"Games and Politics" by Richard Garfield
Andrew S. Davidson
>> What's especially outrageous is that the designer of this game,
>> Richard Garfield, went on at length about how he didn't want his
>> multi-player games to just end up as a game of Diplomacy. Allowing
>> this to happen by default is scandalous.
>
>Heh. At least Richard knew that it (table talk and deal making) was
>part of the game.
I'm not sure where you're getting that from. Anyway, I've just dug up
one of the articles that I remembered. Here it is:
"In my experience critiquing games, the concept that has caused the
most dispute is politics. I refer to a game as political if it has
more than two players, or sides, and during a significant portion of
the game the other players could agree to make you lose. Two-sided
games, like Magic, chess, bridge, and basketball, are never political.
Right now my study of political games is riddled with judgement calls,
making it far from precise. For example, Yahtzee is a game for more
than two players that isn't particularly political: I could win even
if everyone else decides I shouldn't. RISK is highly political,
however, since one person cannot expect to beat the rest of the
players allied together unless they account for less than half the
power in the game.
There are some good things about political games. Any player usually
has a chance to catch up, no matter how far behind he or she might be.
A political game is as deep as the players wish to make it: simple and
straightforward, or convoluted and laden with conspiracy.
That said, I lean towards games where politics take a back seat. I
haven't always felt that way, but over the years I have found that
when I played games with a strong political component, the game itself
didn't matter much.
Playing Nicely With Others
--------------------------
There is a wide array of opinions, often passionate, about the role of
politics in games, with equally intelligent folk at all extremes.
Most people who have played a lot have had some good experiences with
political games. It is always hard to draw conclusions from past game
experience, though, because good players can make any game fun.
Similarly, it is hard to determine whether a political game is itself
at fault or if the players aren't playing well. When someone is
always whining about being behind, is that a problem with the player
or the game?
Players often increase their enjoyment of political games by
establishing unwritten rules of conduct. I know circles where whining
is punished by group attacks. Other groups forbid negotiations, or
only allow players to exert limited influence. Players are commonly
expected to maximize their personal position even when they have no
chance of winning. Often it is difficult to figure out exactly what
the rules are, and playing around on the boundary of what is
acceptable is risking group displeasure. When the game depends on
unwritten rules, I usually credit the players with creating a lot of
the fun, rather than the game.
There is a lot of potential for abuse in games where players can trade
resources freely, since two players who cannot win individually could
flip a coin and give the winner all their pooled resources to create a
single viable position. To prevent such abuse, groups sometimes
outlaw coin flips or random decisions, but players can still
circumvent such efforts b alternating the "winner" between games or by
developing understandings. For example, if John is out of the running
in this game and gives me good trades or gifts, he will get reciprocal
consideration in the future.
Bad Games and Good Politics
---------------------------
Many features crop up frequently in political games that I consider
bad game elements. A major part of the strategy in a political game
is to draw attention to other people's positions and attempt to play
them off against one another. One of the easiest ways to do this is
to take a weak position. This may not immediately appear to be bad,
but the implications are profound: if you _choose_ a weak position,
then it is not actually weak. And if weak positions really have the
same power, then how you play the game doesn't make much difference.
What really matters is how you play the players, whether the game is
RISK or Family Business.
One of the most unpleasant features of a political game is what I
refer to as kingmaking. Kingmaking happens when a player who has no
chance of winning can choose who does win. This holds some charm for
beginners, because being a kingmaker allows revenge against irritating
players, and justifies diplomacy - the winner is chosen by someone
else. The advanced player tends to dislike kingmaking, though,
because it trivializes the time spent playing. The longer the game
goes on, the more irksome is such an ending.
Another depressing thing about many political games is the way they
encourage passive play. If attacking another player costs me and my
opponent resources, then there is a strong incentive to sit back and
let other people fight. Games that have this characteristic can be a
lot of fun if some of the players ignore this and attack anyway, but
are real drag if everyone sees waiting as a disadvantage. How many
times have you seen one player get sick of doing nothing and say,
"Well, I have to be going, so I have to attack"? Boredom should not
be an incentive for conflict in a game.
It is a good exercise to evaluate the effect of politics on games
involving more than two sides. This can be quite a challenge, and
people who meet it often come out with a different perspective on the
games they play. The result for me was discovering that most
political games were, underneath the veneer, the same game, and that I
was tired of playing that game."
-- Richard Garfield, The Duelist, June 1997
Peter Sarrett
news:7869AC7C6D013CD8.B23ED609...@lp.airnews.net...
> On Wed, 02 Jan 2002 14:54:00 -0500, LSJ wrote:
> Playing Nicely With Others
> --------------------------
> There is a lot of potential for abuse in games where players can trade
> resources freely, since two players who cannot win individually could
> flip a coin and give the winner all their pooled resources to create a
> single viable position.
I know of no group in which such behavior would be acceptable, and would not
play in such a group myself.
All multiplayer games are subject to potential abuses. To keep them fun and
friendly, players recognize the need for a code of behavior that excludes
certain activities not explicitly proscribed by the rules. I've never
understood why Richard Garfield views this as a problem. There are
unwritten rules of behavior in any social setting, where things that are
physically possible are nevertheless deemed unacceptable. Why should
multiplayer games be any different?
- Peter Sarrett
Robert Goudie
news:3c34f250$1...@news.microsoft.com...
Hey Peter,
Your declaraction that you wouldn't play in such a group makes it clear that
following your view of multiplayer gaming doesn't faciliate players "playing
together". It is only your benchmark of whether or not you'd like to play with
a player or group. Defining the rules in a way to avoid pure diplomacy allows
players with disparate viewpoints to actually play together. A casual
"just-for-fun" gamer can player with the hardcore "win-at-all-costs" gamer
without a problem.
Relying on social pressure and an awareness of an undefined, yet understood,
code of conduct doesn't work unless the players know each other and plan on
continuing to play with each other.
-Robert
rob...@vtesinla.org
>
> - Peter Sarrett
>
>
>
>
>
Bruno Wolff III
> "Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> wrote in message
> news:7869AC7C6D013CD8.B23ED609...@lp.airnews.net...
>> On Wed, 02 Jan 2002 14:54:00 -0500, LSJ wrote:
>
>> Playing Nicely With Others
>> --------------------------
>> There is a lot of potential for abuse in games where players can trade
>> resources freely, since two players who cannot win individually could
>> flip a coin and give the winner all their pooled resources to create a
>> single viable position.
>
> I know of no group in which such behavior would be acceptable, and would not
> play in such a group myself.
It happened in a diplomacy game I was in. It was a 5 player game and
a 2 vs 3 situation occurred with the 3 player group having 18 centers
vs 16 with no chance of either group getting more without a defection.
Nobody thought a defector would be treated well by the side they defected
to. The three player side decided to shoot darts to see who would get
to win. After the person was determined trading centers to the declared
winner were begun. The manuever wasn't completed before we stopped playing
since no one expected that the action could be stopped or that anyone
would defect and we had better ways to spend the remaining time.
Peter Sarrett
"Bruno Wolff III" <br...@cerberus.csd.uwm.edu> wrote in message
news:slrna3a0r0...@cerberus.csd.uwm.edu...
> It happened in a diplomacy game I was in.
And this was satisfying and acceptable to everyone? I don't play Diplomacy,
so I don't know if this sort of thing is the norm. But if I were to invest
the kind of time that Diplomacy requires, I'd be extremely disturbed to have
it end in a manner which trivializes everything that has come before and
would think twice about playing with those players, or that game, again.
- Peter
David desJardins
> And this was satisfying and acceptable to everyone? I don't play
> Diplomacy, so I don't know if this sort of thing is the norm. But if
> I were to invest the kind of time that Diplomacy requires, I'd be
> extremely disturbed to have it end in a manner which trivializes
> everything that has come before and would think twice about playing
> with those players, or that game, again.
Then why are you flaming Andrew Davidson for having exactly the same
problem with VTES (players entering into elaborate, artificial
agreements), and coming to exactly the same conclusion (either prevent
that behavior from occurring, or don't play that game, or not with those
players)?
When he says it's better to avoid playing that way, and Richard Garfield
says it's better to avoid playing that way, and Bruno Wolff says it's
better to avoid playing that way, and you say it's better to avoid
playing that way, aren't you all saying the same thing??
David desJardins
Peter Sarrett
"Robert Goudie" <rrgo...@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:OY6Z7.1411$zw3.2...@newsread1.prod.itd.earthlink.net...
> Hey Peter,
>
> Your declaraction that you wouldn't play in such a group makes it clear
that
> following your view of multiplayer gaming doesn't faciliate players
"playing
> together". It is only your benchmark of whether or not you'd like to play
with
> a player or group. Defining the rules in a way to avoid pure diplomacy
allows
> players with disparate viewpoints to actually play together. A casual
> "just-for-fun" gamer can player with the hardcore "win-at-all-costs" gamer
> without a problem.
In sufficiently complex games players can always find ways to collude if
they really wish to, regardless of how the rules are structured. What
prevents them from doing so is a combination of personal ethics and the code
of behavior of the group they're in.
In a tournament setting with players who are unfamiliar with one another
these rules, of necessity, may be explicitly dictated by the judge rather
than implicitly understood. But the principle is the same.
Certain kinds of behavior break a game, or other players' enjoyment of it.
Expecting all such behavior to be explicitly banned by the rules is
unrealistic and should not be necessary. All it takes is the recognition
that certain behavior exists in a gray area and the consideration to ask
about a group's preferences toward that behavior beforehand.
In short: we don't need to legislate morality, in society or in games.
- Peter
Kevin J. Maroney
On Thu, 3 Jan 2002 16:06:35 -0800, "Peter Sarrett"
<pe...@gamereport.com> wrote:
>"Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> quoted Richard Garfield saying::
>> Playing Nicely With Others
>> --------------------------
>> There is a lot of potential for abuse in games where players can trade
>> resources freely, since two players who cannot win individually could
>> flip a coin and give the winner all their pooled resources to create a
>> single viable position.
>
>I know of no group in which such behavior would be acceptable, and would not
>play in such a group myself.
It's clear that it's a form of collusion, which might or might not be
acceptable behavior in the group. I've only seen this happen once, in
a four-player game of _Junta_; one player got so far ahead of the
others that the only possible way any of them others could win was if
they pooled their money and gave it to one of the other players
randomly. The logic the other players used was that a 33% chance of
winning was better than a 0% chance of winning.
I couldn't figure out a *game* reason that they were wrong, because,
frankly, they were right, under a game payout which values all
non-winning positions equally. I suppose this is an argument for the
"playing for position" school of thought.
--
Kevin J. Maroney | k...@panix.com
Games are my entire waking life.
Peter Sarrett
"David desJardins" <de...@math.berkeley.edu> wrote in message
news:vohzo3u...@math.berkeley.edu...
>
> Then why are you flaming Andrew Davidson for having exactly the same
> problem with VTES (players entering into elaborate, artificial
> agreements), and coming to exactly the same conclusion (either prevent
> that behavior from occurring, or don't play that game, or not with those
> players)?
I'm not. I'm commenting on Richard Garfield's article-- and in an unheated
manner. The only flame here is yours.
> When he says it's better to avoid playing that way, and Richard Garfield
> says it's better to avoid playing that way, and Bruno Wolff says it's
> better to avoid playing that way, and you say it's better to avoid
> playing that way, aren't you all saying the same thing??
If we all said what you claim we said, yes. But we didn't.
Bruno offered no opinion one way or the other (at least in r.g.b, where I'm
reading this).
Richard Garfield said it's better (for him) not to play "political" games at
all.
I said all that's needed is a community code of behavior.
- Peter
(I'll restrict future replies, if any, to r.g.b)
LSJ
> It happened in a diplomacy game I was in. It was a 5 player game and
This is not directed at Bruno personally - I just picked his post as
an example (I enjoy reading his stuff in r.g.board, as a general rule).
Request:
Let's refrain from posting non-V:TES-related stuff to
rec.games.trading-cards.jyhad
Thanks all.
Follow-ups directed appropriately.
--
LSJ (vte...@white-wolf.com) V:TES Net.Rep for White Wolf, Inc.
Links to revised rulebook, rulings, errata, and tournament rules:
http://www.white-wolf.com/vtes/
Michael
acceptable behavior in the group. I've only seen this happen once, in a
four-player game of _Junta_; one player got so far ahead of the others that
the only possible way any of them others could win was if they pooled their
money and gave it to one of the other players randomly. The logic the other
players used was that a 33% chance of winning was better than a 0% chance of
winning. >>
In the case of this example, I wouldn't play with any of these people again.
In my opinion, the correct response to the situation would be to acknowledge
that the one player had won and move on to another game.
David desJardins
> Bruno offered no opinion one way or the other (at least in r.g.b,
> where I'm reading this).
Bruno said they didn't even finish the game. That seems an obvious
indication that they weren't enjoying it. I guess one could consider a
game a "success" if Joe and Fred agree that they are going to collude to
ensure that Ben wins, and the other players agree that they can't stop
that, and so they don't play the game out because Ben's victory is
inevitable. But I think you would have a hard time finding many people
to agree that that sounds like fun.
> Richard Garfield said it's
> better (for him) not to play "political" games at all.
> I said all that's needed is a community code of behavior.
Well, there are two ways to avoid the objectionable elements that
Richard mentions (collusion, kingmaking, stalemates): by not playing
such games at all, or by adding group meta-rules of conduct. Richard's
article notes that such rules can help, but he comes to the conclusion
that he still doesn't tend to enjoy such games. Chief among the
reasons, it seems, is that he finds a "community code of behavior" to be
inevitably ambiguous in borderline cases, and he'd rather play a game
with very clearly defined rules, than with ambiguous and subjective
rules. That's a preference that I share. I think Bruno does, too.
What's wrong with such a preference?
David desJardins
Peter Sarrett
> Peter Sarrett <pe...@gamereport.com> writes:
> > Bruno offered no opinion one way or the other (at least in r.g.b,
> > where I'm reading this).
>
> Bruno said they didn't even finish the game. That seems an obvious
> indication that they weren't enjoying it.
No, it's an obvious indication that they didn't finish the game. You may be
correct that they were not enjoying it, or they might have been enjoying it
immensely and yet decided that it was pointless to play beyond the point at
which the outcome had been determined. Which of the two is not obvious from
Bruno's account.
> he finds a "community code of behavior" to be
> inevitably ambiguous in borderline cases, and he'd rather play a game
> with very clearly defined rules, than with ambiguous and subjective
> rules. That's a preference that I share. I think Bruno does, too.
> What's wrong with such a preference?
In the sense that you're entitled to any preference you like, nothing.
In the sense that it denies the realities of the world and is likely to
result in frequent disappointment, plenty. But we've now strayed beyond the
points I was originally interested in addressing, and I feel no need to
continue a pedantic debate.
- Peter
David desJardins
>> What's wrong with such a preference?
>
> In the sense that you're entitled to any preference you like, nothing.
>
> In the sense that it denies the realities of the world and is likely to
> result in frequent disappointment, plenty.
What is it that makes some gamers so anxious to force their preferences
on everyone else? Because I'd rather play Empire Builder or Titan than
Diplomacy or Junta, I'm "denying the realities of the world"? Sheesh.
Once again, Garfield didn't say that people don't impose their own
social meta-rules on political games. He said that, in fact, they do,
but he still finds such games less enjoyable than less political games.
To pretend that he enjoys certain games, when he doesn't, would be the
route that would "result in frequent disappointment".
David desJardins
Torben Ægidius Mogensen
For Junta, it would (almost) be considered in the spirit of the game
to make such play.
However, I generally agree that Kingmaking and self-destructive
retaliation take the fun out of multi-player games. But these are hard
to avoid, especially in games where "the winner takes it all", so
there is no incentive for improving your own position if you are not
able to win.
A way to reduce the problem is to give each player points and make
clear that the getting the most points is secondary to improving your
own number of points, e.g., by declaring all players that exceed a
certain number of points for winners or by keeping a running total
over a number of games.
In a tournament, a possibility is to assign people to teams across the
games. A player can win either by winning a single game or if his team
has the highest total over all the games they play in. Hence, a player
will not deliberately reduce his own score even if he can't win the
single game, as doing so will reduce his chance of a team victory.
This method is particularly effective if the players don't know the
positions of their team mates until after the games finish. To make it
work, a team victory should be as good as (or better than) an
individual victory for advancing in the tournament.
Torben Mogensen (tor...@diku.dk)
Anthony Simons
It seems clear that the only way around this behaviour is something in
the game's rules to prevent such collusion; in some games this has
been achieved but naturally in others it hasn't. Then there are games
which clearly encourage it; Monopoly for example, Diplomacy for
another.
Before you snap back at me, I refer to the situation described by the
example of Junta players above more than the general politics of
gaming as described by Mr Garfield.
The situation described should be deemed an acceptable play provided
the three are colluding within the bounds of the game rules. To do so
not because the other player is winning but because of some other
reason external to the game (he smells, you don't like his hairstyle,
he supports Everton/Manchester Utd) takes it outside of the bounds of
the game and makes the action socially unacceptable.
You should not acknowledge victory to someone who has not yet achieved
it; furthermore to sulk and not play with the other players anymore
because the other players allegedly "gang up" on you is not sporting
when the rules of the game allow this. In fact I would go as far as
to say it is even less sporting than their in-game collusion.
Bruno Wolff III
> "David desJardins" <de...@math.berkeley.edu> wrote in message
> news:vohwuyy...@math.berkeley.edu...
>> Peter Sarrett <pe...@gamereport.com> writes:
>> > Bruno offered no opinion one way or the other (at least in r.g.b,
>> > where I'm reading this).
>>
>> Bruno said they didn't even finish the game. That seems an obvious
>> indication that they weren't enjoying it.
>
> No, it's an obvious indication that they didn't finish the game. You may be
> correct that they were not enjoying it, or they might have been enjoying it
> immensely and yet decided that it was pointless to play beyond the point at
> which the outcome had been determined. Which of the two is not obvious from
> Bruno's account.
The game was fun for a while. Once things were determined it didn't seem
like much interesting was going to happen so we decided we had better
things to do (I think it was also getting late).
I haven't played diplomacy in a long time now. The game doesn't really
work unless you play chaoticly. Forming solid alliances and trading
wins seems to be the best strategy to use, but the game isn't really
fun that way. While I have a chaotic streak, I don't find playing Diplomacy
that way to be much fun.
I like playing multiplayer games for social reasons, but prefer games
where the effects of diplomacy are limited.
I agree with the article mentioned at or near the beginning of the thread
that Diplomacy and other games where diplomacy has strong effects, are all
essentially the same game. Diplomacy is just too long of a game which
is essentially a voting game. I would think a 6 round voting game could
capture the feel of Diplomacy and play out in less than an hour.
Iain Cheyne
br...@cerberus.csd.uwm.edu says...
> I would think a 6 round voting game could capture the feel of Diplomacy and
>play out in less than an hour.
Are there any voting games that fit that description?
--
Iain Cheyne
Replace 'invalid' with 'com' to reply.
Hannigan
Well, yes. Exactly. When I play casually, VP splits never occur.
But what we actually have at tournaments, AFAICS, is a community code
of behaviour that says that it's OK to combine resources and team up;
not, as I think you are suggesting, that it's NOT OK to do so. I
don't necessarily want to play that way, and don't want to play
against people who do play that way as long as there are some people
at the table(like, say, my wife) who don't play that way.
I agree that most groups of players would never allow such behaviour,
but, as Robert Goudie has pointed out, at a tournament this social
restriction doesn't apply, because the players don't constitute a
'group' who have to play together and get along. And, in any event,
the social restriction will only be felt by some players as long as
the powers that be say that it's the correct thing to do. I think
it's important that this awkwardness be avoided, and I think that the
only reasonable way is to outlaw deals where one player agrees that he
will help another to win.
I wonder if the people who say that table-splitting is the correct
thing to do also do it in their casual games? It wouldn't be accepted
around here, but perhaps they simply play in more cut-throat groups
than I do.
You see, I don't think there's anything _wrong_, per se, with playing
that way, and I would probably do it myself if that was how the game
was normally played in my group - there are certainly people who're
thick-skinned enough to take it. I just think that you won't get any
new players in a group if you make a habit of it, and will probably
eventually lose a number of embittered players, because it's an
unfriendly way to play.
Also, I think it's probably too hard to judge when a player honestly
and reasonably believes he has no chance to win the game, which, as I
understand, is a precondition for a VP split. How can we know that
it's not simply collusion? As far as I can see, there's no way to
establish that objectively, which is another good reason for banning
the practice.
Jordan Wolbrum
David desJardins wrote:
> What is it that makes some gamers so anxious to force their preferences
> on everyone else? Because I'd rather play Empire Builder or Titan than
> Diplomacy or Junta, I'm "denying the realities of the world"? Sheesh.
I don't think that's it at all.
Even Titan has a political component. Pretty much any multi-player game with
interaction has the potential problems of ganging up, kingmaking, etc. I've
played games of Titan where a player has said to me "Blue is getting too
strong. Fight instead of conceding, and I'll be able to kill his powerful
stack on my turn." Is this forbidden behavior (or even frowned upon) in most
gaming circles? Turns out that I didn't do it because I felt like it would
give too many points to the other player, who whined a whole bunch and still
won.
> Once again, Garfield didn't say that people don't impose their own
> social meta-rules on political games. He said that, in fact, they do,
> but he still finds such games less enjoyable than less political games.
> To pretend that he enjoys certain games, when he doesn't, would be the
> route that would "result in frequent disappointment".
I don't think the social meta-rules are missing in other multi-player games.
In fact, I don't think I've ever played any game with player interaction,
without "playing the players" to some degree. Unless all of the players
police themselves and the other players, there's going to be some table talk,
some "assuming an apparently weak position," and often some dealmaking.
-JW
>
> David desJardins
Glenn Kuntz
at this pretty inflexibly! :-)
I like political games & non-political, depending on so many other factors:
the game, the group, the mood everyone is in... Each experience with each
game is likely to be different - sometimes vastly different.
Sure I've been in some very political gaming situations; sometimes you just
gotta go with the flow, make the best of it, accept the additional
challenge, and not take it so personally. Other times, perhaps not. It
doesn't mean I'd never play a particular game or with a particular group
again - next time, things may be very different indeed!
Bruno Wolff III
>
> Even Titan has a political component. Pretty much any multi-player game with
> interaction has the potential problems of ganging up, kingmaking, etc. I've
> played games of Titan where a player has said to me "Blue is getting too
> strong. Fight instead of conceding, and I'll be able to kill his powerful
> stack on my turn." Is this forbidden behavior (or even frowned upon) in most
> gaming circles? Turns out that I didn't do it because I felt like it would
> give too many points to the other player, who whined a whole bunch and still
> won.
Deals along these lines are rare since in most cases the right decision
will be the same for both of you. The most common exception is when letting
the other person kill a Titan gives them too much of an advantage and you
need to add something else to the deal.
I would say that the most common deals I have seen people make in
tournaments is promises not to attack each other while disentangling
stacks.
Bruno Wolff III
> interaction has the potential problems of ganging up, kingmaking, etc. I've
> played games of Titan where a player has said to me "Blue is getting too
> strong. Fight instead of conceding, and I'll be able to kill his powerful
> stack on my turn." Is this forbidden behavior (or even frowned upon) in most
> gaming circles? Turns out that I didn't do it because I felt like it would
> give too many points to the other player, who whined a whole bunch and still
> won.
As a side note on how different groups' etiquette is different I have
seen varying views amoung relatively serious players on:
Advising other players.
Making deals in general.
Pulling off the masterboard to deny points to another player.
Early teleports into other player's towers.
Steve Burt
> that Diplomacy and other games where diplomacy has strong effects, are all
> essentially the same game. Diplomacy is just too long of a game which
> is essentially a voting game. I would think a 6 round voting game could
> capture the feel of Diplomacy and play out in less than an hour.
Well, I'd say you haven't played Diplomacy much if you think this.
While the Diplomatic aspect is much more important to your winning chances
than the on-board play, the on-board situation makes a big, big difference
to how people behave diplomatically.
The situation of each country's units, plus the succes or otherwise of your
orders affects the diplomacy.
If Diplomacy were really as dull as you paint it, it wouldn't have such a
huge following.
Maybe the game isn't to your taste, but personally I find games which offer
scope for bluff and double dealing, and which have imperfect information,
much more interesting than 'perfect information' games, or games for two
players only. Manipulating others, and avoiding being manipulated yourself,
is a lot of fun, and requires a lot of skill.
Matt Latham
> > I said all that's needed is a community code of behavior.
>
> Well, yes. Exactly. When I play casually, VP splits never occur.
>
> But what we actually have at tournaments, AFAICS, is a community code
> of behaviour that says that it's OK to combine resources and team up;
> not, as I think you are suggesting, that it's NOT OK to do so. I
> don't necessarily want to play that way, and don't want to play
> against people who do play that way as long as there are some people
> at the table(like, say, my wife) who don't play that way.
>
> I agree that most groups of players would never allow such behaviour,
> but, as Robert Goudie has pointed out, at a tournament this social
> restriction doesn't apply, because the players don't constitute a
> 'group' who have to play together and get along. And, in any event,
> the social restriction will only be felt by some players as long as
> the powers that be say that it's the correct thing to do
These are great points. This lack of social convention is why my wife
refuses to play in any tournaments anymore that aren't pre-releases.
At the last sanctioned constructed tourney I was in, my wife witnessed
someone jump up, point at me when he ousted me, and dance. First thing
she said to me was "That's why I don't play tournament Jyhad anymore".
She said the same thing to me when she saw someone berate another
player at his table for 20 minutes for not making a deal with him.
This from someone who back in the late 90's used to drive with me 5
hours to attend tournaments.
I agree with Robert that it's better to have something set in stone
than an "implied social contract". I used to drive myself nuts
imposing my definition of "cheezy" on others. I've been a lot more at
peace when instead of getting upset at the boring, redundant, and
exceptionally focused decks (especially when I've seen the same deck
1000 times before) I see at tournaments, I revel in those who dare to
bring innovative and creative deck designs. Instead of "shaming"
people, I make certain to tell the people who enhance my game
experience that they did so.
In the above example of the dancer/pointer, I did not make an issue of
that. I did make certain that the people at my next table who acted
with sportsmanship and who added creative twists to their decks knew I
appreciated it.
Its not fair to yourself or others to impose your social contract on
them. Instead just thank the people who play in a way that makes you
smile.
Matt
Bruno Wolff III
>
> Well, I'd say you haven't played Diplomacy much if you think this.
> While the Diplomatic aspect is much more important to your winning chances
> than the on-board play, the on-board situation makes a big, big difference
> to how people behave diplomatically.
> The situation of each country's units, plus the succes or otherwise of your
> orders affects the diplomacy.
The locations of the countries do make it harder for some people to work
together early in the game. Effectively it is hard for England to help
vote Turkey out of the game early on.
> If Diplomacy were really as dull as you paint it, it wouldn't have such a
> huge following.
I think a better depiction of my stance is that there is a lot of chrome
that makes the game take a lot longer to play.
> Maybe the game isn't to your taste, but personally I find games which offer
> scope for bluff and double dealing, and which have imperfect information,
> much more interesting than 'perfect information' games, or games for two
> players only. Manipulating others, and avoiding being manipulated yourself,
> is a lot of fun, and requires a lot of skill.
None of the above require the chrome of Diplomacy. A much simpler voting
game could still provide that (as well as a much shorter playing time).
Rich Shipley
a
> > huge following.
>
> I think a better depiction of my stance is that there is a lot of chrome
> that makes the game take a lot longer to play.
I think the "chrome" as you call it is the reason that many people like it.
I wouldn't be at all interested in a pure negotiating/voting game; the
boardgame portion is interesting in itself in addition to supplying the
context for negotiation.
Rich
Christian Killoran
"Anthony Simons" <fellon...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:ba74e481.02010...@posting.google.com...
<snip>
> You should not acknowledge victory to someone who has not yet achieved
> it; furthermore to sulk and not play with the other players anymore
> because the other players allegedly "gang up" on you is not sporting
> when the rules of the game allow this. In fact I would go as far as
> to say it is even less sporting than their in-game collusion.
If, as described in the earlier example, the 1st place player had achieved
an insurmountable position, then the socially correct thing for the other
players to do was to concede.
IIRC, in Junta, a player has 0% chance to win only when another player
already has more money in his Swiss account than your own account + the
remaining money available in the draw pile + other players pocket money.
It sounds like the three losing players "felt" it was unlikely that any of
them would win, and so collusion was therefore somehow appropriate. To me,
the ethics of kingmaking, etc. have everything to do with this point. Some
players feel that they are free to change the victory conditions (let's face
it...once the players made their decision they were no longer playing Junta)
as soon as their own chances of winning are small. I maintain that such
behavior is acceptable only when those chances really are 0%.
Bruno Wolff III
>
> I think the "chrome" as you call it is the reason that many people like it.
> I wouldn't be at all interested in a pure negotiating/voting game; the
> boardgame portion is interesting in itself in addition to supplying the
> context for negotiation.
I don't think the mechanical part of the game is of great interest to many
people as evidenced by not many people advocating two player Diplomacy
as a great game. The color of running a Great Power might be adding
something to the game.
Diplomacy is virtually all about negotiating and voting (with your
armies). Tactics (not Diplomatic tactics) is a very minor part of the game.
The strategic part of combat (such as who you can conveniently attack) could
be included in the rules of a voting game.
Rich Shipley
> In article <nCnZ7.49271$fo.16...@news1.rdc1.md.home.com>, Rich Shipley
wrote:
> >
> > I think the "chrome" as you call it is the reason that many people like
it.
> > I wouldn't be at all interested in a pure negotiating/voting game; the
> > boardgame portion is interesting in itself in addition to supplying the
> > context for negotiation.
>
> I don't think the mechanical part of the game is of great interest to many
> people as evidenced by not many people advocating two player Diplomacy
> as a great game. The color of running a Great Power might be adding
> something to the game.
I have lots of games that I like for their mechanics that don't play well
two-player. This argument is not convincing. I've actually played two player
dip with bidding rules for the other powers and it wasn't very good. But
I've also played multi-player gunboat with no negotiations and had a good
time with it.
> Diplomacy is virtually all about negotiating and voting (with your
> armies). Tactics (not Diplomatic tactics) is a very minor part of the
game.
Tactics are what your negotiations are about and how you express your will.
There are also opportunies for clever play that can turn the tide in your
favor. I see tactics (and strategy) as a big part of the game.
> The strategic part of combat (such as who you can conveniently attack)
could
> be included in the rules of a voting game.
Sounds like a boring game to me. I have no problem with your not liking
Diplomacy, there's lots of popular games I don't like either. It makes no
sense however to say that the game would work better if it were completely
different. It would then be a different game that a different group of
people would like.
Rich
Kevin J. Maroney
<xm...@pcisys.net> wrote:
>If, as described in the earlier example, the 1st place player had achieved
>an insurmountable position, then the socially correct thing for the other
>players to do was to concede.
>
>IIRC, in Junta, a player has 0% chance to win only when another player
>already has more money in his Swiss account than your own account + the
>remaining money available in the draw pile + other players pocket money.
The player in the lead had approximately half of the money in the
entire game in his Swiss bank account and was hiding in exile. It was
unclear whether he had more or less than half the money, but it was
definitely the case that A had more money in his Swiss bank account
than (the amount left unbanked) + (the amount any other player had).
In other words, the only chance any of the other players had to win
was to accumulate all or almost all of the money not in player A's
Swiss bank account, including the money that players B, C, and D had
put into their Swiss bank accounts.
>It sounds like the three losing players "felt" it was unlikely that any of
>them would win, and so collusion was therefore somehow appropriate. To me,
>the ethics of kingmaking, etc. have everything to do with this point. Some
>players feel that they are free to change the victory conditions (let's face
>it...once the players made their decision they were no longer playing Junta)
>as soon as their own chances of winning are small. I maintain that such
>behavior is acceptable only when those chances really are 0%.
The only way that player B could possibly have won the game was to get
his hands on the money players C and D had already banked. Symmetrical
statements are true for player C and D. The only way players B, C, and
D could think to convince any of the others to make a withdrawal was
via collusion. Perhaps we missed a strategy.
Besides, I'm not sure I agree with your premise. Assume that the
player A had not, in fact, won the game outright at that point.
Even if player B (or C or D) had a 1% chance of winning the game
without the collusion, his odds of winning went to 33% as soon as he
agreed to the collusion. It takes exceptional effort to argue that a
player should deliberately choose a method of play which *reduces* his
odds of winning the game just to avoid the appearance of breaking
unwritten rules of the game.
Greg Aleknevicus
wrote:
>Besides, I'm not sure I agree with your premise. Assume that the
>player A had not, in fact, won the game outright at that point.
>Even if player B (or C or D) had a 1% chance of winning the game
>without the collusion, his odds of winning went to 33% as soon as he
>agreed to the collusion. It takes exceptional effort to argue that a
>player should deliberately choose a method of play which *reduces* his
>odds of winning the game just to avoid the appearance of breaking
>unwritten rules of the game.
I do not like the mathematical slant of your argument Kevin. Here's
why:
Assumptions:
- four player game between equally skilled players.
- mechanics are such that if three of the four players act in unison
they can guarantee victory for one of the three players.
(I believe that these assumptions describe a great majority of the
games discussed on rgb.)
Before the game begins each player has a 25% chance of winning. If
three of the players enter an agreement as you describe, their
individual chances rise to 33%. (Due to the random draw to see which
of the three they'll all help to win.) Therefore you could argue that
to not make such an agreement is also reducing your odds of winning. I
don't expect that there'd be many people that would agree this is
"fair" or desirable.
I concede that the difference between a 1% chance of winning and a 25%
is great which is why it might appear acceptable in your example but
absurd in mine. However, I believe that the underlying principle is
the same. From a practical standpoint, where do you draw the line? Is
it acceptable to form this coalition when each individual has only a
20% chance to win? 10%? 5%?
From my point of view the "correct" way to deal with a situation where
one playe seems to be unstoppable is to finish the game* and
congratulate him/her on a well earned victory.
* Of course conceding the game is also an option if ALL players agree.
Greg Aleknevicus
Editor, The Games Journal
http://www.thegamesjournal.com
Andrew S. Davidson
>Certain kinds of behavior break a game, or other players' enjoyment of it.
>Expecting all such behavior to be explicitly banned by the rules is
>unrealistic and should not be necessary.
>...
>In short: we don't need to legislate morality, in society or in games.
Unlike the real world, it appears to be an axiom of games that
anything which is not explicitly permitted is forbidden. That's
because a game is an artificial universe with arbitrary rules in which
anything might be possible and so you can't rely upon common sense to
constrain the players.
Political negotiation and deals can have a significant impact upon a
game. It follows that, unless a game explicitly permits such speech,
it is forbidden. Part of the charm of Diplomacy is that it explicitly
encourages you to make and break deals. The morality it legislates is
that of realpolitik.
A game such as Scrabble is silent on the subject. It would therefore
be inappropriate for players in a multi-player game to do things like
show each other their rack, plan big words together and so forth. The
game is about making words to score points and that's all. The moral
issues which tend to arise concern the legitimacy of words. In the
similar case of Boggle, we used to have a player who would regularly
use the archiac familiar form of English when conjugating words, e.g.
the verb "go" might be extended as "goest" or "goeth". This was so
amusing that we let it pass but I'm sure it would cause trouble in
other circles.
Andrew
Andrew S. Davidson
>Besides, I'm not sure I agree with your premise. Assume that the
>player A had not, in fact, won the game outright at that point.
>Even if player B (or C or D) had a 1% chance of winning the game
>without the collusion, his odds of winning went to 33% as soon as he
>agreed to the collusion. It takes exceptional effort to argue that a
>player should deliberately choose a method of play which *reduces* his
>odds of winning the game just to avoid the appearance of breaking
>unwritten rules of the game.
The reason that this lottery was wrong is that it was implicitly a
cross-game deal. The players who lose the lottery have no in-game
reason to honour the deal - it removes any possibility of their
winning the game, placing well or looking good. The only reason they
can have for honouring the deal is to preserve their reputation for
honesty. This is of no value in the current game, only the next one.
AFAIC, this makes their action illegal, immoral and unsporting.
The cure for this behaviour in this case might be to play with real
money. $1 per game unit seems about about right - that makes the pot
about $100, right? But that reminds me, I need to buy some lottery
tickets today - it's a double-rollover and so the odds are good.
Andrew
Trevor Hyde
1. No matter how the game is structured, you cannot remove all
personality issues with the players. Equally irritating to the
'political' complaints voiced in the article are poor sport
problems that are rampant in many gaming environments. There
are a lot of *ssh*l*s who game to get a feeling of superiority.
Whether you win or lose, the gaming experience tends to be
spoiled. There are people who carry grudges from game to game,
etc.
2. Artificial limitations lead to uniquely creative responses.
This results from the simple fact that the game designers cannot
outwit every potential player. The Kingmaker problem is really
about victory conditions, not player interaction: there is no
incentive to improve your own position in most games if you do
not come in first place. If the game singularly rewards a sole
victor, then people will create non-traditional paths to victory
when traditional paths are exhausted. At the very least, a
stalemate option should be available.
I think that this issue is a particularly important area for
future game development. Especially for games that are supposed to
simulate human interaction, to any degree (historical simulations,
Jyhad, etc.). People involved in naturalistic competitive arenas
typically have different goals, which may or may not be in conflict,
allowing more than one party to achieve its goals. Diplomatic games
often fail by not allowing this. For example, many countries were
victorius in each of the major European conflicts (WWI, WWII, the
Napoleonic wars, etc.). However, the game Diplomacy only allows a
single victor. Many space opera types of games (Galactic Empires,
Twilight Imperium, etc.) provide spectacular simulations of space
exploration and technology development, than fall absolutely flat
with lifeless victory requirements that have little to do with the
game theme. Games usually enforce artificial competitive arenas
(usually with the sole goal being domination) to minimize rules
problems. In essence, everyone is being forced to play the role
of Hitler or Hirohito, rather than Churchill or Roosevelt.
Games that offer individual goals-oriented victory conditions are
rare, but they do exist. Europa Universalis is a great example,
although the game design is prohibitively convoluted. Games with
aspects of multiple simultaneous solitaire (especially Civilization)
get much of this feel because many players are just trying to
improve their own performance in comparison to previous trials.
3. Individual games exist within a broader context. Irritating
behavior on the part of a player can serve a function. For example,
one guy in our group constantly tries to test the rules boundaries
of games when he first plays them, and ends up losing spectacularly,
often throwing the balance off, and really irritating the old school
gamers in the group. However, he tends to do extremely well the next
time he plays the game because he learns the nooks and cranies of
the game's strategies. He was introduced to gaming relatively recently,
and would otherwise not stand a chance against the older gamers in
the group (20+ years of wargaming experience each).
Trevor
RRI1
>> It happened in a diplomacy game I was in.
(description of a stalemated Diplomacy game where an alliance intentionally
ceded centers to allinace partners so at least one of them could win the game
was deleted by Peter.)
>And this was satisfying and acceptable to everyone? I don't play
>Diplomacy, so I don't know if this sort of thing is the norm.
Not really.
The official rules of the game state that if the players agree to stop playing
before a player has acheived victory the game is a n-way draw among all of the
surviving players.
Often PBM zines and tournaments have house rules that can (with unanimous
agreement of all surviving players) in a draw not including all surviving
players. Typically what happens if one player doesn't agree to the draw that
the remaining players want, he is attacked until either he agrees or
demonstrates that he cannot be left out of the draw.
In the game Bruno described (a 3 on 2 game with the board essentially
stalemated (18-16 with no hope of progress by either alliance) and all players
realized the fultility of trechery in the situation (because they knew the
traitor would not be well treated by the now advantageous side), then a 5
player draw is a good result for this game.
If however, one of the two sides was advancing and over 18 SC, often a a draw
only involving the winning alliance will be agreed to.
What happened was the 3 player alliance decided to make sure one of the members
of their side wins, by allowing him to take over all of his supply centers.
This means the players who arranged this know they were really part of 3 way
draw.
This plan is risky because if the alliance trying to get a (3-way) win makes a
mistake and allows the other alliance to gain a center, they don't even get the
win. It may not be possible to "switch out" the units to the designated winner
withot leaving an opening for the 2 players side.
It probably would hvae been better to either simply agree to the 5 way or agree
to a 3 way (if allowed) and end the game without going through the motions.
>But if I were to invest
>the kind of time that Diplomacy requires, I'd be extremely disturbed to have
>it end in a manner which trivializes everything that has come before and
>would think twice about playing with those players, or that game, again.
Fair enough, but that is definitely part of Diplomacy: It so often in a
muddled ending of some sort.
Allan Calhamer (the inventor) makes the argument that a perfectly played game
of Diplomacy ends up always in a 7 way draw. (i.e. it really never ends until
the players agree to stop.) If you don't like games where you can get this
sort of muddled result, Diplomacy is not for you.
Richard Irving rr...@aol.com
Made with recycled electrons!
Anthony Simons
> "Anthony Simons" <fellon...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:ba74e481.02010...@posting.google.com...
> <snip>
> > You should not acknowledge victory to someone who has not yet achieved
> > it; furthermore to sulk and not play with the other players anymore
> > because the other players allegedly "gang up" on you is not sporting
> > when the rules of the game allow this. In fact I would go as far as
> > to say it is even less sporting than their in-game collusion.
>
> If, as described in the earlier example, the 1st place player had achieved
> an insurmountable position, then the socially correct thing for the other
> players to do was to concede.
I cannot agree that this could be deemed socially correct; if I were
to take that stance with a game of Monopoly for example then the only
socially acceptable action to take once one player has a set of
streets with hotels and no other player even has a complete set (with
all properties sold) is throw in the towel.
Of course, we do not. We instead trade amongst ourselves until one or
more of us attains a set with which to compete; otherwise the play
will continue until inevitably all players land on the leader's
property and eventually become bankrupt. This collusion is a
generally accepted part of gameplay; though this game isn't one of my
favourites, when I do play it there would be little point if collusion
was not part of the game.
>
> IIRC, in Junta, a player has 0% chance to win only when another player
> already has more money in his Swiss account than your own account + the
> remaining money available in the draw pile + other players pocket money.
>
> It sounds like the three losing players "felt" it was unlikely that any of
> them would win, and so collusion was therefore somehow appropriate. To me,
> the ethics of kingmaking, etc. have everything to do with this point. Some
> players feel that they are free to change the victory conditions (let's face
> it...once the players made their decision they were no longer playing Junta)
> as soon as their own chances of winning are small. I maintain that such
> behavior is acceptable only when those chances really are 0%.
I have not had the pleasure (or perhaps displeasure) of playing Junta.
But if the rules encourage collusion you should not be surprised if,
when the other players see nothing but defeat unless they collude in
such a fashion, that the players do so. If we take the collusion from
a game which requires it then where do we draw THAT line?
I am of the opinion that those who believe it is poor social etiquette
to play within the bounds of a game's rules are themselves violating
the gaming etiquette and bending the rules in their favour. This is
as socially repellant to me as the player or players who allow
external events to influence their play.
And it is external influences in the game which should be avoided.
Kevin J. Maroney
wrote:
>The reason that this lottery was wrong is that it was implicitly a
>cross-game deal. The players who lose the lottery have no in-game
>reason to honour the deal - it removes any possibility of their
>winning the game, placing well or looking good. The only reason they
>can have for honouring the deal is to preserve their reputation for
>honesty. This is of no value in the current game, only the next one.
"Placing well" and "looking good" are cross-game considerations, as
well. That leaves "winning" as an in-game consideration; the players
have already determined that their chances of winning the game are
effectively 0%. They have nothing to lose, in-game, by doing any
particular action; player A has won unless B, C, and D collude.
Kevin J. Maroney
Aleknevicus) wrote:
>I do not like the mathematical slant of your argument Kevin. Here's
>why:
>
>Assumptions:
>
>- four player game between equally skilled players.
>- mechanics are such that if three of the four players act in unison
>they can guarantee victory for one of the three players.
>
>(I believe that these assumptions describe a great majority of the
>games discussed on rgb.)
>
>Before the game begins each player has a 25% chance of winning. If
>three of the players enter an agreement as you describe, their
>individual chances rise to 33%. (Due to the random draw to see which
>of the three they'll all help to win.) Therefore you could argue that
>to not make such an agreement is also reducing your odds of winning. I
>don't expect that there'd be many people that would agree this is
>"fair" or desirable.
I don't think it's fair or desirable. But I don't *know* why it isn't.
Well, to some degree, I do know: Because most people assume that in a
n-player game, the payoff matrix is
Place | Payoff
1st Many many many points
2nd Some points
...
Last No points
Most multiplayer games' actual stated payoff matrix is
Place | Payoff
1st A point
2nd No points
...
Last No points
Agreeing to a collusion before the game can make sense with the latter
payoff matrix.
Making multiplayer games *not* degenerate into coaltion building takes
skill.
The degenerate form of the game would be... let's call it "Power
Politics". In this N-player game, any player can make a permanent
coalition with any one other player with the consent of the other
player or permanently join an existing coalition with the consent of
all of the members of the coalition. At the end of a time limit, one
of the members of the largest coalition is randomly chosen to win. In
this game, it is in every player's interest to join the largest
existing coalition and, once in a coalition, to not allow any more
players to join unless there is a larger coalition.
Huh. That might be interesting to play. It sounds more interesting to
me than _Werewolf_....
Christian Killoran
"Kevin J. Maroney" <k...@panix.com> wrote
>The degenerate form of the game would be... let's call it "Power
> Politics". In this N-player game, any player can make a permanent
> coalition with any one other player with the consent of the other
> player or permanently join an existing coalition with the consent of
> all of the members of the coalition. At the end of a time limit, one
> of the members of the largest coalition is randomly chosen to win. In
> this game, it is in every player's interest to join the largest
> existing coalition and, once in a coalition, to not allow any more
> players to join unless there is a larger coalition.
>
> Huh. That might be interesting to play. It sounds more interesting to
> me than _Werewolf_....
Actually, that does sound interesting! Wouldn't the coalitions stabilize at
a point where some were tied? If so, a tie-breaker would be needed. Or
would this be a condition for leaving a coalition?
Andrew S. Davidson
>2. Artificial limitations lead to uniquely creative responses.
>This results from the simple fact that the game designers cannot
>outwit every potential player. The Kingmaker problem is really
>about victory conditions, not player interaction: there is no
>incentive to improve your own position in most games if you do
>not come in first place. If the game singularly rewards a sole
>victor, then people will create non-traditional paths to victory
>when traditional paths are exhausted. At the very least, a
>stalemate option should be available.
It's best if the possibility of victory only disappears when the game
is over or the player is eliminated. If a multi-player game can put
players in a no-win situation so that their play is aimless then it is
ipso facto a bad design.
>Games usually enforce artificial competitive arenas
>(usually with the sole goal being domination) to minimize rules
>problems. In essence, everyone is being forced to play the role
>of Hitler or Hirohito, rather than Churchill or Roosevelt.
Churchill was arguably the most bellicose of these four. I once
played his role in a good PBM wargame called WW2. This had excellent
personal victory conditions. In his case, these included preservation
of the British Empire, the deposing of Hitler and the removal from
power of the Nazis. But most important was that Churchill himself
should become Prime Minister! (he started the game as First Lord of
the Admiralty). He didn't do too well in the real thing because,
while he achieved most of these goals, he wasn't PM at the end of it
all.
>Games that offer individual goals-oriented victory conditions are
>rare, but they do exist.
The Babylon 5 CCG had a good feature of "agenda" cards which gave the
races and their ambassadors different ways of scoring victory points.
I like it when there are hidden agendas too, e.g. the UFOs in
Illuminati or the missions/character cards in Chrononauts.
Something of the sort might be a good addition to Vampire (the game
that sparked this discussion). The game makes it clear that the
objectives of the ancient masters are inscrutable but then fails to
live up to this this by giving them just one simple way of scoring VPs
- by destroying their left-hand neighbour. Hidden goals and agendas
would be fun and would help undermine solid alliances because the
outcome would be less certain. For example, the following might be
out-of-turn master cards which you play as and when you achieve a
goal:
1. Triumph of the Sabbat - score 1 VP when you burn a vampires with a
Camarilla title if there are no other vampires with Camarilla titles
in play.
2. Control of the City - score 1 VP if you control five locations
and no other player controls any.
3. Cull the Weak - score 1 VP when you burn a vampire with a capacity
of 1 or 2 if there are no other vampires of this kind in play.
Andrew
Andrew S. Davidson
>"Placing well" and "looking good" are cross-game considerations, as
>well.
No. Such value as they have does not depend upon other games.
>That leaves "winning" as an in-game consideration; the players
>have already determined that their chances of winning the game are
>effectively 0%. They have nothing to lose, in-game, by doing any
>particular action; player A has won unless B, C, and D collude.
It is not in the interest of C or D to make B win instead of A. It
only makes any sense if there is cross-game collusion, in which B will
reciprocate (as Garfield explains). I consider this to be cheating.
Andrew
Rich Shipley
news:882DF3B68D94017D.27044B69...@lp.airnews.net...
>
> It's best if the possibility of victory only disappears when the game
> is over or the player is eliminated. If a multi-player game can put
> players in a no-win situation so that their play is aimless then it is
> ipso facto a bad design.
If someone has a chance to win at the end of the game no matter how poorly
they have played, it is ipso facto a bad design.
Rich
Kevin J. Maroney
wrote:
>On Sat, 05 Jan 2002 22:23:35 -0500, Kevin J. Maroney wrote:
>
>>"Placing well" and "looking good" are cross-game considerations, as
>>well.
>
>No. Such value as they have does not depend upon other games.
They have no value within the game. Therefore, the only value they can
have is "cross-game".
>>That leaves "winning" as an in-game consideration; the players
>>have already determined that their chances of winning the game are
>>effectively 0%. They have nothing to lose, in-game, by doing any
>>particular action; player A has won unless B, C, and D collude.
>
>It is not in the interest of C or D to make B win instead of A. It
>only makes any sense if there is cross-game collusion, in which B will
>reciprocate (as Garfield explains). I consider this to be cheating.
It is not *against* the interests of C or D to make B win instead of
A, once C and D have no chance of winning. C and D are not compelled
by game logic to stick to their deal, but they are not discouraged
from it, either. (It's a classic kingmaker situation.) Since there is
no game reason not to do this, it seems to be a gigantic leap to call
it "cheating".
Frederick Scott
I think that's kind of your personal taste showing. A million weekday
game shows say you're wrong. These are the guys who will lose a ton of
money if people vote with their feet and turn the show off. They *DON'T*
design "bad" games - at least, not for very long they don't. And they all
have a "final round" that counts nearly as much as the rest of the game so
that no one's out of it completely until the game has actually ended.
Sometimes, if you play badly enough, you can be eliminated before then but
it's pretty hard.
Yes, my definition of "bad" here is keyed on the cultural medium
and who it attracts. Your mileage will certainly vary. But it still makes
my point, I think. I've seen some pretty good board games that allowed
for players who were way behind but not eliminated from play to somehow get
back into it. It's not necessarily a bad thing; it just depends on how
that mechanic works. If it's pretty much random and happens often enough
that players who've done well in the early game frequently feel cheated
by some late game development, then I agree with you. OTOH, if it gives a
trailing player something to work at diligently to have _some_ relatively
modest chance of putting himself back into the thick of the pack, I think
that can be a very good element of a game.
However you may feel about good and "bad" play, Andrew's point is excellent.
The framework of boardgame rules involves an assumption that all players
are playing to win. So creating a population of players who cannot win for
a significant portion of the game and who have no motive to do anything else
that was designed into the game by the game designers will find their own
motivations, and their play will often screw up the intent of the game. This
is a classic example of bad design, though it's sufficiently subtle that the
average game designer never thinks about it.
As for "bad play", in multiplayer games that's often hard to discern from
"good play" that went bad for some reason or another: bad die rolls, in CCGs
a bad metagame choice, and particularly the play of other players. Particularly
that last one. In multiplayer games, it often happens that your position gets
hosed not by your own bad play but by the horrible choices made by some dipshit
who gleefully acts as the willing lapdog for the wrong alliance, blind to how
he's going to get doublecrossed the instant your position has been reduced to
rubble and you're no longer able to help him. Therefore, I also don't think
it's a good assumption you make that players who lead have played well and those
who are way behind played badly and deserve no chance of winning. Tain't
necessarily so.
Fred
Christopher Dearlove
<br...@cerberus.csd.uwm.edu> writes
>I don't think the mechanical part of the game is of great interest to many
>people as evidenced by not many people advocating two player Diplomacy
>as a great game.
One of the conventions I go to (Manorcon, July, Birmingham, UK) which
has
a major Diplomacy element (I rarely play in it) always has an Intimate
Diplomacy (a 2 player variant - don't ask me for details) tournament
which seems to get a fair number of entries, so some people like it.
--
Christopher Dearlove
Christopher Dearlove
s.net>, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> writes
>Unlike the real world, it appears to be an axiom of games that
>anything which is not explicitly permitted is forbidden.
That may be true _within the game_, but it clearly isn't true outside
the game, where talking about the game is outside it by default.
("appears to be an axiom" is a bit of a dodgy concept as well.)
>Political negotiation and deals can have a significant impact upon a
>game. It follows that, unless a game explicitly permits such speech,
>it is forbidden.
And hence I think this conclusion is invalid. At best it may be a
social convention that your group follows. (And good luck to you,
all groups need conventions, if this works for you, fine. However
it certainly doesn't work for any group I've been in - except for
specific, highly regulated games such as chess and bridge.)
To take a specific example I've never played in a Siedler group
where if a player moving the thief said "which is better, next
to X's wheat or ore?" other players couldn't answer. (Most groups
I've played in allow a lot more, but I'm trying not to confuse
the issue, as lines have to be drawn somewhere.)
(Whilst posting, a point I haven't seen mentioned yet, but is
always relevant in this context - especially the coin flip to
combine resources issue - is attitudes to coming second, third
etc. for which see many past threads.)
--
Christopher Dearlove
Christopher Dearlove
<freds64_at_...@removethis.com> writes
>Rich Shipley wrote:
>> If someone has a chance to win at the end of the game no matter how poorly
>> they have played, it is ipso facto a bad design.
>
>I think that's kind of your personal taste showing. A million weekday
>game shows say you're wrong.
Three points
(a) There's a big difference between the viewpoint of a game player and
a game spectator (although of course sometimes they coincide).
(b) When playing for money unless the game is designed to be winner
takes all (and I have only seen enough game shows, of the sort
you are referring to, to know some are, some aren't) positions
other than first matter, and things are rather different than
games played for fun (if the stakes are large enough).
(c) The sort of hardened gamer you get round here has different
(I'll avoid the subjective "higher") standards than the majority
of the population.
--
Christopher Dearlove
Christopher Dearlove
>players in a no-win situation so that their play is aimless then it is
>ipso facto a bad design.
A definite overstatement. I can't think of a multiplayer game in
which I couldn't put myself in a no-win situation (generally by
doing nothing, or sometimes something even more counterproductive).
So to be sensible you have to qualify it in terms of a player playing
sensibly ... and then how do you separate this from well?
Your comment will end up classifying all multiplayer games as bad.
(OK, there are a few minor exceptions, snakes and ladders being one.
You can argue if that's really a game - as we've done before here.)
>Churchill was arguably the most bellicose of these four.
Well personally, maybe (although Hitler was in the German army in WWI).
In terms of leading a nation, I think not. Even if you discounted
all Hitler's other actions, it's pretty difficult to find any act of
any other WWII leader more bellicose than invading the USSR - Tojo
in December 1941 possibly excepted.
--
Christopher Dearlove
Frederick Scott
>
> In article <882DF3B68D94017D.27044B69...@lp.airnew
> s.net>, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> writes
> >If a multi-player game can put
> >players in a no-win situation so that their play is aimless then it is
> >ipso facto a bad design.
>
> A definite overstatement. I can't think of a multiplayer game in
> which I couldn't put myself in a no-win situation (generally by
> doing nothing, or sometimes something even more counterproductive).
All general statements, when applied pedantically, are "overstatements".
You need to look at the point he's making (and frankly, the points I
was making in my reply to Rich Shipley's point) for what it's worth.
You're right, if you try hard enough, you can put yourself in a no-win
situation in any multiplayer game. But that's a lot easier in some games
than others. So read Andrew's statement as meaning, "To the extent players
find themselves in no-win situations in multiplayer games, the game is
badly designed." As with a lot of things, it's probably impossible to
avoid this problem altogether. But some games are definitely better than
others in this sense.
I'd elaborate more on why this is, but I already did so in my other post
which you nitpicked to death. (Hint: all analogies are ultimately flawed,
too. I already knew there were differences between game shows and board
games, etc., before I made the comparison. Are you arguing to make a
point or are you arguing just to argue?)
Fred
Chris Byler
Simons) wrote:
I don't think mutually beneficial deals are "collusion" in the sense
it's being used here.
In the hypothetical example, the losing players are throwing away
their game position to help one other player overtake the leader; the
equivalent action in Monopoly would be to trade all your property and
cash to another player for $1. This goes far beyond dealmaking.
But how far? Who determines whether a deal is legitimately two-sided
or collusion? Some cases are clearly one or the other, but there's a
huge middle ground. If I have the wood port in Settlers, there seems
to be no good reason for me to trade another player two wood for one
wheat (for players unfamiliar with Settlers, possession of the wood
port allows me to make the same trade with the bank) - does that mean
such a trade should be banned? Maybe I want him to have the wood so
he can compete for longest road with another player who is close to
winning. On the other hand, trading him two wood for one wood is
clearly not a fair trade - but might still be worth my while for the
same reason.
>> IIRC, in Junta, a player has 0% chance to win only when another player
>> already has more money in his Swiss account than your own account + the
>> remaining money available in the draw pile + other players pocket money.
>>
>> It sounds like the three losing players "felt" it was unlikely that any of
>> them would win, and so collusion was therefore somehow appropriate. To me,
>> the ethics of kingmaking, etc. have everything to do with this point. Some
>> players feel that they are free to change the victory conditions (let's face
>> it...once the players made their decision they were no longer playing Junta)
>> as soon as their own chances of winning are small. I maintain that such
>> behavior is acceptable only when those chances really are 0%.
If the behavior increases their odds of winning, how can you consider
it unacceptable? Isn't it, in fact, superior play for the game under
discussion?
Of course, as has already been pointed out, proposing the same deal
with the intention of reneging if you lose the coin toss is an even
better strategy... and _that's_ the kind of thing Garfield is talking
about, IMO. If you can talk to other players, you can lie to and
manipulate other players, and there will be situations in which it is
to your advantage to do so. That, even more than kingmaking, is what
ruins some multiplayer games for some players.
Some players will go along with such a deal, and some will refuse, and
some will pretend to agree but back out when the deal is no longer to
their advantage (unless there's a game mechanic allowing them to be
bound to the deal). Players who destroy their own game position for
no in-game return (the ones who lose the coin flip and then give their
money to the winner) are playing poorly, in that they're allowing
themselves to be manipulated by another player to their own
disadvantage. But except in the most clear-cut cases I wouldn't call
that dishonest - it might not have occurred to the player that not
everybody intended to honor the deal after the coin was flipped.
Given that "make the deal, back out if it doesn't go my way" wasn't
even discussed on this thread before now (that I saw, anyway), it's
not surprising that some players would fall into the false dichotomy
of accept the deal (odds of winning 1/3) or reject the deal (odds of
winning 0) and choose the former.
>I have not had the pleasure (or perhaps displeasure) of playing Junta.
> But if the rules encourage collusion you should not be surprised if,
>when the other players see nothing but defeat unless they collude in
>such a fashion, that the players do so. If we take the collusion from
>a game which requires it then where do we draw THAT line?
>
>I am of the opinion that those who believe it is poor social etiquette
>to play within the bounds of a game's rules are themselves violating
>the gaming etiquette and bending the rules in their favour. This is
>as socially repellant to me as the player or players who allow
>external events to influence their play.
>
>And it is external influences in the game which should be avoided.
A good point. If the game rules are written to openly or tacitly
allow collusion and deal-making, collusion and deal-making are part of
the game. Players who are poor at avoiding manipulation by other
players (i.e. dupes) may reduce the enjoyment of the game for other
players - and are unlikely to enjoy it much themselves - but will
hopefully learn something from it and play that game more carefully in
future.
--
Chris Byler cby...@vt.edu
"It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the
baker that we expect our supper, but from their regard to their own
interest." -- Adam Smith, _The Wealth of Nations_
Christopher Dearlove
e_do...@removethis.com> writes
>Christopher Dearlove wrote:
>>
>> In article <882DF3B68D94017D.27044B69...@lp.airnew
>> s.net>, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> writes
>> >If a multi-player game can put
>> >players in a no-win situation so that their play is aimless then it is
>> >ipso facto a bad design.
>>
>> A definite overstatement. I can't think of a multiplayer game in
>> which I couldn't put myself in a no-win situation (generally by
>> doing nothing, or sometimes something even more counterproductive).
>
>All general statements, when applied pedantically, are "overstatements".
>You need to look at the point he's making (and frankly, the points I
>was making in my reply to Rich Shipley's point) for what it's worth.
No, I wanted to indicate not just that his statement was slightly too
general, but that it was very much too general. I made the mathematician's
mistake of providing an extreme case counterexample rather than a more
significant one.
>You're right, if you try hard enough, you can put yourself in a no-win
>situation in any multiplayer game. But that's a lot easier in some games
>than others. So read Andrew's statement as meaning, "To the extent players
>find themselves in no-win situations in multiplayer games, the game is
>badly designed."
Well Andrew needs to work on his phrasing, which was the much stronger
comment that if the game _can put_ players in a no-win situation then
the game is a bad design. That's the statement I was against.
Now if I take your, better, reformulation it's actually a valid point.
(Of course there's a creative tension between this and the "nothing
you do in the first half of the game matters" problem.) However it's
also worth point out that a key point is the players' skill levels.
To take a specific example a game which is often criticised for this
problem is Outpost. It's very easy to get behind so far you're dead
meat. So is Outpost a bad game. Not necessarily, among players who know
what they are doing Outpost can work very well - and is a regular at
one convention I attend. For those players Outpost is not a bad game,
they postpone the "can't catch up" until sufficiently late in the game
it's worth finishing.
In fact why limit ourselves to multiplayer games, it's a problem just
as much in two player games. (I know, the discussion came from one about
aspects of games which are multiplayer, but this isn't - although some
of the consequences thereof may be.) So let's consider chess. It's
remarkably easy to get into a no-win situation playing chess. Yes,
serious players resign the game when they realise this, but less
serious ones tend not to. I've seen a poor player carrying on a lost
game for a long time futilely hoping for an error by his opponent
with no hope. So is chess a bad design? (Is the Pope Muslim?)
>I already knew there were differences between game shows and board
>games, etc., before I made the comparison. Are you arguing to make a
>point or are you arguing just to argue?
I was pointing out that your example of game shows was almost
completely irrelevant to the case in point (we were discussing playing
games, the example was what was satisfactory to a spectator) and
therefore an almost worthless comparison. If you wanted to make the
point you need a game which is good _to play_ which has the property
you want. (And I think not involving money, as that also is different.)
I'm not saying you can't find one. (Actually I can find games I enjoy
with this property, but I think they're all flawed in some way.)
Is that pointed enough for you?
--
Christopher Dearlove
James Coupe
In message <882DF3B68D94017D.27044B69...@lp.airnew
s.net>, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> writes:
>The game makes it clear that the
>objectives of the ancient masters are inscrutable but then fails to
>live up to this this by giving them just one simple way of scoring VPs
>- by destroying their left-hand neighbour. Hidden goals and agendas
>would be fun and would help undermine solid alliances because the
>outcome would be less certain.
However, these would significantly destabilise the game.
The game is based around the push-pull mechanism of pool vs defence.
You spend some pool to defend the rest. Spend too little, you can't
defend it. Spend too much, a small error will mean that they get
through and pulverise you too quickly.
This mechanism is fundamental. All cards in the game as based
fundamentally around this. Combat decks have hugely significant power
because of their omni-directability, but are significantly depowered by
the fact that they aren't affect pool. If simply burning vampires were
to give you victory points, the whole designed paradigm would crumble.
Granted, if you were redesigning the game from the ground up, you might
want to include alternate victory conditions. It would be extremely
hard to do so now, however, without completely wrecking the balances
that have been designed, tested, exploited, balanced and established.
--
James Coupe You remind me of the babe. What babe?
PGP 0x5D623D5D The babe with the power. What power?
EBD690ECD7A1FB457CA2 Power of voodoo. Who do?
13D7E668C3695D623D5D You do. Do what? Remind me of the babe.
Christian Killoran
"Chris Byler" <cby...@REMOVE-TO-REPLY.vt.edu> wrote
<snip a lot>
> If the behavior increases their odds of winning, how can you consider
> it unacceptable? Isn't it, in fact, superior play for the game under
> discussion?
No...at least not in the Junta example being discussed. At best, the tactic
represented superior rules lawyering. As was mentioned earlier, it was the
Monopoly equivalent of giving away all of your property to another player
for $1 just because you think you are in a weak position...technically
legal, but so far removed from a rational understanding of the spirit of the
rules that it can only be considered poor sportsmanship.
>
> Of course, as has already been pointed out, proposing the same deal
> with the intention of reneging if you lose the coin toss is an even
> better strategy... and _that's_ the kind of thing Garfield is talking
> about, IMO. If you can talk to other players, you can lie to and
> manipulate other players, and there will be situations in which it is
> to your advantage to do so.
Good theoretical point, but in the Junta example such a ploy would have been
outrageously hard to pull off...the chance of executing such a plan
sucessfully would require an alignment of so many unlikely circumstances
that a solo win would have been more likely in the first place! :)
Rich Shipley
news:3C3884DC...@removethis.com...
> Rich Shipley wrote:
> > "Andrew S. Davidson" <a...@csi.com> wrote in message
> >
news:882DF3B68D94017D.27044B69...@lp.airnews.net...
> > >
> > > It's best if the possibility of victory only disappears when the game
> > > is over or the player is eliminated. If a multi-player game can put
> > > players in a no-win situation so that their play is aimless then it is
> > > ipso facto a bad design.
> >
> > If someone has a chance to win at the end of the game no matter how
poorly
> > they have played, it is ipso facto a bad design.
>
> I think that's kind of your personal taste showing.
Of course it is. Just like the post I was responding to.
Rich
Kevin J. Maroney
<ch...@mnemosyne.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> writes
>>If a multi-player game can put
>>players in a no-win situation so that their play is aimless then it is
>>ipso facto a bad design.
>
>A definite overstatement. I can't think of a multiplayer game in
>which I couldn't put myself in a no-win situation (generally by
>doing nothing, or sometimes something even more counterproductive).
Note that Andrew's statement which you quote followed this sentence:
"It's best if the possibility of victory only disappears when the game
is over or the player is eliminated."
Taken together, Andrew's statement is an endorsement of player
elimination: If a player literally has no chance of winning, the game
should optimally remove the player from the game. Presumably he
believes this because players who have literally no chance of winning
a game often make random plays which don't accord with most players'
sense of how a game "should" be played--e.g., throwing the game to
another player.
I happen to agree with this position.
Frederick Scott
>
> In article <3C38C33F...@removethis.com>, Frederick Scott <freds64_at_hom
> e_do...@removethis.com> writes
> >Christopher Dearlove wrote:
> >>
> >> In article <882DF3B68D94017D.27044B69...@lp.airnew
> >> s.net>, Andrew S. Davidson <a...@csi.com> writes
> >> >If a multi-player game can put
> >> >players in a no-win situation so that their play is aimless then it is
> >> >ipso facto a bad design.
> >>
> >> A definite overstatement. I can't think of a multiplayer game in
> >> which I couldn't put myself in a no-win situation (generally by
> >> doing nothing, or sometimes something even more counterproductive).
> >
> >All general statements, when applied pedantically, are "overstatements".
> >You need to look at the point he's making (and frankly, the points I
> >was making in my reply to Rich Shipley's point) for what it's worth.
>
> No, I wanted to indicate not just that his statement was slightly too
> general, but that it was very much too general.
> Andrew needs to work on his phrasing, which was the much stronger
> comment that if the game _can put_ players in a no-win situation then
> the game is a bad design. That's the statement I was against.
>
> Now if I take your, better, reformulation it's actually a valid point.
> (Of course there's a creative tension between this and the "nothing
> you do in the first half of the game matters" problem.)
I think that's exactly the point: when Andrew talks about games that
put their players in "no-win" situations, you automatically construe
that to mean one has to design a game in which the first half of the
game doesn't matter to solve the problem - or at least Rich apparently
did. Rich's statement is the one I felt went off the deep end. There's
an enormous difference between a game where a player has some kind of
chance right up to the end of the game vs. one in which the first
half of the game doesn't matter at all. It's a bit of a creative
tension but I think there's all sorts of creative tensions in game
design.
> However it's
> also worth point out that a key point is the players' skill levels.
> To take a specific example a game which is often criticised for this
> problem is Outpost. It's very easy to get behind so far you're dead
> meat. So is Outpost a bad game. Not necessarily, among players who know
> what they are doing Outpost can work very well - and is a regular at
> one convention I attend. For those players Outpost is not a bad game,
> they postpone the "can't catch up" until sufficiently late in the game
> it's worth finishing.
It's still a design flaw. Here's the thing: if unskilled players have
gotten themselves in such a mess in the first half of a game which
severely tests skill, why is the game worth continuing through to the
second half? I'm pretty sure the answer is to test the skills of the
winning players sufficiently to determine a winner between them.
But Andrew is exactly correct about this: when this happens, you have a
problem going on in that the losing player or players - however unskilled
they may be in terms of advancing their own position - may well be capable
of engaging in kingmaking activities, deliberately or otherwise. If
so, then your game of skill is out the window - because the behavior
of these lousy players represents a random and (depending on the game)
often inordinately powerful element in the game. Give such players
some kind of goal to work towards and the other, better players can
begin to predict the formers' behavior and align their strategies to
cope with it.
> In fact why limit ourselves to multiplayer games, it's a problem just
> as much in two player games. (I know, the discussion came from one about
> aspects of games which are multiplayer, but this isn't - although some
> of the consequences thereof may be.)
The reason you don't worry about this in two-player games is that the
issues we're concerned about that derive from unpredictable behavior
can't arise. The two players play as long as the game entertains them
and then quit - or finish, however they will. Who cares? It's their
choice. But the losing player has no other motivation than to attempt
as best he can to continue to improve his position. He can't affect
play between two or more other players who still have a fighting chance.
> >I already knew there were differences between game shows and board
> >games, etc., before I made the comparison. Are you arguing to make a
> >point or are you arguing just to argue?
>
> I was pointing out that your example of game shows was almost
> completely irrelevant to the case in point (we were discussing playing
> games, the example was what was satisfactory to a spectator) and
> therefore an almost worthless comparison.
My example was just fine. It's not exactly the same thing being a player
vs. a spectator but for those purposes, the distinction isn't very
relevant. The game has to be interesting either way, to keep players
OR spectators interested. I think the example was quite relevant and I
think you're picking nits.
> If you wanted to make the
> point you need a game which is good _to play_ which has the property
> you want. (And I think not involving money, as that also is different.)
> I'm not saying you can't find one.
Then why are we even arguing about it? Rich Shipley's pat statement was
incorrect. Period.
Fred
Andrew S. Davidson
>>Unlike the real world, it appears to be an axiom of games that
>>anything which is not explicitly permitted is forbidden.
>
>That may be true _within the game_, but it clearly isn't true outside
>the game, where talking about the game is outside it by default.
I would distinguish role-playing commentary and banter from talk which
is designed to alter the course of the game. The latter cannot be
considered outside the game.
>And hence I think this conclusion is invalid. At best it may be a
>social convention that your group follows. (And good luck to you,
>all groups need conventions, if this works for you, fine. However
>it certainly doesn't work for any group I've been in - except for
>specific, highly regulated games such as chess and bridge.)
These are good examples - I doubt that you will find much free speech
at tournament level in these games. They even use screens and bidding
cards in bridge to prevent any kind of communications beyond that
permitted by the rules. That's because they take the game seriously.
The games we're talking about are just parlour games by comparison.
>To take a specific example I've never played in a Siedler group
>where if a player moving the thief said "which is better, next
>to X's wheat or ore?" other players couldn't answer.
I've not played that one but my experience is that such questions are
the occasion for much tedious time-wasting as players compete in
displays of erudition and misdirection. I think games slip into this
by stealth. When players are first introduced to the game there is
naturally much explanation of the rules and strategy as players are
still learning the details. But this then persists longer than it
should. Once players know how to play they should make their own
moves without all this extraneous chatter.
Andrew
Andrew S. Davidson
>If someone has a chance to win at the end of the game no matter how poorly
>they have played, it is ipso facto a bad design.
Fred has put the matter well. I would just summarise it by saying
that if players have played poorly then they should have a diminished
chance of winning. It's having absolutely no chance at all which is
bad.
Andrew
Andrew S. Davidson
>A definite overstatement. I can't think of a multiplayer game in
>which I couldn't put myself in a no-win situation (generally by
>doing nothing, or sometimes something even more counterproductive).
Of course you can deliberately ruin your position in many games if you
want to be perverse. So what?
>Your comment will end up classifying all multiplayer games as bad.
There are certainly plenty of bad ones but there are some gems. I
came across Looping Louie recently and thought it quite enchanting.
You always have a chance in that game until you're out.
>In terms of leading a nation, I think not. Even if you discounted
>all Hitler's other actions, it's pretty difficult to find any act of
>any other WWII leader more bellicose than invading the USSR - Tojo
>in December 1941 possibly excepted.
Foolish more than bellicose - these were both acts of some
desperation. Hitler went to war with the USSR when he did because he
was exasperated with Churchill's intransigent blockade. And Tojo went
to war with the USA because of their equally deadly oil embargo.
What's interesting is that none of these "players" thought that they
had lost the game until the end, despite their often grim situation.
With hindsight, we now know that the Axis faced insuperable odds and
were beaten before they started. This makes it tough to have a WW2
wargame which is both a good simulation and a good game.
Andrew
David desJardins
> Foolish more than bellicose - these were both acts of some
> desperation. Hitler went to war with the USSR when he did because he
> was exasperated with Churchill's intransigent blockade.
Rgb isn't the place to argue about politics or history, but this has got
to be one of the most ridiculous statements, in either of those domains,
that I've ever read.
> What's interesting is that none of these "players" thought that they
> had lost the game until the end, despite their often grim situation.
I don't think this is true either, although there's no way to know. I
suspect that Hitler knew the war would be lost by early 1943, at the
latest. Certainly there were senior German military leaders who did.
> With hindsight, we now know that the Axis faced insuperable odds and
> were beaten before they started.
Completeing the trifecta, this seems wrong too. "Before they started",
there was no assurance that the Axis would have to fight either the US
or Russia, much less both. Suppose, for example, that Hitler had a
stroke and died in late 1940. This seems an event of positive
probability. Is there then zero probability that the German leadership
would have adopted a course that would have not led to the complete
destruction of the Nazi regime? It certainly doesn't seem so to me.
David desJardins
Steve Burt
"Bruno Wolff III" <br...@cerberus.csd.uwm.edu> wrote in message
news:slrna3bv1i...@cerberus.csd.uwm.edu...
> In article <3c35ecf0$0$8509$ed9e...@reading.news.pipex.net>, Steve Burt
wrote:
> >
> > Well, I'd say you haven't played Diplomacy much if you think this.
> > While the Diplomatic aspect is much more important to your winning
chances
> > than the on-board play, the on-board situation makes a big, big
difference
> > to how people behave diplomatically.
> > The situation of each country's units, plus the succes or otherwise of
your
> > orders affects the diplomacy.
>
> The locations of the countries do make it harder for some people to work
> together early in the game. Effectively it is hard for England to help
> vote Turkey out of the game early on.
>
> > If Diplomacy were really as dull as you paint it, it wouldn't have such
a
> > huge following.
>
> I think a better depiction of my stance is that there is a lot of chrome
> that makes the game take a lot longer to play.
>
> > Maybe the game isn't to your taste, but personally I find games which
offer
> > scope for bluff and double dealing, and which have imperfect
information,
> > much more interesting than 'perfect information' games, or games for two
> > players only. Manipulating others, and avoiding being manipulated
yourself,
> > is a lot of fun, and requires a lot of skill.
>
> None of the above require the chrome of Diplomacy. A much simpler voting
> game could still provide that (as well as a much shorter playing time).
But pretending to be Franz-Jozef, or the devious Sultan is half the fun!
Without the chrome, Diplomacy would be a very dull abstract game
Steve Burt
> In article <nCnZ7.49271$fo.16...@news1.rdc1.md.home.com>, Rich Shipley
wrote:
> >
> > I think the "chrome" as you call it is the reason that many people like
it.
> > I wouldn't be at all interested in a pure negotiating/voting game; the
> > boardgame portion is interesting in itself in addition to supplying the
> > context for negotiation.
>
> I don't think the mechanical part of the game is of great interest to many
> people as evidenced by not many people advocating two player Diplomacy
> something to the game.
>
> Diplomacy is virtually all about negotiating and voting (with your
> armies). Tactics (not Diplomatic tactics) is a very minor part of the
game.
> The strategic part of combat (such as who you can conveniently attack)
could
> be included in the rules of a voting game.
This is simply not true. Tactics are *very* important in Diplomacy.
Rich Shipley
>
> Then why are we even arguing about it? Rich Shipley's pat statement was
> incorrect. Period.
My statement was intentional hyperbole, but it was no more incorrect that
the statement I was responding to. Whether a game is flawed or not is a
matter of personal taste of the people playing it (assuming it is actually
playable by the rules).
Rich
Rich Shipley
I respect that you prefer things that way. I just think that other
preferences can be valid also.
If your chance of winning would rely on all other players making
intentionally bad moves, would you count this as a diminished chance or no
chance?
Rich
Richard Bell
until the end, but whether you will continue to enjoy playing, no matter
how badly you are doing. Civilization has the problem that you cannot
be eliminated, but growing and nurturing a civilaztion, and trading with
others, can be fun, even if you dead last. This is why Civ is a great game.
Your Mileage May Vary. I have a friend who is an abysmal civ player, but
will keep coming back, because he enjoys playing.
Andrew S. Davidson
>> Foolish more than bellicose - these were both acts of some
>> desperation. Hitler went to war with the USSR when he did because he
>> was exasperated with Churchill's intransigent blockade.
>
>Rgb isn't the place to argue about politics or history, but this has got
>to be one of the most ridiculous statements, in either of those domains,
>that I've ever read.
That's not much of an argument but I'll bite. The subject is rather
tangential and risks invocation of Godwin's Law but at least I said it
first. Folk who want some justification for what follows can think of
it as background material to board games like Third Reich, World in
Flames, Axis and Allies etc. To me, it's interesting to see how the
real movers and shakers approach such matters as victory conditions
and how to play when you're losing.
Hitler was expecting Britain to agree a peace or armistice after the
fall of France. He hadn't wanted to fight Britain in the first place
and wanted to return to a state of peace before the next war (the
Blitzkrieg concept). Lord Halifax might have done a deal but
Churchill became PM instead and his catchphrase was "we will never
surrender". Many contemporaries thought that Churchill was a mad dog
because he was so belligerent. There was no way that he was going to
accept defeat and settle for second place - he was prepared to go down
fighting with a revolver in his hand.
The Luftwaffe failed to win the Battle of Britain and so Hitler had no
way to force the British to negotiate. He thought that there might be
a secret deal between the USSR and Britain and that Joe Stalin was
preparing to backstab him (in fact Churchill had to be dissuaded from
taking on the Soviets too when they invaded Finland). He therefore
brought forward his plans to invade Russia as it gave him a way to use
his army to resolve the war against Britain - by removing their last
hope of a continental ally.
It was a similar strategic situation which led Napoleon to invade
Russia too. Those who do not learn from history ...
Andrew
Bruno Wolff III
>
> This is simply not true. Tactics are *very* important in Diplomacy.
Why do you think this?
While in close situations they can make a difference, getting the power
of multiple units from an ally through diplomacy is much more powerful
than getting say a 10% bonus through tactics.
Just to make sure there is no confusion, I was referring to tactics involving
ordering of units, not of Diplomatic tactics.
Tactics would become more important if the formation of alliances was
relatively constant (by country - not by the player of a country), so that
tactics was what determined the difference in the outcome of games. I don't
seem to see the game getting played that way in practice.
Rich Shipley
> In article <3c399679$0$227$ed9e...@reading.news.pipex.net>, Steve Burt
wrote:
> >
> > This is simply not true. Tactics are *very* important in Diplomacy.
>
> Why do you think this?
>
> While in close situations they can make a difference, getting the power
> of multiple units from an ally through diplomacy is much more powerful
> than getting say a 10% bonus through tactics.
What does a 10% bonus even mean? You gain or lose whole units and no more
than a few each turn. A tactical play that saves a unit is worth more like
33/50%. Tactics can also affect diplomacy. If you see an alliance and defend
against one of them so that they don't gain any territory, you may be able
to turn them against the other attacker next turn.
The tactics in Dip, as simple as the moves are individually, lead to much
more interesting diplomacy in their permutations than any abstract system
would.
Rich
Frederick Scott
I disagree. There is a whole basis of motivation to what you're doing when
you play board games that is part and parcel to the whole activity. The
assumption is made as you play the game that each player has an intent to
win the game to the best of his of his ability. (Mind you, there may be some
exceptions to this when you get to certain kinds of board games where one or
more of the activities within the game, for instance fomenting honest
discussion, is actually the central point of the game and whatever
scorekeeping system is in place, if any, is peripheral.) These games tend
to break down if this motivation is missing. Therefore, Andrew's statement
is absolutely correct: it's *always* bad design to put players in a situation
where the central motivation has disappeared. (I guess I would have to add
the caveat that I'm assuming they still have real power to affect the game
after their chances to win have been obliterated.) The fact that the vast
majority of games do this to one extent or another merely reveals how
unappreciated this point is by far too many game designers. Christopher
Dearlove says he can't think of a multiplayer game where this isn't true;
I don't find that surprising. It's a very common flaw in multiplayer games.
What you're talking about, IIUC, *is* hyperbole. The ability to comeback
no matter how badly one has done - within reason (meaning that one is not
intentionally trying to eliminate one's self) - is not necessarily bad
game design, for reasons I listed in my previous response to your post.
Fred
Frederick Scott
> The mark of a good game is not whether anyone has a chance to win right up
> until the end, but whether you will continue to enjoy playing, no matter
> how badly you are doing. Civilization has the problem that you cannot
> be eliminated, but growing and nurturing a civilaztion, and trading with
> others, can be fun, even if you dead last. This is why Civ is a great game.
Funny you should mention that. Civilization is one on my list of prime
offenders. The only thing about it is that most of the time I've played the
six and seven player games where two or three people have been basically
eliminated by mid-game, these people have always been sufficiently weak that
they seem to have little concept that they've been eliminated. They still do
"bad" things, though: primarily getting so desperate for trade cards that it's
often impossible to stop the leaders with a trade embargo.
It's an interesting point though. I would say it applies better to Mayfair
rail games. I still remember one of my friends some years ago mentioning that
he knew he had no chance 2/3rds of the way through the game but he was enjoying
the hell out of building the track to make his line real cool. I can
appreciate that. Been there myself.
You're right: certain games have activities with the game that can be fun of their
own accord, outside of how they contribute to winning the game. When that kind
of thing happens, it gives an outlet to losing players that gives them some
kind of motivation. It's probably not a predictable thing, though (some players
like building track or trading Civ cards, some don't), so it doesn't really fix
the problem - which is allowing the leading players to set their strategy in
view of what the trailing players are likely to decide to do.
Fred
Christopher Dearlove
<freds64_at_...@removethis.com> writes
>Christopher Dearlove wrote:
>> However it's
>> also worth point out that a key point is the players' skill levels.
>> To take a specific example a game which is often criticised for this
>> problem is Outpost. It's very easy to get behind so far you're dead
>> meat. So is Outpost a bad game. Not necessarily, among players who know
>> what they are doing Outpost can work very well - and is a regular at
>> one convention I attend. For those players Outpost is not a bad game,
>> they postpone the "can't catch up" until sufficiently late in the game
>> it's worth finishing.
>
>It's still a design flaw. Here's the thing: if unskilled players have
>gotten themselves in such a mess in the first half of a game which
>severely tests skill, why is the game worth continuing through to the
>second half?
You've missed my point. Why should a game have to be playable by
unskilled players? If a problem only occurs with unskilled players
is it actually a design fault in a game?
>The reason you don't worry about this in two-player games is that the
>issues we're concerned about that derive from unpredictable behavior
>can't arise. The two players play as long as the game entertains them
>and then quit - or finish, however they will. Who cares?
You presume the two players have equal entertainment values. It can be
extremely tedious to finish off a chess player who ought to resign but
is too much of a beginner to realise it. But I agree, it's less of a
problem.
>My example was just fine.
We'll have to agree to (strongly) disagree on that one.
>> I'm not saying you can't find one.
>Then why are we even arguing about it?
Note that "I'm not saying you can't find one." is not the same as
"I agree you can find one." and I'm not making that point either.
--
Christopher Dearlove
Christopher Dearlove
Maroney <k...@panix.com> writes
>Taken together, Andrew's statement is an endorsement of player
>elimination: If a player literally has no chance of winning, the game
>should optimally remove the player from the game. Presumably he
>believes this because players who have literally no chance of winning
>a game often make random plays which don't accord with most players'
>sense of how a game "should" be played--e.g., throwing the game to
>another player.
>
>I happen to agree with this position.
Theoretically so might I - if it weren't that in almost all
circumstances I play games, player elimination is socially
unacceptable. We (rec.games.board that is) have done this one
before often enough that it's another opinions differ thing.
--
Christopher Dearlove
Christopher Dearlove
>
>>A definite overstatement. I can't think of a multiplayer game in
>>which I couldn't put myself in a no-win situation (generally by
>>doing nothing, or sometimes something even more counterproductive).
>
>Of course you can deliberately ruin your position in many games if you
>want to be perverse. So what?
I've explained elsewhere (with the context of what I replied to)
as to why this wasn't the best counterexample, but the original
comment covered too many cases, including this one.
>There are certainly plenty of bad ones but there are some gems. I
>came across Looping Louie recently and thought it quite enchanting.
We agree on something!
>>In terms of leading a nation, I think not. Even if you discounted
>>all Hitler's other actions, it's pretty difficult to find any act of
>>any other WWII leader more bellicose than invading the USSR - Tojo
>>in December 1941 possibly excepted.
>
>Foolish more than bellicose - these were both acts of some
>desperation. Hitler went to war with the USSR when he did because he
>was exasperated with Churchill's intransigent blockade. And Tojo went
>to war with the USA because of their equally deadly oil embargo.
Tojo, yes, but I can't see invading Russia as desperation. Long term
Hitler had a Russian problem, but no one's suggesting that Hitler
pre-empting a Russian invasion. Frustration isn't desperation, and
I can think of nothing more bellicose than "I'm not winning here,
let's start another war".
>With hindsight, we now know that the Axis faced insuperable odds and
>were beaten before they started.
The Japanese yes, but the Germans could have won the Battle of the
Atlantic (discovered Enigma was broken and a little more luck),
the USSR could have collapsed politically (say if the Germans take
Moscow) and the US might not have got actively involved until too
late. Maybe you'd call what's left a draw (no one's going to
invade the USA) but it's a rather pro-German draw.
>This makes it tough to have a WW2
>wargame which is both a good simulation and a good game.
Hey, we're back on topic! I would think that if we considered the
Pacific War (which we're agreed is always a long term US/Allied win)
we have game options not available in real life ... call it a
Japanese win if either they get sufficiently far before being
stopped (say if they take everything they did plus Hawaii and
all of New Guinea) or they hold on long enough on the retreat.
A real Japan can't call that a victory, but a game player could.
--
Christopher Dearlove
Christopher Dearlove
<freds64_at_...@removethis.com> writes
>Rich Shipley wrote:
>Whether a game is flawed or not is a
>> matter of personal taste of the people playing it (assuming it is actually
>> playable by the rules).
>
>is absolutely correct: it's *always* bad design to put players in a situation
>where the central motivation has disappeared.
Andrew's original statement was that it was bad design if a game _can_
put the players in such a situation, a stronger statement.
>Christopher
>Dearlove says he can't think of a multiplayer game where this isn't true
and it was the stronger version that I said occurred in all multiplayer
games, not your weaker version.
My point here is that if you insist on a player always being in with a
winning chance, no matter how badly he plays, then forget it, it isn't
going to happen. If you want players to be still in with a chance
provided they play reasonably well, then you run into a logical problem
... obviously all players are in with a chance if they play well enough,
they'll be winning, and there's no dividing line between the two cases.
If instead (or as well) you want players no longer in with a chance to
have very little chance of acting to "throw" a game (certainly harder
than the Monopoly "see everything for a dollar" ploy) then some games
are better than others, and many are, for my tastes, acceptably good.
And yes, taste _does_ come into it.
As for your emphasised *always*, there are no absolute rules in game
design, only guidelines. Furthermore _my_ central motivation isn't
necessarily to win, it's to do my best. In the majority of games if
I can't win, I'll try for second, or third, or fourth, or even not to
be last. If you think it's first or nothing, in all games, then we
should play in different groups.
--
Christopher Dearlove
Adam Ruprecht
> Funny you should mention that. Civilization is one on my list of prime
> offenders. The only thing about it is that most of the time I've played the
> six and seven player games where two or three people have been basically
> eliminated by mid-game, these people have always been sufficiently weak that
> they seem to have little concept that they've been eliminated. They still do
> "bad" things, though: primarily getting so desperate for trade cards that it's
> often impossible to stop the leaders with a trade embargo.
This reminds me of an issue groups I've played with have occasionally
grappled with - if trades with the leaders increase their overall chances
of winning (even if those overall chances still remain very small), is it
ethically valid for them to trade with the leaders even if that makes the
person they trade with much more likely to win? I claim that as long as
you have any chance of winning, you should play to maximize it, but it
could easily be viewed as kingmaking.
If the above wasn't clear, here's an abstract example:
A, B, and C are playing a game; their current chances of winning are a,b,
and c. C can interact with A such that c increases to c' and a increases
to a'. What constraints would your group put on a, b, c, a', and c' for
this to be considered a 'fair' deal?
Adam
Wei-Hwa Huang
>Just to make sure there is no confusion, I was referring to tactics involving
>ordering of units, not of Diplomatic tactics.
>
>Tactics would become more important if the formation of alliances was
>relatively constant (by country - not by the player of a country), so that
>tactics was what determined the difference in the outcome of games. I don't
>seem to see the game getting played that way in practice.
That would be an interesting variant of Diplomacy that I might actually
try -- "historical events" that "force" alliances (through some sort
of point-award system). E.g., "If Austria-Hungary and Russia do not
attack each other from 1903 to 1906, they each receive an extra
virtual supply center from 1907 to 1908" and the like. Idea being
that the alliances cause most of the game to be situations where there
are two teams or three teams (although each player always has the
opportunity to defect, at a large cost). That would certainly put
more emphasis on the tactics.
--
Wei-Hwa Huang, whu...@ugcs.net, http://www.ugcs.net/~whuang/
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I see dead links. They don't know they're dead. I see them all the time.
Brent Keith
> It's best if the possibility of victory only disappears when the game
> is over or the player is eliminated. If a multi-player game can put
> players in a no-win situation so that their play is aimless then it is
> ipso facto a bad design.
Interestingly, this is something which crops up as a problem in certain
tournament formats, even in two player games. In some variants of the so
called "Swiss" format, advancement depends in part on "strength of
schedule". In other words, two or more players with an equal number of
wins, losses and ties (if applicable) trying to get into the same slot in
the next round compare the records of those they played against, such that a
player who defeated someone with 5 wins will advance over a player who
defeated someone with 0 wins (all other factors being equal). The problem
with such systems lies with players who do badly in the first few rounds.
Generally, after two or three losses it is utterly impossible to win the
tournament, or be among the top percentage of players (when the rounds of
Swiss are being used as a qualifier). When it is no longer possible to win,
there is very little motive to continue. If there is some form of ranking
system (ELO or some other) in place for players extending outside the scope
of the tournament, there is some continued motivation to play on despite
losses, but even then those who have been doing so badly are likely to call
it a day and assume they will not win more. (If the tournament is for a
CCG, or any other game where prior preparation of resources like a
customized deck or army is needed, this belief is even stronger.) If they
leave, they effectively forfiet all further games - making the rest of their
record for the day losses. Those who faced them earlier are thus penalized
against others with the same number of games, though had the departing
player contined they could have won the rest of their games. Thus, someone
who has no hope of winning the tournament (or advancing past the qualifiers,
depending on situation) is inadvertantly playing kingmaker, whether they
want to or not.
-Brent Keith
Mark Edwards
> In article <nCnZ7.49271$fo.16...@news1.rdc1.md.home.com>, Rich Shipley wrote:
> >
> > I think the "chrome" as you call it is the reason that many people like it.
> > I wouldn't be at all interested in a pure negotiating/voting game; the
> > boardgame portion is interesting in itself in addition to supplying the
> > context for negotiation.
>
> I don't think the mechanical part of the game is of great interest to many
> people as evidenced by not many people advocating two player Diplomacy
> as a great game. The color of running a Great Power might be adding
> something to the game.
As an aside, I've played 2-player Diplomacy once when I was a youngun and had
quite a good time. There's definitely a bit of fun in the board play
(rock-scissors-paper combined with seeing the many attack-defense combinations) that
a purely diplomatic game would lack. So I'd advocate it if you were relatively new
to Diplomacy and wanted to get a good handle on the board tactics (not that there's
a huge amount of depth involved).
Mark
--
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Home of the Guy Stuff Gamers & the XFFL!
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"Hey dad? ... wanna have a catch?"
Bruno Wolff III
> "Bruno Wolff III" <br...@cerberus.csd.uwm.edu> wrote in message
> news:slrna3jk4b...@cerberus.csd.uwm.edu...
>> In article <3c399679$0$227$ed9e...@reading.news.pipex.net>, Steve Burt
> wrote:
>> >
>> > This is simply not true. Tactics are *very* important in Diplomacy.
>>
>> Why do you think this?
>>
>> While in close situations they can make a difference, getting the power
>> of multiple units from an ally through diplomacy is much more powerful
>> than getting say a 10% bonus through tactics.
>
> What does a 10% bonus even mean? You gain or lose whole units and no more
> than a few each turn. A tactical play that saves a unit is worth more like
> 33/50%. Tactics can also affect diplomacy. If you see an alliance and defend
> against one of them so that they don't gain any territory, you may be able
> to turn them against the other attacker next turn.
Except that using optimal* tactics as opposed to obvious ones isn't likely
to give that much of an advantage. And while results are in whole units,
expected values can have fractional values. (You need to make some simplifying
assumptions and estimated payoffs to be able to calculate an optimal local
strategy for your tactical moves.)
> The tactics in Dip, as simple as the moves are individually, lead to much
> more interesting diplomacy in their permutations than any abstract system
> would.
While I don't aggree that the above is necessarily true, I can believe that
by making the negotiations more complex it makes the game more fun for
some people.
Frederick Scott
> My point here is that if you insist on a player always being in with a
> winning chance, no matter how badly he plays, then forget it, it isn't
> going to happen.
I think you're kind of scratching. If players forget they that motivation
to win and play simply to destroy their chances of winning, then few if
any games will stand up to the requirement that the game never put players
into a position of having no hope. But if players do that, then the whole
issue of motivation is moot anyway. A motivation to win the game is kind
of underpinning assumption of this whole discussion.
I also find the concept of players with vastly differing abilities to be
beside the point, as well. If you've got adults playing against children or
adults who differ greatly in their abilities then the subject becomes
pretty much moot also. The play of extremely weak players is usually
unpredictable anyway (that's why they're weak) so no design element in any
game is solve that problem. In that situation, the problem is the players,
not the game.
Given those two points, I disagree. It is possible to design games that
way.
> If you want players to be still in with a chance
> provided they play reasonably well, then you run into a logical problem
> ... obviously all players are in with a chance if they play well enough,
> they'll be winning, and there's no dividing line between the two cases.
Absolutely not! A lot of games have an element of luck in them which
eliminates unfortunate players too soon despite excellent play. And to
the extent games are skill based, it's quite easy and frequently happens
that a fairly slight difference in skill will eliminate a player who plays
a weak game early. A multiplayer game with a property similar
to Chess (as you cited yesterday) except that only one or some of the
players are eliminated from effective contention early yet still have a
significant position on the board. If there are two or more players
who still have a realistic chance of winning the game, it can't be stopped
(as chess can) due to one player having effectively won the game yet some
players have no chance - which contradicts your statement above. This
whole line of reasoning is incorrect.
> As for your emphasised *always*, there are no absolute rules in game
> design, only guidelines. Furthermore _my_ central motivation isn't
> necessarily to win, it's to do my best.
That's splitting hairs in a two-player game. In a multiplayer game, it's
problematic: outside of winning the game, players often do not agree what
"doing your best" actually amounts to. There's a fair number of people
who care nothing for achieving the second highest total in whatever scoring
system is used (if a there's even a scoring system) and essentially feel
that doing their best is taking down the guy who's play (in their
perception) destroyed their chances of winning. That's exactly why
Andrew's statement is correct: active players without a predictable
motivation in a multiplayer game is, ipso facto, a flaw in the game
design.
> In the majority of games if I can't win, I'll try for second, or third,
> or fourth, or even not to be last. If you think it's first or nothing,
> in all games, then we should play in different groups.
You apparently don't have a wide enough body of experience with
multiplayer games. Many of them have no measure of second or third,
etc. And while I don't generally subscribe to it, there are many
players who play these games who don't care about the difference between
finishing second and last. Motivation to win a board game is pretty much
universal. Like it or not, the fact is is that beyond winning you will
find little consensus in the world. If you only want to play against
players who agree with your runner-up mentality, then perhaps you should
view Andrew's flaw as being the thing that limits the number of opponents
available to you.
Fred
Frederick Scott
>
> In article <3C394149...@removethis.com>, Frederick Scott
> <freds64_at_...@removethis.com> writes
> >Christopher Dearlove wrote:
> >> However it's
> >> also worth point out that a key point is the players' skill levels.
> >> To take a specific example a game which is often criticised for this
> >> problem is Outpost. It's very easy to get behind so far you're dead
> >> meat. So is Outpost a bad game. Not necessarily, among players who know
> >> what they are doing Outpost can work very well - and is a regular at
> >> one convention I attend. For those players Outpost is not a bad game,
> >> they postpone the "can't catch up" until sufficiently late in the game
> >> it's worth finishing.
> >
> >It's still a design flaw. Here's the thing: if unskilled players have
> >gotten themselves in such a mess in the first half of a game which
> >severely tests skill, why is the game worth continuing through to the
> >second half?
>
> You've missed my point. Why should a game have to be playable by
> unskilled players? If a problem only occurs with unskilled players
> is it actually a design fault in a game?
I didn't realize you were using players who are so unskilled that they
essentially had no chance from the get-go. Then I go to the point I
cited in my other post: as players who are that unskilled, they become
so unpredictable in their play that the question of motivating them to
win (or not) is irrelevant. Since they can't possibly play well enough
to win, it doesn't matter whether the game grants them a chance to win:
they will not be able to avail themselves of it. Again, this comes from
taking Andrew's statement too generally. It's not the game which is
preventing the players from winning at any point - it's the players
themselves.
Fred
Rich Shipley
> Rich Shipley wrote:
> >
> > My statement was intentional hyperbole, but it was no more incorrect
that
> > the statement I was responding to. Whether a game is flawed or not is a
> > matter of personal taste of the people playing it (assuming it is
actually
> > playable by the rules).
>
> I disagree. There is a whole basis of motivation to what you're doing
when
> you play board games that is part and parcel to the whole activity. The
> assumption is made as you play the game that each player has an intent to
> win the game to the best of his of his ability.
I agree that should be the intent when you start playing.
> These games tend
> to break down if this motivation is missing. Therefore, Andrew's
statement
> is absolutely correct: it's *always* bad design to put players in a
situation
> where the central motivation has disappeared.
Attempting to win is my intent when playing a game, but it is not my central
motivation. My central motivation is to enjoy the process. I can do this
while losing as well as winning.
> The fact that the vast
> majority of games do this to one extent or another merely reveals how
> unappreciated this point is by far too many game designers. Christopher
> Dearlove says he can't think of a multiplayer game where this isn't true;
> I don't find that surprising. It's a very common flaw in multiplayer
games.
Then I guess the concept of multi-player games is flawed, so don't play them
anymore. I'll go on enjoying them myself.
> What you're talking about, IIUC, *is* hyperbole. The ability to comeback
> no matter how badly one has done - within reason (meaning that one is not
> intentionally trying to eliminate one's self) - is not necessarily bad
> game design, for reasons I listed in my previous response to your post.
I *said* that statement was hyperbole - why are you still arguing it with
me?
I don't really feel that any type of game is flawed. It is all in the
execution and audience. You are the one saying that the majority of
multi-player games out there are flawed and using faulty assumptions to
support this claim.
If designers followed your advice, the scope of games produced would be
drastically diminished. For example, I played three games yesterday - lets
see how they stack up using your criteria:
Settlers of Catan: Since it possible to be put in a position where you
cannot score 10 points, the game is flawed and should be scrapped. I once
ended up a game with 2 points (I think I built a road the who game) and knew
I had no chance a good while before the game ended, but it is still a story
I can laugh about and tell anyone disappointed in losing.
Taj Mahal: Any type of game like this where a limited amount of points are
tallied each round is flawed because it is possible to be too far behind
with a couple turns left to catch up. Chuck it out too.
Urland: This one has the mechanism for those behind that they can jump over
other players on the scoring track, but it uses a tallied score again, so
you still may not have a chance at the end. Bad game - no biscuit.
Rich
Rich Shipley
> > What does a 10% bonus even mean? You gain or lose whole units and no
more
> > than a few each turn. A tactical play that saves a unit is worth more
like
> > 33/50%. Tactics can also affect diplomacy. If you see an alliance and
defend
> > against one of them so that they don't gain any territory, you may be
able
> > to turn them against the other attacker next turn.
>
> Except that using optimal* tactics as opposed to obvious ones isn't likely
> to give that much of an advantage. And while results are in whole units,
> expected values can have fractional values. (You need to make some
simplifying
> assumptions and estimated payoffs to be able to calculate an optimal local
> strategy for your tactical moves.)
The concept of optimal tactics in a multi-player simultaneous movement game
is suspect. The best move is the one your opponent does not expect. I'll
agree with you that expected values can be fractional, but of limited use in
a non-random system. You didn't reply to tactics affecting diplomacy - these
things don't happen in a vacuum.
> > The tactics in Dip, as simple as the moves are individually, lead to
much
> > more interesting diplomacy in their permutations than any abstract
system
> > would.
>
> While I don't aggree that the above is necessarily true, I can believe
that
> by making the negotiations more complex it makes the game more fun for
> some people.
It is the only reason I like the game.
Rich
Anthony Simons
Yes; you've hit the nail right on the head there, Rich. The point, I
think, that the others are getting to here is that they don't enjoy a
game as a result of either given situation and therefore conclude it
is these no-win/easy win factors which signal a bad design.
I'll play damn anything, and enjoy most games I play because I enjoy
indulging in the social pastime of gaming. If people start whingeing
that people win too easily or people don't win at all they have missed
the point that the only winners at any game are those that enjoy it.
People who do this are usually the same type who might turn round and
blame me for their defeat; not because I am the winner but because one
of my plays has assisted somebody else in attaining a lead. They
might say the game is a bad design because it allows such a situation
to arise. They might say that even though my play was within the
bounds of the rules (or as a group our play), it was unfair because he
was winning and is suddenly no longer the leader.
He has lost the game anyway, as he has took the competitive angle to
seriously and has detracted from his own pleasure. One might argue
the colluding players are doing the same, I would argue (and have) if
the rules allow it then it's OK by me. Nothing wrong with
competition, but always remember it is a game. That said, if these
people do not enjoy a particular game then it will become an
intolerable experience to play it. I am not going to force anybody to
play something if they don't think it will end in an acceptable
manner; perhaps I am just a little more accepting?
Christopher Dearlove
<freds64_at_...@removethis.com> writes
>A lot of games have an element of luck in them which
>eliminates unfortunate players too soon despite excellent play
I haven't been addressing that point, but rather the case of the
problem occurring due to bad play. On this specific point, yes
it's a problem if that occurs too frequently. (But to take a
specific example, this is a complaint sometimes made about
Siedler. However I disagree that that case is over the line.)
<the rest of this increasingly tedious discussion snipped>
>You apparently don't have a wide enough body of experience with
>multiplayer games.
Apart from a few decades of experience (though I'd only really
count the last quarter century as real games experience) owning
more than a couple of hundred of them, and having played a lot
more, being a regular at some of the main British games
conventions and other points I could note, no experience at all :)
Your judgement seems to be even more flawed than your examples.
>Many of them have no measure of second or third, etc.
Some don't, most do. And yes, I will quantify most. The British
boardgames championship (*) is held each year at Baycon. Each game
played there is written up on a sheet and submitted, the winner
being determined by grinding the scores somehow. Each game write
up lists 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. places. In a very few games it's only
possible to write 1st and join everyone as 2nd=. In almost every
game it is straightforward to rank 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc. without
inventing any new criteria, just what comes naturally from the
game. Clearly games played for (game) money or points are
usually easy (except some where it's the first to a score,
without evenly scoring everyone else) and many (but not all)
race games place by position. Elimination games can be scored
by order of elimination.
Perhaps _you_ need more experience?
>And while I don't generally subscribe to it, there are many
>players who play these games who don't care about the difference
between
>finishing second and last.
People often post here expressing that opinion, but I rarely
actually come across it in real life, and I've played with what
I would guess is a good fraction of the hardened general games
players here. I suspect it's an attitude more common in the
USA. (As also seems to be the need for how ever many levels
of tiebreak are needed to produce a winner, draws seeming
to be unAmerican.)
>Motivation to win a board game is pretty much
>universal. Like it or not, the fact is is that beyond winning you will
>find little consensus in the world.
Actually I think wanting to do your best is more common than wanting
only to win. How many athletes taking silver throw it away because
they didn't take gold compared to those who still value it above
bronze? (Whilst of course all setting out for the gold, and vowing to
try for gold next time.)
>If you only want to play against
>players who agree with your runner-up mentality,
That sounds remarkably like a poor attempt at an insult. Better luck
next time.
>then perhaps you should
>view Andrew's flaw as being the thing that limits the number of
opponents
>available to you.
I don't seem to have any problems finding opponents, or for that matter
games I enjoy playing. On the latter point maybe I have it easier than
you.
(*) Self-elected, as these things are, but it's only real competitor
(Furrycon) used a pretty similar system. No, I've never won
either - but usually achieve a quite respectable position.
--
Christopher Dearlove
Christopher Dearlove
e_do...@removethis.com> writes
>I didn't realize you were using players who are so unskilled that they
>essentially had no chance from the get-go. Then I go to the point I
>cited in my other post: as players who are that unskilled, they become
>so unpredictable in their play that the question of motivating them to
>win (or not) is irrelevant. Since they can't possibly play well enough
>to win, it doesn't matter whether the game grants them a chance to win:
>they will not be able to avail themselves of it. Again, this comes from
>taking Andrew's statement too generally.
I originally took Andrew's statement as he wrote it, rather than as you
chose to rewrite it. I'm prepared (and have been recently) playing by
your new rules however.
>It's not the game which is
>preventing the players from winning at any point - it's the players
>themselves.
I will spell it out once more so maybe you will understand it.
Consider a game (*) where if a group of player who haven't played it
before (although they may be reasonable games players) sit down to
play within a short time one or more of them will have fallen
behind. As they get better, with practice at the game, the time
before this happens gets longer. Once they've got pretty good at the
game this point is, or is so close to as not to matter, the end of
the game. However it takes some time (quite a number of games)
to achieve this state.
So do we classify the game as bad according to your rules? We could
say yes, because a group of starting players run into the problem.
However that marks as bad a game that can be played entirely
satisfactorily without the problem by some players, for whom it
isn't a bad game. We could say no, because you can achieve the
expert state, but for many groups of players just picking up the
game it is a horrible game. The only logical conclusion we can
come to is that we can't say this is definitively a good or a
bad game, it depends on the players, and in particular it depends
on their skill. So you can't make absolute judgements, as you've
been arguing, and whoever it was who said this is dependent on
the players is right.
However (and I haven't discussed this up to this point) I also
think that the opposing point of view, that all games judgement
is 100% subjective, is also wrong, that the issue we're discussing
is relevant to judging a game (**). See other past threads.
Finally (and I really will try to ignore anything you say by return
unless it's so egregiously wrong like the other one I just replied
to a few minutes ago) I think it's easy to overlook that most of
the sorts of games we discuss here whilst apparently not having
the property I discuss above, of needing practice at that specific
game, need general games practice to play well. I suspect most
people posting here could pick a high skill game they'd never seen
before and do much better than average against a group of random
family gamers because (whether by explicit calculation or "feel")
they know what sort of things to do that appear in many games
(husband resources, play to the victory conditions, attack the
leader, try to be inconspicuous etc.) and can immediately apply
them to many games. I suspect many games we all agree are good
wouldn't appear so to less experienced games players.
(*) I think Outpost isn't far off this.
(**) And hence I think Outpost isn't a perfect game (and actually
it isn't one of my favourites either).
--
Christopher Dearlove
Tom Courtney
In article <Jro_7.55311$fo.19...@news1.rdc1.md.home.com>, Rich
Shipley <ri...@rtgames.com> wrote:
> > Except that using optimal* tactics as opposed to obvious ones isn't likely
> > to give that much of an advantage. And while results are in whole units,
> > expected values can have fractional values. (You need to make some
> simplifying
> > assumptions and estimated payoffs to be able to calculate an optimal local
> > strategy for your tactical moves.)
>
> The concept of optimal tactics in a multi-player simultaneous movement game
> is suspect. The best move is the one your opponent does not expect.
The concepts of optimal tactics in multi-player situations has been
fairly well-known for several decades. Either there is a strategy that
will dominate all other strategies, and you use it, and it doesn't
matter that other people can figure out you're going to do, or there
isn't, and you use a mixed strategy of your good options in such a
proportion that your opponents are on a guess for which one you picked.
In that sense, the actual best move is the one your opponent cannot
expect.
Tom Courtney
Andrew S. Davidson
>Tojo, yes, but I can't see invading Russia as desperation. Long term
>Hitler had a Russian problem, but no one's suggesting that Hitler
>pre-empting a Russian invasion.
Try reading Icebreaker by Viktor Suvorov which makes a plausible cause
that that's precisely what he did. He suggests that's why the Soviet
army caved in so badly at the start - they were still deploying for
their planned offensive and were caught completely off-balance.
Andrew
Rich Shipley
news:070120021822439805%v...@livingpaper.org...
I certainly hope there's more to it than the obvious. Game theory never
seems to be that useful even in games.
Rich
David desJardins
> The concepts of optimal tactics in multi-player situations has been
> fairly well-known for several decades. Either there is a strategy that
> will dominate all other strategies, and you use it, and it doesn't
> matter that other people can figure out you're going to do, or there
> isn't, and you use a mixed strategy of your good options in such a
> proportion that your opponents are on a guess for which one you
> picked.
I'm afraid that none of this is true. Games with more than two players
don't in general have "optimal strategies" of this type.
David desJardins
Christopher Dearlove
I'm afraid I don't have enough interest to push that high enough
up my "things to do" list that it's ever likely to make it to
the top. Clearly I was wrong to say "no one", but it's also
clearly a minority view (and there are other highly plausible
reasons for the Russian disarray).
(I made an effort to write some game content here, but it was so
bad I deleted it. I think we ought to stop now; I'll try.)
--
Christopher Dearlove
Frederick Scott
>
> In article <3C3A033E...@removethis.com>, Frederick Scott
> <freds64_at_...@removethis.com> writes
> >multiplayer games.
>
> Apart from a few decades of experience (though I'd only really
> count the last quarter century as real games experience) owning
> more than a couple of hundred of them, and having played a lot
> more, being a regular at some of the main British games
> conventions and other points I could note, no experience at all :)
>
> Your judgement seems to be even more flawed than your examples.
No, I'm going by your statement, which appear to be extremely naive.
I don't read r.g.b much anymore but back when I did, some years ago,
this kind of discussion, about the value of second place and
metagaming and so forth, came up about every 6 months. You seem
either ignorant of the controversy or at the very least, so pat
in your position that one would hardly detect you were aware of
it. I'm not sure which. In any case...
> >Many of them have no measure of second or third, etc.
>
> Some don't, most do. And yes, I will quantify most. The British
> boardgames championship (*) is held each year at Baycon. Each game
> played there is written up on a sheet and submitted, the winner
> being determined by grinding the scores somehow. Each game write
> up lists 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc. places. In a very few games it's only
> possible to write 1st and join everyone as 2nd=. In almost every
> game it is straightforward to rank 2nd, 3rd, 4th etc. without
> inventing any new criteria, just what comes naturally from the
> game.
I don't know what kinds of games are played there. The multiplayer
games I've played either have no significant metric at all or else
they might have some kind of number you could latch on and use as
a metric but it would be naive in the extreme to assume that it
meant pigshit in terms of indicating how well players did. Take
Risk for example. If you were naive, you might award places in
inverse order of how the players were eliminated. Indeed, I've
been in Risk tournaments were this was how they placed the losers.
I recall a game in which I had almost won, attacking a player with
4 cards who had an empire guarded by 25 armies total with my 40
movable armies. I was holding 3 cards and would easily have
snowballed to victory had I eliminated her. It was not a
slam-dunk but normally one should win that. I hit a spate of bad
die rolling and couldn't quite take her out. As a result, the
next player eliminated her effortlessly and found himself in a
position to eliminate the rest of the players on the board in any
order he chose. As it happened, he went after me first. No
particular reason, he just noticed me in that particular moment
and started rolling dice. Then he chose someone else, then someone
else and so forth. I wound up placing 5th in the game for that
reason - technically. Really, who cares? I didn't win, the
order of finish had nothing whatsoever to do with who played
how well, it was just how they wrote up the results.
So suffice it to say, I am not impressed by what happens at
the British boardgames championship. A lot of games have metrics
you could use that, when analyzed, don't mean much in terms of
who played better than who. Then and again, some do. Finishing
cash in Acquire, a game in which the player finishes with most
cash is declared winner. It stands to reason that whoever finished
with second most cash can claim second.
On the other hand, sometimes the effort to finish first will lead
a player to take inordinate risks to stop the leader, if the game
allows for that. The effort may rob him of his second place
standing the game's convenient metric: Rail Baron, when you go
clear across the continent using other players' lines in an effort
to tag the person declaring for home and prevent him from winning.
If he falls from second in the metric of on-hand cash and rail line
value while making the effort, did he do less well? I'd say he
screwed up if he *didn't* make the effort but there's no clear
answer to that.
> Clearly games played for (game) money or points are
> usually easy
Some are, some aren't.
> Perhaps _you_ need more experience?
I knew there was a reason I got tired of r.g.b.
> >And while I don't generally subscribe to it, there are many
> >players who play these games who don't care about the difference
> >between finishing second and last.
>
> People often post here expressing that opinion, but I rarely
> actually come across it in real life, and I've played with what
> I would guess is a good fraction of the hardened general games
> players here. I suspect it's an attitude more common in the
> USA. (As also seems to be the need for how ever many levels
> of tiebreak are needed to produce a winner, draws seeming
> to be unAmerican.)
I couldn't say. I've come across them in real life plenty of
times and I quite understand the point of view.
> >Motivation to win a board game is pretty much
> >universal. Like it or not, the fact is is that beyond winning you will
> >find little consensus in the world.
>
> Actually I think wanting to do your best is more common than wanting
> only to win.
No, that's not what I said and that's not how someone who played only
to win would look at it. They would say that if they don't win, there
are other things in the game that they equate to "doing their best"
besides finishing second by some arbitrary metric. Going down in
flames might be one thing if taking a huge risk in risk in terms of
whatever second place metric is being used in order to slightly increase
their chance of stopping the leader. Another one might be being the
kingmaker, if they can't be king. In my experience, there's simply
no consensus about this, depending on the game in question.
> How many athletes taking silver throw it away because
> they didn't take gold compared to those who still value it above
> bronze? (Whilst of course all setting out for the gold, and vowing to
> try for gold next time.)
(Well, there's the 1972 U.S. Men's Basketball Team. Admittedly, that
wasn't exactly about shame in losing. I digress. I just thought it
was funny that I could think of an example with little effort.)
Congratulations. In track and field sports, you've managed to find
an area which is pretty much dominated by players who barely interact
with each other and basically compete against the same single metric,
for instance time to run from start to finish or distance from shot
putter to where the shot lands or something similar. Obviously, you
can place people reliably with that metric.
But let's look at other athletes, such as professional sports leagues.
I don't know what playoffs are like in your part of the world but
here we typically use a simple single-elimination bracket when playoff
teams are determining a champion. Play a game (or a series of games
won by the team wins some number of games first, such as best 4 games
out of 7) against a single opponent. Win and you advance, lose and
you're out. No one in the United States ever bothers to play for third
place anymore. They used to, in some sports (I distinctly remember
the National Football League had a consolation championship back in
the 1960s) but they got rid of it: no one cared. Even the athletes
often didn't care. So now, you're either the champion or you're one
of the victims along the way. There's no second place trophy, or
"silver" to throw away.
So sports, like games, vary in their ability to anoint someone with
"second place" and down the line. As you say, better luck next time.
Fred
Frederick Scott
>
> "Frederick Scott" <freds64_at_...@removethis.com> wrote in message
> news:3C39EB88...@removethis.com...
> > you play board games that is part and parcel to the whole activity. The
> > assumption is made as you play the game that each player has an intent to
> > win the game to the best of his of his ability.
>
> I agree that should be the intent when you start playing.
>
> > These games tend
> > to break down if this motivation is missing. Therefore, Andrew's
> > statement is absolutely correct: it's *always* bad design to put players
> > in a situation where the central motivation has disappeared.
>
> Attempting to win is my intent when playing a game, but it is not my central
> motivation. My central motivation is to enjoy the process. I can do this
> while losing as well as winning.
True by irrelevant. The point is that the rules are designed to assume that
you are playing to win. The overall motivation for playing the game may
affect the design (i.e., the game is designed to be fun to play) but if you
aren't playing to win then you are basically playing randomly. It's hard to
design a game very well - including designing it to be fun - if you don't
know what result the players are attempting achieve when playing. So the
salient point here is that you are playing to win.
> > The fact that the vast
> > majority of games do this to one extent or another merely reveals how
> > unappreciated this point is by far too many game designers. Christopher
> > Dearlove says he can't think of a multiplayer game where this isn't true;
> > I don't find that surprising. It's a very common flaw in multiplayer
> > games.
>
> Then I guess the concept of multi-player games is flawed, so don't play them
> anymore. I'll go on enjoying them myself.
The fact that they're flawed doesn't mean they're not worth playing. Only
that they're not as good as they could be. And no one said the flaw was
inevitable, only common. As I've said elsewhere, I fault game designers for
not considering this point as much as they should.
> I don't really feel that any type of game is flawed. It is all in the
> execution and audience. You are the one saying that the majority of
> multi-player games out there are flawed and using faulty assumptions to
> support this claim.
And what "faulty assumptions" are those?
> If designers followed your advice, the scope of games produced would be
> drastically diminished.
I'm not sure why you say that. I think you're overreacting to what I'm
saying.
> Settlers of Catan: Since it possible to be put in a position where you
> cannot score 10 points, the game is flawed and should be scrapped.
I just said it was flawed. I didn't say it should be scrapped. It has
an imperfection, a blemish. That's all. You could fix it but you would
have to work harder on the design to make sure that didn't happen. And
it might cause tradeoff with something else you liked better than solving
the problem.
(Two other examples with similar overreactions snipped.)
Go ahead, play the games and enjoy them. Lots of games have lots of
imperfections and I still own and play them - go figure.
The *point* is that multiplayer games don't have to necessarily be like that.
There are ways to avoid this problem and some games do, at least to a reasonable
extent. That is a good thing, IMHO.
Fred
Frederick Scott
>
> In article <3C3A04E5...@removethis.com>, Frederick Scott <freds64_at_hom
> e_do...@removethis.com> writes
> >I didn't realize you were using players who are so unskilled that they
> >essentially had no chance from the get-go. Then I go to the point I
> >cited in my other post: as players who are that unskilled, they become
> >so unpredictable in their play that the question of motivating them to
> >win (or not) is irrelevant. Since they can't possibly play well enough
> >to win, it doesn't matter whether the game grants them a chance to win:
> >they will not be able to avail themselves of it. Again, this comes from
> >preventing the players from winning at any point - it's the players
> >themselves.
>
> I will spell it out once more so maybe you will understand it.
>
> Consider a game (*) where if a group of player who haven't played it
> before (although they may be reasonable games players) sit down to
> play within a short time one or more of them will have fallen
> behind. As they get better, with practice at the game, the time
> before this happens gets longer. Once they've got pretty good at the
> game this point is, or is so close to as not to matter, the end of
> the game. However it takes some time (quite a number of games)
> to achieve this state.
>
> So do we classify the game as bad according to your rules? We could
> say yes, because a group of starting players run into the problem.
Depends. I don't care *why* the players don't have a chance of winning.
If they don't have a chance, they don't have a chance. It's not like
they're suddenly going to go home and be replaced by competent,
experienced players who would have a chance (or not) to win from that
point forward depending on the game system. So it doesn't matter.
> However that marks as bad a game that can be played entirely
> satisfactorily without the problem by some players, for whom it
> isn't a bad game.
No. You are just twisting in the wind, scratching for some flaw
in the logic that isn't there. If competent players have a chance
to win throughout the game, then it doesn't have the problem. If
competent players who have a chance to win at the onset but not
part way through the game, then the problem exists. It exists
because the game-rules-assumed motivation for playing to win has
disappeared and - our debate about whether some obvious, consensus
backup goal will always exist not withstanding - the play of those
players may become quite unpredictable as their motivations for taking
all game actions has now become unpredictable. It's no more complex
than that.
As for players too unskilled (whether by lack of experience or for
any other reason) to have a serious chance of winning the game from
the onset, the existence or lack thereof of this particular problem
is irrelevant as it is not the game system but their lack of skill
which is causing the situation.
I'm not sure what this talk of "judging a game" (snipped) is all
about. I'm just discussing when one particular type of problem
occurs in multiplayer games. It is a far cry from judging the
overall merits of the game.
Fred
Keepers of the Tribble
<a...@thorin.dementia.org> wrote:
>On Mon, 7 Jan 2002, Frederick Scott wrote:
>
>> Funny you should mention that. Civilization is one on my list of prime
>> offenders. The only thing about it is that most of the time I've played the
>> six and seven player games where two or three people have been basically
>> eliminated by mid-game, these people have always been sufficiently weak that
>> they seem to have little concept that they've been eliminated. They still do
>> "bad" things, though: primarily getting so desperate for trade cards that it's
>> often impossible to stop the leaders with a trade embargo.
>
>This reminds me of an issue groups I've played with have occasionally
>grappled with - if trades with the leaders increase their overall chances
>of winning (even if those overall chances still remain very small), is it
>ethically valid for them to trade with the leaders even if that makes the
>person they trade with much more likely to win? I claim that as long as
>you have any chance of winning, you should play to maximize it, but it
>could easily be viewed as kingmaking.
I look at it this way - if you don't want me to make deals with the
leader, then make your own offer. The last place guy *does* know he's
helping the leader, so if he can get the same benefit to himself
without helping the leader, that's a Good Thing.
As a side note, Stomp The Leader could be considered king-making in
reverse. Babylon 5 CCG was bad for that, since you could actually
cause the leader to lose ground. And once the leader had fallen past
other players, the group would then stomp the new leader. (As is
fair.) Except that the game never actually *ends* that way...
Steve Burt
> In article <3c399679$0$227$ed9e...@reading.news.pipex.net>, Steve Burt
wrote:
> >
> > This is simply not true. Tactics are *very* important in Diplomacy.
>
> Why do you think this?
>
> While in close situations they can make a difference, getting the power
> of multiple units from an ally through diplomacy is much more powerful
> than getting say a 10% bonus through tactics.
>
involving
> ordering of units, not of Diplomatic tactics.
>
> Tactics would become more important if the formation of alliances was
> relatively constant (by country - not by the player of a country), so that
don't
> seem to see the game getting played that way in practice.
Tactics (unit ordering) are important for a number of reasons. Here are a
few.
1. Let's say I'm France, and England and Germany are allied against me. I
have tried, unsuccessfully, to split the allies. However, in the resulting
moves, I outguess them, and perhaps come up with a surprising move they had
not anticipated, so instead of England getting Brest, and Germany getting
Holland, only Brest falls.
Now I can send a message to Germany pointing out that Engalnd is benefiting
from the attack on me, not him.
Often even a one move delay in taking a supply centre can be vital in
creating an opening to split an alliance.
2. Another important advantage might be to give me an extra tempo to bring a
unit back from the Med (say) to face the English.
3. I might also try suggesting tactical nuances to Germany which he hadn't
anticipated so that he can do something which looks like an accident, but
results in England not getting a build.
The point is, Diplomacy is driven by the on-board tactics and positions of
the units. It's hard for some pairs of nations to ally effectively, or it
may be unwise. If Turkey and Austria ally, they can take out Russia, but
Austria is now stuck with his erstwhile ally at his back but no-one else to
attack.
In the same way, the change in situation after every move creates rich
opportunities for diplomacy, and the use of clever or unexpected moves makes
a big difference to the outcoem of the game. Stalling an attack for one or
two seasons can make the difference between being eliminated, and winning
the game, because it gives time for diplomacy to take effect, or for allies
to become disenchanted.
David Damerell
>A, B, and C are playing a game; their current chances of winning are a,b,
>and c. C can interact with A such that c increases to c' and a increases
>to a'. What constraints would your group put on a, b, c, a', and c' for
>this to be considered a 'fair' deal?
[I'm assuming a is about equal to b and c is much smaller than either,
since that seems to be the situation in which B will be unhappiest.]
I would think it reasonable if and only if c' is greater than c. It's
hard luck on B, but he should try to offer C a more attractive deal - and
I prefer games where he usually can, so if C is cunning he can play A and
B against each other and get back into the running.
--
David Damerell <dame...@chiark.greenend.org.uk> flcl?
Steve Burt
there often *is* no optimal strategy. There is a move which will succeed so
long as player A doesn't do X.
The 'optimal' move in Diplomacy is the one which retrospectively was the
best - but it depends on what the other players did, so you often cannot
pre-calculate. You have to take risks, aided of course by judicious attempts
to psych the other players into doing what you want.....
Rich Shipley
> Rich Shipley wrote:
> >
> > Attempting to win is my intent when playing a game, but it is not my
central
> > motivation. My central motivation is to enjoy the process. I can do this
> > while losing as well as winning.
>
> True by irrelevant.
No it isn't - your premise is that a player's central motvation is gone once
that player cannot win. The above shows that this is not true.
> The point is that the rules are designed to assume that
> you are playing to win. The overall motivation for playing the game may
> affect the design (i.e., the game is designed to be fun to play) but if
you
> aren't playing to win then you are basically playing randomly.
I like the social aspects of game playing. The interaction of the people
playing is far more interesting to me than some concept of a pure game. If
someone who cannot win is trying to do their best, taking some in-game
retribution, or experimenting with an aspect of the game system (listing
things I typically do), I don't consider this random.
> > Then I guess the concept of multi-player games is flawed, so don't play
them
> > anymore. I'll go on enjoying them myself.
>
> The fact that they're flawed doesn't mean they're not worth playing. Only
> that they're not as good as they could be. And no one said the flaw was
> inevitable, only common. As I've said elsewhere, I fault game designers
for
> not considering this point as much as they should.
Some do and some do not. I like the variety. I would not want every designer
to only design games that lack this "flaw".
> > I don't really feel that any type of game is flawed. It is all in the
> > execution and audience. You are the one saying that the majority of
> > multi-player games out there are flawed and using faulty assumptions to
> > support this claim.
>
> And what "faulty assumptions" are those?
For one that a player's central motivation is to win. Winning should be the
intent, but I try to avoid players that have this as their central
motivation. The other is that games should all fit your personal criteria.
> > Settlers of Catan: Since it possible to be put in a position where you
> > cannot score 10 points, the game is flawed and should be scrapped.
>
> I just said it was flawed. I didn't say it should be scrapped. It has
> an imperfection, a blemish. That's all. You could fix it but you would
> have to work harder on the design to make sure that didn't happen. And
> it might cause tradeoff with something else you liked better than solving
> the problem.
If you admit that a game may suffer from this "flaw" being fixed then what
is your point?
> The *point* is that multiplayer games don't have to necessarily be like
that.
> There are ways to avoid this problem and some games do, at least to a
reasonable
> extent. That is a good thing, IMHO.
And some games have interesting mechanisms that would not be compatible with
fixing this "flaw" and that is also a good thing IMHO.
Rich