Rule 0 or Playing Within the Spirit of the Game

The designer of Republic of Rome made it entirely possible that all players could lose the game. How is it outside the spirit of the game if one player wields that spectre of defeat to influence the behavior of other players? Is this significantly different than the typical co-op game alpha dog pressuring other players to follow a particular strategy?

KingPut wrote: I was in the Malloc Republic of Rome game and I will never play Republic of Rome again unless everyone puts in $20.00 and if we lose the game we take the $100 and donate it charity so that people have something tangible to lose.

^Kingput said in one sentence what I've been trying to say all along. But I believe it is possible to have a game group who plays (mostly) within a single game. These games will work if that is true.

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 admit I'm having have a hard time understanding why anyone would tank a game just because they can't win.

I completely understand (and agree with) where your analysis is coming from, Gary, but isn't metagaming part of the enjoyment of a game like, say, Cosmic Encounter? Does the fact that a lot of Cosmic Encounter happens above the table make it more poorly constructed, by these parameters?

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.

I have played RoR about 5 times i think, all bar one of these games was tanked. The one that wasn't people just let me win because they were fed up. In all the others someone has taken a bigish lead, flopped their ego on the table a bit and the others have responding by crashing the game. I think it is very difficult to win the early scenario if your table is very competitive and mine is. I've someone is making a big deal out of them winning, i am not sure you can blame the table for wanting to stop them at any cost. There ae ego's on the line here after all. Imo, RoR will only work if your players don't have much ego and don't mind seeing a winner. I think this unlikely however because it is such a screw your neighbor game and these tend to spark peoples egos.

Also +1 to Kingputs idea. That would make RoR work a little better i think.

DukeofChutney wrote: In all the others someone has taken a bigish lead, flopped their ego on the table a bit and the others have responding by crashing the game.

But isn't this part of the game? Isn't working the room an aspect of the play? I'll agree there likely shouldn't be a red button on the board available to all, but if someone flops their ego on the table I don't have a lot of sympathy for them.

S.

Sevej wrote:

VonTush wrote: A game where you have to invoke Rule: 0 more often than not is bad design.
Not to say that I'm in favor of being a dick, but a game that is volatile to where you have to remind people to play within The Spirit of the Game is bad design.

I long to be in that spot that Malloc was in...That is playing the game because he's now influenced how people think about any future games with him. A brilliant play!

This. I agree with this. I mean... Battlestar Galactica and The Resistance work without Rule 0.

Not to mention a host of other games, the least of which is Shadows over Camelot.

Yeah, but at what point do you tell a designer "you need to shut out a specific design option because some people don't like it"? People that like more socially-oriented gaming deserve a few titles too.

So Malloc says, "pay me tribute or I flush." This isn't a necessarily a binary ultimatum, especially coming from him. It's the opening of negotiations. Granted, if Malloc uses it as a "only I get to win or everybody loses" ploy to the final turn then he's a douche bag and falls into Rule 0. He would be open to the consequences. But he doesn't strike me as someone that isn't willing to listen to counter-offers. Or act on them.

Those of you saying "the game ends when the game ends" . . . a noble concept that doesn't survive reality. The back-pressure on being a dick is the beginning of the next game. That's a solid metaphor for your entire life. Like it or not it's always in play.

You guys need to play Junta again. A game where they had to write lying into the rules to make sure players understood the nature of the game.

S.

I would love to play Junta some day. Thanks to a post here at F:AT, I picked up an inexpensive West End edition several years ago, but still can't get it on the table.

DukeofChutney wrote: Imo, RoR will only work if your players don't have much ego and don't mind seeing a winner.

I would never play with anyone who gets upset if someone else wins at a game. I really can't believe how anyone would, really. :/

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.