Scott Tepper: Not So Great and Great Expectations

As I was browsing people’s feedback to the new Essen games a little while ago, I came across an interesting post on BoardGameGeek. The gist of the posting was, “I wasn’t able to go to Essen. I have been reviewing what other people have posted about some of the new games, and even though I haven’t played them, this is what I think about them so far…â€?. 

While the writer did seem to be intrigued by a few of the new Essen games, the majority of his comments were negative. Some of the reasons he gave for not being interested in particular new releases were:

Because it sounded too gimmicky

Because there were expansions planned for the game.

Because the game had a mechanism that was similar to another game that he didn’t think he’d like(he hadn’t played it yet) because of a video review he saw about the other game.

Because he didn’t like one of the previous games by the same designer.

Because it sounded too stressful.

Because of the theme.

Because someone had described it as a shorter and more accessible Caylus, and he really liked Caylus. (no really, you read that correctly)

Because it sounded too much like it was multiplayer solitaire.

While this person obviously cares about games, I found his reasoning to be…well…curious. He was attempting to be discerning, but to me it came off a little like the fox in Aesop’s fable, “The grapes are sour anyway!�

With the abundance of new games at Essen, unless you are independently wealthy, you must be discriminating with your game purchases. I started out with an admittedly large list of games-to-look-at when I headed off to Essen. All the items on the list had either an asterisk or a question mark to signify either a must-buy, or a need-to-look-at-before-buying game. (I also had organized the games by hall and printed out a map and color-coded the corresponding booths, but that’s more a matter of being pressed for shopping time)

Coming home from Essen, I had purchased most but not all of the must-buy’s, and only a few need-to-look-at’s. I even bought a couple of games that I had mentally crossed off the list before I arrived, because the game ended up having more promise in person than the impression I had developed from the little bit I had read about beforehand.

One game that I had a change of heart about was Fiji. The initial posting that I remember reading about it was just a simple description, something like, “Players trade beads with natives to acquire the most shrunken heads�. Bleah! I couldn’t really think of a theme that would appeal to me less, unless it was “The players try to chop the heads off the most valuable nobles.�(Guillotine).

When I received the rules for Fiji, before actually getting to Essen, my opinion of the game started to change. After I had taught the game several times, and had gotten a lot of positive reactions from players, I decided that this was a game that I wanted to have in my collection.

You normally can’t read the script of a movie before deciding to see it in the theatre, but in this hobby/industry, we have ample opportunities to try before we buy. BGG.con is just one example of the myriad opportunities available to sample a game to see if you’d like it. If you can’t get to a convention, often you can read the rules to the game online to give you an idea of how it plays.

How many of us have come across a rating of 1 on BGG for a game that the rater has never played? There is one right now for Battlelore. The writer praises the publisher, the mechanics, and the production values of the game. What they don’t like, or rather, what they think they don’t like, is the merging of the theme and the mechanics.

Can you imagine Roger Ebert writing reviews like, “I don’t like the idea of a love story happening in a bar. That totally doesn’t work for me. Love stories should only take place in Paris on boats. So I’m not going to see this movie�, or how about, “Well, I haven’t seen Sean Penn’s latest movie. But since I didn’t like his last one, I’m rating his new movie 0 stars.�?

One of the tenets of Buddhism is being able to see things for what they truly are without being clouded by bias. The more we focus our vision based on our biases, the greater the chance that we are not seeing things as they truly are.

With that in mind, here are a few things I’ve learned about games:

*Just because a game has rough artwork(and typos), it can still be a great game. (Twilight)

*Just because a game has great production value, or is expensive, doesn’t mean that I’ll love it. (Settlers of Catan 3D)

*Just because I like a game when I first play it, doesn’t mean that I’ll love it after repeated playings. (Apples to Apples)

*Just because a game is made by a designer who has made a game that I love, doesn’t mean that I’ll love their the new game.(Dilbert: Corporate Shuffle)

*Just because a game is made by a designer who has made games that I’m not fond of, doesn’t mean that I won’t like their new game. (Domaine)

*Just because other people love a game, doesn’t mean I’ll love it. (Give Me the Brain)

*Just because a game isn’t highly rated, or have big “buzz�, doesn’t mean that I won’t enjoy it. (Bunte Runde)

So what are your biases that are preventing you from experiencing a hidden gem?

You’ll have to excuse me now. Even though I’m not very fond of berry-flavored ice cream, I suddenly have the desire to try some Raspberry Razzamatazz…

New Games played

Imperial

I finally got the chance to play this great game by Mac Gerdts. Many people have made the mistake of assuming that, because Imperial has a map and a rondel, it is basically the same as Antike. This is a wrong assumption.

In Antike, the players represent different growing civilizations. As the civilizations grow, the players receive victory points for meeting different qualifications. The players’ territories expand in the game until usually, near the end of the game, there is conflict that results in the final victory point being awarded.

In Imperial, the players do not represent the European countries that are on the map, but instead are investors in the countries. This is an important point that many people, even after a rules explanation, fail to fully grasp. In Imperial, the countries take turns in a specific order. When it’s a country’s turn to go, the player who, at that moment, has the largest investment in the country, makes the decision what the country will do for their turn. As the different countries expand, the players who have invested in them can reap dividends based on their investments.

As the game progresses and the players diversify their investments, interesting dynamics between the players start to develop. For example, you might have the largest investment in Italy, so you are deciding how to expand Italy’s holdings. It might be easiest to take over France’s territories, but if you have investments in France, that might not be in your best interests. You might look at expanding into Austria’s territories, but Austria has built up a lot of military units, and thus you would not see a quick easy gain of territories there.

While there is negotiation in this game, there really isn’t much backstabbing, unless a player has made the mistake of not diversifying their investments. Everyone understands that the other players want “their� countries to do well. As the players invest in different countries, players begin to have joined vested interest in working together.

There are several nice balancing features in Imperial. One is the distribution of investments at the beginning of the game. When the game starts, everyone has a major interest in a different country, and a minor interest in another. As the game develops, the choices of how to invest your money become more interesting. Which country has the biggest opportunity to increase? Which country doesn’t have much more room for growth? Just because a country doesn’t appear to be doing well at one point, doesn’t mean that it can’t expand, and thus pay off later in the game.

Imperial is what I would classify as a subtle game. The decisions you make on your turn are usually not broad earth-scorching decisions. Each one seems rather small. Yet each turn can trigger a ripple that starts an ebb and flow between the countries on the board. It will not be clear until the very end of the game when money is tallied, who the winner is. This is definitely a must keep game for me.

Hystericoach

I’m neither a huge fan of organized sports nor of most party games.  So a party game about soccer normally wouldn’t seem up my alley.  But I was intrigued by what I had heard about the premise of Hystericoach.  I took the gamble at Essen, and brought the game home with me.  At the end of long game day we wanted to play something light, so I brought out Hystericoach.

The idea of the game is different, and the end result is fun, but to get to the fun through the poorly translated English rules took some work.

The game is loosely based on Soccer. The players are divided into 2 teams of up to 7 players each. This is nice to have a party game that will scale up easily to so many players. It is also suggested to have another player play the referee, so this game could accommodate 15 players.

Each team chooses a team card that has a roster of the teammates’ names and their jersey numbers. The names on the card are based on the nationality of the team. For example, a player on the Greek team might be named Ancorastopalos. The team cards are double sided, with shorter names on one side(to make the game a little easier), and longer names on the other. Each name is printed beside a different number from one to 7. These numbers correspond to the numbers on the jerseys of the cardboard player markers.

At the beginning of the round, each team designates a player to be the coach. The coach will not have a player marker. Instead, the coach takes a “play� card which has a wacky diagram with most of the team’s numbers on it in different positions in relation to the board. The coach’s goal is to have his teammates position their player markers in specific places on the board in a specific order, before the other team does the same.

Here’s the catch: The coach may not use the player’s numbers, or their real-life names (ie., on my team, the coach couldn’t say, “Scott move your marker…â€?). He must only refer to the player by the “player’s” name printed on the card. In addition, the coach cannot point and, here’s the kicker, cannot use directional words. He can’t use the words, “left, right, forward, back, etc…â€?

That pretty much limits the coach to yell things like, “Krapfenbonen (see, the names are funny and long, so the coach usually messes them up. In the game we played, our coach just shortened the name to “Krap� when referring to this player)…Krap Go!…Go…NO, not that way…..yes…yes…no!…STOP. Pass!�

When the coach says “pass”, the teammate who was moving passes a little plastic colored ball(there’s one for each team) to the next player, who attempts to quickly get in position. When the coach has arranged all of his teammates in the correct positions, he yells, “Shootâ€? and the game is paused. The referee checks to make sure all the players are in the correct position.  If they are, then the player who was last to get into position rolls a 6 sided die. If the result is higher than the team’s current score(a 1, though, is an automatic failure), then the team has made a goal, and they gain a point.

If a team successfully makes a goal, then the board is cleared, and both teams get a new play card, and the game starts again. If a team fails at their goal, then they must remove their player markers and draw a new play card, while the opposing team can just continue on where they paused when the goal was attempted. The first team to reach 6 points wins the game.

From the description, you’ve probably gathered that this game isn’t exactly on the level of Puerto Rico in terms of strategy. But it is goofy light fun. It really is a hoot when both coaches are simultaneously yelling at their teammates, who are moving randomly around the board like pinballs trying to quickly get into the proper positions.

We played Hystericoach with 12 people. Everyone enjoyed it. There was much hooting and hollering when a team scored, and you don’t usually see this much exuberance during most other games.

I do need to mention that the rules for the game are atrocious. They are not well organized, and they were obviously done as a translation by someone who is not a native English speaker. Add to that that the English rules are broken into 8 mini-pages but printed on two sides of one large piece of paper. Yet not all the mini-pages are in order, nor are they all numbered. So sometimes you have to hunt from page to page when trying to make out the rules.

I’m guessing that we interpreted the rules correctly because we had a lot of fun with this game. It will definitely make it’s way to the table as a closer in my group in the future.

Confidential aside to Rick T.:

Rick, although I was saddened to hear of your retirement, I was heartened to hear that you will still be contributing to BGN.  I do not have the eloquence to express how much I have come to love, respect, and depend on your contributions to BGN, as well as BGN itself.  Maybe it’s testament enough to say how upset I was to think, if only for a little while, that there was a possibility that BGN might not continue without you.  You have made an amazing contribution to the boardgame community for which we are all indebted.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart for everything.

Confidential aside to Eric M.:

Eric, although you have some mighty big clown shoes to fill, I am confident that you’ll be able to carry on the torch that has been passed to you.  I am extremely thankful that you have stepped up to keep BGN running, and look forward to helping you in any way that I can.

© 2006 Scott Tepper

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Comments:

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I agree that the arguments that poster presented seem to be quite weak, but you don’t follow that up and comment on the idea of posting/commenting on an unplayed game.  You seem to imply that it is in poor form or something.  (But don’t actually say that.) I have two thoughts on the matter.  First, as you suggest, this is not like commenting on an unseen movie.  I would be comfortable making some statments about a movie I had not seen if I had read over a correct transcription of the movie.  Second, there is/was a flurry of commentary about games appearing in Essen before the show occurred by people who had not played any of them.  I see no reason for that to stop once the show happened just because a few more people have now played the game. The best thing, of course, was that the poster begain their comments by indicating that they had NOT played the game.  Now, the statements you post do seem slightly imperfect in their logic.  I have no issue with a desire for people to subscribe to some sort of self-consistency, but I also think there is quite a bit of fodder to be had in a discussion of a board game that has not yet been played. Posted by Matt J. Carlson on Nov 20, 2006 at 12:48 AM | #

Matt, I think Scott was commenting more on the biases that prevent people from even sampling a play of the game, not trying to say that people should stop talking about games they haven’t played.  Whether people comment on games unplayed is not the point of his column, and personally I think that discussion would be best somewhere else, though that’s just me.  The point (for me, anyways) is the little biases we have both towards and against games that result in us wishing not to play, or to play, particular games we have not yet encountered. For instance, I am biased against anything involving dead cats as a theme.  And I’m uber-biased *towards* things involving dragons flying around/in volanoes, which I think is one of the greatest themes EVER.  Now, these are very sensible to me, but possibly less sensible to others, though I just cannot see how. Posted by Ava Jarvis on Nov 20, 2006 at 02:37 AM | #

Scott, Imperial sounds very intriguing.  How long does a typical game take?  That will help me discern whether or not I can talk the ladies (our gaming group consists of 2 couples) into playing. Posted by John Barnes on Nov 20, 2006 at 07:53 AM | #

Imperial sounds interesting enough, and I saw a few games in progress at BGG.con.  I’m intrigued by the 18xx-ish nature of buying shares in countries.  However, the two games that I saw ran 5.5 hours and 4.5 hours.  Admittedly, those games were with all newbies—but that still portends a 3-ish-hour game with experienced players.  And right now, other than Through the Ages, I’m not sure if I’m ready for that long of a game.  However, as the positive reviews keep coming in, it’s making me more willing to give it a try! Dale Posted by Dale Yu on Nov 20, 2006 at 08:09 AM | #

Matt, I wasn’t trying to make the point that people shouldn’t make comments about games that they haven’t played.  I just don’t always understand how people can make negative comments about games that they haven’t played. I was trying more to convey that I think people may possibly be missing out on good games when they dismiss a game before they play it due to their preferences/biases. Regarding the practice of rating games that you haven’t played...well I do have opinions on this, but addressing that here would have made this column many times longer, and I believe this subject may have already been touched on here at BGN.  But if people are interested in revisting it, I’d be happy to share. Ava, what games have dead cats as a theme? Posted by Scott Tepper on Nov 20, 2006 at 09:26 AM | #

John and Dale, I played Imperial once at Essen, and our four-player game lasted three hours, not counting 30-45 minutes for the rules explanation. I could see the game coming down to two hours with experience. We took lots of semi-random actions that likely hindered our development of points, and no one siphoned a treasury as expected. That would definitely change with a bit more know-how! Posted by W. Eric Martin on Nov 20, 2006 at 09:29 AM | #

John, Imperial is a longer, but not “Twilight Imperium long” game.  The game will take more time with first time players, because it takes a while to wrap your head around how the game mechanisms intertwine. Something I’ve observed is that beginning players seem hesitant to choose the Taxation action for their countries.  Since this is the mechanism that pushes the game to its’ conclusion, the game tends to run longer with newer players. With experienced players, I think the game will run between 2.5-3 hours.  In my opinion, though, the game doesn’t feel like it’s dragging, no matter how long it takes.  Since most of the individual actions go pretty quickly, you sometimes only have a minute or so between your turns. Posted by Scott Tepper on Nov 20, 2006 at 09:54 AM | #

I am biased against exceedingly long games, or games where other reviewers mention the dreaded “analysis paralysis"--not due to my own gaming tastes, but rather that of gamers with whom I regularly play. I’m intrigued by “Through the Ages” after ready about it from Larry, but will probably pass because I don’t think enough others would be willing to commit so much time to learning and playing a single game (our group has the gamers version of attention deficit disorder and will always defer to the newest game). By the way, I pass on any film that is labeled a “slasher” flick, or one that bills Usher as its lead character.  It’s not ALWAYS necessary to taste every flavor first! Posted by Jeff Allers on Nov 20, 2006 at 11:10 AM | #

At the risk of finding myself in the opposite corner to Buddha and Scott Tepper, I think that biases are of some value.  There are too many games published each year for anybody to play them all.  Faced with that avalanche, biases in favour of one designer, against another, or even against a shorter, lighter Caylus help us to narrow down our choices to the titles we are most likely to enjoy. I think that is fine so long as we don’t close ourselves to the possibility of having fun with a game that doesn’t fit our biases.  Only last weekend I was reminded of this as I enjoyed playing Factory Fun (I don’t like puzzle games) and Leonardo da Vinci (I’m not fond of build a production engine games). Mind you, I was right about Marvel Heroes (I don’t like old school slugathons with buckets of dice). Posted by Andy Parsons on Nov 20, 2006 at 02:33 PM | #

Andy, If you want to take on Buddha, I’m ok with that, but I don’t want you to think that you and I are in opposite corners.  My comment, “With the abundance of new games at Essen...you must be discriminating with your game purchases.” is in agreement with what you said. I was just trying to point out that sometimes, the habits that we rely on (our biases) may sometimes betray us. Posted by Scott Tepper on Nov 20, 2006 at 05:35 PM | #

Scott, Hmmm.  I know of no games with dead cats in their theme.  But if there was one, I’d be very biased against it. On a slightly more serious side… my major biases are against games involving trading, “party” and/or trivia games, any themes that are rather historically dry (Louis XIV, Ausberg, Friedrich, and almost Thurn & Taxis), and game times that are extensive, in terms of five hours and more. That said, I have found games in the last three categories that I do like (Thurn & Taxis, the very very very occaisonal game of Descent, and the Lord of the Rings trivia game from FFG that rewards the really really nerdy Tolkien fans with wonderfully hard questions from the books and background history themselves).  I have not yet to find a game that involves trading as a major mechanic that I do like, however. Posted by Ava Jarvis on Nov 20, 2006 at 08:59 PM | #

Hmm, rating a game you haven’t played surely would be silly. Almost everyone is biased towards some sorts of games.  (I hate games where I have no real decisions… but many who read this site would have similar tastes.) I also tend to dislike abstracts (basically anything I consider themeless). That said, I still tend to be willing to try a new game if offered.  Newness is usally enough to pique my interest. Posted by Matt J. Carlson on Nov 22, 2006 at 09:35 PM | #

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