Shannon Appelcline: The Expansion Game, Part Two: Bane or Boon?

Four weeks ago, I wrote about gaming expansions, positing a history for them that I really believe is how they came to be. Having thus examined the question of how gaming expansions exist, I’d like to talk about a more philosophical question: should they?

This surely isn’t the first time that I’ve talked about whether gaming expansions were good or bad. In my Carcassonne articles, I discussed how much the various expansions--particularly the latter ones--have messed up the core game play, while in a discussion of Memoir ‘44, I talked about how much I admired the system of scenarios, something that has now been carried across several supplements.

So, there’s good and bad, and when I answer the general question of whether gaming expansions are a bane or a boon, I generally have to say yes.

A Question of Philosophy

I know some people who would always prefer for there to be new games. They’re correct in saying that a designer living in the shadows of the past is never going to create the next Puerto Rico or Through the Ages, that churning through the same mechanics and the same themes to publish expansions is unlikely to produce anything absolutely innovative. I can understand their regret in watching a masterful game designer who continues to return to the same well.

On the other hand, especially now that I’m half-a-decade into my current boardgaming interest, my personal love for newness has decreased. Certainly, I’m still thrilled to try out a new game that I’ve never played before, but I’m growing increasingly content to return to an older masterpiece as well. And expansions allow me to do that.

So, though expansion work may prevent a designer from creating a new El Grande, on the other hand they may also prevent me from playing a new Worlds of Boris Vallejo. In the meantime I get to keep playing games I love like Descent, Mystery Rummy, or Ticket to Ride, which otherwise would have grown stale with too many plays.

A Question of Design

For me, the question of whether expansions are a bane or boon thus becomes a question of how well they’re designed. There are several elements that I feel make for strong designs.

First, they should be modular. Carcassonne aptly shows what a train wreck your game line can be if you keep pumping out new supplements without any thought to how they’ll stack together. Conversely Memoir ‘44 and Descent, two games with strong scenario systems, both show off how modular expansion designs avoid piling one complexity upon complexity. Age of Steam, Power Grid, Railroad Tycoon, Thurn & Taxis, and Ticket to Ride all did pretty much the same thing. Though you might not immediately recognize their alternate boards as scenarios, they are.

Second, expansions should have complementary play styles. The further you get away from the original game’s style of play, the more trouble you can get into. Many of my complaints about the later Carcassonne supplements have to do with them changing the game from cooperative to competitive. There are, however, clearly exceptions to the need to keep the game the same. Sauron is an example of a supplement that totally changes the style of its base game, Lord of the Rings. However, by being so explicitly different, it prepared players for what they were getting.

Third, expansions should have complementary mechanics.  Again, I turn to Lord of the Rings as a fine example of this. Through three different supplements, it’s really maintained the same type of play, full of icons and decisions about how to use cards to offset bad effects. Conversely Alhambra is a game that seems to introduce random new mechanics into its supplements (and for that reason they’ve gone into a box to be sold at my game store’s next auction).

Fourth, expansions should somewhat maintain complexity. There can be slight increases, and in fact almost any game that has expansions tends to slowly crank complexity up. However, it becomes a real problem when you stack several things together--which is why non-modular expansions can often be troublesome. I’ve already beat the Carcassonne horse to death. I think Arkham Horror is another game that faces this threat just a few supplements out, as you now have a new board and several new decks of card, with no end in sight.

Does an expansion have to follow all of these rules? Of course not. But from my experience if it does it’s more likely to be successful at my gaming table.

The Hall of Fame

I got thinking about this whole topic recently when I played some expansions that I thought really added to their base games. I’m going to call out those top-level releases here.

Memoir 44’s Air Pack may be the best gaming expansion ever. It doesn’t just expand its core game (with new airplane rules, as it happens), but it also polishes the entire game system. It brings together all the expansions to date into a coherent whole that makes it easy to use all the terrain and all the rules that have been published to date. Every single game publisher putting out expansions should look at this supplement and consider its capstone design which makes everything that Days of Wonder has put out thus far for their game that much more accessible.

Fantasy Flight Games also has done a great job with most of their expansions, of which I’m the most familiar with Descent. What I love about their expansions is that they often revisit the base game. If FFG messed up a component in the original game, they’ll reprint it in a supplement, and thus in new Descent expansions I’ve gotten replacements for old cards, keeping my set up-to-date and correct. I also enjoy how they publish errata, FAQs, and complete power lists in new rulebooks, again showing that they recognize their gaming lines as living designs.

So kudos to Days of Wonder and Fantasy Flight Games, who are members of my Expansion Hall of Fame, and really prove how gaming expansions can be boons, not banes.

I’d love to here about any expansions that you think are particularly worthy of note.

Around the Corner

I’ve been a bit lax in my writing in recent weeks, though you can find my brand-new review of Rails of Europe over at RPGnet. It’s somewhat appropriate to mention it in this article, because I think it’s another excellent expansion, mainly because it offers better gameplay that the original game did, polishing up some design elements and offering a better “scenario” (map).

In two weeks I’ll be back here with a look at a couple of small-press publishers.

© 2008 Shannon Appelcline

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Comments:

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How does Duel of Ages fit in? Posted by Lee Fisher on Feb 28, 2008 at 07:48 AM | #

Wow, we are in complete disagreement on the Carcassonne series. I’ve not played the latest Carcassonne expansion, but I point to that series as an excellent way to refresh the Carcassonne experience.  My only complaint with the expansions are that using too many at a time can extend the game length. Posted by Scott Russell on Feb 28, 2008 at 09:33 AM | #

I think for me what makes an expansion work is when it extends the story to another location (or with more characters with another setting)—without rewriting the history of the game as its already unfolded. In terms of mechancis I don’t like the layering of more options onto an existing set of rules but prefer taking the exist mechanics and change the angle to add that additional story. An example of other settings are the train games and their new maps (the ones I like most are the ones with minimal rules differences).  Two examples of more characters with a different setting are 1)the first 3 eon expansions for Cosmic encounter, and 2) the expansions for the Up Front Card game. For me expansions work best if at their heart they give you the “what if we had done it differently” instead of the “what if we had given you more”. Thats the difference I see with Carc and M44. Posted by Ray Petersen on Feb 28, 2008 at 09:49 AM | #

I think expansions give a designer a chance to offer more of what we love in many of their designs; I believe Mr. Friese and Power Grid are a fine exsample of that. On the other hand, sometimes it’s nice to have new twists to take a game in new, and sometimes very different directions; Alhambra falls into that category. I think expansions are a great thing, and certainly let you play more of a game you love. Posted by Dave Kudzma on Feb 29, 2008 at 01:28 PM | #

Well-written, Shannon. Posted by Ryan Bretsch on Mar 3, 2008 at 11:41 PM | #

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