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Musings on… Hybrid Games (#32)
Edited By David Fair
April 26, 2006
Welcome to Musings On..., which is a moderated discussion group in which a bunch of well known, dedicated gamers discuss and debate different games and topics regarding games. In this particular article, they discuss the Hybrid Games.
Richard Young:
We have spent a fair bit of time in these columns discussing games which most would recognize as Euro-games today. We all have our own ideas as to what constitute a “Euro” and a lot of spirited on-line conversations have taken place around the definition. I don’t want to (re)start that debate but a basic understanding of what constitutes a Euro will be necessary to go where I hope to with this next discussion. In addition to other characteristics let us accept that Euros have at least four things in common: firstly, relatively short playing times; secondly, an absence of combat; thirdly, more than two players are involved; and finally, the premise or “theme” of the game tends to be abstract. Of course, these four characteristics do not suffice to define the Euro but, arguably, most Euros have them as common elements.
Conversely, we can define War-games as having characteristics in apposition to those four: they will generally consume longer playing times; involve units in combat; usually are for just two-players; and, the theme is normally very strong, often historical in nature. I’m also deliberately homing in on those characteristics that put the two game types at opposite ends of a spectrum in order to spark some discussion on games that lie near the middle. I’ve seen such fence-sitting offerings referred to as being either “hybrid” or “crossover” games. Others may well come up with a better term but let’s start with Hybrid. In other words these would be games that are neither Euros nor War-games - neither fish nor foul.
Let’s look at a couple of small sets of examples. On the Euro side of the fence would be such games as Wallenstein, Friedrich, Revolution: The Dutch Revolt, and Princes of the Renaissance. Of those four, Revolution: The Dutch Revolt might be argued as a Civilization style area influence game rather than one which embodies “combat” to determine territorial control but it’s close enough for me to put it with the others. These games all have a lot of Euro style to them but all press very dangerously on accepted Euro sensibilities.
Just on the other side of the fence are such games as: War of the Ring, Mare Nostrum, Game of Thrones and Struggle of Empires. These games make no bones about their warlike nature yet don’t come out of the box exactly like classic War-games either. And here again, a bone might well be picked with my inclusion of War of The Ring in this group as being hardly a hybrid but rather a classic war-game, minus the hexes and counters. Yet I’m satisfied there is enough of a difference for me to think of it more as a hybrid.
So what is the point of this discussion then? One point of departure could be whether there is indeed any such label as I have defined it and, if so, whether there is any value in adopting such a label in the first place. I have seen a number of references to the term “hybrid,” but accept that I could have mistaken the context and jumped to my own conclusion as to what was meant by the term. As to the value of having such a label, I guess it depends on what sort of shorthand one finds personally helpful in navigating about the hobby we share. Interestingly, while BGG uses the term “war-game” in their categorization system, they do not ever use the term “Euro-game” or “hybrid-game” in any of their descriptions. Would there be any benefit if they did?
As may have been evident by those paying any attention to my various rants here and elsewhere, my fascination with Euros is fading. Their innovative and imaginative nature and their influence on the hobby is unquestioned, but I’m finding that I am increasingly thinking of them as the “Chinese Food” of the hobby. Most leave me wanting more: more depth, more substance, more theme, more game! I have by no means played them all so it may be that I haven’t played the right ones yet. But if I’m finding this to be true of such as Settlers of Catan (particularly) or even Puerto Rico, I’m not sure where you go from there for something better. Using another analogy, most Euros strike me as “short stories” when what I want are novels. My gaming time is becoming more and more precious to me and when I manage to make a session I want to leave it with a feeling of accomplishment and with a sense of having experienced something important and substantial.
At the same time, I’ve nearly run out the string on classic war-games as well. It may be because my playing habits tend to run to multi-player sessions these days but I think it’s also more than that. Perhaps I’ve been at them so long that the familiarity and lack of innovation has left me jaded. The fact is that I no longer seek out opportunities to play the sorts of games that I grew up with. Another reason could be that classic war-games tend to be operational level simulations and I have learned to better appreciate and enjoy games which force me to think more strategically. What I do find myself drawn to are games with a strong theme, whether historical or fictional; lots of multi-player interaction, including combat; and, while I don’t mind a longer game, I prefer one that doesn’t take all day to play. In short, a hybrid!
All of the games I’ve set forth as examples are on my current “want-to-play” list so I find the hybrid label to be an extremely useful one to me personally as it represents the type of game I currently gravitate towards with that sense of excitement and anticipation that is part of what the joy of gaming should be all about. The expression “neither fish nor foul” is normally negative, but when it comes to “hybrid” board games, it represents what I’m on the lookout for these days.
Matt J. Carlson:
Some well thought out points, there. The problem I see with the term “hybrid” is that the Euro/Non-Euro game spectrum is more a continuum then two discrete groups which could then be put into two camps or possibly a third in-between camp called a hybrid. Like the old Reeses Peanutbutter Cups, I keep finding Eurogame attributes in non-Euro games and vice versa.
At the risk of a slight topic derailment, I see the boardgame hobby as having been improved in recent decades through the use of new styles of play and new game mechanisms. I frequently deal with computer and video games and improvements have been made in those areas through improved user interfaces, improved graphics, and even improved storytelling. I see some mechanisms common to Euro-style games cropping up in all sorts of board game areas. One way to think about this would be to consider these mechanisms as innovations in the art of game design and thus boardgames are progressing to new “improved” formats. Thus, games of all types (Euro/War/whatever) are benefiting from some of these concepts. As these mechanisms are creeping into all sorts of games, I find it more of a challenge to place a particular game into a Wargame, hybrind, or Euro-game grouping.
As an example, some of the mechanisms/improvements I see as becoming popular within the Euro-game arena: simultaneous player actions or decisions (as in Setter trading or Puerto Rico role use), varying player turns (not every player does the same thing on their turn, often found in action-point games where one player might have a completely different looking turn than another like Tikal or Torres), less player elimination, artificial game ending limits to shorten play time (I won’t play any form of Risk other than the newer versions that have an artificial time limit as the classic version is far, far too long), more complex auction mechanics, and even the now-common rule-breaking components of games (like Magic: the Gathering, powers in Cosmic Encounter, buildings in Puerto Rico, cards in Torres, etc...).
While many of these mechanics have been around for some time, they have become more popularized to such an extent that games that don’t at least address those issues are soundly punished for the oversight.
Larry Levy:
Rick, the definition of a “hybrid” is tough and probably always will be tough. It’s hard enough to decide what a Eurogame is and now we want to figure out which ones aren’t quite that nebulous definition? Definitely an effort where everyone’s opinion figures to be at least slightly different.
But there are still a lot of games that you can point to that a majority of people would declare, “yeah, that’s a hybrid”. They may not be able to say why, precisely, but they know it when they see it.
First, of your four Euro characteristics, one strikes me as clearly out of place. To say that two-player games cannot be Euros is just silly. I mean it will come as quite a shock to Kosmos, who has made a small fortune selling games exclusively for two! There are tons of very good two-player games which are unquestionably Euros. Moreover, I don’t think you need that characteristic to help define the difference between Euros and wargames. Even though the majority of wargames are for two, it’s hardly a defining characteristic and there’s technically no reason why a wargame can’t be multiplayer. There are also a lot of very good multiplayer wargames. So I think you’re better off with just using the other three traits.
To me, a hybrid as you define it is either a wargame that uses many Euro-type mechanics or a Eurogame that has some features of a wargame (like more conflict or a longer duration). You can try to pick out what these crossover mechanics are, but it’s easier to tell just from observation. Just about every Warfrog game fits the definition and Wallace has to be considered the leading designer when it comes to trying to fuse these two types of games together.
I would agree that all eight of the games that you’ve listed are hybrids to one extent or another. The division into the two sets you’ve made, though, is far less clear. War of the Ring, to me, is an out and out wargame, far more so than Mare Nostrum (which includes combat, but which is at its heart a set collecting game). I’d say it’s hard enough to define what a hybrid is without trying to decide which side of the fence these games are sitting.
There’s another kind of hybrid, which combines European and American ideals. Here, conflict isn’t as big a part, but the longer durations and stronger themes are. Good examples of these include Serenissima and Ursuppe. Both include conflict, but I don’t think anyone would consider them wargames.
Matt makes a good point when he talks about the overall influence of Eurogames. Games of just about every stripe (even party games!) have benefited from the types of mechanics that are traditionally featured in Euros. This makes the classifications even harder, but in the end, many types of games are better thanks to the Eurogame revolution.
Morgan Dontanville:
I think that we are missing the most important question when is the party/wargame hybrid going to come out?
I really don’t want this to sound condescending, but about this whole hybrid thing ... it seems fogeyish and naive to me. It seems like something that someone would say 10 years ago when Euros were Euros and Wargames were Wargames and no one bothered to look at what was going on 10 years before that. I’m certainly not saying that you don’t know your history. In fact, you probably know it far greater than I. But, I think that we are starting to see the proliferation of a new language in game design being incorporated full circle into what was done in the late 70’s and early 80’s. It really struck me when Lewis Pulsipher’s Euro-defining article hit the fan (read into that how you will). http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/Essence.shtml
At one point the Euro was a new paradigm. Trying to figure out what it was and capturing its essence was only needed so that you could explain it to other indoctranees (Ok, I know that isn’t a word, but it should be). In comparison to what was played by wargamers or the common folk that thought that just because the Game of Life had game in the title meant it was in fact a game, the Euro was revolutionary.
But, it’s not like the Euro just magically appeared. In fact, an argument can be made that Euros spawned out of this proto-hybrid (that and every Sid Sackson and Alex Randolph game). To me, companies like 3M (Feudal) Avalon Hill (Dune, Britannia, Gangsters, Merchant of Venus, Gunslinger), Mayfair (The Keep, Demo Derby), Eon (Cosmic Encounter, Borderlands, Quirks), Hartland Trefoil Ltd. (Civilization, Spanish Main), and even Wizard Magazine (King of the Table Top, The Awful Green Things from Outer Space) had their finger on the pulse of streamlining and modernizing the conflict game. I believe these games are the missing link, the new euro-ized conflict games, your “hybrids” if you will, are just a wonderful reinvention of the wheel.
Matt Carlson:
True, but I think many people would allow us to position those earlier games as precursors to the modern Eurogame rather than fully into the Euro category. Nearly all of those games you mention are fun and contain mechanics that are now popular in many Eurogames but few of those listed above fall into the finer “polished” category I might place some of today’s more popular Euro titles. One feature of many currrent Euro designs are their short intial learning curve. (Yes, there are some “advanced Euros that are quite challenging to learn.) Most of those “pre-Euros” you list I would hesitate to play with a newcomer to boardgames.
Mike Siggins:
Surely it is just an attempt to define some games that don’t fit into currently defined areas (defined is loose here). They have a bit of this and a bit of that, plus some subjective assessment. Often it is that people know that it isn’t A or B, so it might be C. What is C? That is what we are talking about. It may well have existed before, because games can always exist ahead of their time, and I would say that much of the Eon output could be considered. Spanish Main is an interesting one.
I do think WOTR is a hybrid, simply because it of the way it plays and the clever mechanisms it has, and the fact it can be played in a short time frame. There may well have been games like Friedrich or Struggle of Empires or WOTR around many years ago, but I don’t think there were. Length of play was never a strong suit for old school wargames (and most new school either).
I think the Euro DID magically appear. That is almost a defining quality.
Matt Carlson:
Unless you’re being facetious, I have to disagree. I think that the mechanics aspect of game design finally reached a level of elegance so that Eurogames were able to become a much more popular phenomenon. The two aspects I see as the primary driving forces of this Euro-explosion would be the shorter game length and larger player involvement. With a slightly shorter playing time, new gamers can be introduced into the hobby without such a huge time commitment, and with more player involvement, players who might not otherwise be so cerebrally oriented can be drawn into playing a game.
Morgan Dontanville:
Now that the Euro has lived in its own bubble for a while, I think that there are a number of people that recognized that there is true value and merit in what has been developed. You can look at this in music history, when the sax was a toy, and synthesizers weren’t “real instruments”. I think that wargamers have come to accept the validity of many of the designs that have been spawned in this Euro-Petri dish. Likewise, Euro aficionados are starting to get sick of the same-ism. It makes sense that with the advent of the card and block driven wargames that wargamers are going to be more accustomed to Euro elements being incorporated into “their” games. Similarly, there will be people who want to play something different.
Referring back to Mr. Pulsipher’s article, perhaps what needs to be considered is that there are some tenements to learning what makes a game more accusable. When designing a game you don’t have to attempt to appease the needs least common denominator, but you can allow for people to enter into your system and create a real user-friendly environment.
I’m excited to see that there is a movement back to form and that there is a possibility that it will be done better—so far so good.
Mike Siggins:
I wasn’t being facetious. Part of their appeal is that for almost all of us they appear of out nowhere, and convert our gaming tastes there and then. WHY they do this is what you have described. I was talking HOW.
Richard Young:
Putting Euros and War-games at opposite ends of a spectrum is a gross oversimplification it’s true, but nevertheless the discussion has gone in the way I had hoped and thanks for the input so far. As has been noted, it is becoming difficult to stick to classic definitions as the lines are becoming increasingly blurred. The term “Hybrid” was meant to infer a synthesis of genres that incorporates features previously associated with one or the other and is probably way too broad and vague to signify anything other than a trend away from extremes and toward a mixture of mechanics that have entered the mainstream of game development. I still find it to be a handy short-hand expression, but expect the term will age out pretty rapidly.
However, I think we can still accept that Euro-gamers and War-gamers are in distinct camps, with fans of both that stay pretty close to their preferred gaming experiences. Sure, lots of folks can appreciate and play both, as they might also play lots of games from other categories such as abstract games, sports games, railroading games, and so on. It’s just that I seem to have sensed an antipathy of those two particular communities towards each other particularly in the BGG forums. Well “antipathy” is probably way too strong a term but whatever it is, it is palpable. I think it is part of the explanation for the series of columns on classic War-gaming put together by David Seddon and Co under the banner of “Foreward Observer.”
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/geekforum.php3?action=viewforum&forumid=91&objectid=1&objecttype=forum
There, you’ll see discussions on such War-game oriented topics as Friedrich, Hammer of the Scots, Target Arnhem, Midway (yes, the old AH one), Age of Napoleon, Memoire 44 and Block War-games in general. Future discussions will address War-gaming “by wire” (Vassal, etc) and the Avalon Hill “classics.” There hasn’t been a corresponding column devoted to Euros as discussion of those seems to predominate most of what appears on the Geek already, which the Forward Observer was developed to counter.
My interest in so-called hybrids emerged after I discovered the Warfrog products referred to earlier by Larry. I agree that just about every one of Martin Wallace’s designs could be labelled as such and I’ve found them all great fun to play. I would say he is my favorite designer right now and is just about the only one whose games I would happily play “sight unseen.” Boardgames continue to evolve and one of the encouraging trends I’m happy to see continue is the merging of the “Fish” and the “Foul!”
Morgan Dontanville:
I’m curious to see where people are in drawing the line for what you would call a hybrid. With the advent of We the People’s card driven system there spawned a whole family of games. At their heart I feel that most of these are war games. But if we are to examine the concept of the “hybrid” I think we need to look at what these games are and where they are going. The card driven system allows for the flavor, history and story to come through in the text of the cards, allowing for more abstract movement and control in the design. This ultimately leads to the Euroization of gameplay. Much of these concepts have also been applied to the block games.
Is it no wonder that these are the games that rank high on the geek?
Richard Young:
Morgan has raised a really interesting point which I’d love to pursue although it verges on busting the topic. I hope we get to “Muse On...” the card-driven game phenomina some time for they are also among my favorites, and Mark Herman is on my list of candidates for a medal of some kind. GMT publishes these now and they have kept up the series quite well with only a couple of real duds so far.
But I actually hadn’t thought of those in my take on what Hybrid means to me. I think they are an evolutionary step in War-game design without incorporating elements I usually associate with Euros. Classic War-games have been generally tactical or operational level “simulations.” What the card-driven engine does is raise the level of War-game design to incorporate strategic level considerations (or require gamer decisions that border on the strategic). But they are still pretty clearly War-games from where I sit. An exception is Age of Napoleon which is both a departure from the Mark Herman originated model and does have a definite Euro “feel” to it. I guess I should throw Nero into the discussion as a possible exception too, but the less said about that game the better. So, a couple of possible hybrids, but I wouldn’t say that the GMT CDGs fall into a similar category.
If the issue is the inclusion of cards themselves, I don’t think any generalizations can be made on games that utilize them in some way, let alone in CDGs. Let’s face it, just about every game that comes out the door these days uses cards for something be they War-game, Euro or whatever!
Morgan Dontanville:
Rick, I don’t know if you could exclude the CDGs from the hybrid category. In many of the games there is a heavy value placed on area control, and We the People has an almost Othello like quality to it. Successors, is less a war game and more of a hand management, area control game. The cards are more effective than attacking people directly. And what is Twilight Struggle? In their heart all of these games are “war games”, but I think deep down Wallenstein, Im Zeichen des Kreuzes and even E&T are as well.
You are right though, it does seem that modern game design is leaning more and more heavily on cards. I think that people have become wary of dice, but look to cards as having more control, yet still adding the element of luck that some desire. Cards often feel manageable.
Speaking of cards, looking at modern wargame designs, I find a striking parallel to what has gone before in the Euro world. If you examine games like Lightning: D-day how can you not make some comparison to games like Battle Line. Then again Battleline, Magic, Scarab Lords, Blue Moon and really, many of the CCG’s and even the pure card based war games can probably be traced in some way back to Up Front. I’d be curious to know if Knizia had played Up Front at all. I would get a giggle if Lost Cities came from Courtney F. Allen. Then again the SS guy on the cover may have made the game a bit prohibitive in Germany.
David Fair:
There is this dividing line out there, somewhere, and likely it exists in a different place for each enthusiast, and it seperates the stuff they like from the stuff they don’t.
I like Memoir ‘44. I tried when it first came out to get it added to the tournament events added at EuroQuest, a euro-games only convention. I was told it was a wargame. Now, I know that is impossible. Memoir ‘44 can’t possibly be a wargame, because I like it, and I don’t like wargames.
I think that was when my line started getting fuzzy. I have Commands & Colors:Ancients now, and it really is even better than Memoir ‘44. I just bought Brittania and can’t wait to play it. Twilight Imperium 3 is a lot of fun and I enjoy playing it whenever we can manage such a long game. I’m interested in picking up Twilight Struggle, as I really enjoy Area mojority games, and I don’t have a good 2-player one of those yet.
It wasn’t that long ago that I would have dismissed all of these as wargames, and beneath my attention. There have always been games which defied easy classification; the games aren’t changing. No, the truth is, I am the one changing, I am more receptive to games which may lie closer on the wargame spectrum than on the euro, now than I was just 2 years ago.
And the truth is, I have no idea why that is.
Musings On… is a roundhouse forum discussion on games and topics related to gaming. if you are interested in participating in future discussions, please email David Fair at dafair followed by the at sign and gmail.com.
Posted by Rick Thornquist on Apr 26, 2006 at 08:00 PM in Special Features, Musings on... / 1202
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The train of thought seems to be “if it’s not red, and it’s not yellow, it must be orange,” but I think the fact is that there is also a “blue,” so to speak--in other words, that there is a third distinct genre/tradition within our hobby. The main failing of this third genre seems to be that no one has ever come up with a snappy name for it, and I don’t have one either, so for now I’ll just call it the “Slugfest.” The origins of the Slugfest I think would be our old friends Risk and Diplomacy (amazingly, both were published in the same year, according to the ‘Geek), and I would contend that this pair spawned a pervasive train of thought in game design, one distinct from combat simulation (i.e., wargames) and from which Euros are arguably either a separate development (born of Monopoly, Sackson, Randolph and Knizia) or an independent offshoot (born when Kosmos pared Teuber’s massive Catan/Entdecker/Lowenherz game down to Monopoly scale). What are the defining characteristics of the Slugfest? Territory, armies, one against all; player elimination is a possibility, either real or virtual (i.e., a player being rendered impotent); alliance and diplomacy are advisable, and more often than not there is no game-end mechanism outside of the players’ collective control. The entries in this genre almost read like a list of American board gaming in the ‘seventies and ‘eighties in its entirety: Titan, Cosmic Encounter, Civilization, Age of Renaissance, Successors, Brittania, Dune, Supremacy, Axis & Allies. Even games which had the potential to move in a different direction, like Illuminati, cleaved to this aesthetic in the main. More recent examples would of course be Twilight Imperium and the various bit-heavy Eagle games. Some of the early titles in the genre aspired to the simulation cachet of wargames--for example, Civilization and Brittania--while more recent examples of the slugfest have been influenced by the Eurogame aesthetic, for example Mare Nostrum and Struggle of Empires. Wallenstein I think you could call a perfect euro-Slugfest hybrid. The way that I see it, the only true eurogame-wargame hybrids are those wargames which have been designed with an eye to faster, simpler and more balanced play, and these would span the range from the Commands and Colors series through Bonaparte at Marengo to the newer, less complex Columbia block games such as Hammer of the Scots, Liberty and Crusader Rex. Posted by Joe Gola on Apr 27, 2006 at 08:44 AM | #
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