and maybe he'll comment.
I received a request to include all or part of my Copyright Code post in an upcoming law book that explains the code. Tee hee. I hope to receive a copy of the book when it's finished (next year, I suppose).
Meanwhile, I missed posting about a local Chess meetup in Jerusalem that was supposed to have been tonight, and I neglected to remind people about the Educational Center for Games meetups this week in Tel Aviv. And I need to remind people about the board game tournament in Tel Aviv on Aug 24, too.
I also received some private notes wishing me peace and health during this period of tension and war in the Middle East. I already sent thanks privately, but here are some public thanks. Your wishes mean a lot to me.
And really: if anyone can put me in touch with a board gamer in Lebanon (or any other Arab or Muslim country), I would appreciate it.
Yehuda
Meanwhile, I wrote to the author of a mainstream article about Business games. He wrote that there aren't any business game produced today, other than Monopoly. I am trying to clear the issue up with him (Cash Flow, Acquire, Power Grid, etc.). Someone on BGG also picked it up. I sent a link to this thread to the author, and maybe he'll comment.
I received a request to include all or part of my Copyright Code post in an upcoming law book that explains the code. Tee hee. I hope to receive a copy of the book when it's finished (next year, I suppose).
Meanwhile, I missed posting about a local Chess meetup in Jerusalem that was supposed to have been tonight, and I neglected to remind people about the Educational Center for Games meetups this week in Tel Aviv. And I need to remind people about the board game tournament in Tel Aviv on Aug 24, too.
I also received some private notes wishing me peace and health during this period of tension and war in the Middle East. I already sent thanks privately, but here are some public thanks. Your wishes mean a lot to me.
And really: if anyone can put me in touch with a board gamer in Lebanon (or any other Arab or Muslim country), I would appreciate it.
Yehuda
Tuesday, August 15, 2006
"Never Beat a Ninja at Scrabble"
New Yorker, July 24. Frankly, that caption is better than the cartoon.
Dreamblade from Wizards of the Coast is getting a lot of mainstream press.
More news about how board games can kill you: County Inmates contract staph infections through joint contact over a board game. The name of the board game was not mentioned: our researchers are looking into it.
And if you have some spare moments, The Ladies' Vase: Polite Manual for Young Ladies, by An American Lady. circa 1849.
Dreamblade from Wizards of the Coast is getting a lot of mainstream press.
More news about how board games can kill you: County Inmates contract staph infections through joint contact over a board game. The name of the board game was not mentioned: our researchers are looking into it.
And if you have some spare moments, The Ladies' Vase: Polite Manual for Young Ladies, by An American Lady. circa 1849.
Nothing is so likely to conciliate the affections of the other sex, as a feeling that woman looks to them for support and guidance. In proportion as men are themselves superior, they are as accessible to this appeal. On the contrary, they never feel interested in one who seems disposed rather to offer than to ask assistance. There is, indeed, something unfeminine in independence. It is contrary to nature and, therefore, it offends. We do not like to see a woman affecting tremors, but still less do we like to see her acting the Amazon. A really sensible woman feels her dependence; she does what she can, but she is conscious of inferiority, and, therefore, grateful for support; she knows that she is the weaker vessel, and that, as such, she should receive honor.Yehuda
Monday, August 14, 2006
Good Grief, Game Poetry
Here is a site about Game Poetry. By which they mean video games, of course, but I will try to correct that. (Via Raph)
Also, I may find reality TV to be morally repugnant on many levels, but I found this Wired article to be strangely convincing. Read and decide for yourself if the designers of these shows are or are not game designers.
Yehuda
Also, I may find reality TV to be morally repugnant on many levels, but I found this Wired article to be strangely convincing. Read and decide for yourself if the designers of these shows are or are not game designers.
Yehuda
Thoughts on Law, the Bible, and Conflict
The practice of creating laws is horribly flawed.
Suppose you have a simple law such as: "Anyone smoking in this building receives a $25 fine." That sounds clear enough, right?
Well, no, because the first thing that happens is that you have to clarify what you mean by smoking. Smoking what? You can clarify "tobacco products", but what if you smoke a cigarette made from 90% dried mint and 10% tobacco. Does that count? So you need to add more clarifications.
Well, what if you smoke right near the room and the smoke drifts in? What if you smoke inside and the smoke drifts out? What if you have a smokeless cigarette? What if it is mostly smokeless? What if nobody else minds? More clarifications.
The original law looked like a solid black line. As you peer closer and closer, you see that the line is made of alternating bands of gray very close together. Keep getting closer and the line just looks like bands of darker and lighter areas.
The problem here is that the original "law" honestly doesn't give a damn about whether or not you smoke in this room. The principle behind the law is: "Don't disturb other people." That principle isn't enforceable as a legal code.
We start with civilization and manners. That is our hopeful ideas. When we fail to enforce this ideal, as we always will, we create laws that either under-represent this ideal - in which case, some "disturbing" activities are still permitted - or over-compensate for this ideal - in which case some activities that do not disturb other people get swept into the law for simplicity.
In an ideal situation, everyone would simply not disturb other people. In a second-tier ideal situation, every action would be judged against the basic principle. Instead, our laws come to define lines that are never exactly correct, but try to get closer and closer to correct the more baroque the law becomes.
The basic problem with this approach is that we hit a point somewhere where our attempts at refining the laws further and further begin to have the exact opposite effect. Too many people are still being disturbed, despite these laws, and too many people's freedoms are being unnecessarily restricted, and they begin to rebel. And no one can understand the law.
What we need is an occasional clean sweep, where the laws are re-written from scratch.
Only, that offers its own set of problems, namely, the reasonable ability to know what the law is. If the law changes constantly and radically, a general citizen can't know if what he or she is doing is legal or not with any certainty, and also can't plan for the future with any certainty. Ugh. No wonder we have all of these lawyers.
Interestingly enough, the Jewish legal system is slightly different from the above "precedence" system. In the above system, new laws are constantly created and then folded back into the system. A law made in 2002 has as much status as one made in 1778.
In the Jewish system, the biblical laws are immutable, and you may not add or subtract from them. What you can do is re-interpret them, add fences around them, and add local temporary injunctions, according to certain set principles. In theory, and mostly in practice, one generation takes the previous generation's interpretations and fences very seriously. However, very occasionally, modern authorities can throw out some crufted law and go back to the original biblical law for some reason.
One kind of gets the feeling that the biblical prohibition against adding and subtracting from the law was a kind of insult to mankind. It's as if God knows that we can't be trusted to make laws without eventually mucking it up. The entire idea can only work if the core laws contain everything necessary to deal with all eventualities, both in interpretation and breadth of topics.
That's a pretty difficult idea to sell. Our attitudes towards women, slavery, gays, children, property, and many other things have changed. While I believe that interpretations about the bible can keep up with this, there are certainly many who don't. Many people want to discard the bible because it doesn't fit with our current ideas of morality. Many people want to discard our current ideas of morality because they don't fit with the bible. And many people say that if you can interpret the bible any way that you want, what is its point?
I think its point is that the engagement has to be constant. Laws will always need to be reinterpreted, but many core ideas cannot be lost. If you leap only from point to point, you will eventually be lost. But if you come back to your starting point, you will always have a common touchstone. And maybe you will interpret a law one way in this generation, and the other way in the next generation. But you are always starting from a place of solidity.
I think that there is also another message inherent to this issue, and that is in the limits of human rationality to solve problems. We all seem to believe that if we can just get the other person to understand our point of view, that they will eventually agree with us, or, at least, respect our position.
If we take the pro-abortionists and the anti-abortionists and get them to see that their differences are about whether or not they do or don't take a strict interpretation of the bible, surely we can get them to realize about what they fundamentally disagree, and then they will be able to work out some sort of compromise.
If we get the Muslims and the Jews, or the Muslims and the West, to sit down and methodically list what they agree on and what they don't agree on, and how to live with each other anyway, then we will be able to negotiate a livable solution.
I'm very cynical about this way of thinking. I think that at the heart of all issues lies not clarity, but confusion. The closer you examine lines, the more they look like areas of darker and lighter gray. It seems that the heart of all life is not an ultimate meeting of the minds, but confusion, conflict, and struggle. And we may have to live - and die - with that.
Yehuda
Suppose you have a simple law such as: "Anyone smoking in this building receives a $25 fine." That sounds clear enough, right?
Well, no, because the first thing that happens is that you have to clarify what you mean by smoking. Smoking what? You can clarify "tobacco products", but what if you smoke a cigarette made from 90% dried mint and 10% tobacco. Does that count? So you need to add more clarifications.
Well, what if you smoke right near the room and the smoke drifts in? What if you smoke inside and the smoke drifts out? What if you have a smokeless cigarette? What if it is mostly smokeless? What if nobody else minds? More clarifications.
The original law looked like a solid black line. As you peer closer and closer, you see that the line is made of alternating bands of gray very close together. Keep getting closer and the line just looks like bands of darker and lighter areas.
The problem here is that the original "law" honestly doesn't give a damn about whether or not you smoke in this room. The principle behind the law is: "Don't disturb other people." That principle isn't enforceable as a legal code.
We start with civilization and manners. That is our hopeful ideas. When we fail to enforce this ideal, as we always will, we create laws that either under-represent this ideal - in which case, some "disturbing" activities are still permitted - or over-compensate for this ideal - in which case some activities that do not disturb other people get swept into the law for simplicity.
In an ideal situation, everyone would simply not disturb other people. In a second-tier ideal situation, every action would be judged against the basic principle. Instead, our laws come to define lines that are never exactly correct, but try to get closer and closer to correct the more baroque the law becomes.
The basic problem with this approach is that we hit a point somewhere where our attempts at refining the laws further and further begin to have the exact opposite effect. Too many people are still being disturbed, despite these laws, and too many people's freedoms are being unnecessarily restricted, and they begin to rebel. And no one can understand the law.
What we need is an occasional clean sweep, where the laws are re-written from scratch.
Only, that offers its own set of problems, namely, the reasonable ability to know what the law is. If the law changes constantly and radically, a general citizen can't know if what he or she is doing is legal or not with any certainty, and also can't plan for the future with any certainty. Ugh. No wonder we have all of these lawyers.
Interestingly enough, the Jewish legal system is slightly different from the above "precedence" system. In the above system, new laws are constantly created and then folded back into the system. A law made in 2002 has as much status as one made in 1778.
In the Jewish system, the biblical laws are immutable, and you may not add or subtract from them. What you can do is re-interpret them, add fences around them, and add local temporary injunctions, according to certain set principles. In theory, and mostly in practice, one generation takes the previous generation's interpretations and fences very seriously. However, very occasionally, modern authorities can throw out some crufted law and go back to the original biblical law for some reason.
One kind of gets the feeling that the biblical prohibition against adding and subtracting from the law was a kind of insult to mankind. It's as if God knows that we can't be trusted to make laws without eventually mucking it up. The entire idea can only work if the core laws contain everything necessary to deal with all eventualities, both in interpretation and breadth of topics.
That's a pretty difficult idea to sell. Our attitudes towards women, slavery, gays, children, property, and many other things have changed. While I believe that interpretations about the bible can keep up with this, there are certainly many who don't. Many people want to discard the bible because it doesn't fit with our current ideas of morality. Many people want to discard our current ideas of morality because they don't fit with the bible. And many people say that if you can interpret the bible any way that you want, what is its point?
I think its point is that the engagement has to be constant. Laws will always need to be reinterpreted, but many core ideas cannot be lost. If you leap only from point to point, you will eventually be lost. But if you come back to your starting point, you will always have a common touchstone. And maybe you will interpret a law one way in this generation, and the other way in the next generation. But you are always starting from a place of solidity.
I think that there is also another message inherent to this issue, and that is in the limits of human rationality to solve problems. We all seem to believe that if we can just get the other person to understand our point of view, that they will eventually agree with us, or, at least, respect our position.
If we take the pro-abortionists and the anti-abortionists and get them to see that their differences are about whether or not they do or don't take a strict interpretation of the bible, surely we can get them to realize about what they fundamentally disagree, and then they will be able to work out some sort of compromise.
If we get the Muslims and the Jews, or the Muslims and the West, to sit down and methodically list what they agree on and what they don't agree on, and how to live with each other anyway, then we will be able to negotiate a livable solution.
I'm very cynical about this way of thinking. I think that at the heart of all issues lies not clarity, but confusion. The closer you examine lines, the more they look like areas of darker and lighter gray. It seems that the heart of all life is not an ultimate meeting of the minds, but confusion, conflict, and struggle. And we may have to live - and die - with that.
Yehuda
Sunday, August 13, 2006
Call for Open Source Board Gaming
Theory
Let us thank whatever deity in which we believe that the idea of using cardboard boards within games is in the public domain. So are dice, pawns, and grids. Tracks and spaces. Spinners. Cards. Cards with writing. Turns. The concept of adding pieces and apparatus to games. Of pieces distinguished from each other by physical differences. The use of color to denote each player's forces. The idea of an auction. The mechanics of trading. Negotiation.
How fortunate we are that these were invented before our current age, because we know that if they had been invented today, the first one to come up with "a method of indicating location within a game space by randomizing marked cubes and moving personal markers a number of spaces within marked locations thereof" would have locked up the idea of board games for his or her natural lifespan, plus ninety years.
How long do we have before all new board game ideas become locked up? What ideas have already been lost? What are we losing even as I write this?
If you look at some of the posts I've been posting regarding new patents issued for board and card games, you will find that many basic ideas are becoming locked up, one by one. Anyone with a pea-sized brain or bigger realizes that this isn't protecting inventors or encouraging inventions; it is simply killing innovation.
There are only two ways to fight this. The first is to work together with those groups that are fighting for real patent reform. The second is the preventative strike. Namely, thinking up everything you can and publishing it or patenting it first. In that way, prior art can be established.
And if it can also be proved that any filed patent holder could have known about this prior art, they can be sued for court costs if or when they try to enforce their patents. At least I think so; I'm not a lawyer. Please consult one.
We need a good brainstorming site for open source gaming ideas. One that lists every methodology known, and can establish every combination thereof. Every type of auction, every type of interaction, every marriage between RFID chips, electronics, diodes, lights, computers, and pieces. Now.
And don't forget themes. They get patented, too.
Practice
Aside from the above societal benefits of establishing open source game mechanics and themes to ensure that our generation, and future generations, can use them, there are practical benefits to this.
Raph Koster is working on a "Grammar for Gameplay". This is similar to an idea that I had a few years ago. Well, in a different form. I was thinking of a database with every type of piece, mechanic, turn order, player interaction, and so on, so that games could be registered as collections of these components.
The net result would be a way of, just possibly, generating new games.
Oh, Knizia and all of those other game designers will tell you that this won't work. That game design requires the exact right balancing of all forces in order to ensure that the game hangs together well and isn't broken. But that's not really totally true.
Yes, games can be broken by a subtle miscalculated balance. On the other hand, thousands and thousands of variations have also taught us that games can be altered, sometimes even radically, and still be enjoyable and playable.
Go is played on a 19x19 board, but it is also enjoyable on a 15x15 board and an 11x11 board. There are countless variations for checkers movements and pieces capturing rules. Thousands of different types of chess pieces have been invented over the years, many of which simply add enjoyment to the game. (Many of these are now foolishly patented.)
Many games can stand to be stretched or shaped differently, and still be fun to play.
In addition, we have more than twenty thousand games registered in Board Game Geek. More articles about game design have been written in the last ten years than in all previous years combined. We are smart enough now to start building heuristics as to what to look for in game design.
We can then generate new game ideas that haven't yet been done. Maybe out of 10,000 computer inventions, 1000 will look good to our heuristics, 100 will contain ideas of interest, and only 10 will pan out as immediately playable. That's still a shortcut to 10 new games. And the other 90 can lead to new games with some human development.
The ultimate aim is to come up with a good set of rules and mechanics that will work for creating new games, i.e. new game systems. Like d20 uses a set of systems to apply to numerous games, and like Piecepack, Siegestones, and Icehouse provide basic components with which to produce many games, we should be able to find some good sets of rules that work well together in numerous combinations with various components.
Sometimes, the themes to these games will just scream out at us. Sometimes you may be able to slap on just about any theme or leave it as abstract. Either way, a vast untapped resource may be out there, just waiting to be implemented.
Yehuda
Update: And here's a random game generator to illustrate the idea. (Raph again)
Update: I must add a dissenting opinion to such a venture: that the very existence of a list of obvious game procedures could be used to claim that anything not on the list is not obvious.
Let us thank whatever deity in which we believe that the idea of using cardboard boards within games is in the public domain. So are dice, pawns, and grids. Tracks and spaces. Spinners. Cards. Cards with writing. Turns. The concept of adding pieces and apparatus to games. Of pieces distinguished from each other by physical differences. The use of color to denote each player's forces. The idea of an auction. The mechanics of trading. Negotiation.
How fortunate we are that these were invented before our current age, because we know that if they had been invented today, the first one to come up with "a method of indicating location within a game space by randomizing marked cubes and moving personal markers a number of spaces within marked locations thereof" would have locked up the idea of board games for his or her natural lifespan, plus ninety years.
How long do we have before all new board game ideas become locked up? What ideas have already been lost? What are we losing even as I write this?
If you look at some of the posts I've been posting regarding new patents issued for board and card games, you will find that many basic ideas are becoming locked up, one by one. Anyone with a pea-sized brain or bigger realizes that this isn't protecting inventors or encouraging inventions; it is simply killing innovation.
There are only two ways to fight this. The first is to work together with those groups that are fighting for real patent reform. The second is the preventative strike. Namely, thinking up everything you can and publishing it or patenting it first. In that way, prior art can be established.
And if it can also be proved that any filed patent holder could have known about this prior art, they can be sued for court costs if or when they try to enforce their patents. At least I think so; I'm not a lawyer. Please consult one.
We need a good brainstorming site for open source gaming ideas. One that lists every methodology known, and can establish every combination thereof. Every type of auction, every type of interaction, every marriage between RFID chips, electronics, diodes, lights, computers, and pieces. Now.
And don't forget themes. They get patented, too.
Practice
Aside from the above societal benefits of establishing open source game mechanics and themes to ensure that our generation, and future generations, can use them, there are practical benefits to this.
Raph Koster is working on a "Grammar for Gameplay". This is similar to an idea that I had a few years ago. Well, in a different form. I was thinking of a database with every type of piece, mechanic, turn order, player interaction, and so on, so that games could be registered as collections of these components.
The net result would be a way of, just possibly, generating new games.
Oh, Knizia and all of those other game designers will tell you that this won't work. That game design requires the exact right balancing of all forces in order to ensure that the game hangs together well and isn't broken. But that's not really totally true.
Yes, games can be broken by a subtle miscalculated balance. On the other hand, thousands and thousands of variations have also taught us that games can be altered, sometimes even radically, and still be enjoyable and playable.
Go is played on a 19x19 board, but it is also enjoyable on a 15x15 board and an 11x11 board. There are countless variations for checkers movements and pieces capturing rules. Thousands of different types of chess pieces have been invented over the years, many of which simply add enjoyment to the game. (Many of these are now foolishly patented.)
Many games can stand to be stretched or shaped differently, and still be fun to play.
In addition, we have more than twenty thousand games registered in Board Game Geek. More articles about game design have been written in the last ten years than in all previous years combined. We are smart enough now to start building heuristics as to what to look for in game design.
We can then generate new game ideas that haven't yet been done. Maybe out of 10,000 computer inventions, 1000 will look good to our heuristics, 100 will contain ideas of interest, and only 10 will pan out as immediately playable. That's still a shortcut to 10 new games. And the other 90 can lead to new games with some human development.
The ultimate aim is to come up with a good set of rules and mechanics that will work for creating new games, i.e. new game systems. Like d20 uses a set of systems to apply to numerous games, and like Piecepack, Siegestones, and Icehouse provide basic components with which to produce many games, we should be able to find some good sets of rules that work well together in numerous combinations with various components.
Sometimes, the themes to these games will just scream out at us. Sometimes you may be able to slap on just about any theme or leave it as abstract. Either way, a vast untapped resource may be out there, just waiting to be implemented.
Yehuda
Update: And here's a random game generator to illustrate the idea. (Raph again)
Update: I must add a dissenting opinion to such a venture: that the very existence of a list of obvious game procedures could be used to claim that anything not on the list is not obvious.
How Much Is There to Say About Board Games?
I mean, compared to computer and video games?
It must be a lot easier to create board games than computer games, because there sure seem to be a lot of discussions about the computer game creation process. All of that technology: skinning, platforms, rendering, tracking, and so on. There are whole blogs and magazines devoted just to certain aspects of game programming.
Are we likely to ever see an entire blog simply about board game construction materials? We have some board game blogs that follow a particular game design from conception to marketing, but the actual creation stage warrants no more than a few posts.
And how about this: an entire blog devoted to fashion in video games. We have some blogs that talk about the art in board games, but come on. Don't we need an entire blog about fashion worn by board and card game characters?
The vast amounts of time, energy, cost, and manpower that goes into creating a single electronic game seems to give rise to so much more room for discussion. Does the relative simplicity of creating a board game doom us to having less to talk about?
That's why we don't get more press in the mainstream. Our games don't cost enough or take long enough to produce!
On the other hand, if there is less to say about board game creation and marketing, maybe there is more to say about board game strategy and tactics
And so there is. And maybe, if there is so much to say about the electronic gaming creation and marketing process, there is less to say about the games themselves. Other than how pretty the rendering and the graphics are. Or what clothes the characters are wearing.
Yehuda
It must be a lot easier to create board games than computer games, because there sure seem to be a lot of discussions about the computer game creation process. All of that technology: skinning, platforms, rendering, tracking, and so on. There are whole blogs and magazines devoted just to certain aspects of game programming.
Are we likely to ever see an entire blog simply about board game construction materials? We have some board game blogs that follow a particular game design from conception to marketing, but the actual creation stage warrants no more than a few posts.
And how about this: an entire blog devoted to fashion in video games. We have some blogs that talk about the art in board games, but come on. Don't we need an entire blog about fashion worn by board and card game characters?
The vast amounts of time, energy, cost, and manpower that goes into creating a single electronic game seems to give rise to so much more room for discussion. Does the relative simplicity of creating a board game doom us to having less to talk about?
That's why we don't get more press in the mainstream. Our games don't cost enough or take long enough to produce!
On the other hand, if there is less to say about board game creation and marketing, maybe there is more to say about board game strategy and tactics
And so there is. And maybe, if there is so much to say about the electronic gaming creation and marketing process, there is less to say about the games themselves. Other than how pretty the rendering and the graphics are. Or what clothes the characters are wearing.
Yehuda
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