Member Login
You are not logged in.
| Analysis | Blogs | Cartoons | Culture | Gaming Scene | Interviews | New Games | News | Rants & Raves | Reviews |
waddball
said:
|
 |
... Nice article. I disagree that hidden hands don't help much; I think they do quite a bit to create a skewed perspective (which goes along with your remarks about how nice it is to have a unique role to play), unless people are really freaky about repeating the contents of their hands. I've thought about this issue quite a bit, despite the fact that my group doesn't really have an alpha dog problem. I mostly wrestle with group vs solo decisions. I think a coop game needs to clearly differentiate individuals (usually via roles and hidden info) and/or create a puzzle of sufficient complexity that a single player can't grok the full game state. That way it's not just a collective experience, but an individual one as well. I mean, if it's "only" a collective experience we're looking for, then we could play any game, and just break up into teams. |
 |
... The flip side of this problem is that co-op games tend to be challenging enough that just one dumbass player can ruin the game. We all make mistakes, but some people make major mistakes even after getting good advice. There is this lady in my regular group who will sometimes face two choices, one obviously good and the other obviously bad... whenever she chooses the bad option, she says "it doesn't matter anyway." Example #1. We're playing Arkham Horror, and due to the particular GOO that we are up against, finding tomes is really bad... each one found increases the Doom Track by one. She goes to the Curiosity Shoppe to do some shopping, despite being warned that there are a lot of tomes in the Unique Item deck. She shops, and one of the cards drawn was a tome. Doh. Then she stays to shop another turn, and draws two tomes. We proceed directly to final battle, without the benefit of a few turns of frantic preparations, and all get devoured. Dammit. Example #2: We're playing four-player BSG, and our only Cylon has already revealed. It's the first half, so we don't even have a Sympathizer yet. We've got two base stars on the board and lots of Cylon Raiders, plus one Heavy Raider that is nowhere near boarding us yet. Two locations are damaged, and our indecisive player can't decide if we should fix the Armory or the FTL Drive, "because it doesn't really matter." No goddamn it! It absolutely matters! If we fix the FTL drive, we can jump out of here before we start losing civilian ships like crazy. Or we can fix the Armory just in case we are stuck here for a few more turns and the Heavy Raider gets activated every single time. I realize that it sounds like I'm one of those Alpha Dogs, but ask KingPut or Thaadd, I'm actually fairly laid back. I just hate it when an otherwise good co-op game tanks because somebody went out of their way to play badly. Here's a hint... when everybody else at the table says that you're making a big mistake, you are probably making a big mistake. |
 |
... This is a brilliant analysis of a serious problem with the co-op genre, and a spirited defence of the games themselves. This is my #1 problem with co-op games and the central reason why, for the most part, I refuse to play them. One thing that really interested me about your article was the statement in the final paragraph that these sorts of games tend to have heavy random factors. This is, in fact, essential in my experience: the LotR co-op game proved far too predictable in my opinion to avoid the alpha-dog problem and even that has the random tile and card draws. But there's a balancing act here: games such as Ghost Stories and Pandemic have often faced the criticism that they're far too random and that if the deck is stacked against you, there's nothing you can do about it. Again, it's a criticism I tend to agree with. The only game so far that I think has the balancing act right is Arkham Horror. It may be that if the "deck" is stacked against you then you have no chance of winning from the off but AH offers so many decks and so many potential combinations and decision points that I never perceive it as being rigged in this way. AH also has another thing I regard as essential to a successful co-op: a basic AI system (monster movement) that keeps changing the game state in an unexpected manner. I've never seen another co-op with a similar feature and it's another saving grace for AH. The final reason that AH is the only co-op I'll play is because it is so steeped in theme - and has attendant rule complexity that many Euro-style co-ops eschew - that it can be enjoyed simply on the story alone, and the decision making can go hang. Like your friend, I enjoy the co-op experience more when there's an element of doubt. I think it's at its finest in what I call a "semi co-op" setup where a co-operating team plays against a single player or another team as in games such as Fury of Dracula, Middle-Earth Quest and the team variant of Napoleon's Triumph. I'm surprised games set up in this manner aren't more common. Before I played AH I had an idea for a co-op game design which featured all the things I actually thought would be needed to make the game style tolerable. It was based on the idea of a number of small island kingdoms co-operating to defeat a growing pirate menace. It had lots of theme, an AI system and a lot of interlocking components. But it had one thing AH doesn't have: players weren't allowed to communicate about the game state (forming plans together, sharing information on resources etc) unless they actually spent time and effort in the game sending messages to each other via ship. The messages had to be written and - of course - could be out of date by the time they arrived. The idea was that restricting the free flow of information would, of course, completely beat the alpha-dog problem although it'd take a group of dedicated players to follow the rule to the letter and avoid discussing the game state verbally at all. But like most of my design ideas, I drafted some rules and never got any further. Sorry for the longish response. But the ongoing popularity of co-op games is an ongoing mystery to me :) |
 |
...The flip side of this problem is that co-op games tend to be challenging enough that just one dumbass player can ruin the game. Heh, that's true. In that case maybe we have to accept that within many groups of people, there will be a dumbass, so it probably still works thematically. For all we know, the other Knights thought Sir Kay was dumber than dirt, and the hobbits almost certainly would have bickered about, "who invited Fatty to come along??". the LotR co-op game proved far too predictable in my opinion to avoid the alpha-dog problem and even that has the random tile and card draws Yeah, that's a good point and I agree with that about LOTR, although in that case it becomes a matter where you've learned some of the event cycles so you have to plan your resources ahead of time and be careful not to get rid of too many traveling cards before Mordor, etc. It becomes a slightly different kind of challenge at that point, but one that is definitely more prone to be run by the player who knows all of the events. Regardless, the expansions become pretty necessary to mix things up sufficiently after a while, and I like Battlefields the best for that. players weren't allowed to communicate about the game state (forming plans together, sharing information on resources etc) unless they actually spent time and effort in the game sending messages to each other via ship. That's brilliant, and a perfect integration of theme and mechanics into a co-op system that would prevent (or at least reduce) the alpha-dog problem. I had a similar kind of thought for a time travel game idea, where the players could only communicate if/when they are on the same timeline. I think it would help co-op games in general if communication was limited in some way that matches the theme of the game. Inasmuch as the characters in some games could communicate based on their situation, then I think the generally open communication is fine, though it can be stretched in some cases. For example, in Pandemic each character would have a cell phone, so open communication is fine (although maybe there could be some variant where you lose cell coverage or your cell battery runs out). In Last Night on Earth it's a small enough town area that players could conceivably be yelling across the field to each other, though that stretches the limit. In AH, there's no way one player on one side of town could really communicate with another on the other side of town, and there were no cell phones back then. So in that sense, I find the cooperative sharing a little unthematic in AH. Same thing with Fury of Dracula and Shadows Over Camelot, unless players are together on the same quest or in Camelot. But this is all outside-of-the-game analysis... I don't sit there while playing AH or FoD or Shadows and think, gee, we shouldn't be able to communicate. We have to allow for some thematic discrepancies in the name of fun and interactive gameplay, even in a game like AH which as you say, is so steeped in theme. |
 |
... My first co-op gaming experience was probably SCOTLAND YARD. I liked it then and still think it's a cool idea. Made a hojillion times cooler by having Mr. X be Dracula in FoD, but hey--they got the concept right. There is a lot to be said for games like SCOTLAND YARD and PANDEMIC, where there's enough information for someone to be able to "see" the answer. waddball nails this analysis, although he says "grok" and I've immediately labeled him a supernerd and downgraded my opinion of him. The fact is, the quasi-hidden information of SCOTLAND YARD and the visual clues of PANDEMIC ("Hmm.. two cubes there and there--we need to clean up Atlanta or we're fucked.") actually -do- point the players to an optimal play. If some folks don't see it--well, that's where the alpha dog comes in and says hey, don't go that way--logically, Mr. X cannot be there. And here's where I join hands with Shellhead and MattDP and we sing a little ditty--some people are so damn dumb they can't see the obvious play in a game. And that's frustrating for everyone else. And again, MattDP gets it--a game like ARKHAM HORROR is so swingy that even the best or worst player in the world can't totally derail the experience (Shellhead's example excepted). There's enough game in there to keep the game the "obvious" play obscured for the duration. Look at the threads we had about how to play AH. The competing philosophies were all over the place, and everyone pretty much acknowledged they all had merit. That's a solid experience right there. |
 |
... When we play co-ops, I always make us go around the table at teh start of each round, and have EVERYONE say their peice about what they want to do, and what they think we should do, and why. Some people hate me for it, and feels it really slows down the game, but it prevents one person running the show, and gives the newbies and shy players a chance to share their ideas and insights. Also, some of the best moments in co-ops is when someone gets that creative, out of the box, brain storm. |
|
... Supernerd? Damn, I just thought grok sounded less hoity than "apprehend." Now I hate myself. Yeah, the really bad/disinterested/apathetic/wallflower folks are obviously no fun. Just as an aggressive dictator type would suck. But I would hope those are rare types to encounter IRL. What I was getting at above is hard to articulate, and I still missed my mark. It's nothing directly to do with the quality of play, but rather the approach and the sense of identity in the game. So comprehend/grok/whatever, what I mean is if the game state is small and/or open enough, then we're all just doing the same thing, which to me is a lot like sitting down and working on a Rubik's Cube together. Whether I come to the same conclusions about that state as you do doesn't matter so much to me (hopefully it's challenging enough that we usually won't), we'll argue and sort it out and come to a consensus. But I'd rather the game have some bit of info you don't have (hidden role, cards, etc.), or have too many moving parts or permutations (AH, LOTR + expansions), or some other constraint at work (such as time in Space Alert) so that it isn't just a "hive mind" puzzle-solving experience, and we all have a unique input into the proceedings. I think if you do this well, you not only solve the alpha dog issue, but also have a more fulfilling experience overall. |
 |
... Let's throw Puerto Rico into the conversation, where my group tends to have the exact same problem. This is heavily exacerbated when the amount of experience with the game is different from player to player. For cooperatives I usually figure that everyone has to learn it together, so that no single individual has implicit rank in the situation. If someone is loud then mocking them can be part of the fun, but if they are coming up with the "Generally Accepted Correct Move In This Situation" earlier than everyone else then you may as well take a break while they finish out the game. Sag. |
|
...This is heavily exacerbated when the amount of experience with the game is different from player to player. Well, that may be true, but it still depends on whether an experienced player is going to take the reins or not... Pandemic, being the most basic of the group of co-op games, probably suffers the most from that but also benefits from that. What I mean is that, on the one hand, it's easy for an experienced player to take control of the game, knowing some of the tricks to be more successful, but it's also easy enough to learn and grasp so that a completely new player can start contributing fully to the discussion and provide some decent input. A new player is more likely to feel overwhelmed and follow along with whatever happens the first time they play Arkham Horror, but they can easily feel empowered to contribute in their first game of Pandemic. I've played Pandemic over 50 times now and can regularly win on the Heroic level, but I don't take control when I play the game because there are still times when a new player will point something out that I didn't notice or provide a good plan that I wouldn't have come up with. I mean, I probably wouldn't take over the game, anyway, because I try not to be that way when I play these kind of games, but that's a good reason why alpha-dog players shouldn't automatically assume they know what's best... That's especially true with more complex games like AH and games where allegiances and agendas can be slippery like BSG, but it also applies with a "simple" co-op game like Pandemic. |
 |
... We rarely have the alpha-dog problem, thankfully, because we play Arkham, Pandemic, BSG, Shadows, Fury, Ghost Stories, and LOTR pretty regularly, so we have the gamut of co-op experience. What usually happens is that we break down the situation between us and discuss paths of action for people to take. Our groups is one of pretty experienced gamers and fairly experienced with co-op games, so there's rarely an instance of someone doing something completely stupid. However, we have formed the gestalt mind with a newbie or irregular player, at times, who is clearly Doing Something Wrong and was informed as such, and at least one person mentioned to me afterward that they felt fairly intimidated by that and didn't enjoy it as much as they otherwise might have. I think the ameliorating factor of games like Shadows and BSG is that there could be/is a traitor/Cylon present and so they often prevent the alpha dog from appearing because even he wouldn't be able to present the perfect path of action because the traitor/Cylon may be actively working against it. Of course, our technique of group discussion will also often work against us in those two games, because we bring the traitor/Cylon deeply into the decision-making process. That said, we've still won both at a greater rate than we do Arkham Horror or Pandemic... |
 |
... Nice article. In my experience playing Pandemic, all my games devolve into a negotiation game where I endlessly debate why I'm taking my turn the way I do. Sometimes I find it tiring. The coops that I love give you stuff. You make decisions for your character based on getting stuff and using stuff. My game is going to be more fun if I have stuff to use, and using often times means that I have to sacrifice something for the team. This creates a fun dilemma of greed vs general good. That is why I think AH is a brilliant system and why Red October works for me. |
 |
... In my house there is an alpha dog in co-op games and it is me. When playing with friends or family my experience of the games tends to be the greatest and given the bulk of games are with more inexperienced players they seem to not mind my bossiness (or at least I hope so). My wife has played enough Arkham Horror now and she has developed her own play style that is different to mine (she will never be knocked out if she can help it compared to my more gung-ho style), which I find frustrating, but playing with her is better than playing alone so I accept it. I did make a bad call in the last game bullying her into going into another dimension as we were about to lose by number of gates open when she only had 2 stamina. First encounter was a monster which did her in. When she made it back to Arkham I told her to not be a sissy and jump straight back in. Again first encounter was a monster and she was lost in space and time again. She left to write up a lecture at that point deeming the game lost (which she had been distracted by for most of the game as it was urgent that it get done) and left me to finish the last two turns and lose alone. I think if I had been more quiet in her turns she may have stayed which would have made the ending more fun. (My wife just looked over my shoulder and told me that I probably made the right call as we really did need some gates closed, but Arkham Horror can be a negative game which can break your spirit if not in the right mood and as she was worried about getting her lecture done was not in the right frame of mind to play the game). |
 |
... Nice try Grudunza but let me tell you how the article should be written... Steve"quarterback"Avery |
|
... Grudunza, I'd be interested to hear your thoughts on the idea of "simple" co-op games generating the perception that the game can be stacked against you before you start, making play a bit pointless. Aside from the alpha-dog issue this is what ruined Ghost Stories for me: I realised that if there's a Hope Killer at the bottom of the deck your chances of winning are extremely low, no matter how clever you've been for the rest of the game. And that thought really turned me off wanting to play - why bother when maybe 20-30% of the time (the scariest incarnations of Wu-Feng) you're going to loose whatever you do for the rest of the game? I've heard people make the same claim about deck-stacking in Pandemic although I've never played that so I can't comment directly. |
|
... @MattDP: In the specific case of Hope Killer, I don't think it's as bad as you say. You should always try to have plenty of Tao tokens on hand for flexibility, and as long as you're doing that, Hope Killer is manageable. I've had more trouble with Bone Crusher (the red one, takes everyone's Tao) by far, Death's Army (five black is a lot, regardless), and Dark Mistress (advanced Black Widow) can be trouble. To your larger point, I like coops, so I've played some of the ones that feature the problem you're referring to a lot (esp. LOTR, GS, and AH, where the "stacked deck" can really hit hard) and I haven't noticed it as a real problem in the first two. When I say "a lot," I mean I've played LOTR more than 100 times, and GS around 50 times (mostly solo). I have seen it as a troubling trend in AH (closing in on 50 games), esp. as I've added in expansions. I usually play with three investigators, and I just don't think it's scaled quite right. But I enjoy the process enough that I don't mind, esp. since it's so easy to just fire up a new game (and considering the setup/teardown time with AH + all expansions, you want to play several in a row). |
|
... Oh, I should also note that IMO, the issue that creates the most skewed results in Ghost Stories is if you get bad sequences of the "reveal another ghost" cards. They're weak, so you're inclined to let them show up (instead of using a buddha, for instance), but if they clump on the shuffle, it can be a real problem. Not always insurmountable, but.... |
|
...The coops that I love give you stuff. You make decisions for your character based on getting stuff and using stuff. My game is going to be more fun if I have stuff to use, and using often times means that I have to sacrifice something for the team. This creates a fun dilemma of greed vs general good. That is why I think AH is a brilliant system and why Red October works for me. Same here. I don't like Pandemic or Lord of the Rings. You don't get cool stuff, and they remind me of doing jigsaw puzzels with my Grandma ans my Aunts. Throwing in a feet card when playing Loard of the Rings is no big deal, but handing over your Tommy Gun in Arkham Horror is painful, when it means that you are giving up some monster slaying fun for the good of the team. |
|
... What do you mean? A mithril coat isn't cool? The Bow of the Galadrim? Your friendly pal Gollum? The mind boggles. |
|
... Yeah, games like these can sometimes be stacked against you... I played a game of Pandemic once where we lost on the first player's first turn (many of the initial infections were in red, and then the first card draw was an Epidemic which drew another red city, and then the infection draw brought up, of course, another red city or two and there was an outbreak and then the red cubes ran out). Granted, that kind of thing is very rare, and in the case of Pandemic, it's easy enough to just fire up another game, because it's only 45-60 minutes or so at its longest, anyway. With something like AH, though, you've got quite a time commitment just setting the game up in the first place (and tearing it back down), so if you feel like you got hosed by the random factors without any chance to really win, then it kind of hurts more. Ghost Stories is sort of in between in that sense, and the problem there is, as Matt says, the random factor that may kill you might not be known at all until the very end. I found Ghost Stories to have a pretty heavy training curve, so as waddball suggests, there are things that you can try to do during any game of that which might make it easier to defeat whichever incarnation comes up, including Hope Killer. I guess my consolation is that these kind of games tend to be more "experience" games, especially Arkham Horror. When all's said and done, you're left with the story of how it played out, for better or worse, and sometimes you're gonnna get a yawner in there with the amazingly memorable game. Oftentimes its still a preferable game experience for me to be able to say "Arkham Horror kicked my ass last night and I had no chance at all" as opposed to "me and four of my friends all powered the same number of cities in Power Grid and I won by having two more dollars". I'd rather have the dizzying highs and terrifying lows (and creamy middles) of games like BSG and AH and Pandemic and Last Night on Earth for the different and unique stories they create each time than the same old optimizing my auctions to squeeze out one extra point thing of a lot of Eurogames, even if that means the outcome wasn't entirely in my hands in some cases. You don't get cool stuff, and they remind me of doing jigsaw puzzels with my Grandma ans my Aunts. I agree about the cool stuff. Arkham Horror really fills a great space between co-op interactive "beat the game" and the adventure style of getting equipment and leveling up and being a realized and very individual character. But I like that Pandemic and Ghost Stories in particular are games where your planning and thought and the interaction between the characters can really have a great effect on how well you do (assuming the game doesn't hose you, as described above). I like when the characters in co-op games can use their abilities in conjunction with each other to help the situation. That comes up once in a while in AH, but a lot more in Pandemic and Ghost Stories, which is why I still like them a lot among this genre, even though I agree that AH is definitely the richer experience overall. |
|
... I just played a solo three hobbit game of LOTR with Battlefields last night and was doing amazingly well going into Mordor... I think each hobbit was on space 3 and Sauron was on 12 or something... a big comfortable gap, though. And everyone had several cards and enough shields for a Gandalf card... But the events came up really fast on that board and the battleboard was particularly vicious and Sauron overtook the ring-bearer when I was just a few spaces outside of Mount Doom. So did the random factors of the trigger tiles on the last board get the best of me? Well, yes and no. In retrospect, there were some uses of Gandalf cards that I might have done differently and some of the feature cards that I probably could have played more effectively. My biggest mistake was in flying through Shelob's Lair too quickly and not making sure that Sam carried the ring into Mordor (Pippin ended up with it). I think Sam would have made it. So even though the randomness of the tile draws and trigger tile draws in Mordor seemed stacked against me, I would put myself to blame for the loss in this case. I would definitely agree that LOTR can feel too scripted after a while, but I really like the added random factor and choices that Battlefields adds into it, so I'm happy to accept the outcome and try again another time. |
|
... The hell with leveling up. That D&D paradigm is tired. Arkham Horror is cool because sometimes your character levels down, with permanent injuries and derangements. Overcoming those handicaps and still winning is badass. |
|
... That's true, and leveling "up" barely happens, anyway, when you can raise your max sanity or stamina or add to some attribute with an Ally. Mostly it's about gaining the weapons and items, which is what is more similar to adventure games. And yes, the handicaps are great. |
|
... It's weird, but I always look forward to people drawing injury or madness cards, even myself, and even though it makes it harder for us to win. |
 |
... Shellhead -- Agreed. Injury and Madness might be my favorite part of the expansions. The corruption cards run a close second, but they are a little diluted when mixed in with the other expansions. The add a vast amount of detail to the story that the game is woven -- they make the character more "human" and relatable because we all have shortcomings that we have to hurdle in our own lifes. Last game we had a banker that kept getting the "Endless Greed" (I think that is what is called) corruption card. On top of that he became paranoid about going outside, so we imagined a man that had a huge stash of money and was afraid to be in the streets because someone might take it. |
|
... Space Ghost, The one time that I played the gravedigger, he got necrophobia. That was a hoot. |
 |
... The Alpha-Dog problem isn't really a problem in and of itself. It's a SYMPTOM of a problem. And that problem is this simple fact: Co-Op Games are Single Player Games Sure there's some hidden information most of the time, but in the end, a co-op game is a single player game where you've decided to have a team be that player. And every team needs a leader. Because everyone is moving towards the same goal, organization is inevitable and that means someone is running the show. There's really no reason for it NOT to be that way. Unless you like flailing around aimlessly and then losing. The solution to this is to somehow "break" the co-op game. The 2 games that exemplify the 2 ways to do this are also, imo, the 2 best co-op games: BSG and Space Alert They do this by either not being a co-op game (BSG) or placing severe restrictions on the single "player" (Space Alert). BSG works because it's NOT a Co-op game. It's a 2 player game (with a team for each player). It's just that no one knows who is on what team. It's a competitive game dressed up as a co-op and it works REALLY well because of this. People don't get bossed around (as much, at least) because you aren't REALLY co-operating because your usually not sure if you are on the same team as the would be Alpha-Dog. This is one solution to the Co-Op Problem. Space Alert takes the other approach. It is a pure co-op game. However, it uses a timer and a shit-load of hidden information to make working as a single unified team virtually impossible. There simply isn't enough time to make sure everyone is doing what we all think they should, so people try to co-operate the best they can and then hope for the best. The Alpha-Dog simply can't keep track of everything well enough to run the show. It is a real TEAM game, rather then a single-player game. Essentially, the Alpha-Dog problem is baked in to the very concept of a Co-Op game. The only way to avoid it is to make your game, in some way, NOT a co-op game. |
|
...I found Ghost Stories to have a pretty heavy training curve, so as waddball suggests, there are things that you can try to do during any game of that which might make it easier to defeat whichever incarnation comes up, including Hope Killer. I must say that I got on top of Ghost Stories fairly quickly - it took about 3 games to get pretty comfortable with defeating it on the basic difficulty setting, although the higher ones are a different story. But if you don't know which incarnation is coming up, all of them needing different strategies to beat, how can experience help? I did ponder the idea of letting the players look at the incarnation draw before putting it in the deck, but that reduces the surprise factor, and the fun. Another thing that bugged me about GS was the manner in which different board arrangements could drastically affect the difficulty of the game. Having the most useful village tiles on the corners (or the center if you're playing solo) makes a world of difference. I guess my consolation is that these kind of games tend to be more "experience" games, especially Arkham Horror. Yes. I'd go so far as to say *only* Arkham Horror. Ghost stories didn't come close for me in terms of generating the required atmosphere. As I said above, the number of decks, choices and chit draws in AH generates the perception that the game isn't stacked against you, even if it is. I'm still on the fence as to whether there is in fact much of a deck-stacking problem in AH at all. The solution to this is to somehow "break" the co-op game. I pretty much agree with this, and your assertion that they're basically 1-player games. Hence my desire to see a design in which game-state communication was seriously limited, forcing players to make individual decisions. Seeing as there are now 3 people on this thread who've kind of suggested that this is a good idea, it makes we wonder why it hasn't appeared in a design yet. I can't quite believe we've all independently had a killer design idea for the next co-op game without it also having occurred to any number of more experienced designers. Perhaps people have tried it and found it fails in playtesting? |
 |
...Hence my desire to see a design in which game-state communication was seriously limited, forcing players to make individual decisions. I think this would be hard to implement at a games table - people's body language as they are dying to provide some help would be screaming, and then there's just people who just lose control blurt out something helpful (we still get this in BSG with people unwitting saying 'thats my last piloting' or 'sorry only got tactics left'). But it would make teh right game very intersting. It reminds me of my younger days playing PBM (not PBeM) games, the Starweb game with Flying Buffalo) wher the only communication allowed was on a note written on a separate piece of paper that would then be sent on with the next turn mailout and only after you had met them in the game. And then there were anonymous game versions run where you were not allowed to cummunicate at all. |
|
...And then there were anonymous game versions run where you were not allowed to cummunicate at all. That'd be a hard thing to endure for a grown man. |
|
... MattDP, I do like your idea of restricted communication for a co-op, but enforcing silence or passing notes might not work well. So what about borrowing an idea from Nuclear War, by forcing everybody to secretly choose actions two turns ahead, by deploying action cards face down in queue? The lag in information could lead to some unintended consequences, though maybe it would make the bossy players feel even bossier. |
 |
... Silence sucks. In Mayfair Cosmic Encounter there was a "cheese" moon that forced everyone to stop talking or lose a ship. It was so ridiculous it was funny for a few minutes on the rare occasion that it came up, but after those few minutes you wanted to shoot yourself. I can't imagine playing a game with silence (or close to it) as a fundamental rule. Also, Southernman's comment about body language is true. Pictionary used to be the popular family game when I was a kid. A few certain people couldn't resist pointing, gesturing wildly and all-around acting like a coked-up mime even though the rules explicitly forbade doing so. (Forbade making any kind of gestures, not being a coked-up mime.) You had to constantly tell them to knock it off. |
 |
... Space Alert has that silence bit when the communications go down. It's only for a limited time, so it keeps things fresh. |
 |
... Interesting points as far as game play goes on the Alpha Dog syndrome. But in reality, most organizations, corporate, small business, military run on an alpha dog concept... so by nature the alpha dog nature will arise in most groups, and its not necessarily a bad thing. Its actually a great quality if the Alpha Dog is AWARE that they are an Alpha and is able bring out the other gamers strengths, while damping their own. This creates leadership where good leadership is needed in many coop games. A committee is very inefficient and very dangerous with any type of time crunch. So all you Alpha's or if you are not an Alpha, but have one in your group.. think and talk it over before you start... perhaps the Alpha can have more of a "manager" appointment with in the group that utilizes their strengths, without overwelming the other personality types... lets face it, we all have different personality types... I mean there are Euro gamers after all... I sure don't understand that... I just accept it  |
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|
Subscribe to this comment's feed
Show/hide comments
