Rule 0 or Playing Within the Spirit of the Game

its not a case of being upset with losing or winning, it is a case of there being a mentality that if someone wins a more involved game they can rub it in everyone elses faces. This negative approach to victory is the problem. If people in my game group were generally cool with wins i'd be more interested in playing games like this as would some others. RoR because it is a manipulative game is worse for this than others.

Cambyses wrote: I don't know that I'm the kind of person who really believes that the only reason to play boardgames is to have fun. But I sure as shit know that playing in order to ensure we DON'T have a good time cannot be an acceptable reason.

I think this statement is partly fair, since for me it strongly depends on (1) the length of the game and (2) who you are playing with. Tanking a game CAN be fun for everyone. It doesn't have to be unfun.

I would never tank a game with kids (or with my family), because it would ruin the game for them and for me. I have no problem tanking a short game with my game group (KingPut is in my group), because I'll enjoy it and (usually) so will everyone else.

A longer game is a totally different story. Tanking a game after playing for 2-3 hours is beyond the limit of proper human behavior, most likely. People have too much invested in the game at that point.

KingPut wrote: For me somebody going into a co-op game thinking I'm going to tank this game if I can't win is no different than somebody going into a multiplayer competitive game and saying they'll flip the table if they have no chance to win.

As I mentioned in a previous thread, I was in a recent game of DoW with KingPut, and I was strongly leaning towards tanking the game. I didn't actually have time to tank, since we lost five minutes after I realized that I couldn't accomplish my personal goal. Regardless, I'm glad that I didn't blow up the world, because DoW is long and people probably would have gotten pissed off, and also because doing so would have 'kingmade' the traitor - had been there been one in the game. (Turns out there wasn't.)

My only other comment, really, is that DoW isn't a coop game. It just isn't. People who treat it (and Terra, the LOTR dice game, Gloria Mundi, etc.) as a pure coop play it very differently than people who don't.

I wouldn't get too bothered with people playing a game in a different
manner from how I do. I'd likely mock them for what they did though.

Different perceptions and expectations is why I bother playing with
other people at all - if I want everyone to play just like I would,
I'd just play with myself.

The only thing I expect from the table is that everybody is playing to win, or at least make the best of their situation. Games simply don't work otherwise. But I'm not a Nazi about it. If somebody is trying something new or interesting, that's fine too.

If a game supports an everybody loses scenario, I expect that last place player to make that play. I have no experience with RoR or DoW, but plenty with Supremacy. Every such game ended in nuclear winter. That's why I don't play that sort of game. And don't give me this hippy-dippy shit about not playing within the spirit of the game. If the game supports it, it is within the spirit of the game. You are just whining that I pissed on your victory dance.

mutagen wrote:
If a game supports an everybody loses scenario, I expect that last place player to make that play. I have no experience with RoR or DoW, but plenty with Supremacy. Every such game ended in nuclear winter. That's why I don't play that sort of game. And don't give me this hippy-dippy shit about not playing within the spirit of the game. If the game supports it, it is within the spirit of the game. You are just whining that I pissed on your victory dance.

Spirit of the game is important, in terms of lending the context (i.e. nuclear
winter is WORSE than coming out behind in what amounts to a resource race), but
let's look at it in other terms - it's precisely your expectations of evaluating
the end state which make the games designed with such a principle in mind to be
unpleasant. So, essentially you cut off a class of games which took a different
inherent stance than you favor, BUT, with a little willingness to bend, you might
find those games quite enjoyable. The design tried one thing, and you're simply
not willing to buy into it, out of what seems like stubbornness.

Historically, the binary win/loss model ( thegamebox.gamesontables.com/index.php?topic=1477.0 ) has
not been as pervasive in gaming as it is among modern style gamers. In fact, I only encountered
really serious adherence to such a model for all games after the rise of the eurogame -
though I know that some very competitive style of wargamers followed such.

The design tried one thing, and you're simply
not willing to buy into it, out of what seems like stubbornness.

Well yes, I suppose that is fair. But I would claim that the game purposefully creates a dissonance by claiming a state in which I end up last is somehow better than a state in which all players end up equal. That is like attempting to redefine the meaning of "got your ass kicked". The game is free to attempt that, but the other players will still call me a little bitch when I lose. So screw it, I'm pushing the fucking button.

I don't remember supremacy that much (there were other flaws that bugged me more), but RoR makes playing against the spirit (as I see it) still a very good game. It becomes a tool for negotiation, which can be used as a catch-up mechanism.

In terms of 'redefining' though, I can argue just as much that you're 'redefining' the simulative nature of the design. Many older games had more of an eye on presenting a believable experience than what the eurogame craze has established as a norm - or for that matter, the feeling that came from the old family style games like Monopoly or Risk, which used player elimination largely to make everyone who didn't win defacto losers. Expectations come from different experience - both the gambling and simulation backgrounds to gaming present more nuanced views than the simple binary win/loss.

I think different philosophies are more suited to some games than others. RoR, or Supremacy are derived from a simulation background, so that lens makes more sense. But, trying to claim that you 'came in second' in Risk because you bottled up in Australia all game seems ludicrous: you never had a chance!

mutagen wrote: . . . but the other players will still call me a little bitch when I lose. So screw it, I'm pushing the fucking button.

My group would mock me for pushing the button. You can threaten to tank the game all you want, but if you do you'll pay a price.

S.

In the specific example of Malloc's Republic of Rome game, I still stand behind his play as being within the spirit of the game. I suggest that the proper response would have been for the rest of the table to appease him at the time of demand and then collectively agree to never allow him into a position where he could make that threat again. See, in RoR it isn't arbitrarily decided who gets put into power. It happens through player decisions and that is the huge difference between it and Dead of Winter.

A simple card draw determines a players objective. No player choice at all. Also, there is nothing the other players can do to avert the tanking. There is the "exile" vote but realistically the game can be tanked in a mere turn or two so is neigh impossible to stop.

Do not confuse tanking the game in Dead of Winter and a traitor victory. They are NOT the same thing. Traitor victory conditions include a requirement for large amounts of resources or very specific ones. For a traitor to win he must spend a significant portion of the game getting them and this means that he too is trying to keep the colony going at least until it's time to kill it.

What is against the spirit of this game is tanking the colony when doing so causes you to lose as well.

Some truths transcend game rules. If a game defines a winner, it also defines a not-winner. Around where I come from we call the not-winners -- losers (and other vile things). I suppose a more nuanced table might call them participants, or co-players, or some other, but that is bullshit. Another truth: If everybody is a loser, than nobody is. Games are free to contravene these truths, but nobody will take this seriously.

My goal in a game is to be the winner. Failing that, my goal is to nullify the winner. Role play or simulation just doesn't enter into it. These goals, very reasonable IMHO, might mean making everybody the loser. If this is a legitimate game state, I don't think it is reasonble to call somebody an asshole for taking it.

But no worries, I'm not a psychopath. If everybody is really into the role-play, I'll just drink my beer and shut the hell up.

But I won't be playing your game again.