What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

I guess I'm getting to the Archipelago party pretty late. I went back to read some old threads on it and saw you swooning over it Gary. You made some comments about how genius the market system is and I totally agree. I think the Market is the most fascinating thing about the game as it's an elegant tightrope you have to walk in order to keep it slightly stocked to deal with Crises, but not too jammed to keep unemployment and unrest down. It's fluid and smooth in execution and the economy as a whole is joyous to interact with.

I played Dead of Winter again last night. I need to spend more time thinking about the game, but I'm leaning towards the idea that the game is seriously screwed up. The semi-coop nature of the game, where every player - even the "good guys" - has his or her own secret agenda leads to extremely wonky behavior.

I usually find semi-coop games extremely amusing (e.g., Terra, LOTR dice-building game, Gloria Mundi) because they're really social experiments that barely even count as games. The difference between Terra and DoW, though, is that DoW is a lot longer. Watching a game crash and burn after 30 minutes, to me, is pretty darn funny, but I've learned that watching the same thing happen after 2-3 hours is not much fun. Even if I'm the one causing the game to crash.

An interesting point, which has now been debated on BGG at great length, is that a "good" player who can't win (i.e., their secret goal is essentially beyond reach) can tank the game in such a way that no one wins. Though this only makes sense if that player is convinced that there is no betrayer, since tanking the game otherwise could lead to "betrayer" kingmaking.

In fact, I tried to do this very thing last night once I realized my secret goal was unlikely to be achieved. However, the same turn that I decided to implode the game, the game blew up anyway (through no fault of my own) courtesy of some horrible die rolling and we lost within minutes. Note: I would never behave this selfishly in a family game, or with players that I don't know. Crazy selfish behavior is expected in my normal game group, however.

A valid reason for tanking the game in the face of certain defeat, by the way - in my opinion - is that it causes the game to end much more quickly, which in turn allows me play something else with my crazy friends.

Anyway, I think there are numerous things that are wrong with the game, but it'll take time for me to sort them out in such a way that I can communicate them clearly.

Apropos, wkover, because there's a lot of debate about this sort of thing with Archipelago. In Archipelago it's a little clearer, I think: basically, if you are in a position you can't win or have a very small perceived chance of winning, the game was played wrong by other players. Other players need to pay *you* off not to tank and keep things far enough above tank level that you won't go rogue. The mechanics support this. You need to perceive a significant, positive chance of winning and that's partially the responsibility of other players. Here's an amazing review that spells this out.

www.boardgamegeek.com/thread/947559/what...-missing-archipelago

BGG people tend to *hate* this, like most internet folks they have a strong libertarian streak of "if I'm winning I should be able to rub it all over you and give you a 0% chance of winning!" But these types of games are, like you said, a much more interesting social experience predicated on maintaining a modicum of equality and keeping other people with enough perceived chance to win that they won't destroy the game. The essence of the game, in fact, is encapsulated in the designer comment in the review thread from above:

"If I could add to your excellent analyze of the game and why and how to win in Archipelago, I think I would add this that I was expecting for you reach at some point in your demonstrations...

In Archipelago you need to win discreetely and not outrageously. You need to finally tune your victory, not being too obvious, not smash down your opponent under your feet with a huge gap of difference, let the others think they are still well in the game. At least This is what I think and discovered after quite some games."

I've always wanted to perform an experiment on playing a game like this with players in different countries/societies. Given how limited a goal equality, in and of itself, is perceived as a goal among US citizens (surveys suggest) relative to other places and people, my guess is this sort of game really rankles Americans. But it would probably seem natural to individuals who operate in a society that tends to associate equality with an intentional goal, independent of skill, fairness or efficiency. This game behavior would seem much more natural.

Archipelago gets around the problem by promoting negotiation as you say, and by also obfuscating the current score. Dead of Winter makes your current state of victory crystal clear so it leaves you with few options. That's a huge difference.

Definitely---a game like this needs mechanics that support uncertain game state and side payment. Viewed like that (I've never played it), I can see how DoW actually *is* broken, and I don't say shit like that lightly.

I do think it's interesting that the people who seem to be enjoying Dead of Winter the most are folks who either (a) treat is a pure coop anyway (all of us vs. bad guy), even though it isn't, or (b) go out of their way not to break the game.

Regardless of how I feel, I will go on record and state that DoW is much better than Panic Station. Wow, did that game need a lot more development.

It occurred to me that I would probably like DoW more (as a game, not experiment) if it genuinely was an "us vs. betrayer" coop where, to win as a group, the good guys had to beat the main objective AND all good players had to achieve their secret goals. Though this would lead to all sorts of "secret information" problems, since players would simply tell each other what they needed to fulfill their secret (well, not anymore) objectives.

Also, for this to work, the game would need to be fine-tuned so that the main objectives were easier to accomplish in the first place.

Panic station comes out of the box unraveled. It's terrible.

Gary Sax wrote: "If I could add to your excellent analyze of the game and why and how to win in Archipelago, I think I would add this that I was expecting for you reach at some point in your demonstrations...

In Archipelago you need to win discreetely and not outrageously. You need to finally tune your victory, not being too obvious, not smash down your opponent under your feet with a huge gap of difference, let the others think they are still well in the game. At least This is what I think and discovered after quite some games."

So...If you're winning in Archipelago you have to disguise it to prevent other people from taking the game out of spite because of your success?

wkover wrote: It occurred to me that I would probably like DoW more (as a game, not experiment) if it genuinely was an "us vs. betrayer" coop where, to win as a group, the good guys had to beat the main objective AND all good players had to achieve their secret goals.

But if DoW was like that, you all would complain that it was just like every other co-op.

I think the idea of everyone having a selfish* agenda (and not everybody being able to win) is what makes it more interesting. It also encourages/enhances role-playing, if you're into that sort of thing.


*I think the use of the term "traitor" in the game is a mistake. It's really more like "most selfish asshole" in the group who doesn't care about the rest.

Gregarius wrote:

wkover wrote: It occurred to me that I would probably like DoW more (as a game, not experiment) if it genuinely was an "us vs. betrayer" coop where, to win as a group, the good guys had to beat the main objective AND all good players had to achieve their secret goals.

But if DoW was like that, you all would complain that it was just like every other co-op.

Not everyone, just me. Also, I'm not claiming to be an expert in any way. I've only played DoW twice.

I agree that the secret agenda idea is really cool. In theory. I really, really want it to work. Practically speaking, though, the way the game is designed, it can lead to long, screwy, and unsatisfying games - at least with my group.

If it works for you and your local gamers, that's great.

By the way, I'm a huge coop gamer. Some folks in my gaming circle are against them just on principle (no winner? no way!), but I'm not one of them. It particularly drives these people nuts when no one wins, and that can happen in DoW even though it's not a pure coop. In fact, for us, that's happened in 2 out of 2 games. No winner yet.

Edit:

I agree with your role-player comment 100%, by the way. Many anti-critic comments on BGG are ground in an RPG perspective, and how the game gets that part right. But role-playing has no bearing on the game for me at all. I don't have that mindset even a little bit, which is probably why DoW doesn't work as well for me as for others.

I feel sorry for people who are unable to enjoy co-op games. Fun doesn't need to be a zero-sum game with a winner and loser(s).

I love the idea of a secret agenda victory condition, but it's a challenge to design them in a balanced way.

If you're out of reach of the win, and a draw due to a group loss is within reach, then why is it bad to try for it?

I don't see the problem with the individual goals for the non-betrayers, I think it's a pretty cool part of the game and one of the things I felt they got right.

RobertB wrote: If you're out of reach of the win, and a draw due to a group loss is within reach, then why is it bad to try for it?

Because you are essentially a member of a team and you are causing your team to lose for no reason other than because you don't want to lose alone.

The game is essentially a team game with some unique restrictions and personal goals.

Gary Sax wrote: I soloed a 2 player game of Clash of Cultures while my wife finished up a grant application last night. I think it's my favorite game. This was the first game I've ever played in where I saw how devastating the cultural approach to the game is via religion. You don't have to do shit other than get one big enough city on the front lines, get into the religious government track as early as possible and get Arts and Culture, and then literally just steal the other player's hard earned city points/pieces every turn. The "can't culturally influence" from a city with an opponent's piece in it is a really nice, mean as fuck, rule. It has a lot of gameplay implications I hadn't thought of that make cultural influence better than it initially appears.

We should get another PBEM game going.