Colloquium on Games of Strategy: Chapter 9

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Welcome to the Colloquium on Games of Strategy.  Games of Strategy is a textbook on game theory written by Dixit (not the game), Skeath, and Reiley that we are reading to help improve our analysis of board games and board game design.  Paul Owen (owns 3rd edition) and I (own the 2nd and 1st editions) record a discussion about a chapter or two from the book every few weeks.

In the ninth episode we talk about how players respond to uncertainty and information within games.  Highlights include a discussion on the benefits of holding asymmetric information and tactics to counter your opponent's information edge.  Can players provide a creditable signal in your game or is everything just cheap talk.

You can find our previous discussion on Games of Strategy here.

Market Mechanic Lecture: Introduction

I am an unabashed lover of market mechanics in board games.  Let me be clear, the emphasis in that last sentence is Market Mechanic.  Why the emphasis, well as Michael R. Keller of Visible Hand Games and I discussed at UNPUB 4, many people mistake market themes with market mechanics.  A few people avoid all market mechanics because they mistakenly associate them with bad market theme games that do not use any market mechanics. 

That is why I am starting a new lecture series examining different types of market mechanics and how to use them in board games.  But before I discuss specific market mechanics that can be used in board games, I need to clarify what is the difference between a market theme and a market mechanic.

Difference Between a Theme and a Mechanic

Themes are stories.  Stories can be spun so that a particular action represents something occurring within the story.  When I play Formula D my friends and I are telling a story about driving a race car.  Am I actually driving a race car, no, but I am taking a series of actions that lets me pretend I am driving a race car.  The grafting of a story to a set of actions is a theme.  

A mechanic is undertaking a particular set of actions to achieve something.  For example, in Monopoly I can roll a dice and move my pawn.  The mechanic is roll and move.  I am physically rolling dice and moving it along a board.

Because I use a roll and move mechanic does not mean I call it that within the game.  Theme lets me pretend the act of rolling and moving is achieving an imaginary outcome, be it go to work and collect my salary in Monopoly or advance my car in an auto race in Formula D.

Mechanics and themes do not have to be different things.  We can play the game 100 yard dash by physically running the 100 yard dash and seeing who can finish the race first.  The theme and mechanics is the 100 yard dash in the 100 yard dash game.  

Should Mechanics and Themes Always Be the Same?

Each mechanic needs to be assessed on how it will contribute to the enjoyment of the game.  Some mechanics are a great theme by themselves.  Charades is a game built on a mechanic of acting.  Acting is fun, acting is silly, acting makes a great game.  Others mechanics are events you never want to experience in real life.  For example,  I personally do not want to play a game of Werewolf were the sheriff eliminates a players by physically shooting and killing them.

To assess if a market mechanic contributes to game play we need to understand how different market mechanics work and how to separate the market mechanic from a market themed game.  This lecture on market mechanics will not only empower us to answer the question when market themed games work better with market mechanics, but also when do market mechanics contribute to non market themed games.

A Dr. Wictz List: 8 Ways to Annoy Someone in a Board Game

Have you been playing too many board games with your friends, but you cannot just tell them no when they invite you to board game night?  Well, don’t you fear, Dr. Wictz (and whoever else adds more in the comments section) is here with a list of ways to annoy your board game playing friends that will make sure you are never again invited back to board game night.

1. Add a marble to Hungry Hungry Hippos that no Hippo can swallow.

2. Lie when someone hits (or misses) your battleship in Battleship.

3. Ask if anyone wants to play war, and if they say yes, sign them up for the military?

4. Spend the entire game of clue going between the Lounge and Conservatory accusing the same player that they used the candlestick the entire game.

5. In Stratego wall off all of your entrances with bombs, and taunt your opponent by moving your 9’s diagonally.

6. Refuse to make any word longer than two letters in Scrabble.

7. When you are the dispatcher in Pandemic, spend all of your moves moving your teammates away from where they need to be on the board.

8. As a werewolf, go rouge and out all the other werewolves in Werewolf.

Classics Lecture Series: Secrete Information - Clue

My sister and I use to taunt each other by informing the other in song “I know something you don’t know, I know something you don’t know.” At the time we did not realize we had stumbled upon a key mechanic to some of the best games ever made...secret information.

 

The art of secret information in game play should have been apparent to us. One of our favorite games as kids was Clue. At the start of Clue every player is given some secret information about who didn’t commit the murder. The point of the game was trying to force your opponents to reveal their secret information so you could be the first one to solve the murder.

 

Without realizing it Clue taught us the three central questions to any game based upon secret information:

 

What do you know?

 

What does your opponents know?

 

What do you think you know about each other?

 

What do I know? I know at the onset of Clue you have a handful of clues about the murder.

What does your opponent know? Well they have a different set of clues in their hand.

We learned quickly the winner tended to be the person who best answered the third question, what do you think you know about each other.

 

Why? Because secrete information come down to bluffing, misleading, and doing your best to limit what information reaches your opponents. If the person to the left of me has the clue for the library and they have showed it to me once, then no matter what I do in the Library I will lose a valuable turn going back to the Library because they will end up showing me the same clue again.

 

Or, let's say my opponent correctly deduces I 'know' the murder weapon. If they possess that weapon they will show it to me to prevent me from learning anything new on my turn.

 

The mental elements of bluffing are all there.  I need to keep track of not only what I know, but what my opponents know, and what my opponents think I know. Otherwise I have unproductive turns in acquiring new clues to solve the murder. Just as dangerous I can reveal information to my opponents that will give them the game. Obviously I should not show them a new clue if I can show them an old clue they already know. Less obvious is avoiding questions that give away information.

 

Good clue players keep track of every question asked, who asked it, and who answered it. If I know my sister has two of the clues in her theory and my father shows her a clue I know what clue he showed her.

 

The heart of a secret information that separates one game from another always comes down how to answer the third question.

 

What I think I know about you will affect my gameplay in Battleship. With repeated play In Battleship you look for tendencies in your opponent. You know that your opponent is committed to their ship locations at the start of the game. Your opponent tries to convince you they have no tendencies or attempts to mislead you so you misidentify their tendencies. But if they become predictable they have less turns to discover and sink your fleet before you send their fleet to Davy Jones's Locker.

 

What I think I know about you will affect how I play Werewolf. If I think you are a bad liar and I am a villager then I am going to interrogate you and decide right away if I think you are a Werewolf or not. Of course, if I am a Werewolf and I think you can easily read me you can bet if I get the opportunity you will be one of the first villagers to go.

 

Secrete information games reveal how players make conclusions about other players and what do they do with these conclusions.  They force players to pay attention to other players words, habits, and body language.  The games are more than a good time, they are an opportunity to better know the friends and family you game with.