What BOARD GAME(s) have you been playing?

VonTush wrote: So...I'm still wrapping my head around this redefining of theme counter to popular usage. Because frankly I feel it is just BS. Not to say I don't understand the argument, but I see it as just beard-stroking Bullshit.

If I say I'm having a Mardi Gras themed party, plan to serve Hurricanes, King Cakes, pass out beaded necklaces and request people bring appropriate masks, then how is that usage of theme any different than the theme being described as faux Indiana Jones?

I agree completely. I see what Barnes is trying to get at, but it'd be more helpful if there was a new term for what he was talking about rather than trying to convince everyone that they're using an existing commonly used word incorrectly.

For the record, Dictionary.com defines "Theme" as:
1. a subject of discourse, discussion, meditation, or composition; topic: The need for world peace was the theme of the meeting.
2. a unifying or dominant idea, motif, etc., as in a work of art.

I don't see why 2 is more valid than 1, honestly. Perhaps it's more important, in terms of looking at something with a deeper context, but it's not necessarily more useful.

VonTush wrote: So...I'm still wrapping my head around this redefining of theme counter to popular usage. Because frankly I feel it is just BS. Not to say I don't understand the argument, but I see it as just beard-stroking Bullshit.

Are you aware that words can have different meanings in different contexts?

Is the theme of the book "Of Mice and Men" migrant workers in California?

Gregarius wrote:

VonTush wrote: So...I'm still wrapping my head around this redefining of theme counter to popular usage. Because frankly I feel it is just BS. Not to say I don't understand the argument, but I see it as just beard-stroking Bullshit.

Are you aware that words can have different meanings in different contexts?

Is the theme of the book "Of Mice and Men" migrant workers in California?

Yes I am.
My point is that the context in theme as it relates to games has been established so why try to change it outside of providing material to stroke your beard over.

I agree with Von Tush. This whole kerfuffle is something y'all have made up solely to have something to talk about and sound smart about games.

The theme is what the game's vibe is, the setting is the location and circumstances surrounding the event being played out. It's that simple. Anything beyond is "beard stroking Bullshit (to quote a wise man)."

Obviously it's an idea that I'm developing myself, I don't expect anyone to suddenly change definitions or anything like that.

The problem I have with "theme" in board game discussion is that it tends to stop at pictures, nomenclature and flavor text unless there is very specific conceptual theme built into the mechanics. Which is not common.

Playing older Knizia games in particular really made me rethink what theme is and where it actually happens in a design...all of this talk for years about "pasted on" theme in T&E or even Through the Desert looks really dumb when you realize that there are deep THEMES there that are not as superficial as anything in the games widely regarded as "dripping with theme". Talisman doesn't have much of a theme, for example.

"Motif" is actually closer, I think, to what people generally think is "theme". "Context" is a player in there somewhere too, as Gregarius suggested.

Based on the definition, in case 1 if there were a game about this meeting for world peace then the commonly used "theme" would indicate that the game and it's mechanics would be about the meeting itself- who was there, what they did, how it was conducted. Not _what the meeting is about_, which would be the need for world peace.

Case 2 makes an argument for what I just said about Knizia...but I think setting and motif more accurately distinguish that kind of more superficial structure from what the game is really about.

Of course, most games aren't really about much anyway, so there's that too.

VonTush wrote: So...I'm still wrapping my head around this redefining of theme counter to popular usage. Because frankly I feel it is just BS. Not to say I don't understand the argument, but I see it as just beard-stroking Bullshit.

If I say I'm having a Mardi Gras themed party, plan to serve Hurricanes, King Cakes, pass out beaded necklaces and request people bring appropriate masks, then how is that usage of theme any different than the theme being described as faux Indiana Jones?

Yeah this is some next level bullshit that Barnes is pulling here the last few weeks. It's sort of like his self-loathing nerd thing, only it's the past-Barnes that's getting the treatment, rather than other gamers.

Doesn't a theme in the sense you're talking about though have to be consistent?
Theme as you discuss works as it relates to literature, movies, music, sculpture, *blank* on *blank* pieces...etc. Because those pieces are static.

As games are interactive, dynamic, largely up to the player to decide through their interaction doesn't that make the theme dependent on how the players interact with the game? Also, as games often include randomness doesn't the random results also drive what the theme could potentially end up being?

EDIT: In other words you have the theme in an ideal situation vs a theme that actually emerges due to the interaction and random elements. And I'm using theme as you define. So doesn't that make pegging a theme to a game difficult?

Now that is a great point about randomness and interaction, how those affect theme or meaning. Definitely something to think about there.

Anyway, I'm glad to see all the defensiveness and outrage. All is going according to plan.

Next steps:

1) Start talking about how most FFG games were never Ameritrash to begin with
2) Officially declare Ameritrash dead
3) Get banned from F:AT
4) Found new website Stockade: Eurotreasure

Can I come too?!?

Michael Barnes wrote: Next steps:

1) Start talking about how most FFG games were never Ameritrash to begin with

I thought we determined that when Horus Heresy came out?

Michael Barnes wrote: Obviously it's an idea that I'm developing myself, I don't expect anyone to suddenly change definitions or anything like that.

The problem I have with "theme" in board game discussion is that it tends to stop at pictures, nomenclature and flavor text unless there is very specific conceptual theme built into the mechanics. Which is not common.

Playing older Knizia games in particular really made me rethink what theme is and where it actually happens in a design...all of this talk for years about "pasted on" theme in T&E or even Through the Desert looks really dumb when you realize that there are deep THEMES there that are not as superficial as anything in the games widely regarded as "dripping with theme". Talisman doesn't have much of a theme, for example.

"Motif" is actually closer, I think, to what people generally think is "theme". "Context" is a player in there somewhere too, as Gregarius suggested.

Based on the definition, in case 1 if there were a game about this meeting for world peace then the commonly used "theme" would indicate that the game and it's mechanics would be about the meeting itself- who was there, what they did, how it was conducted. Not _what the meeting is about_, which would be the need for world peace.

Case 2 makes an argument for what I just said about Knizia...but I think setting and motif more accurately distinguish that kind of more superficial structure from what the game is really about.

Of course, most games aren't really about much anyway, so there's that too.

By these definitions to their logical conclusion the "theme" of Tigris and Euphrates is taking wooden blocks and cardboard chits and aligning them on a flat piece of cardboard.

You're taking the traditional definition of "theme" as it relates to board games and relabeling it motif, and taking the traditional definition of "mechanisms" and relabeling it theme. The Lost Cities argument being the perfect example. The tension of where the 10 is comes straight from the inter working of the game, that literally IS the game, that's why that game is fun. It's fun lies in the way you interact with the rules.

Talisman is fun because of the way you interact with the pictures and text. Almost all of the tension in the game comes from whether or not you can roll the right number when you need it, that's not very "fun" on it's own, but I love the idea of running up against some huge dragon that should kill me in one bite and rolling my six to survive, not because I rolled the six, but because I imagine the gear I'm carrying helping me survive, or the dragon tripping and falling on my sword, or whatever.

There is nothing about the Indiana Jones theme/motif that ties into that 10 card in Lost Cities.

You better be careful, I might send you Fucking Reef Encounter instead of these Thunderstone cards...it would be for your own good.

You have a good point about player response in there- what the player is reacting to, whether it's a rules feature, process or the superficial, "executive" illustrations or text. You're also making my point above about how the story/narrative arises from THE PLAYER, not necessarily the card showing a +1 sword.

But the themes of T&E are most definitely not what you described, that's process. Which I think is a different layer of a design, and it's something distinct from mechanisms as well.

As for the beard scratching comments, having any kind of discussion about board games beyond "I had fun" or "I didn't have fun" is beard scratching as far as I'm concerned. But we can strive for more, to talk about games in a more complete and worldly way that betters analysis and understanding of why we like the games we like. I've always done that, shouldn't be surprising at this point.

Michael Barnes wrote: As for the beard scratching comments, having any kind of discussion about board games beyond "I had fun" or "I didn't have fun" is beard scratching as far as I'm concerned. But we can strive for more, to talk about games in a more complete and worldly way that betters analysis and understanding of why we like the games we like. I've always done that, shouldn't be surprising at this point.

Sometimes you just have to poke the hive to get a response.

But I do agree with some of your premise, that theme has become diluted, much like elegant had become diluted for example. But I don't agree that it is something that needs to be redefined. Sharpened and refocused I'd argue. Reapplied the way it was years back before the focus shifted to art/production/presentation and other surface elements.

OK, this is some total rubbish.

If a game like T+E, which is putting little tiles on a fairly nondescript map is NOT an abstract, and "drips theme" then the world has finally cracked and I'm going to be hiding in a cave somewhere.

Theme is the "overarching idea" of any subject. The setting is where it takes place. Using those two metrics with which to judge if a game has is "thematic", meaning that the game's play has a direct, visceral relation to its theme and setting, you could not possibly make an argument that T+E is a "thematic game". If you don't fully engage with the game's theme and setting via the game play, then the theme and setting are irrelevant; painted on so that it doesn't end up with all the other YERTZ-type abstracts that have a very limited market.

Puerto Rico, for all its dullness, Agricola for all its tedium, are both very thematic in that the play is directly related to the theme and setting. For a proof of this, just remember how many people (myself included) debate about how the game is patently racist as the game is essentially reliving using slave labor for European profiteering. This conversation NEVER would've happened if the game didn't have a strong tie between the play and the game. I mean, it would be just another cube pusher where the little brown cubes would not induce uncomfortable feelings of being a slave trader.

T+E, however, has almost zero relation and you can't "feel" anything. It's far more like Chess in that regard, as when I play Chess, I'm certainly not thinking, "What would my liege, King Henry, have done? Pull the rooks (artillery) forward for better position, or send in my armored cavalry (knights) to mop up their infantry (pawns)?"

What is Ameritrash?

What is Theme?

When will Knizia make another good game?

These are questions to which we may never have definitive answers.