I would think the ideal game would include both elements.  Randomness in a game does not always mean good storytelling, of course, and the exclusion of random elements does not mean there is a lack thereof.

If the winner is so arbirtrary, but the story so important, I would think Cutthroat Caverns would lend itself more to a cooperative style of game anyway (it probably is one of the many attempts to transform role playing to a board game experience, right?).  If anything, the recent popularity of cooperative games demonstrates that the desire for story arc/experience is strong among hobby gamers.

I also recently played Cutthroat Caverens. It was a little long for me, but although I, too, tend to play games for the challenge of the mental puzzle, I thought this game worked pretty well. It’s a RPG-style game in the same family as Munchkin, but shorter (I think it will be faster after everyone understands the rules and special powers) and with a _little_ more strategy.

As to the point of your column, though: it seems to me that the 2 types of play you describe are not mutually exclusive. In a game with equally-skilled players making optimal decisions, everyone should generally be in the running right up until the last VP-scoring opportunity. And so the winner will come down to that chance—whoever planned just a little better (in this example, the person who counted VP during the game and held off on playing the initiative-changing card until the end; assuming they drew it, of course) or got a little luckier (here, on that final initiative draw) will win. Unless you’re playing a game with absolutely no luck/randomness, I would think that skilled group would usually end up bunched close to each other. So you have your mental puzzle, and you have your storey line.

I do agree, however, that that scenario can be frustrating if you are playing an otherwise strategic game. For example, I remember being mildly annoyed by it in Louis XIV the first time I played it. In a relatively light game, though, it’s not as much of a concern for me.

I do not mind the random end, but the amount of randomness at the end you suggested seemed a bit out of the range of what I would want in a game. If we were talking closer to a 5% outcome that the game could skew to a random happening at the end, then the game would have a better shot with me.

Having not played Cutthroat Caverns, I was wondering if the game allowed a pull-away that was possible in some strategies that could have been missed.

Was there a strategy that could have avoided the end game that you have experienced?

If there’s a way to play the game well, and I do it better than other people, I want to win. For example, we never use the random element of Perpetual Commotion - it’s just too much effort to be shafted by the dice. On the other hand, if it’s a silly game in the first place, I don’t care what happens. And since I generally prefer games I care about, I tend not to play those games. Killer Bunnies is OK to play once every few years… In The Year of the Dragon somewhat less often than that :-).

I don’t like games that are designed to punish the winners.  I find most “catch up” mechanics distasteful.  Isn’t that what Cutthroat Caverns is doing by cranking up the value of each monster so that anyone can win with the last one?  Sure, one player might totally dominate early on and not have to worry about that last monster, but that’d be tremendously lucky, both in cards played and inattentive players allowing it to happen.  I’m also not a big fan of “take that” mechanics, so CC is just a big loser in my world.

Some might say that CC is more of an experience than a game.  That may be, but it’s an experience I don’t find entertaining.  I DO play many games where the experience is the thing and the gameplay is secondary, but CC doesn’t cut it there and I’m playing with a crowd where more than half the players have a role-playing background.

So what about a game where one player can attain a lead that nobody else can catch up too?  Hmmm, I’d need an example here.  Most cases I can think of would allow the other players to gang up on the winner so as to erode that lead.

I don’t mind random elements, but they need to stay within reason.  Randomly getting a free resource each turn is manageable.  Randomly getting either zero resources or 1,000 resources in a turn is just nuts.  I’ve seen some people complain about the dice in Stone Age, for example, but their complaints fall on deaf ears with me.  That is manageable chance.  If you think the game’s totally random, you simply don’t know how to play yet.

@Michael:
No, CC isn’t like that. I think (I’ve only played it once). The monsters in any particular game are a subset of those included in the box—randomly chosen, worth varying VP each, and appearing in random order (are they supposed to increase in value??). Furthermore, each monster generally has a LOT of hit points, requiring multiple hits to kill. In order to set up the situation described, enough damage would have had to have been dealt in previous rounds to make the monster vulnerable to that one last hit. So _someone_ previously hit the monster enough to make it vulnerable to the next random initiative draw; maybe they shouldn’t have attacked it at all? Of course, there will be rare combinations where this isn’t true (e.g., someone has a powerful hand of cards and is able to deal a LOT of damage at once, and the monster is a very weak one).

Re: a game with an insurmountable lead. In Age of Steam, if you leave the leader unchecked for too long, I think an unstoppable runaway situation is possible. Lokomotive Werks is even worse, although I’ve only played it once so that’s probably just inexperience talking. Attika is similar but different: if playing with more than 2, everyone generally wants to let one person stop the player about to win; if they cannot, game over.

Ravindra,
The prestige points on the monsters vary some throughout the game, but there are bonus prestige points assigned to the monsters depending on the round.  The last round monster is worth +5 prestige points, if I remember correctly.  Our last monster was worth 8 or 9.  We each had somewhere between 1 - 8 prestige points going in to the last round--so even the player who only had one point would have won by defeating that last monster (this is from memory and the numbers might be off, but the gist is right).

I prefer a more refined design where all or most of the players are still in the hunt at the end, but not one that’s so blatant that the winner of the last conflict automatically is the victor.  Obviously, that’s not as easy to achieve, but most of the games I play manage it.  I don’t mind a game where a runaway victory is *possible*, as long as the player really played that much better than anyone else, but mechanics that subtly keep (or allow players to keep) themselves within striking distance are usually preferred.  I view these as soundly designed games, not as a sop to the losers.

With regards to Michael’s comments, games which do this do not punish the winners, they punish the players who don’t do what is necessary to win.  The object is to have the most points at the end, not necessarily to win the most conflicts.  If early battles are worth less than later ones, then a smart player expends less energy to win them than the later ones.  A player who ignores this isn’t a “winner”, he’s one who deserves to be smacked.  Does the fact that the second age of Amun-Re provides so many more VPs than the first one mean that that game punishes the winners?  A player who goes all out to maximize his points in the first age is playing poorly and deserves to lose.  On the other hand, it’s very easy to trail by so much in the first age that winning the game is virtually impossible.  I definitely think of this as a feature, not a bug, and it’s up to the players to adjust to the realities that the game presents.

From what I’m hearing about Cutthroat Caverns, it sounds like this is a game that takes this too far.  If it’s truly likely that the winner of the last battle wins, regardless of what occurred earlier, then that’s a game I’d avoid.  Unless the winners of the earlier fights acquire something that helps them later on (weapons, skills, spells, etc.), then why bother winning those?  Better to save up everything for the last throwdown, which makes the first part of the game pointless.  Some games don’t assume that the players will be so competitive that they will take actions that spoil the experience just so that they can win.  That’s fine, but I’d rather play a game where I don’t have to do the designer’s job for him.  If that really is the typical endgame for CC, I’ll pass.

By the way, this has got to be the first time I’ve seen In the Year of the Dragon compared with Killer Bunnies (unfavorably, yet!) and I’m at a loss to figure out what the common element is.  Care to elaborate, John?

You shouldn’t have done a quick tally of points.  Play the game!!

Gotta agree with Rob on this one.  You shouldn’t have been revealing your point totals.  It’s kind of like playing solitaire and then looking at the last few cards to see how you should play in order to win.

While I know you are upset at losing because of the random turn order, maybe you should have been more aggressive with your card play during the first eight monsters.  Never blame the system for losing as everyone has to follow it, too.

Well that’s just silly, guys.  As I understand the game, the point totals are hidden trackable information.  Some of us like to know the game situation before we take our actions.  Revealing the points didn’t lead to the problem; it just meant they KNEW that the one who killed the last monster would win, rather than them just suspecting it.  It’s still a flaw in the design.

"Do you prefer a close game, where everyone is in it until the end, but where a small random factor might decide the whole thing? “

It entirely depends on the game.  In a card flinging, fun game like Cutthroat Caverns, perfectly okay.  However, this “problem” has been noted, and the accepted “fix” for is to set some hidden chips - the player who gets the kill takes his prestige and this hidden chip.  They’re added to his score at the end of the game.  You know who’s doing okay, but no precise information for the last few rounds kingmaking.

Bit like the Avalon Hill tweak to their last edition of History of the World - the leader gets a hidden bonus chip, to reveal at game end.

I’m also at a loss to figure out this random factor hidden in In the Year of the Dragon… a game I quite enjoy.  (I traded away my Killer Bunnies, as I don’t even care to play it biannually...)

Heh heh… my biggest beef with Year of the Dragon is the way almost everyone gets calamitously screwed. Drought and Tribute are events which can drag you from “first” to “last” - and I quote those terms because I do recognise that if you could be dragged down then you weren’t really first in any concrete sense anyway. This is a catch-up mechanism. In fact the game is a sequence of catch-up mechanisms - the more stuff you manage to accumulate, the more the game struggles to take it off you. At least in Killer Bunnies my carrots won’t be taken from me.

I prefer games that can be won early, but with evenly (or close) skilled players, it could come down to a random event at the end.

One memorable occasion that demonstrates this occurred while a friend and I were played 7 Ages.  We played for four or five hours and were close enough that the card draws to determine the results of the last battle decided the game.

I said something along the lines of “Five hours and the game is decided by a card draw.” My mitspieler took this to mean I didn’t like the result, but actually, I meant it as a good thing.

This probably isn’t the ideal game to demonstrate my point, because, especially 2-er, it’s possible that luck could have an overwhelming effect earlier.  But many of TGOO lend themselves to staying in the hunt and hoping for a break late in the game and those are fun games.

John, I don’t see what you mean by calling that a catch-up mechanism in ITYOTD.  The winning player is not subjected to any special rules to bring him down.  What you’re describing is a player ignoring the need to prepare for trouble and going for VP and then getting kicked in the shins later for doing so.  If I’m playing Risk and I just attack everything I can to gain territories until I’m depleted down to one army per territory and the other players then take away everything I gained and more, is that a “catch-up” mechanism?  No.

Hi All!
It’s Curt Covert, the creator of Cutthroat Caverns. Great discussion! I thought I’d chime in on this topic both in general terms and as it relates to the specific design of our game.

It should surprise no one that the endgame was a central topic for well over a year as were were designing Cutthroat Caverns - and the game underwent several versions as we tried to best figure it out.

Interestingly though, no one on the thread has yet mentioned the equally important tactic in securing a win, eliminating the competition. Managing your Life Points and dragging your heals to keep monsters beating down the party longer or redirecting painful attacks at the leaders is equally important in the game. The game is, after all, cooperative only to a point. I have seen many games won by players who not only did their best to score prestige - but also forced the party’s life totals down to eliminate the leaders. Of course, I’ve seen a lot of games where no one won as well - having hurt the party to severely, too soon.

Regardless, the question remains. “Do you prefer a game where everyone is in it until the end, but where a random factor might decide the whole thing.” My answer is… depends on the game. Chess, for example, remains one of my favorite games, in that it is a pure battle of wills beginning to end. No chance, just strategy. Its purity is what makes it one of the best games ever. My personal view, too, is that this is especially important in a two player game.

But there are many styles of gaming - and I enjoy them all. Tom Jolly’s ‘Wiz-War’ is as chaotic and random as they come and yet a better investment in an hour is nearly impossible to find. It is just FUN! Reversals of fortune and having everyone in it until the end make this game a beer and pretzels classic that remains top of my list.

And admittedly, this style of game is much more social than chess with much laughter and gnashing of teeth. I have said many times that I credit Tom and his game with being the inspiration for where I would take my company, as it so perfectly exemplifies what I love about games. Lots of player interaction, lots of laughter, a good dose of ‘take that’, a boisterous table and, as people leave the table, a tale to tell of your exploits.

I love a good resource management or abstract strategy game too. Outwit and outplay is terrific - but I wouldn’t choose to play any single style of game every day. Each style of game has something unique to offer, as it should be.

So, as it relates to how we approached the end game of Cutthroat Caverns… early in our design, there were no bonus points at the end. And we did find that too often, one player would simply get too far ahead. Players started calculating the odds of winning as early as the mid game and giving up - even when they still had a chance. Worse, as the final Encounter was revealed, it was clear to everyone who had a shot and who was out - even before the first swing. Not a very climatic ending to a game of dungeon treachery. Took all the excitement from what should be the most thrilling battle.

We played with a lot of different things - we dropped everyone’s life points from 120 to 100 and boosted the damage from creatures to make player elimination more of a end game tactic (and have gone much further with each expansion). We looked at staging encounters so the big creatures always fell at the end and the little creatures were encountered early - but replay suffered as the game felt too similar from play to play. And a bunch of other things.

In the end, I wanted to create a ‘moment’ and sustain it through the length of the game. An emotional feeling. It is the moment that, as a naive roleplayer, you suddenly realize that the other party members might be more dangerous than the monsters you face. You know you must work together to survive and each betrayal is a mind boggling shock when players look after their own selfish needs first - each and every time they do it.

It is the same reason I did not create ‘unique’ characters in the base game (which has also gotten much discussion). In the end, I wanted all players to be on an equal footing. I wanted a game focused on how far the ‘players’ would go in screwing each other without dooming themselves to the demise of all. I never wanted it to be about who got which character, who was more powerful, etc. Just about the players.

So, in the end, we decided to balance the game for a climatic battle as the endgame. Players could already be eliminated early by dying and we didn’t want people to be numerically eliminated before the game’s end on top of that. Besides, there is certainly a precedent for the final battle being a climatic one in literature, RPGs and even video game boss battles. The endgame we landed upon had the right ‘spirit’.

Interestingly, as we have further innovated and expanded the game, we have found elements that further mitigate this ‘all or nothing’ aspect of the end game. Events and Relics have added new ways to gain, lose and steal prestige. And each set of creatures has become far more deadly, meaning player elimination is a very real possibility regardless of your play style as a group (not everyone faces certain death in the core game is the work together well). Though certainly, it has not altogether changed the impact of the last three encounters.

None of this refutes any of the comments that have been made previously by folks on this thread. It is all a matter of taste - but I tend to think most gamers have a very broad pallet and appreciate a wide range of games. But hopefully my comments help to explain how and why we came to the design we did - and why, in the final analysis, I still support it for this game.

And if you are looking for an emotionally evocative, highly interactive experience and enjoy a bit of ‘thrill ride’ in your game, you may find it has a lot to offer.

Best regards,
Curt

Oh, and by the by, Initiative Order in any battle, final or otherwise, is NEVER a guarantee of securing a kill. But I understood what you meant about the importance of the last kills.

That is an interesting continuum to consider, the one stretching from pure story-telling to pure strategy. 

It seems that most players, depending on mood and such, would like to play a variety of games along that continuum.  But there are some people at the extremes. 

I remember an argument with a friend (when we were much younger) playing a very old TSR board game from the late 70s or early 80s. I realized after playing a few times that the game was not balanced --some players had severe disadvantages no matter how they played. My friend, who owned the game, couldn’t understand the points I was making (e.g. about one player being sandwiched between two opposing players with no bonus armies and such to compensate).  Instead he argued that if I just played harder and pulled better cards and rolled the dice better, things would balance out in the end. 

My friend, is quite bright, but he is a story teller and not much for logic and strategy.  For him games were (and still are) all about unfolding stories.  I think chess would be too esoteric for him, but Warhammer (for example a game he now plays) has a lot of story both behind the scenarios and unfolding on the table.  Chess is a better and far less expensive and time consuming way to match wits but Warhammer is incredibly rich with story.

I guess this story---strategy continuum says more about people than games.