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!

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!