Mental Shortcuts in MtG

You have a Duress in your starting hand and the land needed to cast it. When should you use it? Magic is a complicated game, so the answer depends on a multitude of factors. The thing is, if you have learned some basic rules on this and understand, you’ll probably make the right call without too much effort.

This is the kind of shortcut I was talking about yesterday.

It feels right to use the Duress right away, but there are instances where you might be wrong.

Situations where its a good idea to use it on first round:

  • When playing in quick formats, like Legacy, where first turn disruption might be very important
  • When on the draw
  • When you have a two-drop you want to play next round

Situations where you might want to save it:

  • When on the play in slower formats (because you will generally have more targets this way)
  • When playing against control decks when you might rather play it right before your opponent has access to enough mana for sweepers to maximize your chances of hitting one
  • If you don’t have many targets, but the information might be important later on

Since this is a game of complicated interactions, there will be many situations where you have to make decisions about how you’ll approach a situaion.

All in all, this is what testing is about. Often people think of testing as the process of designing and choosing a deck, which is important too, but being comfortable with the deck and having as many of the mental shortcuts as possible at the ready are actually more important facets of testing.

Importance of Stuff You Don’t Think About

I went to my local FNM today, as I often do on Fridays if I have the time. Its pretty much my only opportunity to play standard and its conveniently located from our offices, so why not?

I played my often mentioned monogreen aggro-control deck.

First two rounds went well. First match I dominated. It was over pretty quickly. Not as quickly as my usual decks, but still, pretty quickly. However, the whole round was over quickly, so I didn’t have time to breathe.

Second round took me a while to get there, but once I did, I dominated again. It was pretty intensive and decision heavy, but the [scryfall]Predator Ooze[/scryfall] came through again even though my opponent got plenty of life from [scryfall]Trostani, Selesnya’s Voice[/scryfall]. Again, I didn’t really have time to breathe between rounds.

Third round I was facing a pretty classic blue-white control, with modern flash elements in the form of [scryfall]Restoration Angel[/scryfall]s and [scryfall]Snapcaster Mage[/scryfall]s against a player I had never won in a match. This is where things went really long. First game I lost. I just didn’t have the tools to go under him, so the first game was his. It wasn’t quick, but it was obvious. I thought about conceding, but couldn’t do it.

Next game, I sided out all my mana-elves and [scryfall]Ulvenwald Tracker[/scryfall]s and took the long game. Sadly, I didn’t draw many lands, do it became REALLY long game, but the waiting paid off. Eventually I won by budgeting my threats and just being patient.

Obviously, by doing this, the game went long and although I managed to get my opponent to one life twice, one life is the same as twenty when considering wins and losses.

Again, as we went overtime, there wasn’t any downtime between matches.

Final round began with me still scrambling to de-sideboard my deck from the last match. First game went pretty well for a while as I managed to build a great board presence. Then came the [scryfall]Sublime Archangel[/scryfall]. People are clearly thinking the same way I am and using the fun cards before rotation as I haven’t seen that particular card in anyone’s deck before (except my own). Anyhow, my monogreen could handle that… but not this time. Especially with six other creatures backing it up and a [scryfall]Boros Charm[/scryfall].

Second game I was ready for the angel, but in the end, I again dominated the board pretty well, but made a huge mistake in the end by attacking when I shouldn’t have.

I attribute it to tiredness. I was probably dehydrated, I hadn’t been able to leave the store to breathe fresher air outside and four grueling rounds just left me exhausted mentally. Obviously, I had a full workday behind me, which didn’t help either. I did pretty well. Can’t really complain. After all, I chose the deck I play myself, fully knowing it isn’t the easiest to play.

Still, one should think about these things. One should bring something to drink and, if possible, practice beforehand. With practice, we can form mental shortcuts, which let us dismiss full decision trees and just take the (hopefully) right course without using too much brainpower. Often there are hidden synergies which won’t be obvious until you play enough. I – for one – have learned a lot about how to use the Trackers just from playing enough. (Fighting with your attacking creature after blocks have been announced is just evil.)

Sadly, I don’t really have an opportunity to do this, but hopefully in the future I get to test somewhat with some people in the guild.

[EDIT] Yes, I originally forgot to name this.

Taking the Foil / Straight-Man Role as the Player

About a year ago, we played Lady Blackbird. Ville ran it, I and Lauri participated, with couple of other players. I was Kale Arkam, the ex-burglar, current mechanic of the Owl. Lauri was Snargle, the goblin pacifist pilot, with problems with risk assessment, to put it politely.

I didn’t choose this approach consciously, but I sort of fell into a role of the straight man. There were some comedic aspects to my character (namely his greed) and I did play up his rogue/low-level wizard/mechanic abilities at times, but mostly I just played against Snargle and Cyrus Vance, the captain. Not in the sense that I tried to kill them or beat them, but when they were doing something outrageous, I’d put a spotlight on it by having my character argue against the idea, roll his eyes, just step back from the situation and stuff like that.

I think it worked. Some of the time I didn’t even know what was happening, but played it out like my character knew exactly what was going to happen. Partly this worked because we had excellent chemistry within the group (although I met the player of the captain for the first – and thusfar only – time). There was a lot of in-character banter and after a couple of hours, I felt the crew of the Owl had a very in-depth history, which was formed through discussion injected into the game.

I enjoyed playing like this. In the past (and often still), I like to have the spotlight at least some of the time, but in this case I enjoyed sharing it with others in a way which probably makes my character look like a supporting character, but we often need the contrast to let certain aspects really shine. I think Ville was at times worried that I wasn’t getting my spotlight, but in this case, I didn’t feel I need it.

I’m not sure this kind of playstyle comes easily. I think pieces just fell into place in this specific case and it worked because of circumstances. On the other hand, this is an age old technique from comedy (although standups don’t do it anymore) and theater. It works in movies. It wouldn’t stick if it didn’t work. Since RPGs have been moving towards more traditional storytelling anyway, its not out of the question to bring this kind of character into RPGs on a more regular basis. I just don’t think you want to proclaim you are doing this.

Rotation 2013, part 2

At first, I dreaded the rotation. This is basically my first ever. When I stopped going to tournaments back in the late 90s, the block structure was still in its infancy and the rotation system as we know it today was sort of there, but it was more of an arbitrary decision by the DCI than an actual formalized system as it is today.

Now, I’m beginning to see it differently. Theros has some cards which make me feel like I want to build around them. I haven’t really built standard decks yet. Sort of, yes. Maybe even more than most, as I see netdecking happening all the time (and I don’t mind this at all since I regard deck building and playing too different skills, you don’t need to be good at both to enjoy the game) and even though my decks aren’t totally unique (like most decks), they at least have a hint of creativity in that I usually take a deck I like with heavy emphasis on a color, like Kibler’s Golgari deck or Conley Woods’ Black by Popular Demand and make them work for my style.

This time around, I’m actually thinking about decks from the ground up. At first, this seemed impossible, as the card pool is now quite limited. On the other hand, everyone has this same problem. I’m not alone in going from the largest possible standard pool to the smallest. This just means that I have to dig a little deeper, but so does everyone else.

Losing Innistrad and M13 is big. Losing [scryfall]Predator Ooze[/scryfall], [scryfall]Champion of the Parish[/scryfall], [scryfall]Vampire Nighthawk[/scryfall], [scryfall]Hellrider[/scryfall] and so on completely neuters my current decks. But hey… that’s the beauty of rotation. Not only do I have to start from scratch, I get to start from scratch. Yes. I am overly positive. Obviously, my deck on 27th will be weaker than my current decks, but everyone is in the same situation.

That being said, as I’m writing this, we’ve seen one of the new gods from Theros, Thassa, the blue one. If the other gods are similar, I’m sure I’ll find a way to use them. I know my opponents will be able to abuse their weakness, but I’ll just have to live with that.

So, here’s what I’ve thinking about thus far (note that as I’m writing this, many of the cards aren’t in the gatherer yet, so you might have to look them up yourself, here’s a start):

Blue Beatdown

Think, turn one [scryfall]Judge’s Familiar[/scryfall], turn two [scryfall]Frostburn Weird[/scryfall], turn three [scryfall]Thassa, Card of the Sea[/scryfall] into turn four [scryfall]Bident of Thassa[/scryfall] to turn Thassa on. Then you just protect Thassa and draw cards.

Big Red

[scryfall]Ember Swallower[/scryfall] looks like something one might build around. With [scryfall]Boros Reckoner[/scryfall]s and [scryfall]Awaken the Ancient[/scryfall]s, this might actually work. Maybe. Depending on what kind of burn we’ll get in Theros. If we get a god similar to Thassa for red (and we probably will), it will be great with Boros Reckoner.

Red Deck Wins

I already talked about this in the last installment. Nothing new to add thus far. Hopefully we get at least one usable burn spell, so I can put [scryfall]Young Pyromancer[/scryfall] into work. I guess [scryfall]Ogre Battledriver[/scryfall] would work too, but it doesn’t have the same impact as [scryfall]Hellrider[/scryfall], so I’m not sure.

Monogreen Midrange

With [scryfall]Polukranos, World Eater[/scryfall] out and a supposed green god coming, this might be it. I’ve actually been toying around with the idea of some ramp and [scryfall]Garruk, Caller of Beasts[/scryfall]’ to get out huge creatures every turn. I was thinking about [scryfall]Worldspine Wurm[/scryfall]s, but I’d hate to be stuck with two of them in hand while never being able to cast them. Therefore I probably have to go down a bit on the casting cost. Gladly, Polukranos seems very good at four mana. [scryfall]Kalonian Hydra[/scryfall] doesn’t really strike my fancy, although it would be a good addition for the curve, unless we get something better.

I already miss my [scryfall]Predator Ooze[/scryfall]s and [scryfall]Vorapede[/scryfall]s. Those would be great for the Devotion with their three green mana symbols and resilience against removal. Why has extended died off? (That was rhetoric, I know why.)

White Weenie

Okay, the Champion is gone, [scryfall]Silverblade Paladin[/scryfall] is gone, [scryfall]Sublime Archangel[/scryfall] is gone… Turn four kills are probably out. Turn five, however… still within reach. Probably. [scryfall]Precinct Captain[/scryfall] is probably underrated and a good mix of cheap Azorius creatures with interesting abilities and Boros Battalion creatures just might work. Maybe a working [scryfall]Rootborn Defenses[/scryfall] into the deck somehow, if sweepers are popular. If not, [scryfall]Brave the Elements[/scryfall] is probably better.

Basically I should just buy a binder of full of [scryfall]Mutavault[/scryfall]s and [scryfall]Boros Reckoner[/scryfall]s and see where they take me.

The Imaginarium of Mr. Moreau (tremulus)

It is funny that Aki should mention the gaming immersion in his recent post. I encountered some of the problems discussed while I ran tremelus last week.

I had done my homework and read through the rulebook. I had played the game a few times and I had build a framework for the session. But still something was missing. And that was the confidence that is required to run this kind of a game.

Having just recently found the Apocalypse World engine I did not have the same amount of experience from it as Aki did when he ran tremulus. He made it seem quite easy. I found it anything but that. I had to constantly browse through the book to find what moves I could use and how exactly I could do that. I had to consult Aki during the session to get a confirmation that I was doing the thing right. It was a big hassle. At the beginning.

Then I did what I should have done the last time a ran a one shot. Threw to rules out the window so to speak. I wasn’t going to let the rule system ruin yet another session and just lead the game as I usually do. By guiding the flow of events just the way I damn please.

The players where familiar with their end of the system. They new what they were doing but I lost total track of all the tracks and moves I had in my disposal. I just let the things happen the way I thought they might improve the narrative. Was this done according to the principles of tremulus? Maybe not but at least to my knowledge the players had fun and enjoyed the game.

If you want to check out the framework (and maybe give pointers of how to improve it?) you can download it HERE as a pdf.

History of Magic: The Gathering as I Experienced It

Today, MaRo (Mark Rosewater, head designer of magic) published his annual State of Design column. Once again, MtG was bigger than ever.

To me, that always sounds strange. I know this is irrational, as I see both players my age and a totally new generation at my local FNMs, but I just sort of still have a feeling that its a dying hobby.

This stems from my late 90’s experiences. Granted, I didn’t have such excellent sources as I do today, because MtG-presence on the Internet was still in its infancy, but seeing how the Fallen Empires just wouldn’t leave the shelves made it feel like the demand just wasn’t there. Later I learned what the story behind that was (I’ll add it to the end).

I started playing just after the Dark was released about 19 years ago. Yes, I’m pretty old school (since the new World Champion was born around this time, I feel old school). I remember the days of trying to get [scryfall]El-Hajjaj[/scryfall] to actually do something of any value and the great combo of [scryfall]Royal Assassin[/scryfall] and [scryfall]Icy Manipulator[/scryfall].

I do look back and see myself as a sort of innovator, learning early on to not see only the best possible scenarios for the seemingly good cards, to see how the seemingly bad cards could actually be good (many hated [scryfall]Necropotence[/scryfall] early on, whereas I tried to make it work from day one), and especially how to abuse the seemingly symmetrical cards (like [scryfall]Armageddon[/scryfall]). I was also an early proponent of deck thinning (having bought out all the [scryfall]Land Tax[/scryfall]es from our local gaming store just before they exploded… and were soon restricted after that) and using life as a resource.

Not that I was a great player. I was pretty good, but only in the context of a small town. I did pretty well in a number of tournaments all over Finland, especially sealed, but I was never really a top tier player. Probably, because I disliked where the game was going.

Well, this is two-fold. I didn’t like the way spells were more powerful than creatures. It was just boring to play with when both players would just sit there with a grip full of countermagic waiting for the other player to flinch. The bigger problem, actually, were the players who didn’t subscribe to this. For example, a friend of mine put (at the time) a huge amount of money into a [scryfall]Moat[/scryfall]. Oookay… Since he had put something like 250 marks (around 40 euros, which was a huge amount of money for us back then) into a card, he wanted to play it. Obviously, we didn’t want to play against it.

I wanted to play type II (now Standard) and I just really didn’t like it when I had this one card I always had to respect. This wasn’t the most innovative player and actually he was never able to let go of the early recommendation of 20 lands in a 60 card deck, even though everyone else played with about 23 and his decks were always manascrewed. I knew exactly how to beat him. It just became boring over time and as many of our friends were moving away to Universities around the country, I was pretty much left to play him alone. That’s when I just stopped playing and sold my cards (what was left of them, as I had been unloading them for a while), although I think there might be a treasure chest of old cards somewhere in my mother’s house. I remember having a load of [scryfall]Force of Will[/scryfall]s and I have no idea what happened to them.

In the end, I just didn’t like where the game was going. Now, watching back, I was right about taking a break. Watching stuff like video footage from the Pro Tours of late 90’s and early 2000’s, I wouldn’t want to play that game.

I sort of assumed the game was dying while I was out. I did see some gameplay at gamestores, but there wasn’t a store dedicated to it even in Tampere anymore, whereas we had one in my hometown Vaasa back in the day (that’s roughly 200k vs. 50k population). I knew the game still existed, but I never thought it was actually growing… and actually quite rapidly. The people at Wizards were actually learning from their mistakes and instead of just putting new products out routinely, they put a real effort into evolving the game into new directions and keeping the game as a whole interesting to both new players and the veterans.

My absence from the game extended to 13 years. I didn’t expect to return to it, actually actively working against it at times, but my guild brethren convinced me to take a look and I did. Everything just seemed better. I decided to order a preconstructed commander deck with [scryfall]The Mimeoplasm[/scryfall] as the commander and the game was fun again. This was about a year ago. Since then I’ve started playing in tournaments again and now I’m going to a Grand Prix in Valencia in November, because why not.

I actually wish I had restarted just a few years earlier. Zendikar seems great and I came in the tailend of the greatest block ever, Innistrad. Return to Ravnica wasn’t a personal favorite, but I do like many of the guilds and how they work.

I’m not sure I’ll ever stop playing again.

The Fallen Empires story: Why is Fallen Empires still widely available, even though any of the other sets from back then are completely sold out?

In the early days, Wizards wasn’t able to complete all the orders they were getting, as there just wasn’t enough capacity to print everything they wanted, so they completed them proportionally. The retailers quickly learned this and amped their orders. They would order X number of product because they knew ordering X would get them Y, which was closer to what they actually wanted.

Then, when Fallen Empires was released, Wizards had finally gotten their production running on the level they needed, and the logistical chain to support getting the product to the retailers, so they were actually able to get enough product to their retailers to fulfill the padded orders. In the end, the retailers were stuck with X, when all they wanted was Y.

It didn’t help that Fallen Empires wasn’t a very good set (although I do still have some love for the flavor).

GMing: Keeping the Lore vs. Playing

I ran my first Call of Cthulhu campaign during 2009 and 2010, during which time my GMing preferences underwent a drastic change. It was the acclaimed Tatters of the King, “Cthulhu done right”, praised for its believable NPCs and milieu. While everyone seemed to like the story, from the GM’s point of view the campaign was arduous. There is little freedom for the players, and the GM is instructed to fudge die rolls so that certain events come to pass in just the right way. What’s worse, the book is a horrible manual for an actual gaming session. To start with, there are no master lists for clues, or any other handy points of reference other than a timeline. In effect, I had to keep the book open at all times and make sure that I handed the players just the right information to ensure that the campaign goes along.

GMing it was hard work during the sessions. The book is 232 pages long, and the campaign takes up about 180 or 190 pages. Some of the early scenarios contain information or objects that are vital late in the campaign, but the information in the book doesn’t follow any clear format – it’s hidden in the NPC’s pre-written dialogue. Without a Master List of Everything Necessary, or at least a small explanatory text of what’s essential in the scene, it was really hard to improvise anything.

In effect, I kept the book open in my lap at all times, glanced at it regularly so that I could act the parts of the NPCs and deliver all the necessary information the players. It was hard to concentrate on what was happening at the gaming table because I had to focus on the book and on making sure that the campaign could go on.

(I’m not blaming it all on the book, though; it might not be the best campaign for a first-time Cthulhu GM. Maybe an experienced GM could have read the book in its entirety and gleaned all the necessary information and made his own play aids. I maintain that it’s the book’s job to make the pre-made campaign easily playable, but that’s beside the point here.)

That’s my point of view, my experience. In contrast, around the same time I had two different kinds of roleplaying experiences. FIrst, I read new gaming masterpieces such as 3:16: Carnage Amongst the Stars, and even got to play them a bit. 3:16 is a rules-light, improvisation-heavy roleplaying game about space marines intent on killing everything in the universe. It is filled with good stuff, but what’s relevant here is that 3:16 was the first game where I encountered the band metaphor for RPGs. It’s like jamming together and creating stories. (To my present knowledge, Ron Edwards’ Sorcerer is the first game to utilise that metaphor.)

The second experience was playing two Call of Cthulhu scenarios several times in Ropecon, namely John Wick’s Curse of the Yellow Sign, Act One (three times), and John Tynes’ In Media [sic] Res (five times). Those scenarios are player-driven, and the GM is reacting. Everyone is kind of riffing off of each others’ ideas. The players play against each other, and the GM is trying to make the situation even more intense (and sure, describes the environment, gives clues and so on). Rather than reading from the book what’s supposed to happen next, the GM feels out the situation at the gaming table and adds something to it. Effectively, he’s one of the players.

In Tatters of the King, my job really felt like that of The Keeper of Arcane Lore, Call of Cthulhu‘s title for the GM. I was the repository of stuff that the players had to uncover. Their rolls of dice were either rolls to see whether they were damaged, or whether they could get access to the information I was withholding. (In effect, I fudged a lot of rolls because that was what I was used to.) I didn’t feel like I was one of the players in the game, or “one of the guys”. I was sitting at the head of the table, which sort of emphasised my role as being apart from the others.

Now, I’m not saying I never want to sit at the head of the table again (actually I still do), or that I don’t want to withhold information (I still do if the game has something of the sort), or that I want everyone at the table to hold equal power (I sure as hell don’t, but neither do I advocate that the traditional GM-player divide is the only way, or the only interesting way, to divide power). What I am saying is that I learned to love playing. I want to come to the table and feel that I don’t have all the answers, that I don’t know what’s going to happen at the table. I enjoy the moments when players surprise me and I have to step back and admit that I didn’t see that one coming.

What I’m saying is that I learned to Play Unsafe, which is actually a title of a brilliant little book by Graham Walmsley that I also read during the Cthulhu campaign, and I urge you to read it as well. When I don’t know what’s going to happen at the table, I need to stay on my toes and pay attention to what’s happening at the table. I feel more uncertain and tense, and I can transform that uncertainty and tension into something positive.

 

Limits of Immersion

At RopeCon, I saw plenty of GMs who dressed the part. They had pseudo-medieval outfits. Of course, this is partly cosplay, not necessarily having anything to do with the GMing itself, but some apparently do it to be (or seem) better GMs.

I think that’s too much. I have an imagination and I have a sense of humor (no matter how sick and twisted these may be). When someone in a cloak tries to be serious and is explaining my experiences within the game in a deep, foreboding voice (or their best imitation of one), I think that’s pretty funny and thus distracting. On the other hand, if someone in a sarcastic t-shirt explains the same thing in a normal voice, my imagination kicks in.

Of course, I’m just one instance and everything I say is anecdotal and shouldn’t be used as a basis for anything bigger. On the other hand, despite all evidence pointing otherwise, I’m still human and I thus have a human brain, which triggers in much the same way everyone elses does.

That’s not to say the GM shouldn’t try to create immersion, but he or she should also understand the limits.

Should one use music? Preferably, yes (not in cons, but otherwise). Many people just do this completely wrong. Their music choices are often just too good in the sense that they are good music, but not in the sense that they fit the situation. The problem is, when you hear a song you know and like, its – again – distracting. You need music that isn’t designed to catch your attention. Movie scores are always a good option as they are designed to heighten the mood, but stay just outside your consciousness, and quite a few GMs are using this pretty obvious tool. However, I still see GMs using popular music. Just don’t do it. It pulls the attention away from the game, whereas a good score or, say, Godspeed You! Black Empereor and Sunn O))) will push you into the mood.

What about props and miniatures? Props, yes. Miniatures… maybe.

I’ve done props in the past. Usually for the heck of it. And I’m not talking about anything complex here. Just making paper look old and simple stuff like that. When I hand it over, what’s the first question in the players’ mind? Not what is, but how I made it. Obviously, this strokes my ego in all the right ways, but that’s not the point.

Miniatures can be a good thing, but often not. Think about it this way. You are in the middle of a scene and things go awry. Everyone pulls their gun. Now, why would you break the tension of the moment to get out the map and the miniatures? If we’re playing a tactical game, this might actually be important to getting into the moment, but in a more narrative game, this just isn’t what you want. You don’t want to interrupt the flow.

Finally, the system. Yes, were talking about those again.

I don’t know how many of you remember the bad old days of THAC0. If you don’t know what that is, its the old D&D way of telling you how well you are able to hit your opponents. It stands for To Hit Armor Class 0. The idea was that because AC started from 10 and went down, you’d just subtract the AC from your THAC0 and you’d know how much you need to roll to hit.

The thing is, this is quite counter-intuitive. Although mathematically the current system isn’t much easier, its much easier to grasp. Adding is just that much more natural to us than subtracting, especially subtracting negative numbers. Even with this small difference, immersion is again easily broken.

Anytime you need to look something up, its distracting. Simpler is better. However, this has degrees as well. When I’m looking at the list of stuff I can do in AW after having succeeded in a roll, I’m still in the moment as I’m thinking about where I want this to go. Whereas if someone else is doing the same, I lose focus.

In the end, its all about the complexities of the human brain. Its a wonderful thing, but it can also be easily manipulated in ways we don’t really understand. Breaking immersion is regrettably easy (although, in the bigger picture probably a good attribute) and we keep doing things to distract each other without even understanding it. Our hunter-gatherer brains will focus on things like movement and faces, because that’s how we survived way back when. Much of that stuff is still in there, because not enough generations have passed for us to lose those qualities. I’m not sure we ever will.

Size of the Group, Mathematical Approach

With two people, there is one interaction. If we bring in a third person, there are two more interactions, one with each earlier member. With the fourth member, three new interactions emerge. In other words…

x = 0 + 1 + 2 + 3 + … + n-1 = (n – 1) * (n / 2) (I’m going to be lazy and not bother with the proof.)

How can we put this into use?

Depends on what we want to do. If we want a game where the players themselves produce much of the narrative, we need more of these interactions, whereas if we want to keep the amount of time used on bickering to a minimum, we want less of these interactions.

With three players we have (3 – 1) * (3 / 2) = 3 interactions. With five players, we have (5 – 1) * (5 / 2) = 10 interactions. Therefore by adding two people into the group, they will interact with each other over three times as much as the three player group, thus taking much more time and potentially bogging down the game.

Obviously, its not always this straightforward. Certain players will use more time than others, certain players will only agree with other players and so forth. Also, different genres will work differently. Combat-oriented games with little planning will not work the same way and adding players will not break it in the same manner.

Still, understanding this principle and how it will change the picture, should be taken into account when planning games or designing adventures, although I do doubt anyone in the world does so.

Design Gone Too Far

Recently (a few weeks back) I played Eclipse and Terre Mystica. Both respected games. In fact, both are top 10 games on BGG. Both are also pretty new.

I have a problem with these games, but I should be clear that these thoughts stem from a limited amount of gameplay. There is a chance things get better with time, but right now, these two seem to be missing the point somewhat.

Lets start with Terra Mystica. We played it twice. First I played the hobbits and then the giants. In both case, even though I didn’t have any game experience, once I sort of understood the rules, I knew exactly what I should do. The game isn’t long in the sense of turns, but I shouldn’t be able to do this. There just should be more variance or more choices. Right now, the game doesn’t offer much of a challenge, if most of my turns are just playing out a plan I formed before the game even really started and not having to evolve the plan at any point.

Eclipse, on the other hand, felt like it was all about seizing the opportunities. I couldn’t plan anything. Each round was just testing the waters. It felt a bit like push-your-luck game but with way too many pieces. I won the game, but I didn’t feel like I earned the win in any way. It just happened, because I had better luck with exploration and my neighbor couldn’t get the technology he needed to make a surprise attack. That’s it. Just blind luck with only very shallow decision making.

This was the simpler version where everyone plays humans. There’s a more complex version with alien races. The problem with that is that since the alien races have specialties, they are even more dependent on luck. Whereas humans can get pretty good benefits from all planets, these aliens need a very specific set of circumstances to thrive. Since they can’t really build those circumstances without the key components, they are much more subject to the underside of variance.

Perhaps this isn’t even new. Maybe the older games managed to hide it better, but do I do like to feel I have some sort of control, like I have to think on my feet. Many games give me this feeling. At least if my decisionmaking isn’t that important, let the game end quickly. If I have poor draw in MtG, at least I don’t have to wait for two hours to see the game to its end.

Partly this is due to the lack of interaction. Terra Mystica often favors trying to stay out of other players business, because others will benefit from you building next to them. In Eclipse, you can fight other players, but that’s unproductive, slow and expensive, and therefore a poor tactic which should only be resorted to when no other options exist.

Apparently the designers have taken certains lessons from earlier games to heart, but have just gone too far. You need both some control and some variance to be a good game.

(Note: Before actually playing Eclipse, I was proud Finns could produce such a well-received game. I kept thinking whether I should actually write this, but then again, it would be disingenuous to talk only about the Danish(?) game which only highlights part of the problem.)