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The disconnect between "Scrabble the word game" and "Scrabble the area game with a semi-arbitrary set of rules for tile placement that is somewhat related to wo

The disconnect between "Scrabble the word game" and "Scrabble the area game with a semi-arbitrary set of rules for tile placement that is somewhat related to words" has been discussed here before. But honestly, it isn't that exceptional a disconnect. Most board games have a "theme" that increases our enjoyment. But many of them are actually math games that could be played without thinking about the theme at all. Chess is like that. Our knowledge of horses and bishops won't help us play chess. Same with Acquire. Hotel chains don't behave anything like contiguous tiles on a grid. I'm about to order a copy of "Thunderbirds." The review I read said that it's quite enjoyable, but if you aren't a fan of the show, the theme actually gets in the way of enjoying the underlying game. I feel like it may be more obvious when a Scrabble player wins a world championship despite not speaking the language, but the disconnect between a game as an abstract contest and a game's theme is very common.

oarabbus_ 7y ago
Is the point that any (board) game can be boiled down to the mathematical backbone? Seems quite trivial.
- lbotos 7y ago
  I think the GP was more getting at "you can like the fluff" or you can "like the game". My ex could never understand why I would play wacky strategies when we'd play board games. It's because I wasn't "playing the game" I was trying to "break the game" by better understanding the meta. At high levels of strategy, you aren't even "playing the game" anymore.
- braythwayt 7y ago
  All board games have something math-y underneath them. There is a thing called Game Theory, after all. But for some board games, the theme around the game aids our intuition about how to play the game. In others, it serves only as window-dressing. Take, for example, Settlers of Catan. We could change the theme somewhat, but fundamentally a theme around resources helps players figure out what to do with the cards. Saying that "ore helps you build buildings" also helps new players understand and recall the rules. It might be the exact same game if we got rid of the metaphor and just said it's a game where you can exchange three grey cards, two yellow cards, and an S token, for a C token, but that would make the game much harder to learn and play. At high levels of play perhaps you might spend all your time thinking about card draw percentages and see the board as an abstract graph, but the theme won't get in your way. I'd say similar things about Agricola. Or the 18xx series of games. Those themes really help most players learn and play the games. Other games, not so much. Ticket to Ride would likely be just as easy to learn and play if it was an abstract game of network connections. Go and Chess are clearly long past their original themes. And so forth. So getting back to your question, I'm trying to say something beyond "All games have an abstract game underneath the theme." I'm trying to say that "A large disconnect between a game's theme and its underlying abstract game is not rare." I don't claim it's universal, but I suggest it's not so rare that Scrabble stands alone as an oddity. JM2C.

oarabbus_ 7y ago

Is the point that any (board) game can be boiled down to the mathematical backbone? Seems quite trivial.

lbotos 7y ago
I think the GP was more getting at "you can like the fluff" or you can "like the game". My ex could never understand why I would play wacky strategies when we'd play board games. It's because I wasn't "playing the game" I was trying to "break the game" by better understanding the meta. At high levels of strategy, you aren't even "playing the game" anymore.
braythwayt 7y ago
All board games have something math-y underneath them. There is a thing called Game Theory, after all. But for some board games, the theme around the game aids our intuition about how to play the game. In others, it serves only as window-dressing. Take, for example, Settlers of Catan. We could change the theme somewhat, but fundamentally a theme around resources helps players figure out what to do with the cards. Saying that "ore helps you build buildings" also helps new players understand and recall the rules. It might be the exact same game if we got rid of the metaphor and just said it's a game where you can exchange three grey cards, two yellow cards, and an S token, for a C token, but that would make the game much harder to learn and play. At high levels of play perhaps you might spend all your time thinking about card draw percentages and see the board as an abstract graph, but the theme won't get in your way. I'd say similar things about Agricola. Or the 18xx series of games. Those themes really help most players learn and play the games. Other games, not so much. Ticket to Ride would likely be just as easy to learn and play if it was an abstract game of network connections. Go and Chess are clearly long past their original themes. And so forth. So getting back to your question, I'm trying to say something beyond "All games have an abstract game underneath the theme." I'm trying to say that "A large disconnect between a game's theme and its underlying abstract game is not rare." I don't claim it's universal, but I suggest it's not so rare that Scrabble stands alone as an oddity. JM2C.