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Certainty vs. Ambiguity

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23 Jan 2018 09:56 #261798 by san il defanso
I was going to post this on the board games thread, but I had some longer thoughts...

Last night I had a couple of friends over and we played Saboteur 2 and Glory to Rome. The first game especially was a revelation for me. The original Saboteur is a fun little traitor game, though perhaps a little too simple for repeated plays. It also had a real problem with being too easy to parse out with fewer than 5 or 6 players. The expansion was a completely new experience for me. It adds a ton more roles, including splitting the loyal dwarves into teams, and there are lots of new actions and tunnel cards. The upshot was a game that had a lot more moving parts. I like chaotic games, so I was good with that, but the thing I really appreciated was the added ambiguity. It really made it hard to figure out the motivations of the other players, and that made the game way more compelling and raucous.

Combine that with Glory to Rome, which is a much more strategic game in the vein of Puerto Rico. But unlike PR, it has a lot more ambiguity. You can't parse out what the next player will do, and you don't even know what your own opportunity will be. You need to adapt to what the cards give you. This is so much more interesting to me that it makes me feel like I never need Puerto Rico or its other descendants again.

So I'm thinking a lot about this axis of certainty vs. ambiguity. I am pretty sure it's just another way of saying "hidden information," but maybe not. I see it in other games too. This is what has elevated Argent over other games like Agricola for me. I really appreciate the ambiguity provided by the voters. The same with Mascarade, which completely replaced Coup as my go-to short hidden-role game. In Coup it was way too easy to get to a point of knowing exactly what cards everyone else had. In fact that quality increased as the game goes on. Compare that to Mascarade, where your own role isn't automatically known.

I feel like ambiguity is a tool that goes underused by a lot of modern designs. It's not like it isn't there, but it feels like it's wielded unintentionally. But lack of definite knowledge or embracing the unknowable seems like it can be a really powerful way to give lots of designs legs. I think this is partly why AT felt like such a breath of fresh air. It feels wrong to know everything within a game.

What do all of you think?
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23 Jan 2018 10:03 #261801 by Sagrilarus
Replied by Sagrilarus on topic Certainty vs. Ambiguity
Oh no -- it plays a big factor in the Luck-then-Decision vs Decision-then-Luck design option as well. I think those three words in the subject line of this thread are a major facet of gamer types. Plenty of fertile ground for writing on that topic.

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23 Jan 2018 10:08 #261804 by san il defanso
I've often thought that nothing feels more gamey than perfect information.
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23 Jan 2018 10:27 #261806 by charlest
Replied by charlest on topic Certainty vs. Ambiguity
I'm not sure I agree that it's underutilized. I'm a big fan of hidden information as it increases drama, reduces cognitive processing of options, and makes for a general unpredictable nature that's much more entertaining.

But modern designs. Recent designs that rely on this to varying degrees:

Fallout - This is a big aspect of Fallout's agenda system. This one gets it wrong because it ties its hidden agenda scoring system to arbitrary actions that don't tie in well to the main draw of the game - the narrative path of the scenario

Space Freaks - The dynamic objective cards are hidden in your hand and only placed one per turn. Usually you accomplish the one you place on the same turn so players can't predict your actions and work to prevent them ahead of time. This is a solid mechanism because the way movement and space counting works in the game, it could make turns unbearable.

Not Alone - Entirely hidden information and playing cards, trying to double-think people. You get a sense of the possible cards being played as you can't re-play a card until you pick them all back up.

The Thing - Relies on secretly playing cards into a group. It needs another element of randomness or some cover for the imitation, unfortunately. It fails in a couple regards where BSG and Dark Moon succeeded IMO.

Those were the last four games I reviewed (the expansion in Not Alone's case), and they all utilize it for pretty important aspects.

I think your discussion is primarily about Euros, honestly, and I wouldn't disagree with you there. Noria - the most recently released Euro I've played is entirely perfect information. Interacting with other players is pretty minimal though so it doesn't hurt the design, at least in regards to its mechanical premise.
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23 Jan 2018 11:07 - 23 Jan 2018 11:11 #261819 by Gary Sax
Replied by Gary Sax on topic Certainty vs. Ambiguity

san il defanso wrote: I've often thought that nothing feels more gamey than perfect information.


I could go on and on about this topic. I love the question this thread is premised on. I see both sides on it.

I tend to prefer lower information/higher uncertainty games with ambiguous answers. I think they resemble the problems of real life much more closely than the sorts of complete information exercises that modern euros often are. They force you to make decisions over uncertainty, and balance risk vs. reward. To my mind, real life day to day is essentially this elaborate low-mid information satisficing exercise. We almost never make complete information decisions in real life, no matter how "informed" we all think we are. When something unexpected happens, hopefully we've hedged against it and we have to make new plans based on new realities. I find these games fascinating and worthy of hard thought. This extends to the sorts of activities I enjoy in games---I like games with negotiation elements, auctions, trading, because they resemble real life and open up even more opportunities to solve problems creatively, opening up the decision space. It's why I'm a professor of political science; I like studying human behavior and find it a very interesting puzzle (and an extremely hard one!).

In the same way, I think semi-cooperatives are very cool. I actually think most problems that people face day in and day out are semi-cooperative in nature. People balance individual benefits against collective goods. As a result, I think gaming these situations is fascinating because they force me to explicitly examine the types of trade-off decisions I make every day unconsciously. I sort of internally chuckle when people can't understand how to play these sorts of games without running the game state into the ground and doing a take it or leave it ultimatum. It reminds me of what Boellinger said about Archipelago on BGG---it's intended to be played such that you play to win but that you do not win so extravagantly that other players have an incentive to engage in brinksmanship that could end the game to the detriment of all players. Like perfect information BGG dude, you play this sort of game all day, every day if you engage in human interaction with other individuals. *Life* resembles these decisions, I hope you understand how they work!

On the other hand, I completely understand why other people like to retreat into perfect information games and heavily puzzle-like experiences when they game, even if I don't. To my mind, it is very comforting to apply your mind to a problem that has a pretty clear solution, if you could just account for other players' actions and puzzle out the N-variable ideal play. Many people want problems that do not resemble their distressing, annoying, and entirely too ambiguous real life stressful decisions. That's why they game! So I totally get it. Shit, it's why I play Uwe Rosenberg puzzles. For me, with his games, the less interaction and ambiguity the better. I'm playing them to sooth my mind.

The part that makes me bristle is when people assert deterministic euros are the superior game because they are a better test of intellect---it's like, no man, solving problems with uncertain information with limited time is the hardest thing in the world to do. And contrary to BGG folk wisdom about game theory, games with chance and ambiguity *have* optimal solutions (this misconception drives me INSANE). Open up a real game theory book---the hardest games to solve by far are those with uncertain information, and often they require mixed equilibriums to solve (i.e. playing a certain choice x% of the time, another y% of the time).
Last edit: 23 Jan 2018 11:11 by Gary Sax.
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23 Jan 2018 11:27 #261830 by san il defanso
Charlie, you're right. I'm thinking largely of Euro design here. My favorites in that genre are able to utilize ambiguity really well, but it still seems like many designers consider uncertainty to be a liability in design. That's obviously less true once we leave the fold of Euros.

To be clear, when I say that perfect information feels gamey, that's not a bad thing necessarily. I'm actually with Gary that perfect information can be soothing to parse out. I really enjoy games like Five Tribes and Power Grid, two games where the chaos is almost totally related to player behavior and not uncertainty. (They have a little, but bear with me.) We are after all playing games, and it's alright to be gamey sometimes. But it does hurt thematic design, and you see it especially with adventure games, where designers try to create some way of controlling things that wouldn't be controllable in an actual adventure kind of situation. That's why I still have Talisman and the D&D Adventure games, but I've ditched Mage Knight.
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23 Jan 2018 12:24 - 23 Jan 2018 12:24 #261848 by Colorcrayons
This is why I am bit polar on the game spectrum.

I like either pure abstracts, or over the top ameritrash. I want the purity of what they offer in their experiences without bs muddying it up.

Perfect info? Gimme those abstracts. Nothing else will do.

Thematic experience? Why bother with anything a euro offers? Much like Jesus, "y'all need more Thunder Road on your lives".

Euros seem to typify games that barely require the element of a human opponent being involved. Stereotypically, they seem to be solo puzzles where you compete against one another to solve it 'better'.

Anyways, I think this is a great topic to explore and agree with Sag, that it has a lot of room to do so. It deserves a better response than I have given and plan on giving it more due when I have a bit more time.
Last edit: 23 Jan 2018 12:24 by Colorcrayons.

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23 Jan 2018 13:01 #261854 by Shellhead
Replied by Shellhead on topic Certainty vs. Ambiguity
A game without ambiguity attracts the analysis-paralysis types.
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23 Jan 2018 13:03 #261855 by SuperflyPete
I do not generally like perfect information, certitude of outcome, or anything of the sort in games unless they're pure abstracts, which I do not like anyhow very much. At a minimum I want to have bidding as resolution of conflict, because I still have a chance to affect the outcome via bluff or strategy Something like Dungeon Twister is as far as I'm willing to go in a game.

I'm more of the "I ROLLED A 20. YOU HAVE HAD YOUR PENIS SEVERED BY MY +5 SWORD OF COCKWALLOPING!". It's just more fun. I'm not the kind of gamer who is interested in feeling smarter or cleverer because I won. I'm the kind of gamer that wants to shoot a 105mm artillery shell into a VW Microbus just to see it explode. I like the action, the excitement, and most of all, the small little surprises you get every time you roll. The time my wife rolled 17+ thirteen consecutive times during a Heroscape match, where she literally shredded my entire army in ONE TURN, is one of my all time favorite gaming memories, and it's 100% because of the exquisite surprise of her getting so lucky and taking advantage of it.

Sure, you might be surprised by an opponent's move in Connect Four or Chess or something, but it's just not the same as him rolling five dice for defense against your two offensive dice, and you roll two skulls and he rolls 5 great big whiffs. DIE, YOU SENTINEL FUCK! DIE!!
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23 Jan 2018 13:46 #261859 by the_jake_1973
I think ambiguity/hidden information attract me because of the drama that is usually inherent in the game. In a wargame, you may have the superior stack in a battle and still the outcome is in questions due to dice. And that represents the 'real-life' factor in a game where lucky shots occur, people punch above their weight, etc. In turn, that forces you to adapt to the changing battlefield. That is one of my favorite aspects of gaming.

I also like chess, but the uncertainty of your levy in The Duke makes me prefer that game over chess.

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23 Jan 2018 15:58 #261876 by engelstein
Replied by engelstein on topic Certainty vs. Ambiguity
This is obviously a personal preference thing.

But I will say (from hard-won personal experience), that reducing certainty does NOT reduce AP. For some people it can exacerbate it, since it's harder to judge the relative impact of your choices.

The level of uncertainty / variability can also feed into the strategy / tactics axis. Games where things change a lot between turns in general become more tactical.

For an excellent treatment of this subject I recommend Costikyan's "Uncertainty in Games":

mitpress.mit.edu/books/uncertainty-games

His thesis is that without uncertainty there is no game.

Geoff
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23 Jan 2018 17:43 #261895 by SuperflyPete
I have that article on my game design shelf. Truly an interesting read.

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23 Jan 2018 17:49 - 23 Jan 2018 17:49 #261896 by Shellhead
Replied by Shellhead on topic Certainty vs. Ambiguity

engelstein wrote: This is obviously a personal preference thing.

But I will say (from hard-won personal experience), that reducing certainty does NOT reduce AP. For some people it can exacerbate it, since it's harder to judge the relative impact of your choices.

The level of uncertainty / variability can also feed into the strategy / tactics axis. Games where things change a lot between turns in general become more tactical.

For an excellent treatment of this subject I recommend Costikyan's "Uncertainty in Games":

mitpress.mit.edu/books/uncertainty-games

His thesis is that without uncertainty there is no game.

Geoff


IIRC, Costikyan posted here at F:AT for a while, many years ago. He would post these really long, detailed posts to launch a thread, and the tone tended to be fairly pedantic and self-promotional. This did not endear him to FATties at the time, and he got some flack until he finally stopped posting here.
Last edit: 23 Jan 2018 17:49 by Shellhead.

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23 Jan 2018 18:37 - 23 Jan 2018 18:38 #261900 by engelstein
Replied by engelstein on topic Certainty vs. Ambiguity

Shellhead wrote: He would post these really long, detailed posts to launch a thread, and the tone tended to be fairly pedantic and self-promotional. This did not endear him to FATties at the time, and he got some flack until he finally stopped posting here.


Then I guess my days here are numbered!
Last edit: 23 Jan 2018 18:38 by engelstein.

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23 Jan 2018 18:55 #261901 by dysjunct
Replied by dysjunct on topic Certainty vs. Ambiguity

Shellhead wrote:

engelstein wrote: This is obviously a personal preference thing.

But I will say (from hard-won personal experience), that reducing certainty does NOT reduce AP. For some people it can exacerbate it, since it's harder to judge the relative impact of your choices.

The level of uncertainty / variability can also feed into the strategy / tactics axis. Games where things change a lot between turns in general become more tactical.

For an excellent treatment of this subject I recommend Costikyan's "Uncertainty in Games":

mitpress.mit.edu/books/uncertainty-games

His thesis is that without uncertainty there is no game.

Geoff


IIRC, Costikyan posted here at F:AT for a while, many years ago. He would post these really long, detailed posts to launch a thread, and the tone tended to be fairly pedantic and self-promotional. This did not endear him to FATties at the time, and he got some flack until he finally stopped posting here.


I thought that was Lew Pulsifer.
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