Negotiation or Dexterity?

I'm terrible at both but Dexterity games are fun whereas Negotiation games are usually suffering through some smirking guy who once read the words "Game Theory" offering me a clearly shitty trade which I usually end up taking just to make him shut up.

This is how negotiation goes with me:

me: I'll trade you X and some cash for your Y
him: no way. I want three Xes and all your cash
me: fuck that, that's not any kind of trade. Two Xes no cash
him: three Xes and all your cash
me: fuck it, ain't trading
him: no one else has Ys
me: that's ok
him: you're screwed if you don't get a Y
me: it's not a kidney. I don't need it to live
him: you need it to win
me: I lose all the time and one more time won't make any difference

That sounds exactly like the last time I played Monopoly

Buddy: I'll buy half your properties for x cash, you have no choice but to accept cuz you're out of money and will lose
Me: nah, I can still say no.
Buddy: no you have to take this or you are going to lose
Me: I don't have to do anything, I can lose with dignity. I'd sooner die than accept that trade.
Buddy: you don't understand this game. Basically near the end you have to accept any trade that keeps you alive.
Me: if you said to me you're going to dip your dick in peanut butter and apply it to my lips like clown makeup because I have no other choice, I would still refuse so I'm refusing your ridiculous trade offer.

I hate that game

Not really that hot on either.
Happy to play darts or pool at a pub or in someone's home 'bar room' but I don't take dexterity over into my social gaming life. And for negotiation games I find (a bit like Barney) that once you win a bit too often or back stab too much you get left out (as an example in BSG I will get accused/executed even when an obvious human because of previous, multiple very good Cylon activity) - also if you play with people who hang out a lot more with each other away from your game session then they will automatically gravitate towards each other (played Spartacus a couple of years back with three others, two regulars and another guy I knew but who did a lot of minis and rpg gaming with the other two, and even when I was right at the bottom they were still dealing mainly with each other and the newer guy only dumping on me) which makes it a bit pointless in playing, you may as well go watch TV while they play that game.

My all-time favorite CCG was Jyhad, aka Vampire: the Eternal Struggle. Although the game included a rich and complex combat system, it also included a strong negotiation element with voting. A player's minion would attempt to put a vote in play, and if not blocked by an adjacent player's minion, everybody with minions with votes could participate. One common card was Bribes, which offered a specific reward to each player who voted in favor of the vote. But you could potentially strip another player of some or all voting power if you had a way to directly attack his minions, especially if you were able to block the votes from even happening.

For the first six years that I played Jyhad, vote decks were considered one of the two primary ways to win the game. But the large local playgroup rarely put much energy into the voting discussions, because the strategy of when and how to use the most common vote cards was clearly understood. Then a friend introduced a lively play group from his hometown in the adjacent state to our group, via a regional tournament, and things changed. That group had much livelier negotiations during votes, and tended to construct their decks differently so they could offer more inducements instead of just the usual threats or pleas. In short, the livelier negotiations made the game even more fun.

There were more regional tournaments in the next few years, which pulled in a couple of other groups, and the improved negotiation style caught on with those groups as well. And sometimes players from our city would visit the negotiators, or vice versa, just to play a bunch of Jyhad and hang out.

Anyway, I think that's how I like negotiation in games. It should be an important element in the game, but not the only one. And the subject matter of the negotiation should be more complex than a simple zero sum confrontation, and there should be other considerations in the game which can affect the negotiation.

Shellhead wrote: Anyway, I think that's how I like negotiation in games. It should be an important element in the game, but not the only one. And the subject matter of the negotiation should be more complex than a simple zero sum confrontation, and there should be other considerations in the game which can affect the negotiation.

I absolutely agree. Best systems for me are the ones where negotiation comes in naturally and can be skipped altogether. Again, stuff like Cosmic, Dune/Rex. I've played games like these with people who barely negotiated at all, and although the flow was different from what I'd prefer, those were still legitimately good, interesting games. As opposed to stuff like Mall of Horror, for example.

Ever since I heard about them, I had a lot of interest in Vampire CCG and Dune CCG. It is damn shame they'r virtually impossible to get into at this point...

We obviously need a negotiation/dexterity game!

quozl wrote: We obviously need a negotiation/dexterity game!

Or you can just go to a strip club.

Shellhead wrote:

quozl wrote: We obviously need a negotiation/dexterity game!

Or you can just go to a strip club.

Twister......with the "Just the Tip" expansion