6 ms·

This appears to be unintentional, but it does remind me a bit of the somewhat recent trend of "Legacy" board games, where you make permanent changes to core pie

This appears to be unintentional, but it does remind me a bit of the somewhat recent trend of "Legacy" board games, where you make permanent changes to core pieces, like putting stickers on the game board or tearing up cards. That's interesting to me, because "replayability" has always been one of the core considerations in game design, but with a Legacy product, locked-in choices and permanent consequences are one of the selling points.

ethbr0 5y ago
That's something that came out of MMOs, by my read. Impermanence is a tonic to cure obsession.
jimktrains2 5y ago
Can you give an example of what you mean?
- thomascgalvin 5y ago
  Pandemic Legacy is probably the best known, and I think there's a version of Gloomhaven that is massive, but also single-play.
  - dgritsko 5y ago
    Risk Legacy is another fun one, although it also suffers from the same "permanent changes" issue (feature?) described above.
    - matthiaswh 5y ago
      You say "suffers from" as if it is not the core intended feature of the game. It's the same way ice cream suffers from being delicious, or baseballs suffer from being hard.
- iams 5y ago
  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0dDTbA1fq8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0dDTbA1fq8 https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/161936/pandemic-legacy-season-1 https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/161936/pandemic-legacy-s... https://www.amazon.com/Pandemic-Cooperative-Playtime-Z-Man-Games/dp/B00TQ5SEAI/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3D8NFG1QHFPE4&keywords=pandemic+legacy&qid=1638543034&sprefix=pandemic+lega%2Caps%2C230&sr=8-2 https://www.amazon.com/Pandemic-Cooperative-Playtime-Z-Man-G...
- 0x138d5 5y ago
  Here's the wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_game https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_game
Kinrany 5y ago
Interestingly enough, it might actually be good for replayability because the guaranteed absence of a card can change the optimal strategy in otherwise exactly the same situation. You could also design the game so that the destroyed cards are intended to be replaced with new editions.
- Kinrany 5y ago
  Of course instead of destroying the cards you can always rotate them back into the replacement deck.
fho 5y ago
Its a compromise between replayability and the feeling of achievement that you get from a long running campaign game. I feel like those are on opposing ends of a spectrum: one the one end you have games like chess, go or even Magic the Gathering that are infinitely replayable but have little to no story. On the other end you have story driven games (Gloomhaven or even Descent) that can be played only once because the second time through does not offer too much new content. Somewhat tangential to that are roleplaying and wargame campaigns where new "content" is introduced constantly by the GM or, even better, as a consequence of player interactions. I feel like there is still some niche for some kind of game that randomly/procedurally generates new content (maps, stats, scenarios) each week that players then print out and use for a session. [/rambling ... it's time for the weekend]
dr_orpheus 5y ago
Although as you point out the "replayability" is not the main selling point of the Legacy games, but with many of them you can still replay it like a "normal" board game once you reach the end of the campaign. And you end up with a game that is uniquely yours. I know in Risk Legacy this is possible. There is a really cool Legacy-type game as well (I'm struggling to remember the name, Arcana I think?) where in the Legacy version you basically go through a campaign and develop a character that you can then use as another character to play as in the base game.
usefulcat 5y ago
It gives customers a possible incentive to buy multiple copies of the game.
- thomascgalvin 5y ago
  I thought that was the ploy the first time I heard about legacy games, too. But these things cost more than a hundred bucks, and typically offer 40+ hours of play. I don't think they're expecting many repeat buyers.
losvedir 5y ago
I played a legacy game with a group of friends and loved it. We got together every week at the same time for about 15 weeks (I forget exactly). Each week, the core mechanics were similar, but the board changed and there were new goals and such. You put "replayability" in contrast to "legacy" but honestly we played that game more times (15) than a lot of traditional board games.
- savanaly 5y ago
  >You put "replayability" in contrast to "legacy" but honestly we played that game more times (15) than a lot of traditional board games. You hit the nail on the head. The unfortunate truth is the vast majority of board games get played <5 times, often no more than once or even zero times! There's a long tail of games that get played way more than 5 times but the median has got to be down there. So the legacy games are less radical than they appear. If they're replacing one of those games in the very large bucket of quickly dropped games then they have no downside in terms of loss of replayability. And as you said, they incentivize replayability for my groups at least by essentially forcing someone to say "ok, when are we gonna play again?" because a lot of their value prop comes from the continuity.
darkwizard42 5y ago
One thing that gives me comfort when looking at “Legacy” games is they are upfront about the lack of replayability. I don’t feel deceived going into it. With Lego, my expectation is to be able to take things apart, build Model B or create something new. This breaks the design principle and doesn’t do a good job of advertising it’s going to do so.
smilekzs 5y ago
I would even go one step further and suggest the title be editorialized with the word "unintentionally" added.
afterburner 5y ago
These days it's common for people into board games to only play a game 4 or 5 times, maybe even less, and move on to the new shiny. It's part of the reason there's so many new board games these days (chicken and the egg effect between buyers and publishers). In that environment, it's probably a lot more acceptable to sell a game that a group will "only" play 15-20 times until the campaign is completed.
evilotto 5y ago
There are some other games, like escape rooms in a box, where some of the puzzles encourage you to cut up the rulebook or things like that. On the one hand it hurts replayablity, but those sorts of games have next to no replayability to begin with. Once you solve the puzzle, there's not much left. On one level it bothers me because you should be able to replay stuff, but at the same time it's the experience rather than the game board and there's a lot of ways to spend more than 10 bucks on an hour's entertainment.

ethbr0 5y ago

That's something that came out of MMOs, by my read. Impermanence is a tonic to cure obsession.

jimktrains2 5y ago

Can you give an example of what you mean?

thomascgalvin 5y ago
Pandemic Legacy is probably the best known, and I think there's a version of Gloomhaven that is massive, but also single-play.
- dgritsko 5y ago
  Risk Legacy is another fun one, although it also suffers from the same "permanent changes" issue (feature?) described above.
  - matthiaswh 5y ago
    You say "suffers from" as if it is not the core intended feature of the game. It's the same way ice cream suffers from being delicious, or baseballs suffer from being hard.
iams 5y ago
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0dDTbA1fq8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J0dDTbA1fq8 https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/161936/pandemic-legacy-season-1 https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/161936/pandemic-legacy-s... https://www.amazon.com/Pandemic-Cooperative-Playtime-Z-Man-Games/dp/B00TQ5SEAI/ref=sr_1_2?crid=3D8NFG1QHFPE4&keywords=pandemic+legacy&qid=1638543034&sprefix=pandemic+lega%2Caps%2C230&sr=8-2 https://www.amazon.com/Pandemic-Cooperative-Playtime-Z-Man-G...
0x138d5 5y ago
Here's the wiki: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_game https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legacy_game

Kinrany 5y ago

Interestingly enough, it might actually be good for replayability because the guaranteed absence of a card can change the optimal strategy in otherwise exactly the same situation. You could also design the game so that the destroyed cards are intended to be replaced with new editions.

Kinrany 5y ago
Of course instead of destroying the cards you can always rotate them back into the replacement deck.

fho 5y ago

Its a compromise between replayability and the feeling of achievement that you get from a long running campaign game. I feel like those are on opposing ends of a spectrum: one the one end you have games like chess, go or even Magic the Gathering that are infinitely replayable but have little to no story. On the other end you have story driven games (Gloomhaven or even Descent) that can be played only once because the second time through does not offer too much new content. Somewhat tangential to that are roleplaying and wargame campaigns where new "content" is introduced constantly by the GM or, even better, as a consequence of player interactions. I feel like there is still some niche for some kind of game that randomly/procedurally generates new content (maps, stats, scenarios) each week that players then print out and use for a session. [/rambling ... it's time for the weekend]

dr_orpheus 5y ago

Although as you point out the "replayability" is not the main selling point of the Legacy games, but with many of them you can still replay it like a "normal" board game once you reach the end of the campaign. And you end up with a game that is uniquely yours. I know in Risk Legacy this is possible. There is a really cool Legacy-type game as well (I'm struggling to remember the name, Arcana I think?) where in the Legacy version you basically go through a campaign and develop a character that you can then use as another character to play as in the base game.

usefulcat 5y ago

It gives customers a possible incentive to buy multiple copies of the game.

thomascgalvin 5y ago
I thought that was the ploy the first time I heard about legacy games, too. But these things cost more than a hundred bucks, and typically offer 40+ hours of play. I don't think they're expecting many repeat buyers.

losvedir 5y ago

I played a legacy game with a group of friends and loved it. We got together every week at the same time for about 15 weeks (I forget exactly). Each week, the core mechanics were similar, but the board changed and there were new goals and such. You put "replayability" in contrast to "legacy" but honestly we played that game more times (15) than a lot of traditional board games.

savanaly 5y ago
>You put "replayability" in contrast to "legacy" but honestly we played that game more times (15) than a lot of traditional board games. You hit the nail on the head. The unfortunate truth is the vast majority of board games get played <5 times, often no more than once or even zero times! There's a long tail of games that get played way more than 5 times but the median has got to be down there. So the legacy games are less radical than they appear. If they're replacing one of those games in the very large bucket of quickly dropped games then they have no downside in terms of loss of replayability. And as you said, they incentivize replayability for my groups at least by essentially forcing someone to say "ok, when are we gonna play again?" because a lot of their value prop comes from the continuity.

darkwizard42 5y ago

One thing that gives me comfort when looking at “Legacy” games is they are upfront about the lack of replayability. I don’t feel deceived going into it. With Lego, my expectation is to be able to take things apart, build Model B or create something new. This breaks the design principle and doesn’t do a good job of advertising it’s going to do so.

smilekzs 5y ago

I would even go one step further and suggest the title be editorialized with the word "unintentionally" added.

afterburner 5y ago

These days it's common for people into board games to only play a game 4 or 5 times, maybe even less, and move on to the new shiny. It's part of the reason there's so many new board games these days (chicken and the egg effect between buyers and publishers). In that environment, it's probably a lot more acceptable to sell a game that a group will "only" play 15-20 times until the campaign is completed.

evilotto 5y ago

There are some other games, like escape rooms in a box, where some of the puzzles encourage you to cut up the rulebook or things like that. On the one hand it hurts replayablity, but those sorts of games have next to no replayability to begin with. Once you solve the puzzle, there's not much left. On one level it bothers me because you should be able to replay stuff, but at the same time it's the experience rather than the game board and there's a lot of ways to spend more than 10 bucks on an hour's entertainment.