Sorry for the absence of late - rehearsal for Avenue Q is in full swing, just about every night, and it’s taking up much of my time that isn’t drawing Never Never.
Today, I want to continue the conversation about fun in board games, and how it is such a wibbly wobbly kind of thing. I’m going to generalize the fun board games present into two separate categories:
1. Fun Had With Others - This is the fun that specifically comes from interaction with and the different personalities of the players that you’re playing with.
2. Fun Had With The Game - This kind of fun is specifically gained from interacting with the rules and systems of the game.
Naturally, these two types of fun can intersect and are far from being mutually exclusive, but it’s interesting - and necessary - to break them apart so we can really analyze how they’re created through the framework of the game itself.
It may seem kind of obvious to say that lighter games focus on Fun Type 1, and Euro games focus on Fun Type 2, but it’s more complicated than that. What makes party games so good at creating fun between players is, usually, a very solid but simple set of rules. Let’s take a look at one of my favorite light games, Love Letter. (Just as a quick aside, for my purposes light-medium-heavy are determined by the ease of which the game is taught to others - the thickness of the rulebook, really.)
Love letter, for those of you who don’t know already, is a game for 2-4 players, that is played with a deck of 16 cards each with a number and an ability. The game is as easy as Pick a Card, Play a Card, and try to be the last one in play by deducing who everyone else is, or having the highest card in the end. This game is incredibly simple, and is a game I can play with my mother, who doesn’t really play board games.
What makes Love Letter beautiful is the nature of deduction - that is, being able to read your fellow players. That said, some of the best moments of Love Letter are when a player plays a Guard and guesses what another player has on the first turn. It’s hilarious, and that moment is created more by the interaction between players than the rules themselves. There’s no deduction involved. But it’s the freedom that the simple deduction allows for that really creates that fun. It’s just as funny when you use a Baron and the opponent you chose has the same card you do, giving tells to everyone in the game as to what you both have. It is the chaos that makes it interesting.
This chaos is something that is almost never found in a Euro game - games that rely, usually, on pure strategy and the building of an engine rather than luck and player interaction. That’s not to say that no Euro’s use it, or that it’s impossible to do so, it’s just a bit harder. The games that do tend to be medium games, and also tend to annoy the pure strategists out there, but often these medium games can be some of the best for many gamers, creating an element of zaniness or even just a little bit of random luck to a game that could get too stifled by rules.
Two great examples of this, to very different extremes, are Settlers of Catan and Mission: Red Planet. In Catan, Klaus Teuber gave us the Robber, what is probably the most loved/hated game token in board game history. While you are the robber, you can steal resources - and stop them from being produced - which is great. But when it happens to you, and someone takes that brick you’ve just traded 4 wheat to get, it sucks big hairy tarantulas. The Robber being the main agent of chaos in Catan, it is also the main source of player interaction. Sure, you can block people off and trade resources, but otherwise, the game feels more like tandem solitaire than a true competitive race. If you lose, it’s on the dice and your strategy more than the other players. Certainly, Teuber created the Robber to be just powerful enough to influence the short game, but not quite powerful enough to truly be a king-maker. Too much chaos in this kind of game can turn players away.
Or perhaps not, if it is embraced properly. Bruno Faidutti, the designer of Mission: Red Planet (which is getting a reprint, finally!!), made chaos a part of the game, so that working around it and playing the players at the table is just as important as playing the game. In M:RP, players pick from a hand of character cards that each have a different ability, and aim to get as many astronauts to Mars as possible, in a game that combines hidden roles and area control. The chaos in this game stems from the players themselves, and their choices of character. Some characters allow for very mean and awful things, like destroying other peoples’ astronauts or the spaceships they’re on. Giving control of the chaos to the players creates a game that allows for very interesting interactions - alliances, deals, promises that are broken, etc. These interactions set the tone for the game, and work to keep the game itself feeling fun, instead of mean. If the chaos came from the game, it would certainly feel like the players were being punished, instead of being allowed to have that “Got You!” moment with their friends.
Moments like this, where Fun Type 1 is put into a game where it isn’t necessarily expected, are some of the more interesting, rules-wise, and in playstyle. I do wonder if someday someone could create a heavy Euro game with the right kind of chaos to keep the player interaction high. Perhaps a thought for another day. Next time we’ll discuss Fun Type 2 and then get into designing for different players. Have a good week!
