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Scott Tepper: If It Angst Provokes, Don’t Fix It
Color me a convert. Now that I’ve played it repeatedly, I’m loving Agricola. Yes, yes, everyone and their sister-in-law has already played it to death, but I’ve always been something of a non-conformist. Although, I suppose admitting that Agricola has cast its spell on me now makes me a conformist, doesn’t it? It’s not the pound-and-a-half of wooden pieces, nor the 344 cards which will make the game different every time you play Agricola, that has ensnared me. No, it’s that glorious, amorphous ingredient not seen in most boardgames: turn angst.
Turn angst in a boardgame is like the addition of cayenne pepper in a culinary dish; not every recipe should include it, and too much of its presence can overwhelm and ruin the serving. But added sparingly in the proper places, it can elevate already good fare into something scrumptious. For me, turn angst is when you find yourself in the middle of a game wishing you could do more than you’re allowed by the rules, or at the end of the game wishing you had one more turn. In either case, you find your heart racing a little faster or your fists unconsciously clenching while you try to figure out what your next move should be.
Going through my game collection, I could find only a handful of other games that elict these sorts of feelings. Caylus is one of them, and it’s not so surprising. Both games share a common mechanism. During each round, the players have a limited amount of actions that can be chosen only once. As each player takes a turn, the pool of actions is reduced. So you find yourself, when playing these sorts of games, silently trying to exert mind control on your opponents: “Don’t take that action…Don’t take that action…don’t take that action!” Puerto Rico sometimes has a similar feel, although, since there are only a handful of actions which are replenished each round, the suspense doesn’t seem to build to quite the same level.
Sometimes turn angst is created by constraining the resources at hand. In any of Alan Moon’s Ticket To Ride games, the players race to complete a limited train routes between cities. As a result, there is constant pressure on the players to claim certain routes before their opponents do. The angst can become so strong in this game that some people play with a “no blocking” rule, although for me, this would remove part of the fun of this game. The suspense created in this game is intentional because otherwise the board would allow enough connections for every player between every set of cities. No, the tension in Ticket To Ride is deliberate and the ingredient that makes the game challenging and fun.
Another limited resourse that causes turn angst is time. In Shadows Over Camelot, the players are in a race against time to complete a majority of quests before either 12 siege engines arrive, or all the knights are killed. Although the players don’t have a huge range of choices on their turns, in SOC, you do feel that you can’t afford to waste a turn because the evil events are ever present and always chipping away at the good knights progress. Betrayal At House On The Hill can have a similar vibe, but since Betrayal’s games are more random and usually shorter, the players tend not to have as much invested in a win.
In the Year of the Dragon, the recent Alea game, prods the players by making them fight over a limited amount of actions while dealing with a slew of impending disasters. Because the upcoming events are visible, they create a sort of looming dread for the players. Not only do you have to worry about preparing for the upcoming calamities, you have to worry about which people to put into your buildings, since they are limited in number. In addition, the people you choose will affect the order in which you take actions, another important consideration. So every decision you make in this game can have a lot riding on it.
Several great games create angst by including a press-your-luck mechanism. Diamant, Can’t Stop, and Ra can all punish a player who gets to greedy. On the other hand, a player who chooses to take the conserative and safe route in these games rarely wins. Of course, all three of these games are built to punish a player who is too risky and greedy, so you’re stranded on a razor blade trying to decide when to gamble and when to play it safe.
What I find most fascinating about these games is that the turn angst one feels when playing them was consciously and carefully contrived by their designers. I now come to expect, when observing people after their first game of Agricola, to hear, “If I only had one more turn!” or “There should be two more rounds in this game.” But that’s the point of the game. If, in Agricola, you had two more rounds, everyone’s farms would probably be a lot more similar, or you’d have a greater chance of making a more balanced farm. But this would remove a big chunk of the game’s tension and appeal. The angst comes from the players wanting to create a diverse farm, and the limited resources preventing that from being an easy task. Increasing the available actions to allow players to do whatever they wanted would simply result in everyone producing the same farms and scoring the same number of points. On the opposite end of the spectrum, if the players are allowed too few options, they become like the dogs in Martin Seligman’s famous experiments: The players will realize that they have no way to win, so they just give up really trying.
So I respect the playtesting done by Uwe Rosenberg in his design of Agricola. It seems like he got the balance of angst just right to hook me in. I’m sure I could win next time if I…just…had…one…more…turn!
Posted by Scott Tepper on Mar 31, 2008 at 01:00 AM in Columnists, Scott Tepper / 1218
Comments:
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I think you have it just about right Scott, and I think that is why Agricola appeals so much to so many of us. When a game that is 2+ hours long leaves you wishing it were longer, when you are spending downtime avidly watching what actions other people choose and when you find yourself, in some idle moment, trying to dream up an efficient way to build a strong food engine AND a 3rd room within 4 turns so you are primed to take maximum advantage of offspring, then you know you are hooked. Agricola seems perfectly tuned to bring out this feeling in many, many gamers. It certainly would not be half as effective if there were more turns or the actions were more readily available. Posted by Chris Haighton on Mar 31, 2008 at 03:36 AM | #
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Ah yes, many a time when going last in a five player game of Argricola I have muttered out loud when my turn arrives “I had a plan A, plan B and even a plan C but they are all shot now and I had no plan D!” Posted by Fraser McHarg on Mar 31, 2008 at 07:26 AM | #
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Fraser, that brings up a good point. In Agricola, turn order is obviously important. To compensate for this, the starting player begins with 2 food and the other players begin with 3 food. Not such a big deal in a 2, or even 3 player game(although one could argue that that puts the 3rd player at a slight disadvantage). But in a 5 player game, the 5th player to take their turn gets an action that 4 other players didn’t want. I think this imbalance is smoothed out over time as the start player changes, but I wonder if the 5th player in a 5-player game should receive some sort of additional compensation. Posted by Scott Tepper on Mar 31, 2008 at 08:18 AM | #
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I think it all evens out in the end and the Start Player moves around a bit more. I mutter similar things in games with less players, I just quote less plans :-) Posted by Fraser McHarg on Mar 31, 2008 at 08:29 AM | #
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One of the nice things about gaming is the way it improves our vocabulary. I’ve probably heard the word “angst” used with regards to gaming more often than I’ve heard it used in all other settings! I like most games with turn angst, Scott. However, I tend to be fatalistic about my turns, so in games like Agricola and Puerto Rico, rather than hoping that an opponent won’t take a particular action, my thinking is “I’ll never get the chance to take THAT one!”. Sadly, I’m usually right, although every now and then I’m pleasantly surprised. Naturally, I make my plans based on these assumptions, and the planning is just as enjoyable, but there isn’t quite as much of a rush of anticipation. Real angst for me comes in games where the events are truly unpredictable and therefore unexpected. Ticket to Ride is an excellent example. Even if I know where a player wants to lay track, he may not have the cards to do it. So I can never be sure who will play where. It’s funny, I tend to wait until I have most of the cards I need before I start laying track, so as not to give away my desires, so true blocking against my position doesn’t tend to be all that common. But as my turn approaches when I’m getting ready to place the last few routes of my monster network, there’s almost always a pleasurable sense of anticipation. Even if my opponents are extemely unlikely to grab that last route, I sweat it out slightly. For some reason, TtR provides that angst that other, more planning-heavy games don’t. By the way, the turn angst is really cranked up for TtR: Switzerland. The board seems to have the players bumping heads almost from the very beginning, so you really need to sweat out your placements. Excellent addition to the series. As for the other games, I do find Agricola has a good deal of angst, but it comes more from trying to pick the best of my many options. It’s hard to shift gears once you head down one of those paths, so you’re always wondering if you’ve chosen the best one. It’s more of a calculating kind of stress, but it’s definitely an enjoyable part of the game, unless things get too out of hand; then, it can get frustrating. But angst in a game is almost always a good thing. Posted by Larry Levy on Mar 31, 2008 at 10:10 AM | #
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Scott, if it’s any consolation, the plight of the 5th player was heavily discussed in the re-write of the rules for 2nd ed. Agricola. The problem isn’t as large in the Full Game as the occupation and Minor Imp. cards add enough options to give the 5th Player sufficient choice. Admittedly, that player may have to take a different strategy than originally planned, but that’s life. However, in the Family Game, the problem is much larger. To remedy this, the board for the Family Game has been altered and there are two new Action Spaces which help give more choice as well. Dale Posted by Dale Yu on Mar 31, 2008 at 10:14 AM | #
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Dale, so what you’re saying is that the 2nd edition is going to be functionally different, not just cosmetically different, from the first edition? Are there any other changes? Posted by Scott Tepper on Mar 31, 2008 at 10:54 AM | #
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The kind of angst Larry is talking about—concern that either due to lack of time or due to poor timing, you won’t be able to complete you plans—is the kind I love. I find that Power Grid scratches that itch for me very well, but that it’s very player-dependent: with a couple of newbie players, the angst fades away because there’s little chance they’ll (intentionally) foil your plans. I’m also very excited about getting a chance to play Agricola in the next few days. Posted by Matthew Frederick on Mar 31, 2008 at 11:00 AM | #
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Scott: so what you’re saying is that the 2nd edition is going to be functionally different, not just cosmetically different, from the first edition? Dale: Yup. But mostly for the family game - the changes to the board are only in the Family Game. The only substantive change to the Full Game is that there are 24 new cards in the Z-deck. The Solo Rules are also fleshed out to give more direction, especially in series/Campaign mode. Of course, I’d think that since I was the one pushing hardest for a more comprehensive ruleset for the Solo Game. Scott: Are there any other changes? Dale: Three new cards (which you can currently download from the Lookout Games site) which go in the base deck. Oh yeah, and we’ve redone the CRT so that it’s easier to see when you “hit” a sheep or cow when attacking with the catapult. Dale Posted by Dale Yu on Mar 31, 2008 at 11:36 AM | #
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Funny, one of the things I like about Agricola, and why I find it more engaging than games like Caylus, is that for me it in fact doesn’t have huge turn angst. Sure, there is always an action or two that you’d really prefer to take (which tends to drive the “first player” action), but after that there are still a lot of good options so you don’t need to beat yourself up over it. No single action is going to make or break your game, it just tilts the playing surface a bit to favor some things over some other things. For me, for a turn to have real angst, it has to also matter a lot. The choice to risk or not to risk in Beowulf, to auction or not to auction in Ra, the choice of actions in Fifth Avenue - these are choices that are both hard and that have immediate major impacts. That’s where you get some real angst going. Sow fields or a minor improvement in Agricola ... they’re both good. There are times when it can make a big difference, but a lot of the time the fact that the players have different card mixes and therefore different priorities will tend to push them in different directions, and therefore lessen the competition somewhat, unlike in Caylus where everyone is doing the exact same thing and the number of good choices is rather limited. Anyway. I like Agricola. But one of the reasons I like it is because it’s more textured and subtle, and therefore less riddled with angst, than similar (like Caylus or Through the Ages). That’s my take anyway. Posted by Chris Farrell on Mar 31, 2008 at 06:15 PM | #
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Great article! I too love turn angst. For me right now the best game for turn angst is Age of Empires III in a five- or (gulp) six-player game. Then the choices are maddening, because of the intense competition for each action. Posted by Jeffrey Henning on Mar 31, 2008 at 09:50 PM | #
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I’ve found TRIBUNE to be a game where you really sit and hope for other players NOT doing different things. It is quite fine granularity when it comes to the card collecting, but when it is time for taking over the different fractions, it is live or death. Though the rules are in German, the game itself is pretty much language independent. Gladiatoren=Gladiators. Posted by Patrik Strömer on Apr 1, 2008 at 12:20 PM | #
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>For me, turn angst is when you find yourself in the middle of a game wishing you could do more than you’re allowed by the rules, or at the end of the game wishing you had one more turn. That is my feeling in every game of Paths of Glory I had the honour to enjoy. Posted by Klaus Knechtskern on Apr 2, 2008 at 10:08 AM | #
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