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It's an interesting exercise to try to design board games that have economy-like systems. You'll notice that it's very easy for rich-get-richer effects to emerg

by jpfed 8y ago

It's an interesting exercise to try to design board games that have economy-like systems. You'll notice that it's very easy for rich-get-richer effects to emerge. Now, rich-get-richer effects can be desirable in a board game in which the starting conditions are perfectly symmetric and luck plays no role, because the more skilled player is going to the one to acquire that snowballing advantage. But in asymmetric games, or games in which luck creates asymmetry, rich-get-richer effects obscure the relative skill of the players.

Xylakant 8y ago
I don’t think that rich-get-richer effects are desirable in any game (1) since that makes the game degrade into a lopsided endgame where the poor have no shot at winning the game, leading to frustration. A game should always allow a shot at winning to stay interesting. (1) unless it’s an educational game aimed at demonstrating the effect.
- PaulRobinson 8y ago
  Monopoly is perhaps one of the most widely played and popular board games in the World. It was intended to have a rich-get-richer side effect. The original intent was to demonstrate this phenomenon.[1] It's almost impossible to design a game with an economy where this does not happen, unless you mimic real-World societies where they have avoided it (e.g. Scandinavian countries). This is not a popular point to make to most Americans, but that does not make it any less true. [1] http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170728-monopoly-was-invented-to-demonstrate-the-evils-of-capitalism http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170728-monopoly-was-inven...
  - EliRivers 8y ago
    Monopoly is perhaps one of the most widely played and popular board games in the World Which is itself, perhaps, an example of this effect at work. Monopoly is boring to play and contains very little engaging gameplay [1]; a winner quickly emerges and the game then becomes a long grind in which everyone just wants it to be over. There are so many board games that are simply better and more fun in every way, yet time after time someone pulls out a Monopoly set for no good reason other than it has some kind of unfair, unjustified mindshare advantage. [1] If one plays by the actual rules, it's thankfully over a lot faster, but everyone seems to play by rules that force it into a long, painful endgame.
- chongli 8y ago
  A game should always allow a shot at winning to stay interesting. While that sounds good in principle, it doesn't always work so well in practice. I have played board games that were designed that way and I began to realize that my choices early on did not matter very much. This had the effect of making the whole game feel pointless until the last turn where somebody would quickly grab the win.
  - danharaj 8y ago
    What is best in game design is the ability to end the game quickly once a decisive advantage has been gained, but with various chances to screw up and lose the advantage.
  - AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
    Many games handle it poorly. The idea is to disincentivize poor planning and poor decisions such that winning becomes more difficult, but never so much that it becomes impossible. No matter what the situation is, a player should ideally be able to see a path to victory, or at least a spiteful form of failure, it just might involve rather significant gambles. The player on top should also ideally feel that their position is constantly one poor decision and some really bad luck away from being taken from them. Hidden information is frequently employed to this end, allowing players to imagine that their opponents are in a better or worse situation than they actually are, as well as providing the opportunity to intentionally deceive others about one's position.
- openfuture 8y ago
  Chess is “rich get richer” but you can still win in the end. These two dynamics (endgame vs snowballing) are not necessarily coupled that tightly (unless in the hands of skilled player which is the whole premise).
- bambax 8y ago
  Yes, that's the problem with Monopoly for example, once you start winning you can't lose (losing / can't win).
  - kartan 8y ago
    > Yes, that's the problem with Monopoly It is the problem of it "as a game", but it was the original goal design. It is a lesson on how capital can accumulate and leave people without options. Monopoly is derived from The Landlord's Game, which was created by Elizabeth Magie in the United States in 1903 as a way to demonstrate that an economy which rewards wealth creation is better than one in which monopolists work under few constraints[1] and to promote the economic theories of Henry George and in particular his ideas about taxation. (From Wikipedia)

by jpfed 8y ago

Xylakant 8y ago

I don’t think that rich-get-richer effects are desirable in any game (1) since that makes the game degrade into a lopsided endgame where the poor have no shot at winning the game, leading to frustration. A game should always allow a shot at winning to stay interesting. (1) unless it’s an educational game aimed at demonstrating the effect.

PaulRobinson 8y ago
Monopoly is perhaps one of the most widely played and popular board games in the World. It was intended to have a rich-get-richer side effect. The original intent was to demonstrate this phenomenon.[1] It's almost impossible to design a game with an economy where this does not happen, unless you mimic real-World societies where they have avoided it (e.g. Scandinavian countries). This is not a popular point to make to most Americans, but that does not make it any less true. [1] http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170728-monopoly-was-invented-to-demonstrate-the-evils-of-capitalism http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170728-monopoly-was-inven...
- EliRivers 8y ago
  Monopoly is perhaps one of the most widely played and popular board games in the World Which is itself, perhaps, an example of this effect at work. Monopoly is boring to play and contains very little engaging gameplay [1]; a winner quickly emerges and the game then becomes a long grind in which everyone just wants it to be over. There are so many board games that are simply better and more fun in every way, yet time after time someone pulls out a Monopoly set for no good reason other than it has some kind of unfair, unjustified mindshare advantage. [1] If one plays by the actual rules, it's thankfully over a lot faster, but everyone seems to play by rules that force it into a long, painful endgame.
chongli 8y ago
A game should always allow a shot at winning to stay interesting. While that sounds good in principle, it doesn't always work so well in practice. I have played board games that were designed that way and I began to realize that my choices early on did not matter very much. This had the effect of making the whole game feel pointless until the last turn where somebody would quickly grab the win.
- danharaj 8y ago
  What is best in game design is the ability to end the game quickly once a decisive advantage has been gained, but with various chances to screw up and lose the advantage.
- AnIdiotOnTheNet 8y ago
  Many games handle it poorly. The idea is to disincentivize poor planning and poor decisions such that winning becomes more difficult, but never so much that it becomes impossible. No matter what the situation is, a player should ideally be able to see a path to victory, or at least a spiteful form of failure, it just might involve rather significant gambles. The player on top should also ideally feel that their position is constantly one poor decision and some really bad luck away from being taken from them. Hidden information is frequently employed to this end, allowing players to imagine that their opponents are in a better or worse situation than they actually are, as well as providing the opportunity to intentionally deceive others about one's position.
openfuture 8y ago
Chess is “rich get richer” but you can still win in the end. These two dynamics (endgame vs snowballing) are not necessarily coupled that tightly (unless in the hands of skilled player which is the whole premise).
bambax 8y ago
Yes, that's the problem with Monopoly for example, once you start winning you can't lose (losing / can't win).
- kartan 8y ago
  > Yes, that's the problem with Monopoly It is the problem of it "as a game", but it was the original goal design. It is a lesson on how capital can accumulate and leave people without options. Monopoly is derived from The Landlord's Game, which was created by Elizabeth Magie in the United States in 1903 as a way to demonstrate that an economy which rewards wealth creation is better than one in which monopolists work under few constraints[1] and to promote the economic theories of Henry George and in particular his ideas about taxation. (From Wikipedia)