Yeah, I agree.  Think about all the fun things we do in our free time that has no “winner”.  Why can’t board games be the same?

Frank -

Well, since I’m implicated in this conspiricy to defame Jenseits von Theben, I guess I’d better defend myself!

I can’t speak for everyone, but the main reason I play strategy games is to match my wits against other players.  The goal of winning drives the matching of wits Now if the winner of the game is determined by luck, the goal goes out the window and with that goes the battle of wits - the main reason I play the game. 

Luck is a given in most German games and I’m fine with that.  However, there are degrees of luck.  A small or medium luck factor can be compensated for by skiillful play.  A high luck factor, as I think there is in Jenseits von Theben, doesn’t allow that (for the most part).

As a matter of fact, like Frank, I don’t have an overriding concern with winning.  I do, however, believe that if winning is the goal of a game (which it is in almost all games), then it should be the best player that attains it, not the one that luckily drew the best cards.

As far as Jenseits von Theben and the IGAs is concerned… I am not marginalizing the game at all.  I still think it’s a very good game, but the high luck factor may be problem for gamers (and I know many other gamers that feel exactly that way about the game). 

- Rick

Rick -

The main reason I play games is to have fun, and part of that fun can be matching wits with other players, but a large part of it can also be matching wits with the game engine itself. This is why games like Shadows over Camelot and Lord of the Rings are fun - they setup difficult tasks that take planning, execution, timing, and luck to overcome. Jenseits is not a cooperative game, but like a cooperative game, much of the fun from the game comes from doing well in spite of the obstacles in front of you.

I wouldn’t want to play games like JvT all the time, as it can get rather frustrating fighting that uphill battle, but if I in the right mood for it, a fun game like JvT is right up my alley.

- Dave Fair

Rick’s comment:

“As a matter of fact, like Frank, I don’t have an overriding concern with winning. I do, however, believe that if winning is the goal of a game (which it is in almost all games), then it should be the best player that attains it, not the one that luckily drew the best cards.”

brings to mind the famous Knizia quote:

“When playing a game, the goal is to win, but it is the goal that is important, not the winning.”

Brett

Jenseits von Theben:
Luck can determine winner
but fits theme perfect

Short in playing time,
It is not “strategy game”,
but fun romp with dirt

-- Master Dale

Someone needs to stop
This man they call, Master Dale
Before he gets hurt.

Uh oh.  A throwdown challenge from Sheriff Frank.  You know, this game room’s not big enough for the both of us!

First, let me echo some of the comments others have made.  My problems with high luck games has nothing to do with who wins.  As Dave says, I play games to have fun, but like Rick, much of that enjoyment comes from using my brain.  Lots of people can have a great time rolling dice to see who gets the highest result, but that activity would bore me to tears.  It isn’t that I can’t control if I win, it’s if I do win (or lose), who cares?  No skill was required to gain the result and I find little excitement in seeing who can roll highest.  That isn’t right or wrong, it’s just my gaming tastes.

Now, that isn’t to say I’m immune to the tension in some of these high luck affairs.  One of my best recent gaming experiences came in a game of Beowulf in which EVERYBODY was successfully taking risks and no one would quit.  Cheering and booing each pick was great fun.  But that sort of thing is the exception rather than the rule.

However, my issues with Jenseits have nothing to do with the digging mechanic.  I wouldn’t change that mechanism for the world, as it fits the real-life event so very well.  No, it was some of the other decisions, which could have very easily been altered if the designer wanted to minimize the luck factor a bit.  I had two main suggestions:

1. I thought rolling a D6 for the exhibitions was silly.  The number of artifact cards that match is usually pretty small (often two or three in the games I’ve played).  A result from 1 to 6 overwhelms this and turns this into a crap shoot.  I thought dividing the D6 by two, or using an averaging die, made much more sense.

2. The range of the artifact values seemed too great to me.  Given that digging is high-luck anyway, why exacerbate the problem by having some artifacts have a 1 value and others be as high as 7?  Not only does that greatly increase the variance, but certain spots become much less attractive once the big ticket items are claimed.  Reducing the range to something like 2-5 seems like a good idea.  You’d then have to balance these to make sure digging continued to be just as valuable as with the current setup.

There are some other good ideas that others have suggested.  I think if this game was developed with more serious gamers in mind, an excellent alternative set of rules could be developed that would still maintain the Jenseit’s marvelous fidelity to theme and make it more interesting to folks like Rick and I.

Even in its current form, Jenseits is a game I’ll play, but I just think it could be much better.  I doubt it could ever approach the attractiveness of a very good heavy game like Caylus, but I’ll usually go for the heavier titles over the middleweight and light ones.

As for dice-rolling in wargames and the difference between Situation Luck and Resolution Luck, that should probably wait for another posting.  But yeah, I could talk about that for a while, too.

But this has nothing to do with winning and nothing to do with control.  It’s just the types of games I like to play, tastes shared with many other gamers I’m acquainted with.

A: I think I’ll prefer to be called the Ed Anger of BGN. Sheriff implies some form of responsibility. I’m not very good at that.

Larry’s comments are perhaps slightly off my intended idea. The cases cited only seriously affect the actual outcome of the game. They do not affect the planning and strategy you use to play the game. You still go through the same processes.

A lot of Eurogamers have an adversion to a D6. I had to go through and analyze a LOT of combinations of D6 rolling to work on rebalancing Heroes Incorpporated for the ill-fated expansion.

The two big surprises are how easily a D6 comparison roll is swayed. The odds of winning with a +1 advantage are about 65%, and 84% with a +2 advantage. I think they go to 95% with a +3 advantage, and 98% with a +4 advantage.

It actually produces a fairly nice odds spread, enough that you would be in a little trouble going up against someone with a +1, and would only go up against someone with a +2 in an act of total convenience or desperation. +3 is of course sheer lunacy.

The result convinced Sam that we needed to add more cards that could remove the +1 Strength bonus tokens. Anyone with a +2 was a nearly insurmountable advantage.

The nice thing about Jenseit is that its elements of luck mostly contribute to the final value. They don’t remove you from the game or keep you from actively striving to play the game.

That is the important part. (And I wish I’d known about that Knizia quote. Clever guy.)

This is not always true for games with a lot of luck. I remember some older Risk Clones with “fun” random event cards that destroy half of your countries. And you are either removed or driven down to a state where you can make one feeble attack each turn.

Or the ever popular 6 player Risk game. Whoever goes last has pretty much lost the game before they ever get a turn (if they even get a turn.)

In Jenseits, the only gameplay disadvantge you are placed by bad digs or die rolls is limited exhibition chances.

And of course the whole not winning thing. But supposedly no one here cares about that.

I too play for fun, and sometimes that means the complex decisions in a game, and sometimes it means the cheers/moans that accompany the dice rolls (Rum and Pirates anyone?).  When it comes to Caylus and Jenseits von Theben though, I would choose Jenseits any day.  Jenseits gets way more play in our games group.

Is it the journey or the destination that matters?

For most of us it is probably a combination of both. If the journey(gameplay) is fun, I am more tolerant of not reaching the destination (winning).

I enjoy games like Parthenon and Beowulf, which have a fair amount of luck, for their theme and for the gameplay. (We could have an entirely separate discussion about the give and take of protecting yourself from bad luck in Parthenon)

I am not as forgiving of blind luck in simpler games that don’t allow me to ‘suspend my disbelief’ as much, such as Pepper or Palatinus.

Of course, while I try to win every game I play, I know going in that I probably won’t, so I don’t get hung up too much on that winning thing.

Maybe that’s my problem. :)

Hey, why not pile on.  And nary a haiku to be seen… Woot.

I don’t mind luck in games - in fact, I tend to shy away from games without luck because they either a) take too much time or study to really play well or b) aren’t fun to play unless all opponents are nearly evenly matched.

So for me, I think my refinement on the argument “JvT has too much luck” is as follows:

Jenseits von Theben has insufficient luck mitigation.  So if you get hosed, you have little recourse to try and gain ground again.  Some examples of what I mean:

a) There is no consolation prize for having wasted 9+ weeks and a digging permit on what turned out to be an empty dig.  I don’t argue that the results should be affected by luck (otherwise much of the game becomes irrelevant), but surely some sort of booby prize (perhaps one additional specific or general knowledge) would be fairer and temper the cruelty of the world outside the second standard deviation.  Um Krone und Kragen does this well: you never ever get absolutely nothing on your turn, even if you do roll like a moron…

b) There is no mitigation on the D6 roll.  A +1 modifier to whoever has the most knowledge in the cultures on display would solve most of the D6 issue with the game, at least in my opinion.  The die doesn’t come out too often, but when it does it just feels too arbitrary without some in-game factor being allowed to affect the outcome.

For me, the fact that time is the investment you make when digging is part of what exacerbates the luck factor in the game.  In most games, if you strike out big-time, you end up behind and can work to catch up.  In JvT, you can wind up ahead big-time and get doubly punished - not only did you get nothing for your efforts, but you have greatly reduced the amount of time you have left to try and rectify your situation.

I think it’s a fine game and one that I enjoy playing, but I sure would love to see what an experienced editor would do with it.  It’s almost too bad that Queen’s picked it up - I’m tempted to think that the combination of JvT and Stefan Brueck might have produced a home run.

pk

Amen, Brother Frank…

Speaking for those of us for whom just getting enough people together to *play* a decent game of Jenseits von Theben, or Puerto Rico, or whatever, I feel like just getting to play is a win for me, having a mostly non-gaming wife and a 17-month old son.

Trying to juggle odd job schedules, families with babies and other evening commitments makes boardgame time a premium luxury. I’m almost apologetic when I win after a game I host at my house, because I’m more interested in making sure everybody has a good time and wants to come back!

I sold my unplayed copy of JvT for $95, then discovered it was being reprinted. Does that count as a win?

Winner, winner, chicken dinner!!!

Another gamer (Sheila Davis) sent a nice set of the D6 probabilities, including the D3 and averaging die numbers.

--------------------------------------------
If you do the math, you’ll find that the player with one more artifact (+1
die roll) has a 2:1 advantage over his competition:
21/36 wins, 10/36 losses and 5/36 ties.
At +2 he has more than 4:1--26/36 vs 6/36. 
+3 is 30/36 vs 3/36.

For an averaging die:
+1 23/36 vs 5/36
+2 31/36 vs 1/36
+3 competition can’t win

Using a D3, the results are:
+1 6/9 vs 1/9
+2 or more, the competition can’t win.

-----------------------------------------------

The D6 is really a perfect choice for this kind of contest---unless you do something with a secret hidden cards (as in Conquest of Pangea, Friedrich). Most of the other die options make it far too clear cut who will win, which completely discourages competition even if you are 1 point short.

Moo,
Frank

See, Frank, this is just a matter of differing styles.  I WANT the player with more artifacts to win most of the time.  Particularly since the numbers have been so small in my games (a 4 to 2 advantage felt huge, yet I could still lose almost 20% of the time).  The averaging die would work pretty well for me.  But I really haven’t played the game enough to say categorically that that’s the better design decision.