German games are not all that!

Settlers - This is the classic German game. The game is highly
dependent upon initial placement and die rolls. There are a few basic
strategies - shall I go for wheat-ore, or wood-brick - but little
depth to the game.

Princes of Florence - I probably like this game the least of the top
5. It is basically a game of solitaire with minimal interaction in
the bidding.

Euphrat and Tigris - This is often considered to have more depth and
strategy than other German games. It is harder to learn, but it
really doesn't have much depth. I play this game well enough that I
recently won 4 games in a row against different players each time. I
could explain the strategy in a few paragraphs. You really cannot do
much planning ahead because of the tile draw. And regardless of how
well you play, if you get a bad tile draw you are not going to win.

Carcassone - Simple tile laying game.

Puerto Rico - I saved this for last as this game seems to be the one
gamers have wet dreams about. I wonder if someone could explain
specifically to me what makes this game the second coming. I don't
feel the urge to play it that often.

Make no mistake - I do like German games, and I like the games above.
They are good light multiplayer games, and fun. But are these the
greatest of all boardgames? How can Go be number 55 on the list? Go
is the paradigmatic board game - the one an alien race might also
invent - and it has ten times the depth of German game. Yet there are
54 board games better than Go? Where are the classic boardgames like
chess and backgammon, or even Scrabble? Do you believe that the
German games on the list will be around 50 years from now - or even 20
years from now?

So what is it about German games? They uniformly lack strategic and
tactical depth, and many have basic flaws such as giving substantial
advantages based on player order. When you come down to it, shouldn't
the greatest board games be ones you could spend a lifetime with? You
could say they are light multiplayer social games, but then I have had
as much fun playing Monopoly and parcheesi socially as the German
games. Are light social games what should be rated the best board
games among spielfreaks? They have nice components, but I could buy
really fancy chess or backgammon sets. The themes are often so light
that they might as well be non-existent and it would be better to just
make the games abstract.

I view German games like I view a good summer blockbuster movie. For
example, I like the movie Spiderman. But Spiderman isn't on any movie
buffs top 10 list.

Yes. The definition of a Spielfreak is a player who like to play to play
social family-strategy games. You don't have to like it, you may chose to
play other types of games or you may even decide not to play games at all.

German games are nothing but family games, designed in the 21st Century,
whereas Monopoly is a family game designed in the 20th Century and Parcheesi
a family game so old that no-one really knows when it was invented.

Having played family games all my life, I can assure you that you can easily
enjoy a lifetime doing it.

Funny you should say that. The publishers are spending quite a lot of effort
to apply a theme to these games because they know the games sell better that
way.

Mik
(a family gamer who dislike abstract games, but are willing to pay large
sums of money for games with even the thinnest theme)

Well, there are 54 board games that people like more than they like Go. Be
cautious: a tendency to prefer the clarity and perfection of formal systems
to the messy imprecision of human emotion is a warning sign for autisms like
Asperger's syndrome.

I don't really expect opinion polls to tell me what the world is going to be
like in 50 years. Do you? If so, why? If not, why ask the question?

One could argue likewise that classic games like chess, backgammon, and
Scrabble uniformly lack interest and accessibility, and have basic flaws
like requiring memorization of openings, gambits, and word lists. "Wait," I
hear you say, "Chess is interesting and accessible." To you. And many
people have found strategic and tactical depth in Princes of Florence and
Euphrat & Tigris. "But having to memorize openings isn't a basic flaw," you
say. The hell it's not, say I.

As I look at the years that lie ahead of me, I can honestly say that I will
play Carcassonne more than I will play chess or backgammon. Ten years from
now, I may not play Carcassonne at all -- but the other games I'll be
playing won't be chess or backgammon.

You should play ten or twenty games of Die Macher with skilled players. If
you still think it's like a summer blockbuster movie after that, I'll be
surprised.

Bob Rossney
r...@well.com

Regards
Faël

"Mik Svellov" <brett...@get2net.dk> a écrit dans le message de news:
rDM_9.19$Ww2...@news.get2net.dk...

This is truly unfair. I've never seen these games treated like a
fetish or someone sniffed at for not likely them. You are evidently
basing these comments on the Internet Top 100 list and the above
observations don't fit with it. Luckily, you calm down a bit below.
If the above comments were simply meant to get our attention, let's
just leave it at "mission accomplished" and move on.

<critiques of the top 5 games on the Top 100 snipped...the gist is
that they have no strategic value>

> Make no mistake -

<This Bushism is REALLY starting to annoy me, but all my friends are
saying it, too, so I won't blame you for it. ;)

This IS "all that", or at least 80% "that" for many of us (or at least
me). I've played the big heavy consims, I got into chess at one
point, I just would much rather play a lighter game that (I DO
believe) still has a certain amount of strategic value to it.

How can you define "greatest boardgames"? I see you didn't bother to
try, and I don't blame you because it is essentially impossible.
Comparing Go to Settlers really is Apples and Oranges. If you want to
get a better feeling of Go's relative popularity, you should compare
it's ranking to the ranking of other standard two player abstracts.
One fairly obvious and almost unobjective way to base a ranking is on
how many times you play a game. The simple fact is that many of us
play these German games more than the deeper games and the reason for
this is, as you said, they are good light multiplayer games.

All these games are two-player games (that's how Scabble is played
seriously, right?). Evidently, more people like multiplayer games and
think this quality deserves credit...do you deny us that?

I'll go ahead and name a nice deep multiplayer game that is nowhere on
the list: poker. But I can think of tons of reasons *some* people
would reasonably dislike it, so I'm not surprised is not up there.
[As a side note, does anyone need a list to know if they like Go,
Scrabble, Backgammon, or Poker???]

A good many will be around in 20 years. Many more than games from
1983 are around now. I think Settlers and Carcassonne could easily be
around in 50 years...who's to say they won't?

Very high strategic and tactical depth pretty much only occurs in two
player abstracts and a select breed of wargames. For other reasons
(social interaction, playing time, in a word, "fun"), they are not the
type of games many of us go for. I'm afraid you are going to have to
deal with it or ignore the Top 100 list.

All games, even Go, have "flaws". Some people find certain flaws more
damning than others.

Is that your definition? On a recent "desert island games" list, I
listed Go as the one game I would play if I could play no other for a
5 year span...but in real life I hardly EVER play it. In my opinion,
it would be irresponsible for me to rate it higher than games I play
all the time.

REALLY? I could ALMOST grant you Monopoly...but Parcheesi? Your two
examples are illuminating, though...there is very little player
interaction in these two games for the time spent playing them.

Why not???? You implied yourself you have fun with them, what's
exactly is wrong with that?

But...but...all of YOUR greatest games are completely abstract...what
exactly are you looking for?

There are a handful of movies that were both incredibly popular AND
got high critical praise among "movie buffs": for example, Fellowship
of the Ring, Gladiator, Silence of the Lambs, The Godfather, Gone with
the Wind, Casablanca. None of these movies are "artsy" like less
popular movies that also get high praise, but they got high praise
nonetheless. These are the movies you should be comparing the Top 100
games with. Extreme strategic depth is not the the end all or be all
when many people are deciding to rank a game a "8" rather than a
"7"...I'm afraid you are just going to have to deal with it.

Justin

I agree they are not all that; I disagree that you have to like them
to be taken seriously. In the UK especially, there is, however,
little else of comparable quality produced; so imported German titles
tend to be the norm. Speaking personally, I have a lot of old games I
manage to bring to the table that are not German in origin or
production, as do many people I know. But there haven't been many
decent games produced over here in comparison to the German output,
and I believe that is why German games predominate the hobby.

If it's any consolation to you, there are many German titles (some you
may not have heard of) that are quite appalling in comparison to the
games you mentioned; it's all a matter of taste of course. Just check
out how different people rate different games on the Geek if you don't
believe me.

Go, Chess and Backgammon are all fine games; but they are 2-player
games. Chess was the last one of these I played with another person,
and that was almost a year ago. I am not really any good at Go, but
that is mainly because since childhood I have never had the
opportunity to play it, and these days I find other games more
interesting. Scrabble still hits the table at home now and again, but
not at any of the groups I play games with.

The way I see it, reason the German games get played more often is
that they are fresh and they are fun; and they are more social. The
people who play them want to play a multi-player game, they want a
good chance of winning in some cases, but most of all they want to
enjoy themselves. Theme, mechanics and the interaction involved in
these games more often than not provide this fun factor. I also
believe that their freshness is important. I won't be spending a
lifetime playing, say, Puerto Rico; I will move on to newer, fresher
titles to avoid becoming as bored with PR as I did with Ludo and
Snakes & Ladders and Monopoly (because they were all anybody wanted to
play when I was a child). And if I do get bored with PR I will always
have something elseto take its place on the gaming table.

Extending your analogy further, Chess would be a silent classic like
Metropolis; Monopoly would be The Jazz Singer (a milestone, but not
for its quality), Scrabble would be Citizen Kane (maintaining still
its critical acclaim even though it is obviously an old production),
Settlers of Catan would be The Godfather trilogy (a modern classic
with a number of sequels) and Puerto Rico would be The Fellowship of
the Ring (a fairly new film that is destined for classic status). Go
hasn't made it to celluloid yet, because not many people want to watch
ancient classical plays (but perhaps if you stay up late you'll see it
on BBC2). Maybe it will have its day some time in the future?

But like films, the critics often differ over games...

Not all what?

BTW, you might get more response trolling the Spielfrieks mailing list.

You are joking, just 10 times, really...

Right. It seems to be a feature of German games that they can be
won by an almost-beginner. So they are games for players who like
winning more than developing deep strategy. Surprisingly, from
German games players I hear quite often "I like it because it is
so deep!" followed by "If you want to win, then you can use only
one of two basic strategies.". Should we conclude that German games
are popular because they allow the players to deceipt themselves
about their strategic skill?

--
robert jasiek

That's not just true, it's understated. Consider Spiel last year,
I don't know how many games were on show, but reckoning that each
small stand had at least one, and the big companies had several,
and estimating the number of stands (excluding the retailers)
that runs into hundreds. And most of those were new. (Yes, there
are some which are offered for a couple of years, and some for
several, but still most are new - by which I mean since previous
Essen.) How many of those even get any publicity? Sometimes a
good game gets overlooked, but many are real dreck. What I don't
know is to what extent Spiel itself covers the complete German
game market. (I think very young children's games are
under-represented for a start.)

I now await correction and hard numbers from Mik if he sees this.

Go is Rashomon. (And Siedler is Star Wars rather than The Godfather.)

--
Christopher Dearlove

I think you should differentiate between an almost beginner at that
particular game and an absolute beginner at German games in general.
(Also should qualify "can be won" as to how likely this has to be
to cross your threshold, but I'll ignore that for now.) Experience
in playing games carries over. Let's take an example, an experienced
player who sits down to play Siedler for the first time. (By now I
doubt there is such a person, but that's another matter.) After
having the rules explained, even though he has never played before,
he will have spotted many points, such as that you want numbers as
close as possible to 7, you want a mix of commodities, you need
space around your original settlements, that your initial placements
are likely to be the best, so that's a definite plus for cities,
that rare commodities are more valuable, that longest road, largest
army and VP cards are victory points that aren't as good because
they don't come with production and so on. (Actually these are
pretty basic by experienced player standards.) However I doubt that
a real beginner at games would spot more than one or two of these
before a single turn starts (well, the first two are probably
given as hints in the rules). I'd back the experienced player of
many games against someone who doesn't really play games, but
has played Siedler half a dozen times. (He'll probably also trade
to his greater advantage.)

Now the above could be taken as a commentary that all German games
are the same. However that's not my meaning or intent. Finally
I'll bring up the old chestnut (but validly) that over a reasonable
number of games skill shows through. This can be backed up with
hard facts (random example, at one particular convention - that's
a UK style one - I go to where the results of all games are
accumulated - with some factors other than just winning, such as
playing different games against different people - one player has
come, as I recall, 2nd, 1st and 1st over the last three years).

--
Christopher Dearlove

Ok, more seriously...

Quote 1: Duke Ellington once said "If it sounds good, it IS good". I
take this as being that preferences are very individual. If you think Go
is the best of any game, then it is.

Quote 2: Samuel Johnson once said "What is written without effort is in
general read without pleasure." To adapt this to games I would say "What
is developed without effort is in general played without pleasure". If
you are mystified by the dominance of German style games over American
games, I would say that they are developed as legitimate entertainment for

all, not just a distraction for kids. Thus they (German games) have a
quality akin to books, movies, etc., wherein development of something
enjoyable is a serious undertaking. I would say that in this country, we
have a notion that, with some exceptions, games are toys, so companies
make games as toys, that makes people continue to think that games are
toys.

As for why they dominate over games like chess and go, I think it is that
they are simply more accessible than games like chess and Go.

Finally, my own take on German games is that they are like impressionist
paintings. A game designer takes a real subject, then, according to the
designers interpretation, reduces it into something that can be learned
and played in a relatively short amount of time, yet have it retain the
flavor of the original subject. If the reduction is slight, you have war
games (and non-war games of similar complexity). If the reduction is
more, you have German-style games. If reduction is maximum and all you
have are the bare elements, you have abstract games. Alan Moon said (in
the Funagain interview) that "...with family games there's an inherent
elegance that's missing in wargames. It's much harder to design a game
with less rules than to design a game into which you can just throw any
rule you want." (I interpret the "design a game" part of this quote as
"design an appealing family game" because Candyland has very few rules and

but has very limited appeal).

Greg

> designers interpretation, reduces it into something [...]

Game design can be very different. It could start from a real world
topic but it could also paste a real world topic onto game mechanisms
as a very late design step.

> Alan Moon [...] "...with family games there's an inherent

Not the number of rules is the design problem. A designer can choose
as few or as many as he likes or considers reasonable. The problem
is to create a consistent ruleset for that one feels that no rule is
missing and none should be omitted. Such is more difficult for a
shorter ruleset. Probably Moon meant that fact.

Every rule is (or should be) included for some design reason. A
typical purpose beyond creating desired mechanics or topics would be
an aspect of balance like "equal winning chances for all players at
the game start" or like "equal winning chances despite possible
negotiations".

--
robert jasiek

Aquire 1962 - 41 years ago and still popular, which would fit into the
"German game" category (I know Sid sackson designed it in the US) . Some
will be on the list some will not. There will be countless abstract games
the will fall by the way side too, so I think it is hard to predict what
makes something "Classic" .

How do you explain Monopoly, would you say it had ".. strategic and tactical
depth ", and No " basic flaws such as giving substantial
advantages based on player order" ... I

Now that I see a Japanese version of Catan, I think it might be here for the
long haul, Hare and Tortoise might be another.

Here to wishing the top-10 list of 2100 doesn't look the top-10 list of 1900
!

Peter

Actually, I think Moon meant exactly what he said. I've designed a few games
with historic themes (none published, or even submitted for publication) and
it's far easier to solve a problem by adding a new mechanic, adding a new
chart, or adding some more components then it is to solve the problem
"elegently" (in Moon's terminology). The wargames that Moon mentions use the
"add a new..." method of game design to solve their problems (most of which
have to do with historical accuracy). That's why most wargames have rule
books that could gag a goat --- many pages, many charts, many die roll
modifiers, many exceptions to rules, etc. It's the sledgehammer approach to
game design. I'm sure there are lots of folks who prefer this method in
their games but most gamers, even quite a few wargamers of late, have come
to prefer more elegent designs. That's part of the reason behind the success
of games such as We the People (truly a groundbreaking design) and the
simplification of lots of Richard Berg's series -- GBoH, Glory, etc. (Berg
perhaps being the poster boy of the "add a new..." school of game design).

TK

> Carcassone - Simple tile laying game.

> So what is it about German games? They uniformly lack strategic and
> tactical depth ...

Does anyone else get the feeling that this guy would be chum in any of our
gaming groups? I bet I could skunk him in Web of Power.

--
Defenceless under the night our world in stupor lies;
yet, dotted everywhere, ironic points of light
flash out wherever the Just exchange their messages...
--W.H. Auden
······················································
Keith Ammann is gee...@cifnet.com -§- Lun Yu 2:24

The "game" is cerebral. I evaluate games for how they work as games.
IMO the social aspects of board gaming are relatively minor because if
"socializing" is the question then you must consider board games
against a much wider spectrum of activities. I personally find
bowling and golfing with family and friends to be preferable as social
activities compared to board games by a wide margin.

Having said that, I don't even find German games to very good as
social games for most people. The best social games have large
amounts of luck to give everyone a chance. I have had good times
playing Monopoly with my family which include a non-gaming wife and
two young children. If I played German games with them it would be no
fun for them or me as there is just enough strategy that I would win
most of the time.

I think a lot of German games fall in the crack where they have enough
strategy to make them bad games for young children and non-gamers, but
not enough strategy to satisfy "cerebral" gamers.

If you interpret his words so strictly, do you think that he would
have difficulties designing some game with few rules? More
generally, taking a few rules and calling the result "game" is at
least as simple as taking a lot of rules (like in a wargame) and
calling the result "game". Therefore I suppose that Moon spoke
about elegance of design rather than the mere difficultly of
selecting a particular number of rules.

True but here you speak about tuning a game under development
rather than inventing some new game. When starting design for a
game, one can easily choose a low number of rules. Only during
the development maintaining elegance becomes difficult, and I
think that we agree here.

Indeed.

"elegant" needs to be defined. It could be "length of rules text
once it is complete" or it could be extended to external rules
details printed on playing material (like exceptional rules
associated with playing cards), etc. E.g., I would not call
Puerto Rico elegant since it lacks elegance on its playing cards
(buildings, etc.).

***

Maintaining elegance while exposing an initial design to testing
and realization of design objectives is hard. In practice, a
designer must often make a compromise. In a new design that does
not copy from other games extensively fundamental difficulties
can arise that would require a fundamental redesign if elegance
shall be maintained by all means. This could need too much time
and therefore might be postponed to later game designs. We can
call this process evolution.

Unless historical accuracy in considered mandatory, there is no
reason to have as many rules as in a typical wargame. About 90%
of a game's aspects can be treated elegantly easily, 5% need
careful invention to gain elegance, and 5% furthermore require
too much time to be solved already for the currently designed
game. What is done with the latter 5%? One can see different
politics: a) pretend non-existence or call the flaw a "feature"
once it is discovered, b) do not test carefully enough so as not
to discover the difficulties, c) test carefully enough and
provide an unelegant rule, d) do not publish the game but only
its successor.

--
robert jasiek

The definition of greatness in most fields of human endeavor is tied
to depth.
What makes a book, movie, piece of music, etc., "great" is that you
can come back to it again and find new things each time. This is not
necesarily related to how much you enjoyed the book, movie, etc.. For
German games I find that once I figure out the basic strategies there
is nothing else there. As for the social fun aspect, as I said in
another post, if that is the primary consideration I would rather do
other activities like bowling or golf.

Poker isn't a board game. That's why I was surprised to see bridge on
the list. And why is Call of Cthulhu which is a role-playing game on
the list?

Lack interest and accessibility? Chess and Scrabble are way more
popular than any German boardgame in the US. You can break out a
Scrabble board and most people will know how to play. I see people
playing chess in public parks. To play casual chess or Scrabble -
which most people do - you most certainly do not have to memorize any
openings or words.

I recall reading that close to 20% of the Korean population plays go.
In Korea, I understand that being a top go player is very prestigious
and one can easily make a living from it. There was a similar
situation for chess in the Soviet Union.

john lawler wrote:
>
[snip]

[snip]

Certainly. But if in one breath you disparage German games for lacking
depth, and then in another praise chess and Scrabble because people play
them at a shallow level, perhaps I can be forgiven for wondering just what
exactly your point is.

Bob Rossney
r...@well.com

Fine - those are *your* personal tastes. I don't golf, and haven't bowled since
I was a child. My loss, perhaps, but do you get the point?

Anyhow, compared with going out to dinner, board games aren't as social. But
they are certainly more social than going to see a movie.

I wouldn't define social games as exactly and only "games I can play with
non-gamers". There is a space between those games and, say, a big wargame that
is only playable by gamers who are in the mood for a serious game.

Fine.

Chris

a) practically professionals and so won't waste their time with the Internet
top 100; or
b) casual gamers who won't waste their time with the Internet top 100?

You may be right for you. You may even be right for everyone
you know. As an unqualified statement applying widely you are
just plain wrong.

--
Christopher Dearlove

I think that chess players think they are chess players and don't regard
chess playing as a special case of board game playing. (And yes, I do
know some reasonable amateur chess players - my father for one.)

Ditto, but maybe a little less so, Scrabble players. I would guess the
same for Go players, but that's not based on personal evidence.

--
Christopher Dearlove

It sounds more like you think that you have to like chess and go to be
taken seriously.

Ah yes; in respect of the number of sequels (and prequels); but not
perhaps quality (depends I suppose on whether you're into good films
or good sci-fi, I suppose) :)

I take it you haven't seen any of Hikaru no Go? I'm still to get hold of
any of it but I'm told its a pretty good manga cartoon series and is based
around Go players!

GazB
---
Deadlines are cowardly: they don't stride out alone.
They run in packs, and leap out at you all at once.

You could play chess well enough to win four consecutive games against
different players who are worse than you are, and yet still have a lot
to learn about the game. I disagree with your comments, in particular
the idea that you can't look or plan ahead. I think the uncertainty
associated with the tile draws (and, even more so, with what the other
players are holding) is precisely what makes it challenging to look or
plan ahead.

"Greatness" is a subjective concept. The list you refer to is the
result of a specific voting process among a specific group of players.
The games that have the highest ranking are those that got the highest
votes from the particular people who are interested enough to vote.
It's that simple.

I think most people are giving high rankings to the games that they most
enjoy playing right now (or at the time that they voted). Not to the
games that they think are "great" in some abstract sense.

Many people prefer games with less depth. You can see from the voting
that such people are well represented among the voters for this
particular ranking.

David desJardins

You've mentioned that you enjoy playing Monopoly. So what is it about that game
that you find new when you play it?

--
Once the game is over, the king and the pawn go back in the same box.
- Italian proverb

All I am saying is that games should be evaluated as games alone.
Either the game is a great game or not. That you had a good time
socializing while playing it shouldn't factor into whether the game
itself is good. It would be like saying, I saw a really bad movie
last night, but it was with a really good date, and we had a lot of
fun making fun of the movie afterwards, so the movie was actually
quite good.

I'm just trying to get a handle on what specifically in German games
appeals to people to have the games rated so highly. The depth is not
there. As social gaming IMO a lot of party games are more fun with
most audiences, and you could always do something else besides board
gaming in any case.

If more people from the general American public voted I think Monopoly
would be #1 on the list. I bet that there would be a lot of criticism
of that choice on this newsgroup, saying Monopoly has no depth, etc. -
compared to your favored German games. But perhaps most people would
find Monopoly more FUN because if gives everyone a better chance to
win? You can't rag on Monopoly (which I do see on this group) without
saying the same thing about German games.

It's not a list of greatest games of all time, it's a list of what people
who are actively playing games like who happened to have the internet, and
who are clued into looking for board games.

> chess and backgammon, or even Scrabble? Do you believe that the

How many other games were invented since chess or go were created that have
fallen by the wayside? They had better be good to last that amount of time.

> tactical depth, and many have basic flaws such as giving substantial

Who would play chess since it is a broken game. Why spend time playing a
game when a very important strategy is to play not to win, but to play to a
draw?
At first, I understood the concept of PR being a multi-player solo game. And
that's probably why I won only 2 out of my first 35 or so games. Now that I
have learned to concentrate more on how my decisions affect the other
players, and spend time figuring out what the best/worst possibilities of
roles that the other players will make and how that affects me, my win rate
now is over 30%. I now understand that PR has a ton of tactical depth, it's
just that the NEED to use it is a lot more subtle than chess.

Anyway, what I feel is a very important aspect of the German games is this:
A)even if you lose, at the end of the game you look back and feel that
you've built something (the Carcassone world, your Settlers world, your PR
city/plantations, etc). The winner is the person who is the most efficient
at it. Games like chess, risk, and Monopoly I find no fun since it's mostly
about 'humiliating' (for lack of a better term) all other opponents. When
you lose in those games, you have nothing to show for it at the end. Also, I
think that where the theme comes into play; it's easier to feel what your
goals are and how things work when themed.
B)For whatever reason, possibly because of A), there's always seems to be a
little voice in the back of your head saying "If I had only done XXX
instead, I would have won" after a German game. There is a tendency to
always reflect back after you look at what you've created and figure out how
you'd make it a little better the next time around. I would never look back
on a game of Scrabble pin-point a turning point of my loss. I have never
heard this voice playing chess, although I can imagine people hearing it.

Difficult, but a valid opinion. It is however different to what
you at least appeared to say previously. I'll assume it is a
clarification.

--
Christopher Dearlove

No, in terms of quality and popularity. Both Star Wars and Siedler
get high ratings, and both are very good examples of their type,
but neither achieves the quality of The Godfather.

--
Christopher Dearlove

What is this obsession with not drawing? (I could jump to conclusions
and say among Americans in particular, but a .com does not an American
make - I use one at work.) This does not make a game broken.

--
Christopher Dearlove

> like requiring memorization of openings, gambits, and word lists. . . .

You *don't* have to memorize openings in order to play chess! Nor do you
have to memorize conventions to play bridge.

Conventional openings and bidding systems have arisen in these games just
because they've been so hugely popular for so long, and because fans have
written down much of what they've learned. You don't have to memorize the
conventions in order to play the games. You only have to memorize them if
you decide to engage in serious tournament play.

The only chess openings I've memorized are the Giuoco Piano and Ruy Lopez
(which are quite similar). And yet I don't hesitate to start a game with d4
(pawn to queen 4), even though it precludes my playing either of the
openings I've memorized. I simply rely on principles of development and
create my own opening as I go along. I may unknowingly be reinventing a
book opening in the process, but so what? Unless I'm playing in a
tournament against good chess players who've memorized openings, it doesn't
matter at all.

Back when I was teaching myself bridge, I read up on the Stayman and
Blackwood conventions. By now I've forgotten everything I ever knew about
bridge conventions; but it doesn't matter. If I sat down to a casual bridge
game tonight, I'd just apologize for my ignorance and go with rules of
thumb. I remember how to count the point value of my hand; I have a vague
idea of how to convey that to my partner and how to interpret other players'
bids; and I could stumble through. In a friendly game, it shouldn't matter.
And if I later decide to start playing more regularly, it won't be hard to
read up and refresh my memory on some of the fine points.

Chess and bridge are perfectly playable games, even if all you've memorized
are the rules. Any further memorization beyond that is icing on the cake,
and it's necessary only in serious (non-casual) games.

--Patrick

Why not? Arguably, one of the fundamental purposes of a game is enjoyment
in playing it. If the game succeeds at that, then it is a "good" game, on
some level.

Not quite. A closer analogy is "I saw a technically flawed movie with
bad acting and major plot holes, but it was still fun to watch".

In such a case, I would say the movie succeeded, and is justifiably
classified as a "good" movie. On a list of "good movies" compiled by
average movie-watchers, it would likely fall higher than a technically
superior snooze-fest.

If we count dollars spent as votes (and that seems like a perfectly valid
way to judge how much the public likes certain movies, since it depends on
word of mouth, repeat viewing, etc., as opposed to some subject, abstract
appraisal of greatness), then the "best" movies of all time are Titanic,
Star Wars, ET, Spider-Man, etc. Not many of these would be classed as
"great" cinema (Titanic, the highest-grossing movie of all time, had a
lousy script and terrible acting all around, save Kathy Bates). But the
technically superior films are much farther down on the list because being
a "great" film doesn't necessarily correlate to being a "good" (i.e.
enjoyable) film.

They're fun to play. Good thing too, since they're games, and games are
meant to be played.

Party games are fun with the right numbers. But when you have four
people, Settlers or T&E are better choices than Apples to Apples or
Pictionary.

Only because the average American knows of about five board games:
Monopoly, Scrabble, Trivial Pursuit, Chess, Candyland. Of those, only
Monopoly is something an average inexperienced adult would care to play
with other adults and would have an almost equal chance of winning against
experienced opponents.

Actually, most of the criticism would be that various house rules break
the game, and people voting for Monopoly aren't actually voting for the
real game, but the broken games they play with their visiting cousins,
using $500 on free parking, very little trading, endless supply of houses,
etc. to make the game interminably long and almost completely
luck-driven.

Every time I've ever played Monopoly with the typical house rules, the
game ends with everyone saying "Thank god this is finally over. Why
didn't we play Uno?" Yet, it continues to be the only boardgame
non-gamers ever want to play, and they insist on using their house rules
no matter how much you tell them it breaks the game.

I don't think average people play Monopoly out of like for the game, but
rather out of habit and (warped) nostalgia.

One advantage many German games have over Monopoly is that they can be
played in an hour or less, whereas Monopoly as played by the general
public takes many hours (typically, used to fill up a rainy afternoon, or
to play after dinner to last until bedtime, etc.).

Whatever flaws the games might share are compounded by the length of time
it takes to play, so Monopoly loses out. With a German game, if it's
flawed, just wait 30 minutes, and it's over. For Monopoly, you're lucky
if 30 minutes is enough time for everyone to get a turn.

That said, Monopoly played *properly* (i.e. without the various house
rules that increase game length and luck and decrease skill) is pretty
close to being a German game and, if published today without historical
baggage attached to it, would probably be a reasonably popular game with
gamers.

Nathan

======================================================================
san...@ling.ucsc.edu ***** Department of Linguistics
san...@alum.mit.edu *** University of California
http://ling.ucsc.edu/~sanders * Santa Cruz, California 95064
======================================================================

Exactly. And I think that's what Mr. Lawler was complaining about when he
started this thread.

I understand and sympathize with Mr. Lawler's complaint. It's why I
recently started the "What's *really* your favorite?" thread (the
desert-island scenario where you're stuck playing just one game for years).
I was trying to get people to think about "'great' in some abstract sense."

Somehow, that seems important to me. I suppose it's a desire to become
aware of the absolute value of things, beyond ephemeral everyday human
preferences.

But, how useful is it, really? I don't know. As someone in this thread
said, he chose go as the greatest game in my desert-island scenario--but he
almost never plays go. I'd have to second that. I rarely play the games I
admire most.

Samuel Johnson said the real measure of value is the test of time. We can
judge Shakespeare to be better than most of his contemporary playwrights
simply because Shakespeare's plays are still being performed, studied, and
admired some 400 years later. Similarly, a lot of ancient and
not-so-ancient games have been relegated to the dustbin of history--and that
ought to draw attention to those few that have survived and retained wide
popularity.

As to newly invented games, who knows? I'm guessing Pass the Pigs is just a
silly fad. But for all I know, archaeologists may someday find cubical dice
an oddity, since "normal" dice are all pig-shaped.

--Patrick

The difference between a social game and a 'serious' game would be more like the
difference between going to see a light comedy and a serious drama. Both good
and bad light comedies exist.

What you are saying, metaphorically, is that all light comedies are bad That
all light games are bad. Well I think it's pretty obvious that the quality of
light games varies. YOU don't like light games. That's fine; just don't expect
everyone to agree with you. :)

To bring things back to games... a light game, or social one, or whatever you
want to call it... is probably going to have some upper limit on the complexity
and depth of the game. The fact that it is not extremely deep probably
*facilitates* social interaction, as opposed to a game which requires intense
concentration and thought from the players. Not to mention choice of mechanics
such as trading.

[snip]

The trouble with that is that the playing field is NOT level. I assume a vast
majority of the people here have played Monopoly. You simply cannot say that
about German games and the general public.

And I think you're ignoring a lot of the things about Monopoly that don't make
it as appealing to somewhat more serious gamers. Like the element of choice and
decision-making, as opposed to rolling dice and moving around a track.

Chris

But complaining about that makes no sense. The list might have zero
value to him, if he's not interested in games ranked on this basis. But
it can't have negative value; he can always just ignore it.

David desJardins

Snappy answer, but it doesn't address the question, does it? It would if
"fun" were as clear a concept as "depth"--but it's not. Actually "fun" just
shortens John's "what . . . appeals to people."

So Nathan's reply says German games appeal to people because they're fun.
And presumably they're fun because they appeal to people--and that's what
makes 'em fun. And that's a good thing, because games are meant to be
played and playing games is fun--and fun games are appealing to people who
play games (or at least to those who have fun playing games that appeal to
them).

If I were king of r.g.b., I think I might outlaw the phrase "games are fun."
It sums up about 90 percent of the posts and instantly squelches meaningful
discussion. (But then again, my kingdom would be pretty small if 90-odd
percent of r.g.b.ers moved to rec.games.fun, leaving r.g.b. as high and dry
as alt.games.domino.)

I have to sympathize with John here. He's "trying to get a handle" on
something he perceives as important, and a chorus of voices is replying,
"No, don't! You can't get a handle on such things without becoming a
presumptuous, elitist outcast. So chill out, lighten up, and just have fun
playing games." Well, John, whatever you do, just don't create an alias
like "Patronius." It could only make things worse. ;-)

--Patrick

He wanted to know what it is "in German games [that] appeals to people".
I believe part of that appeal comes from having fun while playing them,
and thus "German games are fun" is a valid response to his query.

As you say, "fun" and "depth" are murky concepts, so I don't think my
answer is any worse than his criticism.

I think that chorus is coming from the perspective that what John thinks
is important (abstract measure of greatness) isn't reflected in the
Internet Top 100 list, and thus, he shouldn't be using it as a measure
of what rgb-ers think of as "great" and then complaining about how the
top 50 games or so aren't as great as go. The list doesn't measure
greatness, so it's just silly to attack it for doing something it isn't
designed to do.

It's like looking at the all-time money-making movies list from IMDb and
complaining that Titanic, Star Wars, and ET are vastly inferior to The
Godfather and shouldn't be listed so much higher.

Well, I guess he was just venting (as in, "I can't believe people
intelligent enough to comprehend strategy games would allow their emotions
to influence their vote on what the *best* games in the world are!"). It's
an emotional reaction to a tally of people's emotional reactions. So it
doesn't have to make sense. Yet ironically, the thrust of it is, "Why can't
a list like this make more sense?"

--Patrick

You can't get a handle on it because it all boils down to personal
preference. There is no universally correct answer to the question of which
games are better than others. Different games will be better for different
people.

It's like asking a man why he tends to prefer blonds to brunettes and then
asking him why he has the wrong preference. Neither is objectively better
than the other. Insisting that one is shows the person who does the
insisting to be not only mistaken, but arrogant.

Continuing to push the question quickly beomces tedious. If someone is going
to insist that their own subjective tastes are universally objective
measures of quality, then he deserves to be labelled a presumptuous elitist
(since that is what he is) and to be made an outcast (at least as far as
r.g.b. is concerned).

"Games are fun" sums up the reason why most like to play games. You may not
like that, and it may not fit into your quixotic quest to find some
overriding cosmic meaning in game playing or satisfy your search for the
"one, true, game." However, it is just as valid and truly "meaningful" a
viewpoint as yours.

Paul Sauberer

That's the inherent flaw with the original rant --- the list *does* make
sense. Just not the kind of sense John wants it to make.

The list in question not a measure of objective quality or all-time
greatness; it's a measure of whatever voters are using to measure the
games, which generally encompasses a wide variety of traits such as the
right mix of strategy and luck, the ability to play with n players, the
bits, replayability, etc. that can be boiled down to something close to
"fun to play" (keeping in mind that the voters are gamers, rgb-ers
specifically, and thus not representative of average people, wargamers,
chess grandmasters, game historians, gamblers, or anyone else who would
likely generate very different lists of "the best games").

On top of that, as someone else pointed out, the list mixes all sorts of
different games together, and if one insists on trying to make a
meaningful comparison between games on the list, make sure those games
are comparable to begin with. Go vs. chess makes sense; Go vs. Bohnanza
does not.

The list doesn't purport to rank the "best" games. Just the "top"
games, which is rather tautological (they are the top games according to
the ranking that puts them at the top).

But suppose it did. Of course opinions and subjective judgments would
be how people would vote for the best games. What's the alternative?
Solving some differential equations to scientifically "prove" which
games are best? Every ranking I've ever seen of the best of anything
comes down to nothing more than popularity among some group.

David desJardins

Well, I am no judge of SERIOUS Scrabble players, but someone I played with
recently commented that she never got into strategy board games (even though
mutual friends are); I think the skills involved are reasonably distinct.

Chris

One of the factors I consider when rating a game is how often it gets
played. My wife is always happy to play Carcassonne, but has to be in
the mood for pure strategy games. That, coupled with the fact that I
enjoy Carcassonne, too, puts it in the great games category for me.

As far as abstraction goes, one of the reasons my wife enjoys Carcassonne
so much is the presentation; she finds it a pleasure to watch the board
develop.

--Jeff Stehman

I agree with you completely, and will not waste everyone's
time by restating any of it.

The only thing I think needs further mention is the
seriously flawed movie gross analogy several people have
used. Keep in mind that the ticket I bought for Star Wars in
1976? cost me $4, and tickets for Titanic cost $7.50.
Inflation renders such comparisons meaningless. If you want
a true picture of movie popularity (and current popularity
is all the top 100 games list rates, so as fads fade, the
games change) base it on tickets sold, not dollars earned.
By that standard, Gone With The Wind is still number one, in
spite of the huge increase in population since then.)

In short, the best way to measure the popularity of two
different games would be by sales over a set period of time,
probably on a regional basis too. But even that comes down
to a very subjective "popularity" contest, with no real
basis in "depth" or "fun" or whatever, because we each
define those differently. Without agreed upon common
standards, there can be no real comparisons.

Arguing about which is the best type of game is similar to arguements
about which is the best vehicle. If I want to move two tons of steel
chips I would rather have a fork truck than a Lexus. The same holds
for games. There are times I want a deep game of chess or Go and
other times I want to play something like Risk. I find it depends
more on who I am playing with rather than the game itself.

In your defense however, I have noticed that many of the posts in the
speilfreaks group have started to follow the same (somewhat) arrogant
patterns found in many of the chess sites. I find your reaction
similar to the reaction many people have concerning chess posts; they
find the superior attitude projected to be a turn off and begin to
react negatively. Since some of this has begun poking through the
speilfreak's messages, the reaction of others (like youself) is
similar.

Dave Shapiro

I wouldn't take the fact that German games place higher than classic
games in Aaron Fuegi's list as strong evidence that "American board
gamers" like German games better than classics.

I think you have to first stipulate that, as a matter of taste,
certain people like go (or other classic games), and certain people
like German games, no matter how "timeless" go may be. It seems to me
that people who like go or chess have many other places to find
information about these games and discuss their hobby. This
newsgroup, where the list is most publicized, is primarily a forum for
fans of boardgames that don't have their own newsgroups, such as
German games.

Moreover, even if many fans of go or chess voted in Aaron Fuegi's
list, it seems unlikely that most of them would have played many
German games enough to give them a rating. Its much more likely that
Spielfrieks would have played go or chess enough to know that they
don't like them as much as their favorite German games. Thus, most
votes for a specific German game are coming from people who like
German games in general and play a lot of them, while votes for
classic games are coming from people who both like and dislike the
genre.

I, for one, happen to like German-style games more than classics, but
its clear to me that chess, bridge, and even go are much more popular
in the United States as a whole. But the United States as a whole is
not the audience for the list in question.

Nick

OK, if it does make sense, please explain how. Because what you go on to
say below sounds a lot more like randomity (with a big dose of emotional
"anything goes") than *sense* to me. (Asterisks added to show what I mean.)

> The list in question *not a measure* of objective quality or all-time
> greatness; it's a measure of *whatever* voters are using to measure the
> games, which *generally encompasses a wide variety* of traits such as the

> bits, replayability, etc. that can be boiled down to *something close to*

> specifically, and thus *not representative* of average people, wargamers,

> *On top of that, as someone else pointed out, the list mixes all sorts of
> different games together,* and if one insists on trying to make a

> are comparable to begin with. Go vs. chess makes sense; *Go vs. Bohnanza
> does not.*

Well, if Go vs Bohnanza does not make sense--and that's the sort of thing on
the list in question--then how does the list make sense?

--Patrick

Isn't that what John Lawler was asking for--common standards?

Seems to me he's saying that any of us who've become knowledgeable and
experienced about board games will likely agree that there are qualitative
differences among them. If one of us were assigned to teach a survey class
in board games, and the university that hired us was expecting us to make
students aware of some of the most important board games in the world, we'd
most likely put games like chess and go near the top of our list. And if we
put Carcassone or Princes of Florence at the top of our list, leaving chess
and go off entirely (not even mentioning them in our class), we'd probably
be fired--and with good reason.

That being the case, we "experts" ought to be able to come up with some
common standards, as you put it, to explain *why* chess and go would have to
be part of the survey course Most Important Board Games, and why Carcassone
and Princes of Florence could rightly be omitted. (And even if we can't, a
consensus among knowledgeable, experienced board gamers ought to count for
more than a wide-open poll of the general population.)

Last time I was in a university class, I was studying English literature.
One young man in the class complained that he was being required to study
Wordsworth and Coleridge, when as far as he was concerned modern sci-fi
writers like Piers Anthony were just as good or even better. He didn't get
anywhere. He ended up disgusted that the powers that be had established a
literary canon, deeming Shakespeare, Milton, Faulkner, and Joyce *better*
than Piers Anthony and more worthy of serious study. But I don't think
anyone else in the class complained. I for one was willing to take it on
faith that these time-tested writers probably *were* better than this kid's
favorite sci-fi/fantasy author. I don't know if I could explain why. I
don't know if there really are any "common standards." But there's
certainly *general agreement* among the sizable body of intellectuals who
decide the curriculum. And I'd say such general agreement--among people who
know what they're talking about--ought to count for something.

One purpose of literary criticism is to help people understand why certain
works are especially valuable and worthy of study. Similarly, a
knowledgeable board gamer ought to be able to say to a newbie, "Yes, I know
you really like El Grande--and you're right when you say it's a fun game.
But please bear with me, and I'll show you why chess is actually a much
better game." Strategic depth (whatever that is exactly) might be one
factor that's conveyed in the ensuing lessons. There'd be others too. And
in the end, the student might or might not be convinced. He might shrug off
chess and go back to El Grande. Then again, he might learn something--catch
a glimpse of what chess has that El Grande doesn't--and he might find it
impressive. He might end up believing his teacher was merely being
presumptuous or elitist when he called chess "a much better game." Or he
might end up agreeing that his teacher was right about that. *Is* the
teacher absolutely right? I don't know. But I think he might very well
be--even though it's doubtful that he'd ever be able to spell out the
precise standards he bases his contention on. Often it's just an intuitive
sense of things, based on experience, and it can't be put into words or
neatly formulated.

--Patrick

That sounds good, but I don't think it's that simple. For one thing,
experience has to figure into it. The "personal preference" of a highly
experienced board gamer is going to impress me more than the "personal
preference" of a newbie.

When I was studying English lit. and my teacher told me Shakespeare is
better than Mickey Spillane, I took it to be true. The professor had
certainly read Shakespeare, if not Spillane, and I hadn't. So until I read
both myself--and became experienced and knowledgeable enough to argue--I'd
go with the teacher's assessment. Especially since it wasn't just one
teacher, but the whole university--a whole intellectual body which decided
Shakespeare was more worthy of being taught. Now, years later, I contend
that Shakespeare really is great; and you can say I've been brainwashed, but
I think I've been educated and am speaking from experience.

Similarly, the panel of judges on "American Idol" seem to know a good
performance from a bad one. I'm content to believe that the performer who
wins the contest is actually much better than the ones who were eliminated
in the first round. You can say that's just the "personal preference" of
the judges. I say it's the educated judgment of experienced critics--people
who've earned the right to make a sound judgment.

It's only *just* a matter of personal preference if you accept the premise
that the *only* purpose of games is to titillate the players. If that's all
we're talking about, then it's silly for us to be wasting time talking about
it at all. We might as well query whether coffee is better with or without
cream and sugar.

But as Chris Crawford says (in "The Art of Computer Game Design"), the main,
underlying motivation for playing games is to learn. It's not just
titillation, it's learning. And learning is something that may be hard to
get a handle on, but there are nevertheless ways to measure the
effectiveness of it, the value of different learning tools.

There are secondary motivations, besides learning, for playing games--and
some of those can be measured and judged too. But there's no basis for
judging anything--or thinking intelligently about it--if you insist on
beginning with the premise that "Aw, games ain't nuthin' but just for fun,
and everybody knows it, so forget it."

--Patrick

I guess I misinterpreted the top 100 list then. Since there are so
many German games on the list, it could be called the "top 100 most
enjoyable German games".
I looked at the list with the mindset that one looks at typical best
lists. At the end of the 20th century I saw a lot of different "best"
lists - best movies, best books, etc.. You also see these lists at
the end of each year. In all cases these lists, which are usually
made by "critics" are based upon artistic criteria other than pure
enjoyment. If you want to have a popularity contest, you could just
print sales figures and be done with it. I would think that this
newsgroup which to me seems to be made up of a relatively "critical"
group of gamers, would consider games to some extent from a more
"critical" perspective.

What if many people buy the game but never open the box? Or buy the
game and take it home and play it and only then find out they don't like
it?

David desJardins

Some do, some don't. The list doesn't prescibe that you have to vote any
particular way. Most people seem to vote based on enjoyment, at least to
some degree.

Besides, which critical perspective should we use? Stratetgic depth (how
far ahead you have to look)? Strategic breadth (how many options you have
at any given moment)? Mix of strategy and luck? Original game
mechanics? Bits? Range of possible numbers of players? Ability to
directly factor in different skill levels?

You seem to advocate that strategic depth is *the* best way to determine
the "best" game. Why? Why isn't breadth or mechanics or bits or number
of possible players just as---or even more---important?

Before we can begin an objective critical ranking of games, we're going to
have to agree on what the criteria are going to be, and I simply don't
think we *can* get an agreement. For example, I feel that a game like
Carcassonne that can be played with a range of players without significant
loss of other positive factors should get higher marks in comparison to a
game that is limited to only a specific number of players, like Chess or
Go. You might not think that this should even be a factor, since you hold
Go on such a high pedestal. And while I might feel that this factor
should be worth say 15% of a game's overall score, someone else might feel
that it's worth 33%.

I suppose we could average everyone's weightings for every possible factor
and come up with some average weighted formula, but then we might as well
just let everyone rank the games however they feel and average the final
scores (we'd end up with the same results), and after enough votes have
been collected, we'll see some general pattern emerge that represents the
overall/average/aggregate measure of "greatness" without having to figure
out everyone's particular weightings.

Thanks to Aaron Fuegi, this system is already in place.

I have not played go and have played very few german games, but what
do you mean by "go has 10 times the depth of a german game".

I dont think you can compare an abstract game like Go with a German
game even if it has a pasted theme on.

For me something very important in a boardgame or wargame is its
capacity to make my imagination be transported into the game. For
example in the boardgame Tikal I can imagine moving X number of
explorers into a pyramid or digging for treasures.

I dont think that Go can give me that feeling no matter how much
"depth" it has.

Leonardo

Then aren't we getting into a semantics discussion? Those lists you've
mentioned (movies, books, etc.) are certainly not all-inclusive... For them
to be as accurate as you're suggesting, they would have to reflect product
from around the world. In other words, the ones who assembled these lists
would need to include little-known films from Yugoslavia (that very well
might be amazing) and exceptional books from Paraguay. As it is, most of
these lists seem to arise from the target community and in many cases will
only reflect films or books "known" to the reader of the list.

For the Internet game list to work, then, you're suggesting that it be
renamed "The Top 100 Board, Card, RPG and CCG Games Selected by the Active
On-Line Gaming Community" or something to that effect, and that's
ridiculous.

As has been mentioned many times in the past about this oh, so controversial
list... ANYONE may contribute to it. Go ahead and post YOUR list and your
submissions will be represented. Simple as that.

And your comment about "Best" lists being generated by "critics"... What
about "The People's Choice Awards," etc. These are awards and lists
generated by a certain chunk of the general public (in this case, the kinds
of people who go out of their way to vote for such awards). Are these lists
and awards any different from the Internet 100 list?

And before I run away... I admit that many games do have what seem like
"tacked on themes" (eventhough designers will insist that they have the
theme first in almost all cases). Are you suggesting that Monopoly has a
great theme? Is the world of high-finance and investing really about
rolling dice and randomly arriving on available properties??? I'm not
criticizing the game because of this, mind you, if you find it enjoyable
then it's a good game in your eyes. I tend to find a good number of
European business games much better themed than Monopoly.

And that's my .02

Scott Alan Woodard

It still has problems, most notably that the decision whether to buy a
property is mostly a no-brainer (the answer is yes). I have seen it
suggested that it becomes more interesting with a reduced initial
capital, but have never tried it (actually I don't even own a
Monopoly set to try it on).

--
Christopher Dearlove

Not that huge, and in terms of cinema attendance, massively down
(well, in the UK at least, I'm guessing similarly elsewhere). So
you need to correct for that as well, maybe via measuring ratings
of films on TV (where the loss has gone) or just correcting for
cinema attendance overall.

Sorry, no games analogy.

--
Christopher Dearlove

Wouldn't be easier to just skip FAMILY games all together?

I would never dream of following what's going on in the RPG, CCG, tabletop
or wargame market as those games doesn't interest me.

Mik

Really, so you find virtually all luck and no strategy in Tikal? Tigris &
Euphrates? Civilization (which has even less luck than those two)? Explain
please how luck and not strategy rules Tikal.

--
"Blackberry = misguided, extremist, well-meaning furry weirdo."
- Dr. Cat, alt.fan.furry

Yep. I have a friend who comes over almost every Friday for boardgames because
it's all the socialization he gets, and we socialize plenty while playing games.
Johnlawler, I'd love to see you prove that there is no socialization between me
and my friend, and I'd like to know how you collected your evidence.

--
Bruno Faidutti
Games and Unicorns
9 bis rue Alphonse Daudet
30133 LES ANGLES - FRANCE
http://faidutti.free.fr
faid...@free.fr

One can make comparisons but OC there will always be aspects that
are uncomparable.

If you understand Go's strategic objects well, then you can construct
a relation to every topic. If you need a game's visible
objects to imagine a topic, then you could not reach a level of Go
understanding that allows you to construct a relation between
sttategic objects and your preferred topic. Some topics provide a
good relation at a Go playing strength of at least 5 kyu or 1 dan:
war, business, harmony. Probably for other preferred topics one
would have to be even stronger.

It is not the game Go that prevents imagination of and relation to
a topic, but "too weak" playing strength combined with personal
preference of what not to imagine provides a limit. (I know because
I am not too weak any more:) )

--
robert jasiek

This is wrong because games (excepting solitaires) are social structures to
begin with, and always have been. It's difficult to judge if a multi-player
game is good if you're trying to play it solitaire or with a group of
introverts or disinterested participants.

> It would be like saying, I saw a really bad movie
> last night, but it was with a really good date, and we had a lot of
> fun making fun of the movie afterwards, so the movie was actually
> quite good.

No. A movie is not interactive, and subsequent viewings of that same movie
will be the same. Not so with games. Each outcome and path to getting
there will (or should) be different.

> I don't even find German games to very good as

It would be more accurate to say that the best social games have a good
balance of luck vs. skill that allows everyone a chance to win, (or
comeback) but in the long run, skill should still win out. I believe this
applies to all/most of the great games you've mentioned, as well as other
good games.

> As for the social fun aspect, as I said in
> another post, if that is the primary consideration I would rather do
> other activities like bowling or golf.

Interesting. Not board games, but still games.

"As far as war games go, the more I worked on them the more I came to the opinion
that they were sort of easy to design. They were so complex that you could just
put in anything you wanted. That doesn't mean it was easy to make them work as a
whole. But with family games there's an inherent elegance that's missing in
wargames. It's much harder to design a game with less rules than to design a game
into which you can just throw any rule you want."

I have played hundreds of different games (European and American war games,
family, abstract, European and American kids games, etc) and the perception that
emerges, along with quotes such as the one above, is (read "easier" in what I
write next as a true relative term--I don't believe it is eaSY to design any
playable game):
1. War games are the hardest games to learn, have the least subtlety, and are
easier to design.
2. Family games are easier games to learn, have more subtlety, and are harder to
design.
3. Abstract games are the easiest games to learn, have the most subtlety, and are
the hardest to design.

I consider the three types of games, war, family and abstract, as serious games.
My only purpose is to posit why German-style games so dominant in the Internet
games 100. With the categorization I made above, I now see that many American
games come in under the toy category, not under the game category.

Greg

Robert Jasiek wrote:

> Anonymous wrote:
> > Actually, I think Moon meant exactly what he said.
>
> If you interpret his words so strictly, do you think that he would
> have difficulties designing some game with few rules? More
> generally, taking a few rules and calling the result "game" is at
> least as simple as taking a lot of rules (like in a wargame) and
> calling the result "game". Therefore I suppose that Moon spoke
> about elegance of design rather than the mere difficultly of
> selecting a particular number of rules.
>
> > I've designed a few games
> > with historic themes (none published, or even submitted for publication) and
> > it's far easier to solve a problem by adding a new mechanic, adding a new
> > chart, or adding some more components then it is to solve the problem
> > "elegently"
>
> True but here you speak about tuning a game under development
> rather than inventing some new game. When starting design for a
> game, one can easily choose a low number of rules. Only during
> the development maintaining elegance becomes difficult, and I
> think that we agree here.
>
> > The wargames that Moon mentions use the
> > "add a new..." method of game design to solve their problems (most of which
> > have to do with historical accuracy). That's why most wargames have rule
> > books that could gag a goat --- many pages, many charts, many die roll
> > modifiers, many exceptions to rules, etc. It's the sledgehammer approach to
> > game design.
>
> Indeed.
>
> > I'm sure there are lots of folks who prefer this method in
> > their games but most gamers, even quite a few wargamers of late, have come
> > to prefer more elegent designs.
>
> "elegant" needs to be defined. It could be "length of rules text
> once it is complete" or it could be extended to external rules
> details printed on playing material (like exceptional rules
> associated with playing cards), etc. E.g., I would not call
> Puerto Rico elegant since it lacks elegance on its playing cards
> (buildings, etc.).
>
> ***
>
> Maintaining elegance while exposing an initial design to testing
> and realization of design objectives is hard. In practice, a
> designer must often make a compromise. In a new design that does
> not copy from other games extensively fundamental difficulties
> can arise that would require a fundamental redesign if elegance
> shall be maintained by all means. This could need too much time
> and therefore might be postponed to later game designs. We can
> call this process evolution.
>
> Unless historical accuracy in considered mandatory, there is no
> reason to have as many rules as in a typical wargame. About 90%
> of a game's aspects can be treated elegantly easily, 5% need
> careful invention to gain elegance, and 5% furthermore require
> too much time to be solved already for the currently designed
> game. What is done with the latter 5%? One can see different
> politics: a) pretend non-existence or call the flaw a "feature"
> once it is discovered, b) do not test carefully enough so as not
> to discover the difficulties, c) test carefully enough and
> provide an unelegant rule, d) do not publish the game but only
> its successor.
>
> --
> robert jasiek

Game design is difficult at least so much that it is about as
difficult to design a good game as it is difficult to write a
good book. However, game design can be learned / studied. Once
a designer has learned it and understood typical design principles
of the above three game types, there is a good chance that he could
design every game of the above types rather easily. Why? Games are
modular. For each module some standard realizations exist in
existing games and can be copied from there. All that needs to be
done then is to test and tune interaction of the new choice of
module instances. Among the existing games there are good and bad
ones; with careful or little testing and tuning the new game would
become good or bad. After some reasonable study of game design,
creating some game at all is easy while the question whether it
will be good or bad is rather independent of that, provided that
the fundamental insight in games' modules is sufficient due to
enough prior study of game design so that not already the choice
of a combination of module instances creates a principal problem.

Abstract games? Mathematics can be used for design. Once the
mathematical background is understood, designing infinite
numbers of abstract games is no serious problem.

--
robert jasiek

Right enough. But if you're defending your doctorate dissertation, which do
you care more about: its popularity among freshmen, or its popularity among
the group of professors who'll decide whether you deserve a PhD? The
professorial board didn't get there by accident or happenstance; they earned
the right to be there--they have more knowledge and experience than the
group of freshmen. Thus, it matters a lot which group something is popular
with--whose "top ten" list a thing is on.

Different strokes for different folks. The personal preference of someone
who is "highly experienced" but who has shown different tastes than mine
will be valued less by me than that of a newbie whose limited opinions are
more in tune with mine. If an experienced gamer pans a game that I enjoy, I
am not going to stop liking it just because he doesn't.

Or critics could be more in tune with what most people's tastes are and can
express how well something jives with those tastes.

You also have to differentiate from art that is designed primarily as
entertainment and something that has another goal, such as to challenge or
provoke its audience in a certain way. Admittedly, the line can get a bit
blurred. A film with poor writing or acting can be said to be bad, but is it
bad because the writing and acting is objectively bad or is it bad because
that writing and directing fails to communicate with its audience.

Wrong. Activities can have more than one purpose or effect. The *primary*
purpose of games is to entertain. Most people play games to have fun. There
can be an ancillary effect of learning, but that is not their primary
purpose.

But in the end it is silly to waste time talking about all of these phantom
deep reasons in gaming.