VP Engines: Why Can They Suck?

Sevej wrote: I think VS is best on games where a lot of things happening and you need a way to gauge overall performance instead of differing individual objectives.

See, this is pretty much where VS is used in the way I hate, and I think it's because it's the easiest (aka laziest) possible way to deal with a situation like that: just make different shit the game designer wants you to do worth VPs and we'll figure out who won at the end.

I agree with sgosaric that, though I kinda hate RFTG, your VPs there just come from two sources: buildings (or whatever they're called, planets & developments), trade, and rare special cards. Now, one thing that *does* bug me is that you get VPs from buildings that do things: I dislike it when games make special powers worth VPs, since when I acquire a special power, I like to buy it because of what it's going to do for me, how it's going to help me achieve some end goal: not because the special power itself is the end goal (VPs on cards you buy in Ascension: CotG bother me for the same reason, I definitely prefer the split seen in Dominion or Thunderstone, or also partly seen in Ascension with the monsters).

A couple interesting blog posts related to this on BGG, from Eurogamers:

www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/1436/path...nt-a-photoshop-tutor

www.boardgamegeek.com/blogpost/9556/multiple-paths-to-ra

I like VP's just fine, but then I like abstract games just fine too so that counts me out. But I don't want to play that shit all the time. I love how it's done in Mage Knight and Runewars the best because the VP's represent something else so strongly that their not even VP's anymore.

Mage Knight has experience points, NOT VP's. They are directly related to your level and power and there is pay off mid game for it. Those are not VP's but we call them that because we're so used to seeing VP's used in other games.

Runewars does not have VP's in a similar way. They are essentially stronghold a la Dune that can be moved around and must be defended or they are lost.

Both seem like VP's on the surface but in reality they are trasnparently something else altogether. What they represent is so clear to us as gamers that it is unfair to label them VP's.

TI:3 has a VP system that bothers me sometimes, some of the goals are too bizzare to make sense to me and in end game the winner can occasionally not look like a winner at all. I still love that game but they bother me a little bit. It's a simple solution to a complicated problem and I think more time could have been spent on it. For that reason we choose which objectives to lay out for the game. This wouldn't bother me in a shorter Euro because the process is similarily abstracted. In TI:3 it's incongruous with the rest of the game.

In Euro games it doesn't bother me because they are generally pretty abstract anyway. Euro to me is just code for multi player abstract anyhow. Peurto Rico or Stone Age are fine and you'd have to be pretty disengenuous to not see what the clearly represent but at the same time the whole damn process is so abstract that the VP system fits right in there without missing a beat. I have more then enough imagination to see what they are supposed to be, same with the whole process.

That's the whole thing to me. Three basic categories. Places where they were themed up properly or suit the style and places where they don't make sense. Each game I play with VP's fits into one of those three places.

JonJacob wrote: I like VP's just fine, but then I like abstract games just fine too so that counts me out. But I don't want to play that shit all the time. I love how it's done in Mage Knight and Runewars the best because the VP's represent something else so strongly that their not even VP's anymore.

Mage Knight has experience points, NOT VP's. They are directly related to your level and power and there is pay off mid game for it. Those are not VP's but we call them that because we're so used to seeing VP's used in other games.

Runewars does not have VP's in a similar way. They are essentially stronghold a la Dune that can be moved around and must be defended or they are lost.

Both seem like VP's on the surface but in reality they are trasnparently something else altogether. What they represent is so clear to us as gamers that it is unfair to label them VP's.

TI:3 has a VP system that bothers me sometimes, some of the goals are too bizzare to make sense to me and in end game the winner can occasionally not look like a winner at all. I still love that game but they bother me a little bit. It's a simple solution to a complicated problem and I think more time could have been spent on it. For that reason we choose which objectives to lay out for the game. This wouldn't bother me in a shorter Euro because the process is similarily abstracted. In TI:3 it's incongruous with the rest of the game.

In Euro games it doesn't bother me because they are generally pretty abstract anyway. Euro to me is just code for multi player abstract anyhow. Peurto Rico or Stone Age are fine and you'd have to be pretty disengenuous to not see what the clearly represent but at the same time the whole damn process is so abstract that the VP system fits right in there without missing a beat. I have more then enough imagination to see what they are supposed to be, same with the whole process.

That's the whole thing to me. Three basic categories. Places where they were themed up properly or suit the style and places where they don't make sense. Each game I play with VP's fits into one of those three places.

Runewars absolutely does not have the system that I and Samoko decried at the kickoff of this thread; for one, it's a VP threshold game, not a count-em-up, and two, the VPs come from a small number of sources.

I like victory point games where the victory points tie into something you are trying to accomplish. I'll take Manhattan Project and you get victory points based on the bombs you pick up. That's a nice tie in to what you are doing. My only problem is that when someone gets going, they really get going and it's tough to knock them down but there are ways to do it. I will throw Power Grid into that category as well.

But I prefer the simpler victory conditions in war games.

This is a little bit of a digression, but connects to what I was talking about earlier about how you have to be able to have a point where you feel like THAT was where you LOST, how incremental point-gain drains excitement from the game:
www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/GameTheory2.shtml

dragonstout wrote: This is a little bit of a digression, but connects to what I was talking about earlier about how you have to be able to have a point where you feel like THAT was where you LOST, how incremental point-gain drains excitement from the game:
www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/GameTheory2.shtml

Aside from the thematic nothing of Dominion, the above has always been my biggest gripe with that game. It's entirely a game of inches, with almost no room for an all-or-nothing gambit. And he never did really address it, aside from maybe the Treasure Map card in Seaside.