Long Live Long Games

JonJacob wrote: Put people in a room for one hour and ask them questions about one another. Do that again but leave them there for six hours and the results will be different. It's just how we are. If you are interested in playing people instead of mechanics than long games offers something no short game can. If you just like the mechanics and whatnot then you lose nothing.

That's a great way to phrase how I feel about long games.

Michael Barnes wrote: Face it. Long games are more often than not a drag. They're a pain in the ass to organize. They're a pain in the ass to set aside a day to get through. And odds are, you're not going to be playing these kinds of games frequently enough to get the most out of them in this day and age, regardless of lifestyle or life stage.

A good long game shouldn't be a drag. Some long games are drags because, and this mostly applies to older games, the mechanics make the game longer than it deserves to be. Game design has come a long ways since Civ/AdvCiv and it shows in the amount of stuff you can cram into a 2-hour game. That doesn't change the way I feel about "event" games like Civ/AdvCiv or Age of Renaissance. Those, and some other long games, are rewarding in their length because of the way the game situation evolves over time. The rest of that paragraph I totally agree with, which exasperates me immensely.

Michael Barnes wrote: It's a myth that longer games are more immersive. What happens isn't immersion, it's that some people commit differently and engage themselves differently because there is a time investment involved. I used to think that a Civilization game HAD to be long in order to capture the feel. I was completely wrong about that. There is no reason for a Civ game to be long, because if the design abstracts time, scope and scale appropriately then the actual playtime doesn't matter, and could actually detract from the game if it outstrips the player's level of engagement.

I don't want to wax philosophical over player dynamics or the way time investment affects play style, but those are important parts of what I like about long games. Clash of Cultures is probably a better civ game than Civ/AdvCiv. But only if "a civ game" is your goal. Outside of that narrow focus they are very different games and provide very different experiences. It's not a matter of immersion. Shifting genres, when I've left my backside open to a supposed ally in hour 5 of Diplomacy there's a level of suspicion, reliance, and tension there that no other negotiation or DOAM game (that I've played) can match. Civ/AdvCiv can provide that as well, but Clash of Cultures doesn't. It's easy to shrug it off when the game's going to end inside of the next hour.

Being functionally eliminated in a long game does suck, and it does happen. Long games also tend to be more delicate than shorter or more normal length games. But I'm usually playing to have fun with/against the other players at the table and not so much to win. A lot of the time (not all of the time) using what happened 3 hours ago in the game as negotiation fodder to make or break an alliance or trade is more fun than playing a bunch of different games in the same time period.

Michael Barnes wrote: As for the whole lifestyle issue...I'm an adult and even though I don't have lazy sundays to do whatever the hell I want all day or anything like that, I can damn well schedule myself that time if I really want to. I have just as much freedom now as when I was 17, I just need to know in advance. Don't call me Friday night to come over Saturday morning, that doesn't work anymore. But this whole idea that adults/people with families or jobs, whatever, somehow "can't" play these kinds of games anymore is bullshit.

Totally agree. Like I said earlier: I can schedule an unorganized game day weeks in advance and get a good turn out, but if I organize a longer game for the day I get crickets. The time frame isn't the issue. I suspect a lot of people share your opinion with respect to long games. So I'll just have my Takenoko pity party over here while I think about how awesome Warrior Knights Game Day would have been.

Gotta call bullshit. The tolerance for longer games is very much related to station in life. Ten years ago when I had four kids under 7 I arrived at game night at 8pm, I didn't have the brain power to go too deep and it wasn't uncommon to be interrupted. That's life, and anyone pretending that they have all the freedom of the world and then couch it with "as long as you schedule six days in advance and nothing comes up" is only trying to convince themselves.

My kids are old enough now that I can go straight from work and get a six hour stretch of uninterrupted gaming in. Fury of Dracula or even TI3 are in reach, and frankly a refreshing change from the fast food of the prior decade. I'm not going to pretend that I'm as free as I was when I was 20, but I do have much more latitude than I did when I was 40.

One of the things the WBC or the gaming weekend a few weeks back gives you is the opportunity to play a "big" game and not be too concerned if it drags at the end. You just crack open another beer and keep on playing.

S.

If it was a different crowd, that crazy consimworld con sounds pretty fucking cool. A week playing the most insane experience wargames, many times in teams? Finishing whole campaigns? Part of me is titillated.

I get together with the same group of friends once every month specifically to play longer games. Usually a single long game. I look forward to those days. I play shorter games and medium games sometimes as well and have no desire to limit myself to one or the other. I seriously don't understand some people here's inability to enjoy more than one genre, length, or style of game. Sure there are games that are a chore to slog through for more than an hour. Easy for me to avoid those games since we plan ahead for what everyone wants. But there are plenty of crap shorter games just as susceptible to a bad session that feels like forever and its harder to avoid those since they tend to come out at open gaming nights.

Not sure what it is exactly about longer games that I enjoy. Maybe putting so much time and effort into something builds more of an emotionally attached immersion rather than just the mental immersion a good shorter game can evoke. Long live long games! Long live choice of games!

Michael Barnes wrote: As for the whole lifestyle issue...I'm an adult and even though I don't have lazy sundays to do whatever the hell I want all day or anything like that, I can damn well schedule myself that time if I really want to. I have just as much freedom now as when I was 17, I just need to know in advance. Don't call me Friday night to come over Saturday morning, that doesn't work anymore. But this whole idea that adults/people with families or jobs, whatever, somehow "can't" play these kinds of games anymore is bullshit.

I'm glad this is said. I agree 100%. I usually get out for one game night a week, which tends to run from 7-11, maybe sometimes 12. That's more than enough time to play any game in my closet. Even (best in class) dinosaurs like TITAN or Warrior Knights. If, for some reason, there needs to be a super long session of something, hey, let me know a few weeks in advance. A few weekends ago I played in an all day BloodBowl tourney. I won't set a whole day aside to game, but once or twice a year, I feel fine with it.

So, yeah, when I read people say they "don't have the time" they usually mean "they'd rather...", and that's totally cool too. There's nothing wrong with wanting to play Nexus Ops, Cosmic Encounter, and bunch of hands of Love Letter if that's want you want.

This also holds when people say they "don't have time for role-playing". Whatever. With all the time we waste online, you mean to tell me _none_ of that time could have gone towards reading a module? You're going to have a couple hours upcoming to game with buddies. Playing an rpg may mean that you surf the web a little less beforehand. Again, if rpgs aren't your thing, no biggie. It's just something I see a lot..."don't have time for role-playing"...

Anyway, about long and short games, I also agree 3-5 hours is a long game, and I prefer games to settle in around the 2-4 hour range.

Playing short games are fine, and fun, but they are in no way memorable. Dropping a Heroine, Winter, Key combo on someone in Condotierre is awesome. However, some else is likely to also do it that game, if not in the following game. When what the game has to offer is on full display in rapid playings, then nothing really sticks out.

A long game, however, is different. One 3-4 hour session is not going to reveal all that Warrior Knights has to offer. in one game, you won't see a large portion of event or assembly cards. One game of Martian Rails you may only see 10-20% of the events. But, the events that do happen have a big impact on the game and leave a lasting impression.

Personally, I play the shorter games with the family or my casual friends, but with the other groups, I prefer the longer 2-4 hour titles.

Part of it is clock speed and point of focus as well. Parents work in much shorter bursts because the job demands it. They also tend to have their radar turned on 24/7. Between the two long games, especially deep ones, are contrary to your wiring.

My biggest issue now is logistics. Four kids and two drivers means evening events need to be coordinated to make sure people can get where they need to be. The good news is that the logistics either work or they don't and I know that by 5pm. For me impromptu is actually better than scheduled.

S.

Gotta call bullshit. The tolerance for longer games is very much related to station in life. Ten years ago when I had four kids under 7 I arrived at game night at 8pm, I didn't have the brain power to go too deep and it wasn't uncommon to be interrupted. That's life, and anyone pretending that they have all the freedom of the world and then couch it with "as long as you schedule six days in advance and nothing comes up" is only trying to convince themselves.

Oh good grief, enough with the old man talk..."so...very...tired."

I have never in my entire life come home from work and thought "I'm too tired/mentally drained/whatever" to play a game. I work from home, I'm writing all day for a Satanic Fortune 500 insurance company and I take care of the kids almost exclusively because we don't have childcare and my wife is usually on a shoot or preparing for one. Granted, I'm not a nuclear physicist, an on-call trauma surgeon or a business owner but still...I actually have MORE time to game now than I did when I was in college, I was ways involved in making some film or another and had zero time for games. So I don't want to hear that my preference for shorter games is related to life stage.

My preference is because I've been playing games for damn near my whole life and my tolerance for bullshit is zero. I also do not give a flying shit about winning, which means all of this investment and engagement is really for something fleeting and meaningless. I am much more impressed by a game with one page of rules that provides a fun experience than one with 25 pages and a five hour playtime that breaks it's own back trying to convince you of how "thematic" or "narrative" it is.

When things get refined or honed, they get smaller. Game design is like a technology in that regard. If things are getting bigger and more Byzantine, you're going the wrong way. This is what happened with FFG- look no further than Horus Heresy.

No offence to anyone because I'm clearly as bad as everyone else... hell I've been suspended before thanks to being over opinionated on BGG, which should be a badge of shame but clearly isn't....


.. but I think it's hilarious that we argue about this stuff as if there is an actual answer. As if someone were actually going to be right.

Although I'm surprised where our brains go in the process and that can actually be somewhat enlightening for me even outside of gaming all together.

... as for the no time thing. Jeff nailed it, it's usually "I'd rather" and that rather is things other than games. Music and family usually. But my internet time does not cut into that because I only post at work or when I have a few minutes at home.

Obviously when you say you don't have time you mean that you have other priorities. I could leave my family and band and friends and focus on games I suppose... not going to happen. But the fact remains that when I can squeeze in a quick game of something there is a huge part of me that longs for something more expansive. It may be nostalgia but that counts too.

One of my favorite comments from over at BGG is in the Silverton comments. Something along the lines of:
"When games like Silverton are gone from gaming, I will be gone with them."

I feel like that a lot, but I won't necessarily be done playing games, just done buying them.

There's no question that games are going smaller/sleeker, but there will thankfully (hopefully) still be the long game produced now and then.

To complete the technology analogy, perhaps some of us will end up the boardgaming equivalent to those folks hitting the internet with hacked Commodore 64s.

Gary Sax wrote: If it was a different crowd, that crazy consimworld con sounds pretty fucking cool. A week playing the most insane experience wargames, many times in teams? Finishing whole campaigns? Part of me is titillated.

It IS pretty damn cool, any wargamer needs to put this con on their bucket list. We just wrapped up four straiht days of playing the first volume of the Finnish Winter War trilogy. After fourteen years this con is still one of the best weeks of my year.

PITA that it occurs at a time in the year when I can't fly.

If it was solidly in the summer, it would be a lot easier to make it and I'd go in a flash.

It will be in late June next year.

Gary Sax wrote: If it was a different crowd, that crazy consimworld con sounds pretty fucking cool. A week playing the most insane experience wargames, many times in teams? Finishing whole campaigns? Part of me is titillated.

That would be totally awesome. All those great monster games....sigh.

I am going to take exception to Barnes insinuation that there is some sort of macho dick measuring contest regarding playing longer games. That's absurd and I suspect it was one of his throw away lines designed to get a reaction.

Look, there are good and bad games of all play times. Some long games are indeed long due to procedure, book keeping, excessive chrome or whatever. There are also utter shit games you can play in ten minutes.

Diplomacy is not a very good game. There is a reason the last time I went to an event to play it, I donated my copy to the group and walked out the door and have never felt the slightest urge to play it ever again.

However, if we limit our discussion to good long games, I'll take one long game over three shorter ones every time. The difference between an episodic TV show like Dragnet and one where the whole season is one story like True Detective. Both are good shows but I certainly become more connected to the longer story. Same with a game, a deeper story that has a greater hold on my imagination takes time to develop.

JonJacob wrote: .. but I think it's hilarious that we argue about this stuff as if there is an actual answer. As if someone were actually going to be right.

Didn't you see my signature line?!

Seriously, I think we've had this long game discussion too. I wonder if anyone actually expects the entire thread to go, "Oh he's got the point there, he has. That wraps it up then. Good thread." I sure don't, but it's still fun. My favorite parts are when someone drops in and pulls a Tony Wilson from 24 Hour Party People: "You're just fucking wrong!"

If we were having these discussions sitting at a table in an actual room I'd half expect Karl Pilkington to fly through the window.