8 ms·

Looks complicated.

by zeroer 10y ago

Looks complicated.

markild 10y ago
I find that, disappointingly, it often takes a complicated game mechanism for the game to keep being interesting over multiple play througs. There are several games that are not too complicated, that also has a charm, but necessarily, more complicated mechanism makes for more variable play.
- dvh 10y ago
  GO
  - out_of_protocol 10y ago
    [badjoke mode on] Indeed golang rules quote simple yet powerful
- oblio 10y ago
  This is not always true. Chess and go don't have complicated game mechanics and they still have high replayability. For more modern games, Smallworld (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/40692/small-world https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/40692/small-world) is a great example for high replayability and relatively simple game mechanics.
  - marxama 10y ago
    I love Smallworld, and yeah, I never get tired of it. Another one whose rules are pretty straightforward is Power Grid, been playing it for years and it hasn't gotten old yet (except for the sometimes pretty sudden and ruthless endgame).
  - shoo 10y ago
    Do you find the replayability of smallworld is largely due to the randomisation of which (race, attribute) pairs are available per game? Arguably Dominion has good replayability for similar reasons: you only play with a subset of the cards every game, and a lot of the strategy revolves around exploiting interactions between different cards. On the other hand Dominion is one of those games where there is very limited interaction between players, which perhaps doesn't make for great replayability.
    - oblio 10y ago
      Randomization definitely helps. I also play Hearthstone, the Blizzard card game, and that's a pretty awful example, sometimes, of bad randomization with all those effect that can range from harmful to do nothing to win the game on the spot. The randomization in Smallworld is good because you always have a certain amount of control over it and you can plan for it/around it. On top of that the power swings are not really extreme (some race - attribute combos are stronger than others but the overall power range is reasonably small).
    - Marazan 10y ago
      The interaction between players in Dominion is botg subtle and powerful at the high level. It is all about pacing an the impression of pace. In some regards it is like Cycling sprint discipline. Watching top level Dominion games can be like watchig a different game. It has crazy, crazy depth and replayability.
  - VLM 10y ago
    The rulebook for chess and go is zillions of published books on pattern matching and book openings and book responses. To play at a high level you have to memorize and perfectly apply uncountable zillions of rules and patterns or you'll just be destroyed by someone who's memorized more rules. If you don't know all the chess book openings and you play against someone who does know them, you may as well just save everyone some time and immediately resign. Much like MtG, how much time and money are you willing to spend to win? This turned me off from the whole genre of "memorize and pattern match" games, I just don't find that to be recreational. The pinnacle of large rulesets is RPG games, anyway. With the possible exception of some 80s classics like squad leader and starfleet battles there are no rulebooks that compare in size to the foot or so linear shelf space of a full set of Pathfinder rulebooks.
    - ghaff 10y ago
      Strategy/tactics != rules. The rules for chess and go are simple. The gameplaying that stems from those simple rules is obviously quite complex--and, as you say, it has been deeply studied so anyone wanting to play even somewhat competently needs to have a passing understanding of quite a bit. But the rules themselves (especially with go) are quite straightforward compared to most modern adult boardgames.
    - kqr 10y ago
      So what is it you're really asking for? A game where even a beginner can beat a long-time fan, yet one that is interesting? I think those goals are conflicting unless we're talking pure gambling.
      - MichaelGG 10y ago
        A game that was basically an IQ test might work as well. Like having to solve those abstract pattern matching or 3D-to-2D geometry questions. Maybe. I'd guess there's some slight advantage to having answered many of such questions, but I doubt it is nearly as big a difference as, say, studying Chess or Go.
  - lmm 10y ago
    Two-player games are much easier to balance and naturally develop interesting counterplay mechanics. I found Smallworld unfun.
- dogma1138 10y ago
  I actually find that the opposite works for most cases. The best board games are the ones that are either a take on "common social games" or have a fairly simple ruleset. The problem with complex rulesets is that they tend to make rounds very long which when you combine it with 4-6 players makes games drag for considerably longer than they need to be. The worse games are the ones that try to mitigate that with multiple victory paths often partially RNG based or silly "sudden death" rounds after an arbitrary round count to force games to last no longer than 60-90min. Sure you can point to games or systems like D20 but even then the core ruleset is fairly simple and uniform and the rest is just ad hoc that can be used rarely or not at all. The one thing you need for a good board game is to have decent strategic depth with mechanics that induce interesting social dynamics, a lot of games try to implement the former by making it complicated by design and forget the latter.
- seanhunter 10y ago
  Go/baduk would be the most obvious counter-example here. It has something like 9 rules in total (depending on how you count them) and has been replayed for more than 5000 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_go#Concise_statement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_go#Concise_statement
sametmax 10y ago
It targets a very specific kind a board players. The one with dozen of boxes on their shelves, with titles you never heard of. I got a friend like that, every time he invites me for a game afternoon it's always a ton of fun... after the boring 2 hours spent for the new comers to adjust to the rules. So yeah, not for everybody, but I look forward to play it. I may offer it actually.
- k__ 10y ago
  My friend is like that too, he also does it's own games... with complicated rules too haha I prefer the most bang for the rules, they should be as simple as possible to let the game still be interesting
  - kqr 10y ago
    Have you played go? That's about as simple as it gets and still incredibly deep, strategic, tactical and interesting.
cyberferret 10y ago
I'm a board game lover from way back - and I agree, this looks really complicated, and I never got that "I've got to play it" feeling from looking at the pics and the write up. After all these years, I still drag out my ancient boxes of "Shogun" and "Axis & Allies" if I want to occupy 4 to 7 hours with my friends... Those games have the right level of strategy, fun, diplomacy, and ease of play as any game I've tried.
- irrational 10y ago
  One of the main reason I like scythe is it can be played in less than 1.5 hours. I've played axis and allies in the past, but I don't really enjoy games that take that long to play.

Looks complicated.

by zeroer 10y ago

Looks complicated.

I find that, disappointingly, it often takes a complicated game mechanism for the game to keep being interesting over multiple play througs. There are several games that are not too complicated, that also has a charm, but necessarily, more complicated mechanism makes for more variable play.

dvh 10y ago
GO
- out_of_protocol 10y ago
  [badjoke mode on] Indeed golang rules quote simple yet powerful
oblio 10y ago
This is not always true. Chess and go don't have complicated game mechanics and they still have high replayability. For more modern games, Smallworld (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/40692/small-world https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/40692/small-world) is a great example for high replayability and relatively simple game mechanics.
- marxama 10y ago
  I love Smallworld, and yeah, I never get tired of it. Another one whose rules are pretty straightforward is Power Grid, been playing it for years and it hasn't gotten old yet (except for the sometimes pretty sudden and ruthless endgame).
- shoo 10y ago
  Do you find the replayability of smallworld is largely due to the randomisation of which (race, attribute) pairs are available per game? Arguably Dominion has good replayability for similar reasons: you only play with a subset of the cards every game, and a lot of the strategy revolves around exploiting interactions between different cards. On the other hand Dominion is one of those games where there is very limited interaction between players, which perhaps doesn't make for great replayability.
  - oblio 10y ago
    Randomization definitely helps. I also play Hearthstone, the Blizzard card game, and that's a pretty awful example, sometimes, of bad randomization with all those effect that can range from harmful to do nothing to win the game on the spot. The randomization in Smallworld is good because you always have a certain amount of control over it and you can plan for it/around it. On top of that the power swings are not really extreme (some race - attribute combos are stronger than others but the overall power range is reasonably small).
  - Marazan 10y ago
    The interaction between players in Dominion is botg subtle and powerful at the high level. It is all about pacing an the impression of pace. In some regards it is like Cycling sprint discipline. Watching top level Dominion games can be like watchig a different game. It has crazy, crazy depth and replayability.
- VLM 10y ago
  The rulebook for chess and go is zillions of published books on pattern matching and book openings and book responses. To play at a high level you have to memorize and perfectly apply uncountable zillions of rules and patterns or you'll just be destroyed by someone who's memorized more rules. If you don't know all the chess book openings and you play against someone who does know them, you may as well just save everyone some time and immediately resign. Much like MtG, how much time and money are you willing to spend to win? This turned me off from the whole genre of "memorize and pattern match" games, I just don't find that to be recreational. The pinnacle of large rulesets is RPG games, anyway. With the possible exception of some 80s classics like squad leader and starfleet battles there are no rulebooks that compare in size to the foot or so linear shelf space of a full set of Pathfinder rulebooks.
  - ghaff 10y ago
    Strategy/tactics != rules. The rules for chess and go are simple. The gameplaying that stems from those simple rules is obviously quite complex--and, as you say, it has been deeply studied so anyone wanting to play even somewhat competently needs to have a passing understanding of quite a bit. But the rules themselves (especially with go) are quite straightforward compared to most modern adult boardgames.
  - kqr 10y ago
    So what is it you're really asking for? A game where even a beginner can beat a long-time fan, yet one that is interesting? I think those goals are conflicting unless we're talking pure gambling.
    - MichaelGG 10y ago
      A game that was basically an IQ test might work as well. Like having to solve those abstract pattern matching or 3D-to-2D geometry questions. Maybe. I'd guess there's some slight advantage to having answered many of such questions, but I doubt it is nearly as big a difference as, say, studying Chess or Go.
- lmm 10y ago
  Two-player games are much easier to balance and naturally develop interesting counterplay mechanics. I found Smallworld unfun.
dogma1138 10y ago
I actually find that the opposite works for most cases. The best board games are the ones that are either a take on "common social games" or have a fairly simple ruleset. The problem with complex rulesets is that they tend to make rounds very long which when you combine it with 4-6 players makes games drag for considerably longer than they need to be. The worse games are the ones that try to mitigate that with multiple victory paths often partially RNG based or silly "sudden death" rounds after an arbitrary round count to force games to last no longer than 60-90min. Sure you can point to games or systems like D20 but even then the core ruleset is fairly simple and uniform and the rest is just ad hoc that can be used rarely or not at all. The one thing you need for a good board game is to have decent strategic depth with mechanics that induce interesting social dynamics, a lot of games try to implement the former by making it complicated by design and forget the latter.
seanhunter 10y ago
Go/baduk would be the most obvious counter-example here. It has something like 9 rules in total (depending on how you count them) and has been replayed for more than 5000 years. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_go#Concise_statement https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rules_of_go#Concise_statement

sametmax 10y ago

It targets a very specific kind a board players. The one with dozen of boxes on their shelves, with titles you never heard of. I got a friend like that, every time he invites me for a game afternoon it's always a ton of fun... after the boring 2 hours spent for the new comers to adjust to the rules. So yeah, not for everybody, but I look forward to play it. I may offer it actually.

k__ 10y ago
My friend is like that too, he also does it's own games... with complicated rules too haha I prefer the most bang for the rules, they should be as simple as possible to let the game still be interesting
- kqr 10y ago
  Have you played go? That's about as simple as it gets and still incredibly deep, strategic, tactical and interesting.

cyberferret 10y ago

I'm a board game lover from way back - and I agree, this looks really complicated, and I never got that "I've got to play it" feeling from looking at the pics and the write up. After all these years, I still drag out my ancient boxes of "Shogun" and "Axis & Allies" if I want to occupy 4 to 7 hours with my friends... Those games have the right level of strategy, fun, diplomacy, and ease of play as any game I've tried.

irrational 10y ago
One of the main reason I like scythe is it can be played in less than 1.5 hours. I've played axis and allies in the past, but I don't really enjoy games that take that long to play.