6 ms·

This is like saying bigger books are better because more pages = more complexity = more interesting plot. You must be a big fan of the dictionary. I've found t

This is like saying bigger books are better because more pages = more complexity = more interesting plot. You must be a big fan of the dictionary. I've found the best board games are often the simplest ones. 2-player vanilla Splendor is one of my favourites and all it takes to play is a deck of cards and a stack of tokens. When both players have a good level, the depth of strategy of that game is crazy good. And unlike chess, it's very approachable for new players.

2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
That's a bad take. Words in a dictionary have no interactions. It's a list of words in alphabetical order and their definitions. Well crafted board game rules are about systems that interact with each other. You don't have to be rules heavy to have an interesting game, but the interactions between systems needs to be there to be interesting beyond some number of consecutive plays. A lot of lighter games will quickly feel samey if your players are half way competent. You'll simply pickup the patterns, game state and work out the value of each move quite quickly.
- scrollaway 5y ago
  Well, here's a more developed (and spicier) take then. Larger board games are very often mere laundry lists of systems that can be found in many other board games. The longer games tend to have systems that MAKE the game long, rather than cause people to develop a strategy. One example is some mechanics forcing synchronous turns, or even worse, preventing you from preparing your turn in advance. Which gets even worse as the players have to iterate over more and more items in the turn checklist every time. I have a strong but obviously opinionated dislike for these mechanics, so YMMV. Still, these longer games very often feel "same-y" to everything else because they don't truly bring original interactions between players. Playthroughs don't even always vary because as you re-play the game, a meta quickly develops and settles on a tiny portion of the offered gameplay. More systems is also more opportunities to get the balance wrong. To fuck up. Which, if you don't tweak the rules preemptively, means the meta settling on an ever smaller part of the game. Small, highly-focused games tend to develop much more interesting metas. Yes, they're not necessarily as varied in "number of things that can happen", but honestly, sometimes the gameplay elements I see in larger games are so incoherent you might as well play different games concurrently, and turn the whole thing into XKCD/2488. To be clear, my point is not that shorter/simpler games are always better. It's that "longer doesn't always mean better, and more often than not means worse". The same does apply to books. You can more reliably draw meaning from an extremely-well-crafted fable, than from a massive heptalogy. Your experience will be wildly different, and there are unique attributes for which you need length in order to achieve. But a rock solid series of books is a much rarer breed than an interesting fable. And a much larger waste of time if you don't end up drawing something from it. And indeed the same applies to everything else. Assembly-line AAA video games that stuff themselves in a checklist of content to justify their price are often far worse in depth than shorter, sweeter ones (Portal, Hades, whatever). More seasons of Dexter and Game of Thrones ruined extremely deep and interesting works, whereas Breaking Bad crafted a truly unique experience by finishing exactly where the author intended it to. And your next lunch won't be improved by emptying your spice rack on it and overwhelming your palate, but by finding the exact mixes of ingredients that will result in a great meal.
  - pessimizer 5y ago
    Don't worry, there are even a lot of heavy game players who define "heaviness" by complexity of strategy, not the word count of the rule book. I have to admit, I love a very long game, but game length doesn't require rule length. But if you're not a person who loves intricate, shallow pastiche, you're probably not a person who buys 1-3 retail games every month. Which means that the market shouldn't cater to us. I do wish that BGG still did sometimes, but I'd bet dollars to donuts that BGGs visitorship is shrinking. I've almost dead-stopped visiting of late, but 1) picking the right selection of geekbuddies can narrow BGG into something that's still useful to find good games and some good conversation about games, and 2) the geekmarket can help you find those games when they've been out of print for a long time. Here's a less commercial recommendation that gets you a warehouse full of games for almost nothing: New Tactical Games With Dice and Cards, and Dice Games Properly Explained by Reiner Knizia. Includes dozens of games with variants that thoughtfully explore the spaces of those games, and encourages you to play around with them to discover new challenges. I wish Wolfgang Kramer would start giving away his secrets like Knizia always has.
  - 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
    I didn't argue that merely having rules or more systems is a good thing. If the systems don't work together well, you get a bad game. But it's hard to argue that Splendor is as epic as a good (6 player) game of Twilight Imperium or Pendragon.
  - brimble 5y ago
    In defense of complex games: My favorite part of a game is discovering it. I'm in it for the easy "a-ha!" moments and as soon as it starts to look like a particular game is going to have to become a whole thing for me to keep getting those from it (by moving on to "competitive" levels of play, memorized strategies, et c.), I'm done with it. Complex games often throw enough variables in the mix to keep things interesting—to me, anyway—longer than simpler games. A lot of times all that's just smoke and mirrors, but it's effective smoke and mirrors. > Small, highly-focused games tend to develop much more interesting metas. Right—which is precisely what I don't want. If I need to start deliberately practicing or reading books or something to get better at a game, that's a job, and I don't want it. [EDIT] Just to be extra clear, I'm not saying this is "the right" reason to prefer a certain kind of game, and I'm very aware that lots of people want the exact opposite: a game they can play for life, taking it very seriously, and never stop improving because the depth of play is practically unlimited. That's just not why I play board/card games.
- hammock 5y ago
  >Words in a dictionary have no interactions Ahaha tell that to a writer! Perhaps others are more strategic with their use of words than you are :)
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
mmcdermott 5y ago
A board game can choose to engage in a multitude of different ways. A well-crafted simple game can offer as deep a problem space as a more complex one, but strategy is only one form of engagement. A lot of rules-heavy games like Twilight Imperium, Arkham Horror or Dune use rules to simulate a setting as much as to create a strategic problem space. If you removed rules from these games, you can make them easier to play and possibly keep the same raw depth, but you would lose the setting they were trying to build. I remember explaining to someone recently that almost every rule in the Dune board game was a reference to something in the books.
adamrezich 5y ago
more complexity in a board game means a larger possibility space which allows for (but does not necessarily 100% correlate with) increased replayability and more interesting strategy development, both things that seasoned board game players (of which I am not one, but I have friends who are) tend to highly value. the complexity of a board game is in no way comparable to the length of linear media, aside from the amount of one's own lifetime one has the possibility of investing in the work before being satisfied with no longer engaging with.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

2muchcoffeeman 5y ago

That's a bad take. Words in a dictionary have no interactions. It's a list of words in alphabetical order and their definitions. Well crafted board game rules are about systems that interact with each other. You don't have to be rules heavy to have an interesting game, but the interactions between systems needs to be there to be interesting beyond some number of consecutive plays. A lot of lighter games will quickly feel samey if your players are half way competent. You'll simply pickup the patterns, game state and work out the value of each move quite quickly.

scrollaway 5y ago
Well, here's a more developed (and spicier) take then. Larger board games are very often mere laundry lists of systems that can be found in many other board games. The longer games tend to have systems that MAKE the game long, rather than cause people to develop a strategy. One example is some mechanics forcing synchronous turns, or even worse, preventing you from preparing your turn in advance. Which gets even worse as the players have to iterate over more and more items in the turn checklist every time. I have a strong but obviously opinionated dislike for these mechanics, so YMMV. Still, these longer games very often feel "same-y" to everything else because they don't truly bring original interactions between players. Playthroughs don't even always vary because as you re-play the game, a meta quickly develops and settles on a tiny portion of the offered gameplay. More systems is also more opportunities to get the balance wrong. To fuck up. Which, if you don't tweak the rules preemptively, means the meta settling on an ever smaller part of the game. Small, highly-focused games tend to develop much more interesting metas. Yes, they're not necessarily as varied in "number of things that can happen", but honestly, sometimes the gameplay elements I see in larger games are so incoherent you might as well play different games concurrently, and turn the whole thing into XKCD/2488. To be clear, my point is not that shorter/simpler games are always better. It's that "longer doesn't always mean better, and more often than not means worse". The same does apply to books. You can more reliably draw meaning from an extremely-well-crafted fable, than from a massive heptalogy. Your experience will be wildly different, and there are unique attributes for which you need length in order to achieve. But a rock solid series of books is a much rarer breed than an interesting fable. And a much larger waste of time if you don't end up drawing something from it. And indeed the same applies to everything else. Assembly-line AAA video games that stuff themselves in a checklist of content to justify their price are often far worse in depth than shorter, sweeter ones (Portal, Hades, whatever). More seasons of Dexter and Game of Thrones ruined extremely deep and interesting works, whereas Breaking Bad crafted a truly unique experience by finishing exactly where the author intended it to. And your next lunch won't be improved by emptying your spice rack on it and overwhelming your palate, but by finding the exact mixes of ingredients that will result in a great meal.
- pessimizer 5y ago
  Don't worry, there are even a lot of heavy game players who define "heaviness" by complexity of strategy, not the word count of the rule book. I have to admit, I love a very long game, but game length doesn't require rule length. But if you're not a person who loves intricate, shallow pastiche, you're probably not a person who buys 1-3 retail games every month. Which means that the market shouldn't cater to us. I do wish that BGG still did sometimes, but I'd bet dollars to donuts that BGGs visitorship is shrinking. I've almost dead-stopped visiting of late, but 1) picking the right selection of geekbuddies can narrow BGG into something that's still useful to find good games and some good conversation about games, and 2) the geekmarket can help you find those games when they've been out of print for a long time. Here's a less commercial recommendation that gets you a warehouse full of games for almost nothing: New Tactical Games With Dice and Cards, and Dice Games Properly Explained by Reiner Knizia. Includes dozens of games with variants that thoughtfully explore the spaces of those games, and encourages you to play around with them to discover new challenges. I wish Wolfgang Kramer would start giving away his secrets like Knizia always has.
- 2muchcoffeeman 5y ago
  I didn't argue that merely having rules or more systems is a good thing. If the systems don't work together well, you get a bad game. But it's hard to argue that Splendor is as epic as a good (6 player) game of Twilight Imperium or Pendragon.
- brimble 5y ago
  In defense of complex games: My favorite part of a game is discovering it. I'm in it for the easy "a-ha!" moments and as soon as it starts to look like a particular game is going to have to become a whole thing for me to keep getting those from it (by moving on to "competitive" levels of play, memorized strategies, et c.), I'm done with it. Complex games often throw enough variables in the mix to keep things interesting—to me, anyway—longer than simpler games. A lot of times all that's just smoke and mirrors, but it's effective smoke and mirrors. > Small, highly-focused games tend to develop much more interesting metas. Right—which is precisely what I don't want. If I need to start deliberately practicing or reading books or something to get better at a game, that's a job, and I don't want it. [EDIT] Just to be extra clear, I'm not saying this is "the right" reason to prefer a certain kind of game, and I'm very aware that lots of people want the exact opposite: a game they can play for life, taking it very seriously, and never stop improving because the depth of play is practically unlimited. That's just not why I play board/card games.
hammock 5y ago
>Words in a dictionary have no interactions Ahaha tell that to a writer! Perhaps others are more strategic with their use of words than you are :)
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

mmcdermott 5y ago

A board game can choose to engage in a multitude of different ways. A well-crafted simple game can offer as deep a problem space as a more complex one, but strategy is only one form of engagement. A lot of rules-heavy games like Twilight Imperium, Arkham Horror or Dune use rules to simulate a setting as much as to create a strategic problem space. If you removed rules from these games, you can make them easier to play and possibly keep the same raw depth, but you would lose the setting they were trying to build. I remember explaining to someone recently that almost every rule in the Dune board game was a reference to something in the books.

adamrezich 5y ago

more complexity in a board game means a larger possibility space which allows for (but does not necessarily 100% correlate with) increased replayability and more interesting strategy development, both things that seasoned board game players (of which I am not one, but I have friends who are) tend to highly value. the complexity of a board game is in no way comparable to the length of linear media, aside from the amount of one's own lifetime one has the possibility of investing in the work before being satisfied with no longer engaging with.

deleted 5y ago

[deleted]