Politics, aka Collusion Revisited

I recently started listening to the podcasts at Games with Garfield (link on the side), and the most recent podcast as of right now, is their game discussion of King of Tokyo.

It covers a new game he's releasing through a French publisher, Iello. It's not out in the US yet, but the game discussion he has with Jessica Price and Skaff Elias is really interesting.

They have a fun talk, ranging from game design, to politics in games, into games in different cultures. Their discussion of politics is particularly sharp, and makes me ponder further on the nature of collusion in games.

Skaff and Richard have a quick breakdown for politics in a game - if you can help or hurt another player, there's politics. "Attack him, he's in first place." Their clarification that politics doesn't exist in a game like Werewolf, because there are only two sides. They play a version where the villagers, dead or alive, win if they kill of the werewolves...therefore you wouldn't care if you died, as long as your side wins.

Politics aren't necessarily bad. They had a point, where you're playing the players, not the game, inside a political game. In a game like Ra, you're studying their pressure points. One of my brothers will act differently than another - one tactic won't work the same on both.

Collusion can take place in non-political games, but it's much harder. If you can't help or hurt another player directly, politics is hard. For example, in Through the Ages, if the aggression and war cards are taken out, most of the politics have been removed. You could still collude - on drafting, how many units players build, how much you bid for colonies...

In my Collusion Part 2 article, I talk about fighting collusion...and perhaps I can add to that, after pondering the role of politics in a game. We can talk about collusion as *part* of the politics of a game. In this way, collusion becomes acceptable...as long as you're willing to talk about it in terms of the politics of a game.

It's still a difficult task. People see themselves as normal. I am Jimmer. When I am playing a game, it is Jimmer playing a game. There isn't usually a split personality, where all of a sudden - Mr. Hyde shows up. If you point out in a game, where Alice and Bob are always teaming up...Alice and Bob are generally going to get hard feelings. "We're not ganging up on you, honest! We just both play the game the same way, we would never cheat!"

The problem is, Alice and Bob could be teaming up, even subconsciously. They've known each other for 15 years, and me for 2...who has the deeper bond? In a 3-player political game, you'd guess that I would generally lose. If you bring up that topic, they might feel forced to attack each other...which might not even be correct game strategy - they just want to fake being Dr. Jekyll, to avoid the unpleasant topic of collusion.

So it appears that collusion is perhaps more common in political games - it's very hard to pull off otherwise. When looking at designing a game (or playing one), there are choices you can make that would limit the types of collusion available, should you dislike collusion.

I don't think I'm entirely against political-style games, but it's certainly something to consider when choosing a game for the evening.

And don't forget to check out Games with Garfield - he's an awesome fellow!

2-player games

I've been dating a lovely young lady for about 3 months now, which means a bit more of the two player games than normal.

We started off with Carcassonne and Thurn & Taxis, branching into backgammon and cribbage. (We even dove into my old copy of Khet, aka chess+lasers!)

She decided to start a board game library again, beginning with one of the Carcassonne Big Box versions...5 expansions, enough for 6 players, etc. (Ah, we have it at both places now!)

She also picked up Lost Cities, Lords of Vegas, Hive, and Mr. Jack.

Lost Cities is a tight, 2-player only game that is one of the few games that was pulled by its publisher on Xbox Live. In 2008, it was nominated for best of XBLA 2008...and withdrawn before it could win. The turns are quick and full of choices - do you go for big points? Can you discard a certain card, without powering up the opponent? Do you skip steps to get done with that part of the game faster?

Depending on the speed of players, a game can wrap up in 20-30 minutes. Fun.

Lords of Vegas is 2-4 players, with a fair amount of gambling and real-estate management. We've modified the rules slightly to remove the bottom quarter of the deck, instead of pretending we can't count cards. Fast, light...no dense ideas to process. Easy game to teach to rules-averse players.

Hive is a tile-laying game, where you try to trap the opponent's queen bee. I think it is limited in play, but maybe fair when the players come to the game on an equal scale. It's like a shorter game of chess...but I don't recommend chess highly - therefore I don't recommend Hive quickly.

Mr. Jack, I thought would suffer from a similar fate. 8 characters running around London, controlled by the detective player and Mr. Jack. One of the eight is Mr. Jack's imposter, and the detective has to piece together which one it is based on in-game hints and the overall play of Jack. It's broken down into consumable chunks, with strong pacing and a lot of choices. It's my latest "favorite two player". I'm just hoping my turns don't take too long.