Faculty Lounge: Nick Bentley of Nick Bentley Games

Believe it or not, I found Nick Bentley’s blog on boardgamelinks.com.  I was on the prowl looking to find something fun and interesting to read instead of getting some work done on my dissertation.  Impressed with Nick’s passion for abstract game design, I asked him to stop by the faculty lounge to discuss how to thrive as an abstract game designer.

Dr. Wictz: Give me a quick run down about Nick Bentley Games in case folks are not familiar with your blog?

Nick Bentley: Short answer: it's my blog. Slightly longer answer: one day several years ago I decided I needed a release valve for the stew of game-related thoughts bubbling up in my brain, and so I opened the blog on a whim. At first the things I posted were totally tossed off. Now I spend a lot of time writing each essay there. I post two types of things: descriptions of games I've designed, and essays about game design and the game industry.

Dr. Wictz: Why did you start blog for Nick Bentley Games?  What led you to talk about board game design in general instead of just focusing on your own work?

Nick Bentley: Writing helps me think. I couldn't have designed a lot of the stuff I have without writing about game design. Also, it also now serves as a way to make sure my games get noticed. My blog has slowly built up a nice stream of traffic. 

Dr. Wictz: If you were introducing someone to the Nick Bentley Games blog and you could only select one post for them to read which post would you select?

Nick Bentley: Can I do two? Because it depends on who's reading. For a general audience, this one, because it's the only thing I've written which has a chance to change the world for the better. For folks in the game industry, this one. I now work in the game industry and I suspect this essay was a reason I got offered a job. It's also my most-read and most-controversial post. 

Dr. Wictz: How did you come up with the Nick Bentley Games as the name for your blog?  What were the other contenders?  Why use your real name instead of a pen name, like Oak Leaf Games, Black Leaf Games, or Dr. Wictz?

Nick Bentley: Though I've been involved in a lot of carefully planned website projects, Nick Bentley Games isn't one of them. It's the least planned site I've ever worked on, mainly because it started as a release valve, and I felt like I couldn't NOT do it. No planning at all, I just started it one day, and chose the first name that popped into my head. I don't even own a domain for it.

Despite this, it has also been the most useful site I've ever worked on. Which leads me to the following conclusion: passion is more important than every other factor. Passion keeps you working and people can feel passion, or its absence, in everything you do, and will respond or not accordingly. A {poopy} site (structurally, my site is {poopy}) driven by passion is better than a perfectly executed site driven by any other motive.

Dr. Wictz: You have designed board games and video games, what are the positives and negative to working in either medium?

Nick Bentley: Well, I can't code very well, so that makes doing video games hard. I can't participate at the nuts and bolts detail level. I can only do high level stuff. I much prefer table games. Everything is simpler, and playtesting is way more fun. I resent the degree to which we've been enslaved by our screens.

Dr. Wictz: You clearly have a passion for abstract games (Is that an understatement?), what do you see as the future of abstract gaming?  What lessons can you impart onto other abstract game designers?

Nick Bentley: I think abstract games are becoming an anachronism, like pinhole cameras. There will always be eccentrics who work on them, but I doubt they'll be popular, even just popular in the table-game culture, again. I'd love to be wrong of course (and I'm always actively thinking about how to make myself wrong), because I think the best ones are as beautiful in every way a thing can be beautiful.

Too many games are built to be, and will be, forgotten. The focus in the table game culture is on what's new, and the games industry sort of has to promote that atmosphere because you need to have it to sell games. Though and I understand that necessity, it also saddens me because it leads to mindless consumerism, a throwaway culture, and it demeans the games themselves. In addition, it creates an environment where bona fide works of genius slip through the cracks because they aren't commercially viable. My favorite game, bar none, is one of these. It's called Slither. Many people who've lucked into being exposed to it feel the same way about it. But it will likely never be promoted by anyone because it can be played with Go equipment.

I'm hesitant to give advice about how to design, but this method works for me. Specific advice for abstract game designers:

• Try to design from first principles, as though you'll have no time to playtest (to get you thinking about fundamentals).
• But DO playtest: abstract game designers often fail to get enough real feedback from real players, and prefer to remain in the crystalline world of abstraction, rather than dip their toes into muddy realities of human reaction and psychology. I understand why, because I'm one of those for whom the former is a far more attractive place to live than the latter. But you've got to live in both worlds to make great games.  
• Too many abstract game designers are so worried about depth they fail to ensure accessibility. You need both, and it's really really hard to achieve both. I playtest my abstract games with people who don't like abstract games for this reason.

Dr. Wictz: You also have a semi-new curiosity of what it takes to turn a game into a commercial success (gosh darn it, you wrote an entire post on it).  Do you feel you have figured out the formula to broaden the audience for abstract games?  

Nick Bentley: I definitely haven't figured out the formula! I have learned some new things, but I'm hard pressed to put them into words yet. They're still stewing. I think I'll have to forgo answering this question for now.

Dr. Wictz: What can non-abstract game designers learn from abstract game designers?

Nick Bentley: Above all, the value of simplicity and a focus on emergence.

Dr. Wictz: What can abstract game designers learn from non-abstract game designers?

Nick Bentley: Games have to be accessible and fun in addition to being deep. They have to be many things at once! Non-abstract game designers generally know this, but many abstract game designers don't.

Also, physical presentation: the commercial design of abstract games is often unattractive. What would an abstract game published by Days of Wonder be like? The physical design of a game matters.

Dr. Wictz: What is your favorite non-abstract game (I know, this question might be heresy).  

Nick Bentley: I'm not sure I have a favorite. There's a special place in my heart for Finca, but only for two players. There are certain party games I think are really well done, like Time's Up (I also design party games - I have one coming out in January, called Stinker, which will be published by Foxmind Games - so I know how hard it is to design a party game). Also, a half-dozen Knizia games, though you could argue I like them because he's an abstract designer at heart. Battle Line is an example, which feels like Knizia reached up and pulled it directly out of the platonic realm. It feels like it must have existed at the beginning of time, er, something. 

Dr. Wictz: Name a board game designer who does not design abstract games you wish to lock in a room and force to play abstract game with you for hours on end?

Nick Bentley: Knizia, except let's exclude him on the principle that the spirit of his designs are too close to abstract. In that case, Bauza. I don't love all his games (7 wonders = blech!), but he takes risks and his games harbor imaginative leaps. Hanabi is a good example. I'd like to see what kind of design ideas would start popping out of him if he were forced to play a bunch of abstracts.

Dr. Wictz: I know you believe there is not enough good writing on table games on the internet.  (I quote "There’s not much great writing about table games on the internet.")  Where is the best writing taking place?  Do you have hope for the future of tabletop writing?  What types of articles are you hoping to stumble across?  What is overdone?

Nick Bentley: Sometimes Nate Straight on Board Game Geek posts stuff that goes beyond the obvious. The BGG designer diaries sometimes say interesting things, depending on who's writing. But largely, most writing about table games is so shallow I can't recommend any particular thing wholeheartedly.

Overdone: I'm terribly, terribly tired of reviews. I haven't read a review in years that said anything new or interesting about any particular game, or games in general. I'd be beyond ecstatic if nobody ever reviewed a game on the internet again. I don't know how so many people manage to collectively say so little.  

I should note, however, that what I want is probably very different than what the average person would find interesting. I'm so steeped in games, the only things that impress me are things where somebody has gone to the trouble of thinking and writing with great rigor. I'm looking for stuff that would probably come off as too academic for most people. Cameron Browne is spearheading the formation of a semi-academic journal about game design that holds promise for me, for this reason (I will probably write for it as well)

Dr. Wictz: Thank you Nick for taking the time to talk with me in the faculty lounge.  You can read more about Nick’s thoughts on board game design and his designs on his blog, on facebook, and follow him on twitter.

Faculty Lounge: Jonathan Wolfie of iSlayTheDragon

Here in the faculty lounge I get together and talk to other board game interested podcasters and bloggers to learn a little bit more about what they do.  

 

I was admiring the writing output and quality of the blog iSlayTheDragon, and I really wanted to learn more about their process.  I sent Jonathan Wolfie, the head of iSlayTheDragon, a tweet asking him if I could interview him.  In less than a day he gets back to me and we conduct the interview.  Fastest turnaround time between first contact and an Interview ever for the Dr.Wictz blog.

 

Jonathan Wolfie: Ah well, apparently I should work harder, I have too much time on my hands.  The interview was enjoyable.

 

Dr. Wictz: Give a quick run down about iSlayTheDragon in case folks are not familiar with your blog?

 

Jonathan Wolfie: Sure.  iSlaytheDragon is a team of 4 guys - myself, Jon Schindler, Jason Meyers, and Andrew Brooks - who write about board games.  Most of our posts are game reviews, but we also have a series of Guides to Gaming.  We also occasionally post opinion posts or talk about current "issues," and recently we've started doing previews of Kickstarter games as well as Interviews.

 

Dr. Wictz: Why did you start iSlayTheDragon?

 

Jonathan Wolfie: I actually started the blog by myself as a way to write RPG session reports for the campaigns I was running with my Pathfinder group.  It began after my first Gencon attendance, which is really when I began to discover the gaming world beyond D&D, Settlers of Catan, and Heroclix.  I had hoped to grow into the RPG community but my interests shifted and I started writing more and more about board games and thats sort of the community I fell more into.

 

Dr. Wictz: What sort of arm-twisting did you have to do to get J. Schindler to collaborate with you on the blog?

 

Jonathan Wolfie: I actually have him chained to a desk so he'll keep writing.  Just kidding.  But seriously. I've learned about myself that when I can find a team to work with on a project I have, the end result is much better than what I could do by myself.  I actually used to work with Jon, like at our real day job, and one day he brought in Ticket to Ride and asked if I wanted to play over lunch.  I did and after that we decided to play something every week.  I taught him Dominion, we played Cosmic Encounter with some of other guys, even though it wasn't Jon's favorite game.  At some point, Days of Wonder had a contest to design a new Ticket to Ride expansion, and we jumped on that.  Our finished product turned out pretty awesome - we created map based on H. G. Wells' the Time Machine, so it was a map of the UK but in 3 different centuries.  We did not win the contest, but we had a lot of fun coming up with the ideas and putting the whole project together.  We actually put it up on our site for a while, a nice print and play copy, but when we partnered with iheartprintandplay.com we let them host the game, so you can still get it there. (http://iheartprintandplay.blogspot.com/2013/04/iheart-presents-ticket-to-ride-centuries.html)  Free stuff!

 

Anyways,  at that time Jon had his own personal blog, and I was going to ask him if he would be interested in teaming up for the board gaming blog, but he actually beat me too it.  He said, "I have an idea of another project we could team up on" and suggested doing a board game blog together.  That was back when iSlaytheDragon was still more my random posts - sometimes  RPGs, sometimes board games, sometimes completely random stuff. I said yes, lets do that, lets use iSlaytheDragon.  The rest is history.  It worked out really well, because I am more of a fan of thematic, epic games with lots of plastic, and Jon likes euros and could care less about theme, and he actually prefers cubes to minis. So we've got two unique perspectives.

 

Dr. Wictz: How did you recruit your other co-bloggers?

 

Jonathan Wolfie: Now there's where the arm-twisting comes in.  Actually, what happened was Jon's wife was pregnant, and he didn't think he would be able to maintain our schedule of "nemesis reviews" - we used to both review the same games, so people had 2 unique opinions.  So he actually tried to quit, which probably would have killed the blog.  So I told him fine, he could quit, but he would have to help me find someone else to help me write the blog or it would die out.  I put out the call for more writers, and I actually decided it was time to expand what we did, if we weren't going to have nemesis reviews anymore. I put up a help wanted page looking for a news person, an interviews person, an RPG person, and more reviewers.  Then Jon said he could probably handle the News.  Jason, or @spielemitkinder on twitter, responded to our call.  He had been writing his own blog with his kids, but apparently his kids got bored of it and he was looking for a better way to do things.  So he said he was interested in joining our team and we liked his blog so we let him in.  We actually incorporated some stuff from his blog - primarily the "complexity" rating, which turned into a full set of game stats - and he's been a powerhouse putting out reviews at a ridiculous pace, so that's been great.

 

Andrew just joined the team a few months ago.  He was a friend of mine from college.  Sadly, neither of us had really "discovered" board games back then.  I played Heroclix and he taught me how to play Warhammer 40k, which I played exactly once and wish I played more back then, but what can ya do? Anyways, I wanted another writer so that we could keep putting out consistent content without too much pressure on any one of us.  Andrew had left some comments on the blog in the past and I always liked his arguments and thoughts, so I contacted him and asked him to join.  Andrew has the least amount of writing in his background, so he was a little nervous, but excited to join, and it's been great having him.  My plan worked.

 

Dr. Wictz: What are the challenges to being part of a blog with multiple bloggers?  How do you keep yourself organize? Do you have team meetings?  Do you pre-plan blog posts?  Is there an editorial board? etc.

 

Jonathan Wolfie:  I think the benefits far outweigh the challenges.  It's a lot more fun to have a group of guys to bounce ideas off of, and it takes a lot of pressure off each individual.  By myself, I could never keep up with daily posts - I just don't have the time to play that many games or think up that many ideas.  But when one of us gets busy and can't finish a post on time, there are 3 other guys who can pull something out to fill the gap.  When I have an idea I can bounce it off everyone to see if it's a good idea.  We can delegate some of the tasks, like managing social media accounts, so that no one is overburdened, because we all have lives outside of our little site.  We've got families and homes and jobs that take up a lot of time.

 

In many senses I think of iSlaytheDragon like a business.  We don't actually make any money, but we make decisions like that.  I'm basically the "boss" so if I make a decision that's how it goes.  I completely trust Jon so I'll bounce all my crazy ideas off of him and he'll be honest if my ideas are good or not.  Any one of us can throw out an idea - we email each other a lot - and I like hearing everyone's ideas, but ultimately the final decision when one is needed is up to me.

 

We have a calendar that we try to keep updated with one someone has a post, so that's how we stay organized.  It helps everyone plan ahead and helps me see where there are gaps that need to be filled.  As far as coming up with ideas for posts, I throw a lot of general ideas out there and encourage discussions - say, about what guides to write or whatever.  I think we communicate pretty well, and we all like different types of games, so I just let everyone pick what games they want to review and we get a variety.  We rarely have overlap and when we do, people just coordinate and write dual-opinion posts.  We have a lot of fun.

 

Dr. Wictz: How did you come up with islaythedragon as the name for your blog?  What were the other contenders?

 

Jonathan Wolfie: The name actually stems from the RPG origins of the blog.  I don't remember if I had other ideas in contention.  It's been so long I don't remember exactly how I came up with it.  But the basic idea is, imagine during an RPG session, as a player, the DM tells me I'm facing a dragon.  What do I do? I slay the dragon of course! Plus, everyone loves naming things with the lowercase "i" at the beginning, and I liked the twist on that.  iPod, iPhone, iSlaytheDragon.  It works great metaphorically, too.

 

The problem we're having with the name now is that people see "i slay the dragon" and don't necessarily think "board games," but we've had the name for so many years it would be weird to change.  We're working on that.

Dr. Wictz: In your bio you mention you are a writer, filmmaker, dragon slayer, video editor, and graphic designer...Where do you find the time to accomplish all of this?  Do you still get to see/talk to your spouse?

 

Jonathan Wolfie: If only I could be all of those things at one time! Well, as long as I can remember, I've loved storytelling.  As a kid I wrote a lot of stories - Super Dog was my brilliantly designed superhero in elementary school, and my friend Blake and I would invent alien races and come up with epic, ridiculous missions.  As I grew older I wrote a lot of short stories and in college I shifted from a computer science major to a new media major, which incorporated filmmaking.  I'm a very visual person, so I loved filmmaking.  I made a few short films, some of them for fun, some of them for class.  We made a web series that was terrible, but it was still fun to make.  My most recent project is a web series that I've been 'working' on for 3 years.  I say "working" because it got sidetracked when I got married.  It's actually closer to being done than it is to being started, but there's still a lot of work. Last year I was writing a book with my mom; I take a train to work about an hour each way, so that gives me time for that.

 

So I guess the answer is, I don't have time for everything.  I do maybe 1 or 2 things at once.  At my job I do video editing and graphic design.  The writing I do is for iSlaytheDragon, and we're working on a brand new site design right now so that takes up a lot of time.  I have to give each thing a period of time and then set it aside for anything else.   It's dumb, I need to finish something.  I do get to spend time with my wife, that's why I can't do everything.  She'll play some games with me - Pandemic is her favorite, and we recently started playing Hanabi a whole lot.  She likes cooperative games.  We do play a lot Dominion, though.

 

Dr. Wictz: What is your favorite type of board game and why?

 

Jonathan Wolfie:  I love big, thematic games with lots of interesting things to do and usually some form of combat.  I don't mind dice-rolling combat, but I prefer more interesting combat mechanisms, or at least an interesting game surrounding the combat system.  My 2 favorite games are Cosmic Encounter and Twilight Imperium.  Cosmic is just goofy fun with an underlying layer of strategy.  There's lots of interaction and I love zany powers.  Twilight Imperium is just epic beyond epic; if it was just a combat game I wouldn't like it, but there's so much you can do with technology, politics, negotiating.  It's terrifying and enormous and just a lot of fun.  Rex is another great game with the coolest combat mechanism of all time, so simple yet so intense.  It's not random but you never know if you're going to win or lose.

 

Dr. Wictz: If you were to introduce someone to your blog and you could only have them read one entry, which entry would you have them read?

 

Jonathan Wolfie: I guess that depends on whether or not the person is new to the hobby or not.  For newbies we have a whole series of Guides, posts that are designed to help people understand what the heck we hobbyists are even talking about.  People don't necessarily know even basic terms like "Meeple" so we wanted to create a starting point that says "there's a lot of stuff you don't know yet, and that's okay.  Let us help you get started."  We have one post about games that are a great starting point, that are easy to learn, fun, and introduce a lot of core gaming concepts: http://www.islaythedragon.com/2013/02/guide-to-gaming-which-games-should-i.html

 

If I'm talking to a person who is already familiar with the hobby, I'd probably send them to a review of one of my favorite games - Cosmic Encounter, Twilight Imperium, X-Wing.  I guess I'd have to pick one, probably Cosmic Encounter. http://www.islaythedragon.com/2011/03/intergalactic-review-cosmic-encounter.html  I like to share my excitement about these things.

 

Dr. Wictz: If I wanted you to review a board game what should I do?

 

Jonathan Wolfie: We have a nifty contact page on our site with my email address on it.  egosumlupus@gmail.com.  Email me, tell me a little bit about your game, preferably provide links to a web page with more detailed information and a PDF rulebook.  For review requests we always look at the rulebook first.  When we first started getting requests we took anything, and we got a few TERRIBLE games.  Jon had to re-write a rulebook once so we could even decipher how the heck we were supposed to play.  After that we said hey, we need to see the rulebook first because this is a waste of our time. If your game doesn't look like we'd enjoy it, we won't accept it.  That doesn't necessarily mean its a bad game, but maybe it is.  

 

Dr. Wictz: Do you ever have any guest board game designers?

 

Jonathan Wolfie: We haven't really had any guest posters.  Maybe 1 or 2.  We're not against it, we just haven't focused on that yet.

 

Dr. Wictz: If the answer above is yes, how do you invite guest onto your show?  Is there anything I could do (as a board game designer) that could get me invited to by a guest on your show?

 

Jonathan Wolfie: We don't have a "show" but I definitely would consider running guest-written posts.  That's something we're going to try to do more of starting in 2014 with the launch of our new site.  Right now we don't go after anyone, but if someone contacts us and says "hey I have an idea for a post," I'll say "great! write it and send it to me. If I like it and it fits our site, I'll run it!" I actually want to have more game designers write stuff, but like I said that's something we'll pursue starting next year.

 

Dr. Wictz: Name a board game designers you have always wanted to interview.  Explain why you would want to talk to them.

 

Jonathan Wolfie: The other guys probably have better answers to this.  I'm aware of what game designer created the game I'm playing, but I'm not necessarily obsessed with a single game designer.  I guess my first choice would be Christian T. Peterson, the guy who designed Twilight Imperium and who also happens to be the CEO of Fantasy Flight Games.  FFG is not a company you often hear from.  Many gamers love them, many hate them.  Their games are certainly brilliantly produced, but their rulebooks are often a mess and some of their games seem less refined than they could be.  I'd love to get in the mind of that guy and find out more about what they're doing over there.

 

Dr. Wictz: If someone wanted to learn more about your blog where should they go?

 

Jonathan Wolfie: I'd just say go to www.iSlaytheDragon.com.  You can explore our posts.  We have a page listing our reviews, a page listing our guides, and an about us page.  In a few months the site will be totally different and a lot better, but it will still be iSlaytheDragon.com, so bookmark it and check back every day for new stuff!

 

Thank you Jonathan for taking the time to talk to me.  You can also follow Jonathan on twitter @Futurewolfie and iSlaytheDrangon on twitter @iSlaytheDragon