Macao, Part 2 (Alien Frontiers)

If you missed my earlier Macao review, you can click on the label below to find it.

Alien Frontiers follows the "dice is your life" mechanic, that Macao and Stone Age adhere to. You don't know how the game is going to play, because your dice do their own thing...and so do other people's dice.

It was funded as a Kickstarter project - interesting. It's already sold through the first print run on a small press, so they're going back again. The first print run has some unique things to it, and the second one will have some cleaned up parts. Fun. (As of this article, first printings go for $100, preorders for second run are $39, for sometime in 2011.)

I played two games, over a Buy Nothing day game celebration. The first one was a 4-player game, where I struggled to build ships. You start off with three - represented by your 3 six-sided dice. You can build 3 more, each one costing slightly more...but they are your game. A person with 6 dice (maximum) is doing slightly more than twice as much as someone with 3. The extra dice give you better number spreads to do bigger things...as you can see, building ships is mandatory.

The goal is to place colonies on a moon. Each colony is a VP, and if you have the most in a territory, you get another one as well as a special ability unique to that territory.

There are methods for stealing from other people, varied alien technologies to research, getting fuel and rock, and a couple of ways of building colonies...all of which use your ships/dice in different ways. Triples, doubles, 3-dice runs, as raw dice, as numbers...and you'll block up those choices for others, until your turn comes around and you remove your dice from where they were.

I think 90% of this game is the interaction with other players. Yes, rolling your dice and getting good numbers is necessary for a smooth game. But placing your colonies to mess with other players, or bumping people around...destroying another player's ship - the interaction feels like little bumps as you nudge your way through the racecourse. (Destroying a ship is more like shooting out their tire, but it's almost like bumping.)

It's fun with the right people. And the table circles around tearing down the current 1st place player, which has its own issues. And if you believe that you have bad dice luck, you'll be suffering the whole time. But I won't turn down playing it another 2-3 times, for sure.

The flood of games, aka PAX.

I haven't posted in the past several weeks - too busy.

First, the Penny Arcade Expo. Crazy busy. 3 days of games and gamers. Friday: everyone walks around and sees things. That must have been where Richard Garfield was, because he didn't make it to the Game Design 101 panel. James Ernest filled in, and he's fun. Steve Jackson was there, and wasn't a king-high know-it-all this time...he was actually pretty cool. James Portnow was a good moderator, keeping the topics moving. Nichole Lazzaro presented a strong "emotion" emphasis to game design - lots of focus testing. I left early to go sightsee, and the panel wasn't exciting me. (I still need to check out Lazzaro's master-powerpoint slide. Too dense for a normal slide though.)

I wandered. A lot. Exhibition Hall, trying to catch up with friends, canvassing for guests in Dragon Quest 9...I did get a half hour of multiplayer in with a new player. We tried tackling a grotto in his game, but he didn't bring along companions...he wasn't quite strong enough, and in the end we had to let him die, while I battled it out mano a mano with the end boss. (Finished with 5 of 700 hp, and dregs of my magic pool.) But we won, and it was kind of thrilling for the first run.

There were board games day and night - some Race (practicing for the tournament the next day), and some Dominion-clone that Dan Tibbles tricked us into playing. (Slow game.) The Race tournament the next day turned out weak - the organizer wasn't familiar with scoring for it...we did base set, 3 rounds for 24 players - no finals. Match points were 3/2/1/1 and tiebreaker was total points. 5 of us tied at 7 points, top 3 got medals. (I finished 1st, 1st, 3rd. 3rd place overall finished 1st, 1st, 4th.) I either finished 4th or 5th, because the two games I won - players closed out the game when they were losing. There's only one way to score big points in base set, and that means you have to be a consumer, every time. Even if you win with military, you lose on tiebreakers. (As a recommendation, go 4/2/1/0. Winning is the most important thing. You can weight the tiebreakers in different ways, depending on how you want to encourage play. And a final table.) BUT! One of the cardinal rules, is to talk about scoring and number of rounds before the tournament with all of the players. I'm looking at you, Mr. Organizer from Games & Gizmos. :)

Saturday was much like Friday...more games. More DQIX. I played a painfully long game of Settlers of America: Trails to Rails at the Uncle's Games section (they did demos for Mayfair). Demo person: you didn't relate to the table, instead focusing on winning the game. SA is a mix of Settlers and a train game where you deliver goods. It's one of those awkward things to see - Settlers (let's also include Seafarers and Cities & Knights) is a great game. But repeating the mechanic over and over is beating a long-dead horse. If I'm going to play a train game, I'll fit in a train game. I missed a panel on Saturday night because of it, so I made plans to see the same (GeekNight podcast) people on Sunday. After the missed panel let out, I met up with friends and played more board games - Tigris and Euphrates, as well as Galaxy Trucker.

Sunday was the winding down day. I checked out a little more of the exhibition hall, chatted with some of my friends at their less-busy booths, went out to a relaxed lunch with my friend Chris to talk about game design...and played some more games. Dragon Quest IX has a bunch of event-only maps that players could trade, so I tracked more of those down, as well as exchanging contact information with my new friend Keegan.

Late Sunday afternoon was the second GeekNight panel, Egregiously Unrealized Potential...basically a panel talking about how sequels to video games generally suck, and how game companies don't take advantage of all the material available to them. Board games and RPG were fine (as long as it wasn't D&D, Shadowrun, or GURPS). I disagree with board games being exempt, and they singled out Nintendo as the most grievous offender. (I loved Zelda Four Swords and FF: Crystal Chronicles too, as a disclaimer.) I'm trying some of their podcasts, but not sure for how long. Egos aren't always practical things.

I think some of the side discussions were the best part of PAX. A how-to for *organized* organized play? Practical game design. How players can lock themselves into playing a game just one way.

Every year is better, without making the previous years look bad. In the end, I was glad to wrap things up at PAX...Labor Day has become the relaxation day, post-PAX. You definitely need it.

Collusion, Part 2 - Fighting it

Collusion is the bad form of cooperation, as discussed previously.

I started actively fighting collusion as its evil self, when I was active as a Magic judge. Players would collude to set a certain match result - maybe Alice pays Bob to lose to her, or maybe Bob offers her packs of cards to draw so that they both make it into the top 8 cut. It had to be secret, because it was illegal.

It was illegal, because it cheated others of a fair chance to get into the finals. It was illegal in the finals, because it cheated the system of its purpose - get the best player.

Fighting collusion took a lot of time and energy. It's secret, so you have to puzzle out if collusion is happening. It helps to know what benefits players would get for colluding, who would gain benefits from collusion, when collusion would take place, and where the bargaining would take place.

If there is still a large event going on, there won't be collusion at the lower-finishing tables. It won't affect prizes - they're playing to play. The top tier and near-top tier players are the ones who could possibly gain from collusion. Collusion will typically take place at the end of the event, so that settles the when - the colluding players would need to know what their odds are, and they can't know until the end. This also limits the "where" - they need it to be secret (as it is illegal), which generally means if you see pairs of players heading away from the event, it's not because they both just got a phone call.

Sometimes collusion happens because the players don't want to beat each other. Some top competitors might think, well...if we draw intentionally in round 1 when we're paired up, maybe we can still both make it in the finals. (Or they're friends, and don't want to knock their other friend out of the running.) A lesser form of collusion, and not always illegal.

A story - in high school chess, I remember playing a 30-minute round against a good friend of mine. The tournament director told us we weren't allowed to take a draw (it was okay in the rules, but he wasn't as well-versed in the tournament rules). So we played. During the event, he came by and insisted that if we weren't playing to win (we were), he would kick us out of the tournament and report us to the USCF for cheating. With 5 minutes left on the clock, we both started playing lightning-fast chess, making bad plays left and right. And several minutes into it, he came over and stopped the clock, calling it a draw. Ugh. Compounding his lack of rules.

So what happens when collusion isn't spelled out in the rules of the game? If you're playing in a tournament, you can call over a judge/referee - there's a higher authority. The average board game, you're playing with the people at the table.

1. Public discussion. Collusion requires secrecy for it to be effective in a game. Players can stop their collusion, or others could join forces for their own collusion.
2. Private discussion. It's possible that the players are not colluding on purpose. Talking with one or more of the participants could end it without a fight.

Either way, it's a tough sell. The players might not even think they're colluding, if they didn't have a verbal agreement. This can happen in war games - I attack Alice, Bob thinks "Jimmer is weak after his war efforts on Alice." Bob joins in when Alice counterattacks. And possibly Alice and Bob don't attack each other, because they perceive the other one as slightly better, or an even match. The result ends up with Jimmer always being tag-teamed. In a 3-player game, a recipe for bad games.

If players are actively colluding, there might be a measure of denial just to preserve the gaming atmosphere. Nobody wants to play with cheaters, right?

You'll have to work out what's best for you - indirect discussions, direct discussions - you know your group of friends better than I do. And hopefully the game spells out what limits exist for collusion. ;)

Collusion, Part 1

Collusion - it's not a word I was familiar with when I was a kid, but it happened often.

The definition from my Mac: "secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy, esp. in order to cheat or deceive others"

You can talk about collusion in games such as Diplomacy. Actually, Diplomacy could just be renamed to be Collusion: The Board Game, because that's pretty much the entire game mechanic. But collusion is generally considered cheating, if not just really bad form.

1. It's generally secret, which means you established some kind of alliance even before the game started.
2. If it's not secret, it's illegal - if not by rules, by general game conduct.
2. It's generally an alliance, which is not how most games are played - one winner.

My friend JW and I were debating this topic over beers and pool the other night. He hates collusion, in most of its forms. Specifically, in Settlers of Catan - you know, the point in the game, where the last place player also has longest road. The person who has a solid shot at winning is closing in on longest road. Everyone makes "friendly" trades to last place, so that they can keep longest road away from the potential winner.

For me, the secret alliances bug me. They might even be secret to the players themselves, that they key-in on the same things in the same way. I remember my first game of Twilight Imperium - be the best aliens you can be! It's a longer game, with the standard (what I call) Risk-diplomacy. You know the kind - "Attack this other guy, not me, for these reasons..."

W & K were the primary gamers in this circle of friends. They knew what buttons to push, what they could get away with, and who they could wipe out. Sitting in on Twilight Imperium, was a clear game of "their sandbox". Imagine a table of 6 players...2 hustlers, 2 regular victims, and 2 outsiders (where the outsiders are not aligned together). It quickly evolved into 4 on 1 on 1, where W & K maneuvered their semi-willing tools into place. At the end of the game, there were only two possible winners - guess who they were?

I've called it Risk-diplomacy for other reasons as well. Risk was really my first board game exposure to how someone can play favorites inside a game. Secret alliances happen amongst kids, where they do it to find boundaries...or even just to mess with their friend(s). It's a practical secret, not the secret that has no effect.

Alliances don't even have to be secret, but they work better that way. If W & K had made a pact in the beginning of the game in front of the others, it could have changed the dynamic into 2 on 4. W & K probably didn't even have to make a secret pact, if they always play games that way - it could have become a regular habit in that group.

So there's the illegal part, the secret part, and the alliance part. Next, we'll talk about fighting collusion...this bit was short, but fighting collusion is its own thing!

When is too many?

I've recently been on a kick to trim down my game collection. I had more than two closets full of games, and established a fast goal of 1 closet. I don't think I'll make it though.

Criteria for what games to trim down:
* Games that were played several times, but stopped soon after
* Unopened games that never made the cut to being opened
* Games that hadn't been played in several years
* Games that require a huge chunk of time to set aside

I'm keeping 2-3 games that take more than a couple hours to finish - more than that...most of my gaming time is limited. Hopefully we could play two games of something in the time it takes to play the super-endurance games.

Some of the older games just seem dry, when compared to some of the more recent games - they lacked the uniqueness to start. They had enough of something for me to pick it up, but the mechanics aren't elegant or engaging enough to drag it out of the dustbin.

Unopened games, really shouldn't exist. Sometimes I'd pick up a game to get free shipping or a game-design friend tells me to get it. I picked up a copy of Siena in Essen, based on what I witnessed of the demo - maybe I won't sell it. (Based on this, I think the packaging didn't sell me on the game that I had already bought on other criteria. Tough love!)

The largest category is the 'several times played' category. It was good enough to try again, but in the end not addictive enough to keep. Ideally a game has something to bring a player back to the table with it. I'm not a super-fan of Agricola, but it has a lot of replay value with the amount of occupations and minor improvements. It could also be a case of playing the game - let's face it, not all mechanics have the same kick to them...and perhaps I sometimes buy a game before it's been thoroughly reviewed.

Reading over that, you can see some emerging criteria on how to buy games.
1. Check for reviews, and play it with friends several times if possible. Some stores have demo copies lying around...less of a financial risk for you, and saves on shelf space. (And the employees might know the game if you get stuck on a rule.)
2. Don't buy games that won't get played immediately. Buying online means that you sometimes pay extra, just to get free shipping - if you're going that route, talk to friends if they're looking for anything. Not quite as good as buying at your local game store, but people do it. And by immediately, I mean something in the next several weeks - you might not keep the passion you had when you picked up the game.
3. This is a hard one. Older games can completely be an equal to anything put out today. Caylus led to Le Havre - both games are solid in their own right. But average games from 5 years ago will not improve. Check out BBG for game reviews, and it'll save you questioning your value system.
4. Long games are fine, if you have the gaming crowd that likes that kind of thing, and have time to play it. If you're all young professionals with boyfriends/girlfriends/Xboxes and 8-5 jobs, you'll find yourself with less and less time for heavier games. Having a collection of 10, playing 1 every two weeks means that you might get 2-3 plays of each game in a year.

With those ideas in mind, it affects what type of games I like to develop on my personal time. A strong set of mechanics, good replay value, attractive to the eye, and 2 hours or less to play.

Overall, board games have solid entertainment value - you might spend $30 for movie tickets/snacks for two...2 hours of enjoyment, compared to multiple plays of a good board game...I know which one I'll choose.

Calculating Winning

So previously discussing using unknowns as well as making the calculation of the winner (during the game) tricky, there's also a system of obfuscating the score by making it tedious.

Ticket to Ride won a huge game award in Germany (Spiel de Jahres, 2004). It allows for quick play, interesting player interactions...great! As you play trains, you score points for them. You also get bonus points (or penalties for not completing them) at the end of the game. I'm a stickler for keeping track of points during the game. I want to know who's ahead...if I have a chance to cut them off, I'll consider it. (Likewise, I want other players to elevate their game by knowing that information as well.)

We can't know their tickets - they get scored at the very end, when it's too late to interfere. Those are a known unknown. Even knowing what's possible is kind of a help - I keep my 1910 copy around, so that they represent more of an unknown unknown for me...a little more of an equal ground. But this is all a sideshow, for the main topic today.

What happens if people aren't sticklers for keeping track of the score? Some play groups don't bother keeping track - just count it at the end. They seek to avoid bad information...if Alex appears in last, but he's actually in first all due to bad scorekeeping...some say it's an unacceptable risk. In my mind, they then miss out on part of the game.

In this regard, Ticket to Ride (for them) is suited for obfuscated scoring. Everyone knows people have points, and they could add them up if they wanted to. It would slow down the game, so no one does. (If they do, maybe they keep it to themselves.)

Other games hide the data by overloading players with information. In the Thebes game last night, nothing stopped us from figuring out how much the other players had...except for the amount of little chits that each person had. My final game had 57 points in chits, primarily in values 1 through 3...some as much as 5. None of us were counting chits, beyond seeing what colors were still 'rich' in points.

In computer games, it's assumed that the computer will keep track of everyone's score - and if they are known quantities, it's assured. Some of my friends love playing Race for the Galaxy on the computer, as it keeps track of a tempo of the game...should they end it or not? An accurate count of points is key...but they're reluctant to stop a game in real life to manually count points. (Jason, I'm looking at you!)

When designing (and playing) a game, it's important to see how points flow during the game. You can have players generalize 'first place' if you want to avoid the 'hit first place' default strategy...or if you just want randomize acts of intervention-interaction between players.

When coming in first isn't enough

First place - it's what you strive for when playing a game, right?

Let's talk about a framework for the discussion. You call up some friends, and get together for an evening of hanging out. People might do a variety of things to hang out - go for dinner (out or in), see a movie, watch a DVD, hang out in a bar, see a rock show...maybe hang out and play some poker.

Board games serve a function similar to a "guy's night out for poker". Part of it is just hanging out, a loose competition, or maybe a slight edge putting some money out there...not so much for board games. It provides a social structure, a reason to hang out, and something to build an evening of conversation with.

As such, there's a certain amount of give in trying to win. You might be playing to win at any cost, but you'd probably put the breaks on anything that would destroy the group's hang-out dynamic. But generally it's agreed that you're trying to win at least a little.

Within a game, coming in first can be accomplished different ways in each game. Some add mechanics to make first place a little more dicey - we'll use Cleopatra and the Society of Architects as a model. It's a game put out by Days of Wonder, and each player attempts to be the best builder. Cleopatra loves builders. You have the occasional opportunity to cut some corners and take some corruption.

At the end of the game, she shows favor (you win!) if you're the best builder. Except before that happens, she kills off the most corrupt player. It's interesting because the game offers you risky paths (how much risk do you take to win), but offers a certain punishment to one unlucky person.

Some games offer other mechanics to trick the appearance of first place. Allowing multiple end-game conditions is common, but multiple win conditions is less so. Poker, you always win with a Royal Flush. Nothing beats it. If you read my earlier review of The Princes of Machu Picchu, I skipped over the end of the game. Usually the winner is determined by standard scoring, based on cards picked up during the game. Produce lots of shirts? Get goal cards that reward that. The players can also angle for it to end on a different scoring mechanism - all of a sudden, first place isn't first because it uses a new system to calculate winning.

Meta-topic of Game Design (Educational Games)

There are lots of reasons to design games. People want to create things. Others want to make money. Some want to tackle games that have never been done, or re-create a classic. Educational games are made by the bucketful.

My topic for today is educational games. I read a "Games for Educators" newsletter awhile back, which discussed how games can help kids who are behind on their education catch back up. Kids can fall behind for a variety of reasons - difficult homes, poor schools, disabilities, disinterest...there are tons of reasons. My experience at Pokemon was a positive one - parents would come up to me, explaining how Pokemon led to a turn-around in their kid's desire to learn. In this case, Pokemon provided the motivation.

Personal tastes - I don't like the strictly "good for you because we say it is" concept. It seems heavy-handed and unfair. Learn how to count/multiply/divide/memorize things! Learn history through our narrow lens! The first part, if it's incidental to the natural game play, kids will learn it, and not see it as a ham-fisted approach that the teacher/parent is trying to force on them AGAIN. (There's only so many times that I tell my mom I don't want broccoli. She still forces the issue. Is she not listening, or just not caring about my opinion?) Learning history through someone else's direction means that your facts will be whatever they give you...no context of the greater whole.

I want to see educational board games teach teamwork, like in Space Alert or Pandemic. I want to see kids learn planning skills, similar to what you see in Macao and Through the Ages. I want to see social negotiation skills develop, that you find in Settlers of Catan. These are skills that are for the greater good of society that all kids learn these...and early, if possible.

There isn't anything horribly wrong with teaching math skills through games, it's just not efficient. Doing math problems out of their textbook will provide them with basic skills, especially if the kids do homework. My argument is that the teaching games could be teaching them things that they don't get in school...if kids develop leadership skills, it's more a result of accidents than planned activity.

Next time I'll come back with an example of educational board games - in the meantime, check out "Games for Educators" - their newsletter is pretty interesting. (Link on the side.)

Disclaimer: I actually like broccoli. It was peas that took me awhile to adapt to.

Abstracted Scoring

Games often determine a winner by some kind of scoring technique - usually something universal like victory points. Sometimes the VPs are hidden behind a screen, on the board itself, counted in cash, or hidden in plain sight.

How the scoring record is handled, matters a great deal. If it is something concrete that other players can constantly refer to, players can and will base their playing based on who is in the lead.

Scoring can be incomplete, due to unrevealed tricks or just not far enough in the game. As an example of not being far enough - in Agricola, each turn fixes some part of their farm up more. You can kind of keep up on how much they're missing and try and cut them off from the boars you think they need, but you can't accurately gauge their scoring potential. Likewise, some games reward sets of cards in play, and scoring things just on what you see before you doesn't address the unknown cards in your opponent's hidden information.

Abstracting the score tracking methods adds to that complexity.

Option 1 is the best place to be. You understand the scoring complexity, and you're already ahead.
Option 2 is second best position. You're not in first, but you understand how it can change. You can point out how someone else is winning.
Option 3 is great - you're in first, but you're not to the level of understanding how scoring works - someone could pull ahead, and you can't explain to other players when other players overtake you.
Option 4 is the worst - you're not necessarily sure where you are in scoring, but you're not in first.

Abstract scoring gives the Inexperienced Players a double hit - they're less sure how to win, and can't tell how well others are doing. (You can also apply a middle range, called the "Distracted experienced player" - knowing the rules, but distracted by the company of friends, girlfriend/boyfriend, teaching the game, etc.)

This isn't to say, abstract scoring is always bad - if a game allows for a quick advancement into being an experienced player, it evens things out a bit. But a dense, meaty game where it'll take 4-5 hours to play, adding abstract/hidden scoring creates a huge inequity gap between experienced and inexperienced players.

Example:
Through the Ages has a scoring track. It is accurate up until Age 3, where Wars and Goals kick in...new players could play the Advanced Game through Age 2 often, but Age 3 would always kill them against experienced players. Mitigation: a list of possible goals, and a thorough example of wars. (I usually recommend this at the end of Age 1.)

Abstracted scoring can also be a good mechanic for your game if it includes hidden elements. Experienced players might be able to guess what kind of information is hidden, but not the specific qualities of the hidden data. Again, experience will provide an edge, but in this case, they're stuck guessing how well the inexperienced player has caught on. (You can't guess their actions, because they haven't found the 'ideal' experienced playing style.)

Enjoy some games this weekend!

Playing second place to the win.

Let's play a 5-player game - first person to 10 points wins. In the game, you add 1 point to your score every round, and you nominate one person to take a -1 to their score. The -1 only happens if two or more give the same victim a negative (which is secret). Scores are secret, except each person knows his or her own score, and after the 5th round everyone knows who is in first if they are in first by themselves. It becomes more interesting when you don't assign someone a negative, you get +1/2 point. If two or more people sacrifice a half-point from their own score to the same victim, it's a -2 instead of a -1.

There's some social discussion that takes place. In the beginning, people are tossing around who should get the negative. Over time, people start knowing who is in first - negatives start flowing more accurately to the top players. First place will get hammered the most. If it drops down to a tie with someone, people still know that first place WAS first place, and may not know who else is tied.

This represents classic game playing - gang up on the winner. Some games can abstract the winner a bit, by tucking away bonus points for the end of the game, or by adding layers of gameplay allowing multiple routes to score...it makes it more of a climb-to-the-top race, as opposed to a zero-sum game where a person loses something for another one to gain.

Ganging up on the person in first place, you can slow them down long enough, for whoever was in second to catch them - you're trading one king for another. If you want to win, you have to have some exit strategy that lets you ALSO top the players ahead of you.

Let's say that you're *sure* that you're in second place on the 4th round. You have 6 more rounds of +1 point. If you're only a point or two behind first, you'll catch them early, and people will know that your points are high....first place will take the hits for you!

This kind of thing comes up in board games like Munchkin, where you can have a more direct influence on other players. Other games are similar - Citadels, Settlers of Catan...any game that relishes the table-talk aspect of games. No one usually picks on second place, unless there is revenge or king-making going on.

So second place WANTS first place to go down the most. But only at the right time, when second can move up for the win. If you hit 3rd or 4th, it'd be nice - less competitors nearby. You want them thinking they might be soon in the running - more likely to hit 1st place, instead of revenge for an earlier strike.

Yes, this is my suggestion - 2nd place hates the last place player. You toss negatives at them, and early on you convince others to as well. 1st place starts pulling away, and you have a Public Enemy #1, and you mostly back off.

***
This hypothetical game stems from an actual game of Caylus tonight - if you allow table-talk, one of the more interesting periods of the game is moving the provost. The players can pay game money move the provost to mess up the plans of other players, but it works best if you can align your interests for the turn with others. You can motivate people to contribute into hitting first place, if it's easy enough to describe.

The abstractness of the scoring benefits players with the most experience in the game, followed by strong analytics. For example, when playing Le Havre - I'd fear Guy A with 8 Steel, more than Guy B who has triple A's points in buildings. I could explain it better to new players. 60% of the Settlers of Catan development cards are Soldiers - important when you need to highlight the dangers of people trading the guy with 2 Soldiers in play some rock. As that's another topic, consider this a teaser!

Limited games...really?

I play in several game nights with a bunch of different friends, which leads to some power dynamics in game selection. The more games you play allows you a more discerning taste for what kinds of games you like. I can imagine this is like wine connoisseur's taste buds - this is my brain though!

Everyone can do this, simply by saying "No, I don't want to play Monopoly." The group shifts around, trying to find a game they can all agree on, or end up playing a game that is least hated. This isn't a new thing, and it happens often in gaming circles.

Why does this happen?
It could be a case of direct conflict. Bust out a Risk game, get some blood spilled...action! It's not for everyone - likewise, a non-conflict game might not find love in a group.

It can also be a preference to one's strength. One of my friends is extremely good at (and enjoys) games that give him a sweet spot of choice-calculation. If it's a game that swings a lot based on random effects, he's not going to enjoy it.

Limited knowledge. "There's only so many games I want to bother learning the rules and/or strategy for." It's a reasonable call - not everyone wants to learn the finer points of Through the Ages. (Tonight I played with a couple of friends who enjoyed it in the past. Both said at the end, that they liked the game, but couldn't compete very well because their knowledge of the cards and flow weren't strong enough...and that maybe we needed to play it more...or much less.)

What can you do about it?
Conflict is something that is there or not...it's rare that a game allows you to play both ways well. The best way to handle it is to organize specific groups for a specific kind of game night. Love conflict, come to this night. It only pays off if the group is willing to split up for nights they'll enjoy more. Rare, but it sometimes takes place.

I'll admit to like playing more games that I enjoy. It's also likely that I'll get better at it, as it gets more plays and more attention. If your gaming friends are hyper-competitive, taking time off from your favorite game might give them a fairer shot at beating you. (Can I actually recommend this? Don't play games you like?)

Finally, the last bit has some of my sympathy. Not everyone lives and breathes games. Rules unique to specific games, requires attention and continuous learning...people play games for fun. It's tough on one hand - by insisting that you play games A, B, or C, because you know them...it means that if other people have moved on from those games (hey, we've been playing those three games for the past year!)...maybe it's time that you learned a new game. On the other hand, it's not cool if every game night you show up for, shows off a new game with new rules. (Suck.)

I have a couple of closets full of games, but only a half dozen see play during a 6-month period. (Currently it's Le Havre, Race for the Galaxy, Through the Ages, and Dungeon Lords.) Limited games. Limited time. Limited time for people to learn. Oh, sadness.

Anosognosia, unknown unknowns, aka my experience in Macao

Anosognosia is a disability where part of the disability is the inability to perceive the disability itself. This article was spun off of reading the first in a series of posts about stupidity not being able to see itself. (Link on the side.)

Donald Rumsfield got harassed for talking about "unknown unknowns" in a press conference at one point - at the time, I was willing to perceive it as political mumbletypeg from a person I disagreed with on politics. Of course the unknown is unknown! Except when it's not, apparently.

Here's how it goes in games: everyone who's played with a deck of cards, knows what cards are in a standard 52-card deck. We don't know the top card - that's a known unknown. We can assign a probability to it, or guess 1 of 52 different cards...but we don't know it.

Unknown unknown is like learning a new game. The first time you played Monopoly, you had no idea what was in Chance or Community Chest. If you played Race for the Galaxy, you probably didn't learn all of the cards directly.

I played Macao for the first time yesterday. It's a dice game where resource generation is mostly the same for all players...just what they choose to generate from the same pool may or may not be different. I felt lost a little - not knowing any kind of strategy, but knowing the basic concepts of play is tough if you want to play well.

You want VP. (Technically it's PP, but victory points is what my head remade it as.) You get it by buying it, getting real estate next to each other, shipping well, or card combinations. The quick breakdown: Buy, Hacienda-reference, Puerto Rico-reference, San Juan/Race-reference. My tutor Steve painted it as a Puerto Rico-style game, but it's a lot different - PR has a lot of known knowns.

There are 12 turns, each turn has 2 cards that are known known. Another 4 (in a 4-player) from the top of the deck are unknowns. This is the unknown unknown for players who haven't seen the deck...for those that have played, it's a known unknown - you just don't know what's coming.

After players choose a building to be drafted, the table rolls 6 dice of different colors. They're all six-sided dice, representing different colors of goods. The goods are used to activate buildings, build buildings, or buy real estate. You get to choose 2 colors - the higher the number, the more cubes...but you also don't get them for that many turns. (6 cubes is great, but you get them in 6 turns...how efficient are you going to be able to plan for it?) It's really one turn less...if you choose 1, you'll get that one cube in the same turn. This is a known unknown.

The dice make it tough to plan. I spent half of my game trying to get a red and two purple cubes show up on the same turn. (I ended up doing a huge kabuki dance on the 2nd to last turn to get two purple cubes.)

As a first time player, I couldn't know what was in the stack of random cards - how many game end bonus cards? What different effects could there be? What color combinations would I need? The deck is large - I'd guess about 100. You'll only see 36 at most in a game, and you won't know when it will show up or if you'll be in a position to get it. (Pretty random I'd guess, even for expert players.)

So, you won't be able to know what buildings to draft in the beginning. You might be able to draft good midrange cards to supplement the early cards you have randomly chosen. You also won't know what numbers will be on the dice until after you've drafted for the round. Tough loves.

I primarily focused on avoiding penalties - if you don't have any cubes to spend on a turn, it means you do nothing and you get a -3VP chit. If you don't build your buildings fast enough, you also take a chit. And finally, any buildings you drafted but didn't build is also another -3. I had -6 at the end from one unfinished building, and one turn of no actions (whoops!).

I did find a couple of buildings that helped me in the mid-game, but I think everyone had that. I didn't worry to much about actions 2-3 turns away...they were more hopeful than anything else. Shipping takes a lot of cubes to move them - I ended up saving that until the end of the game (I had the two cheapest paper...it would have been expensive for someone to move their ship, pay a lot for the final paper, just to get a some points, and deny me some as well.)

Finally, with the die rolls I chose a short and a long roll. (Hopefully a 3 and a 6.) occasionally it was jostled around, so I could have certain colors in certain amounts show up at the same time. This is really basic. The long roll let me move ships more efficiently, but it meant it was too far to be useful in planning more than that.

Macao definitely has a lot of random elements to it - each of the cards are unique. Dice are difficult to forecast, and players are jumping around trying to maximize the gains or minimize their losses - how much of their seemingly chaotic responses going to affect your built-out game?

Overall, I want to play it another 6-10 times.
How much do the known unknowns affect play?
How much skill comes into play with the degrees of known unknown from the cards and dice?
Is there time for player interaction, with the amount of other stuff going on?

It's interesting - definitely not a heavy game due to the lack of accurate future planning, but it is kind of fun trying to figure things out on the fly.

Finally, unknown unknowns in gaming: this occurs in many games, primarily during the first game(s). After you've seen the game played several times, things are reduced to merely known unknowns. It would be challenging to make a game that consists of unknown unknowns every game...hmm...