Matt Carlson: Is Your Game Tight or Baggy?
Recently, I have had the pleasure to play several games of In the Year of the Dragon. In the game, players take on the role of a faction in China attempting to survive the harsh conditions and events that occur throughout a single year. In only twelve turns (one for each month of the year) players take a single action and then recruit an apprentice or master worker to add into their growing organization. With so few actions within the game, I began to ponder my opinion on tight games – games that have very little wiggle room for mistakes.
For those unfamiliar with In the Year of the Dragon, the game is set up with twelve event tiles are laid out on the board. The first two represent months of peace, but the following (randomized) months represent events that frequently award harsh penalties to any player who has not adequately prepared for them. Limited actions (just twelve) combined with regularly occurring harsh penalties make for a game that feels very tense. One poor decision can have a ripple effect and tear apart a player’s long-term plans. This adds a strong tension throughout the game as each decision must be weighed for its current and future effects. In thinking about this aspect of the game, I realized that I may have stumbled upon yet another dimension to use in classifying games.
Due to my math and science geek roots, I have often toyed with trying to come up with a few classifications of games that I could use to try to effectively place games into categories. Games could be classified in a continuum of complex to simple rules, long to short playing times, highly thematic to abstract, high vs low occurrences of randomness, and so on. A gamer may have basic preferences that are always true, like my own dislike of pure abstracts, or each classification may be dependant on the others, like a dislike of long playing games that have high elements of chance. (In my math/science geek mind, I think of all of these measurement categories as orthogonal basis sets, and a game could be described using a multidimensional array of these basis sets.) Playing In the Year of the Dragon has made me consider adding another category to my list of preferences, tight games vs baggy games.
In a tight game, every decision is very important and there is little or no room for mistakes. An early decision will often have repercussions throughout the game making it difficult to recover from an early mistake. Resources are valuable but scarce, and players who end up with extra resources at the end of the game have probably misplayed and been inefficient in some way. At the other extreme, a baggy game is one where decisions occur frequently, they tend to not have long term repercussions, and resources are often plentiful so that an over expenditure at a single point in the game will rarely completely remove a player from contention.
Tight games would include classics like Princes of Florence, Wallenstein, and possibly Die Macher. Each decision builds on all the previous ones, and players must make use of every resource available if they intend to win. I’ve taken the solo Flash computer game of Agricola for a spin, and it also seems to be a pretty tight game. A tight game will often have few overall decisions, making each choice important. Scarce resources seem to be a definite requirement. Casting victory points into the dual role of VPs as well as currency seems to help keep a game tight (Medici, Princes of Florence). Games that are baggy include things like Settlers of Catan where one sub-optimal trade does not usually cost the game. Baggy games would include snowball games, where a victory point engine is slowly built up, but some resources tend to be less and less important as time goes on. Games with an element of chance also tend to be baggy, since the roll of the dice (or the flip of a card) can bring a player feast or famine. If the game is well designed, it will allow players some flexibility to roll with the punches of fate that fall their way. By this analysis, even classics like Puerto Rico and Goa could be considered somewhat baggy, since money and goods are often in plentiful supply near the end of the game.
Now that I have a new way to measure my games, I have to figure out whether I like tight or baggy games. On the one had, I love the challenge of pitting my brain against the board setup and my opponents to see how well I can survive in the harsh, unforgiving conditions of a tight game. On the other hand, playing a tight game can be quite draining since I need to be “on†at all times, always trying to maximize my position. As with nearly all things gamey, I find that I like different things at different times. If I’m tired, a tight game may be more work than I want to spend, but when I’m itching for a brain-burner it may be just the ticket. I will admit that I prefer my tight games to be short to middle-weight in length, as I simply do not care to be so focused for very long periods of time. I enjoy the social aspects of gaming, and in a tight game I am often too focused on the game to spend much time socializing with my opponents.
I used to think I didn’t care for tight games, but have lately enjoyed them immensely. I think the key to my enjoyment is to play the shorter ones (about 1 1/2 to 2 hours tops) and pepper my schedule with the occasional silly social game like Ca$h ‘n Gun$. What is your preference?
Posted by Matt J. Carlson on Feb 9, 2008 at 10:56 AM in Columnists, Matt J. Carlson, Gone Gaming / 2002
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I’ve made the following claim: “Railroad Tycoon is a game of efficiency, but Age of Steam is a game of survival.” What this means is that the former game is “baggy”, with your results varying relatively continuously with the quality of your choices. The latter game, on the other hand, is “tight”. Your results can become much worse if your choices aren’t sufficiently good. Or, speaking more colloquially, there’s a cliff. I don’t think the question is really whether your choices matter. If that were the question, we’d be discussing the relative importance of luck vs. skill. The question is whether an apparently small error can lead to catastrophe. In Princes of Florence, there’s a huge difference between having a 16-WV work on Turn 7 and having a 17-WV work on Turn 7. In Age of Steam, there’s a huge difference between having exactly enough cash to pay your expenses and falling just one or two coins short. In Taj Mahal (another tight game,) there’s a huge difference between having that one last card and being forced to drop out. Maybe I’m not accurately perceiving the point you’re making, but that’s my perspective. Posted by Eric Brosius on Feb 9, 2008 at 10:38 AM | #
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No, you’ve nailed exactly what I was trying to say. In a game of experts, obviously every choice matters, but in a social game where everyone might make an occasional sub-optimal play, a baggy game is more forgiving. The consequences are just harsher in a tight game. I suppose I could do without tight or baggy entirely and use the term “harsh” for a game, but I like how “tight” vs “baggy” don’t convey a judgement call about either game style. Although I must say I refuse to play any boardgame that is so baggy it’s boxers are showing. ;) Posted by Matt J. Carlson on Feb 9, 2008 at 11:53 AM | #
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It seems to me that the more tight a game system is, the more the game mechanics are the focus of the experience. That may sound obvious, but my point is that your opponents become carriers of the games mechanics. Your REAL opponent is the game itself, and the other players are just trying to beat the game better than you. Baggy games on the other hand, leave some flexibility within the system to let the game players take some creative initiative. The games mechanics are the carriers of the players, if you will. Your opponents personality and creativity become more important to the gaming experience. Or maybe I’m missing the point entirely. Posted by David Wiens on Feb 9, 2008 at 02:15 PM | #
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Interesting article Matt (and I agree, ITYOTD is a very good game). The tension level is higher in tight games, which is often a good thing. As you point out, sometimes you want to relax in a game, so alternating tight and loose (baggy?) may make both more enjoyable. A key aspect is not whether choices matter, but rather *how* decisions matter. In a baggy game, a strategic or tactical path chosen will outweigh how much you ‘pay’ to make that choice, whereas in a tight game the resource cost (whether gold, actions, cubes) makes a huge difference. Creativity looms larger when the path is more important than the cost, optimization and planning is more important when the cost (including the opportunity cost of actions in the future) is paramount. I see things a bit differently than my reading of David’s comments above - a game can still be tight but be highly interactive. Tight != multi-player solitaire (although there may be a higher than normal correlation) Tigris and Euphrates strikes me as a tight game (small errors can crush you) and yet I see the other players as the opponents, not the game system. A final comment - perhaps Knizia-like games with well balanced multiple victory point conditions may help reduce the tightness of a game by decreasing the downside of making less than perfect choices. Through the Desert comes to mind, seldom will a single play lead to catastrophe, but some choices are better than others and will lead to an accumulation of small point differences rather than falling off a cliff. Games where actions are king tend to increase tightness, as a seemingly small event failing to get a resource needed later leaves you short an action. Posted by Larry Baxter on Feb 9, 2008 at 04:19 PM | #
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I would agree that YotD is a very tight game. We played it today with 1 noob and his comment to another gamer who asked what he thought of it was “It has a harsh learning curve”. I have played maybe 7-8 times now and feel like I know what has to take place, but sometimes it just doesn’t come together. Posted by John Daniels on Feb 10, 2008 at 01:56 AM | #
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(I don’t think your axes are quite orthogonal, but that’s not the point right now.) Tight, yes, not a negative word like harsh. But baggy, not a good word to me. The usual antonym of tight is loose, and while not perfect, I think is a bit better. And my view is that some of my best gaming experiences have been in tight games - particular games of Medici and Princes of Florence spring to mind (although I very rarely play the latter). But I can’t spend too much of my time playing tight games, as you note they can be hard work. I’m incapable, for example, of playing Medici without card counting (several occasions when I’ve waited to the end and “got lucky”, that may be what my opponents thought - I knew the odds were in my favour) - and I card count in very few games. Posted by Christopher Dearlove on Feb 10, 2008 at 07:39 PM | #
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I’d be the first to admit that the axes aren’t orthogonal, but I try to keep them as diverse as possible. (Length and Complexity often go hand in hand but don’t have to… I know few people who would enjoy a long lightweight game, though.) For most of the life of the article, I was using the term “loose” but it has unfortunate connotations in the US which makes it unsuitable for what I was trying to convey. (It would be fine in most contexts, but I would have to use a different term when I ran our high school’s boardgame club… ) Thus, I ended up going with “baggy”. Not perfect, but more acceptible than “loose”. Also, I like how it conjures up the image of comfortableness. Baggy clothing can be comfortable, while loose clothing strikes me as fitting in an uncomfortable manner. It’s a fine point and I’m sure others might disagree. Posted by Matt J. Carlson on Feb 10, 2008 at 10:24 PM | #
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Well, if you are trying to avoid dubious slang, it will take you a long time. Over here we have loose women (or so I’m told, somehow I’ve missed them) but no loose men. That tells you the slang is slightly dated. But tight is no better. In fact, separately, it means both over-careful with your money (in a pejorative sense) and inebriated. In fact the dubiousness of tight springs to mind (well, mine anyway) before that of loose. Posted by Christopher Dearlove on Feb 11, 2008 at 05:20 PM | #
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Great article. I like tight games, but I like tight games that avoid AP. Conquest of the Empire (using the Wallace-inspired rules) is so tight (two actions per turn from a large range of choices) that it drags with my game group. Age of Empires is tight (one action per turn) but somehow plays much faster. I also prefer that tight games are shorter. I tend to win at Antike because I maximize my use of the rondel better than my opponents. I’ve won a 90- to 120-minute game of Antike a number of times by a single turn; that’s agonizingly close for all of us. If I’m going to be playing a game for many hours, I’d rather it be baggy. Posted by Jeffrey Henning on Feb 16, 2008 at 09:30 PM | #
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