Market Mechanic Lecture: Property Rights

We have gathered here today to celebrate the conclusion of the market mechanic lecture series.  I know some of you have sad faces because you see the word “conclusion.”  Do not be sad, for while the “Market Lecture” is ending, my writing on what board game designers can learn from economics will still regularly appear on this blog.  But before I part this lecture series to undertake other exciting topics, I want to reflect on the market mechanic that makes all meaningful decisions possible in board games--property rights.

You cannot engage in trade, negotiate prices, hold an auction, and make meaningful choices with money without a property right mechanic.  A property right is the right to do or to not do something; to posses a privilege you can elect to use or not to use.  To clarify what this means I will pull some examples of the use of property rights from the real world

Property Rights in the Real World

From your own personal intuition, if I said you owned a car that means something to you.  That means you have the privilege to drive your car to Kalamazoo (granted you also have the privilege to put gas in your gas tank to run your car).  You also have the privilege of choosing to put it on cinder blocks in your front yard and use it as a lawn ornament.  Owning the car means you have the privilege to elect different ways to use it.     

Ownership means you also have the power to exclude someone from using the car.  If I want to drive your car, I need your permission first.  You can exclude people from repairing the car.  A mechanic cannot repair your car unless you give them permission to repair your car.

Not all property rights come from straight up ownership of a good.  Sometimes, you can have property rights over an object you do not directly own.  When you rent a car you do not own the car.  However, you still hold property rights over it.  You were granted a lease that instill upon you privileges you can execute.  These privileges, such as the ability to drive the rental car, are your property, even though it may only provide you with a set of limited temporary actions.

Why Are Property Rights Important

Property rights enable people to voluntarily interact with each other.  All interaction is a form of trade, even a conversation.  If I start talking to you, you have the privilege to select what you can do, you can elect to listen and engage me in conversation or you can elect to walk away from me.  To have a conversation, my talking has to be valuable enough to entice you to trade to me some of your time instead of you using it to pursue a different activity.

Without trade, there is no need for money, there is no need for auctions, there is no need for prices, there is no need for interaction.  To trade, you must be able to confer to a person a privilege, a property right, be it a good or a service.  For example, to acquire the privilege of me rubbing your back, you must exchange with me a privilege I desire, say the privilege of driving your car for a day.

Imagine a world without property, a world where you no longer have the ability to grant or not grant someone the privilege to undertake an action.  In this world, you do not have the property right to choose where to drive your car, you do what you are told.  You do not have the ability to choose whether or not you give someone a back massage, you are told to and you do it. 

Some people will call this world an extreme version of communism.  I personally call this the game of Candy Land.  You do not decide where you move your gingerbread man, the gingerbread men overlords have instructed you where you will be.  The gingerbread men overlords dictate who will be granted permission to stop walking around in endless circles and finish their trot to Candy Castle.  In Candy Land there is no property, there is nothing to trade, there is no need to hold an auction because players do not own any privileges they can exchange with other players. Without property rights the only privilege that exist is the privilege to exist, the privilege to play the game.

To be honest, I want more in my gaming experience than just the privilege to play.  I want the privilege to make meaningful decisions, preferably with some sort of trade and price mechanism involved.  I can only have this experience if the board game, if my life, includes property rights.

Classics Lecture Series: Conclusion - Diplomacy

We have discovered, as I argued in the first lecture, that even as Alpha gamers, we can look back at “old standards” and discover they do not have inferior mechanics.  Instead, they contain the mechanics that we rely upon today for the great games in our board game Renaissance.

What you may not realize is that I was not teaching you about great old mechanics just so we can play one of the games from the Board Game Renaissance.  Instead, I have quietly been subverting your defenses to draw you to a game that was around when Avalon Hill was still in business.

From the get go, I have been listing all the mechanics that drive the game Diplomacy.  That’s right, I used Candy Land to trick you to play Diplomacy with me.  Without practicing good play etiquette prior to playing Diplomacy, there was no guarantee you would still talk to me after we play Diplomacy.

Diplomacy is not a bland game where we just roll a bunch of dice.  Diplomacy is a game, like Life, where we collectively tell a story about our rise and fall as great leaders. Where brilliant negotiators actively mess with other players heads before crushing their armies on the board.

Each turn is tense.  Tense because each player has secrete information.  Tense because you only have so much time to negotiate with all the other players what you are going to do.  Tense because you have a hand of units to manage, each must move at the same time, and often in precise coordination with other units outside of your control, or your plans will fail.

You must look at the board before you submit your final orders and decide if you need to keep building trust or if the time has come to mess with your opponents.  You will be eyeing the board, thinking ahead of your next move, and eyeing to see what other players are communicating to you with their own game moves. What one says and what one does can be very different, and you have to decide at that moment who you trust.

And after all of that tension.  All of that thought.  After committing to paper your irreversible decisions, you become a pawn to fate as each player reveals their orders.

Why do I want you to play Diplomacy?

I want you to play diplomacy because I want you to acquire the skill to emulate the mechanics that make Diplomacy a great game and for you to learn from it how to engage me on how I can design a great game.

Diplomacy is an example of great game design. I want to make great games; and through Diplomacy I understand that great games are based on tension, strategy, interaction, and thinking in new ways.  In Diplomacy players achieve complicated outcomes with simple mechanics.  The game comes from people playing each other, not the game playing people.    Good mechanics are used in Diplomacy to reinforce other good mechanics.

Diplomacy is not the last great game.  Nor is this discussion about Diplomacy the last word on how to make a great game.  Quite the contrary, this discussion on what makes Diplomacy great invites a longer conversation about what can still be done to create a great game.

Classics Lecture Series: Game Etiquette - Candy Land

If I come across a young person who wants to play Candy Land I will play it with them.  But Dr. Wictz you say, the players make  no choices.  The entire game is one really long fancy dice roll to see who wins.  There is no reason you should torture a kid by playing this game.

 

That, my friend, is where you are wrong.  Because Candy Land teaches important skills needed to build a “good game player.”   I know you are thinking I am crazy, but hear me out on why Candy Land builds a good board game player.

 

Do not change the rules…follow the rules.  Admit it, as a child you were tempted to change the rules mid game if you thought it would help you win.  This temptation is even worse for kids playing Candy Land today because the game now includes a series of optional rules.  Must a player send their piece back to the beginning by drawing the Plum Gingerbread Tree card or can we ignore it because it makes the piece move backward?  

 

Once we agree upon the rules of the game that is it.  Success and failure in the game is going to come from how well each player responds to the constraints placed in front of them.

 

Learn to wait for your turn.  “I want to go.”  I am sorry little Jack but you have to wait your turn.  Playing board games requires a certain level of patience.  Patience is not something everyone is inherently born with, it is something that is taught through practice and repetition.

 

Don’t be a sore loser. (don’t flip the table).  When you play a board game you do not always win.  This is particular true in Candy Land where there is no skill.  If everyone plays the game enough times they will eventually lose and they will have to deal the emotions of not being victorious.

 

Don’t be a sore winner. (Don’t rub it in their faces) Winning brings good feelings, and expressing one's’  joy over a hard fought match is warranted. But  just as in losing, winning is only for that game session. So celebrate, but extended victory dances are frowned upon.

 

Finish the game.  Just because you are not doing well does not mean you should quit.  Not finishing the game when you are going to lose is unfair to the other players who in the past have finished the game when they themselves face a long shot of coming back in the game.  

These qualities are not easily taught, and any chance I have to pass them on playing Candy Land to the next generation of gamers is time well spent.