Design of Co-Op Board Games and Card Games

[Josh_Kablack]

Given the choice between the Pandemic expansion and Ticket to Ride (basic game), which would I rather have?

I really have no direct experience with Pandemic, but Ticket to Ride spent a few years as my gateway game to break out to play with non-gamer friends who had never heard of anything that wasn't mass market (Chess, Monopoly, Scrabble, Yahtzee), and is a pretty good fit for that role. (See also: Fluxx, No Thanks, Dixit)

[RadiantPhoenix]

I recently lost a game of Battlestar Galactica because one of the players on the human team refused to take actions that would have ensured victory. (Also because I drew an objective from the wrong deck (at another player's insistence) and that player later figured out he was wrong and made me switch to an objective from the 'correct' deck (after he discovered which team he was on))

How does one design a game to discourage this sort of behavior?

[Whatever]

Not a lot that you can do to prevent bad players from playing badly. It's better to have people make their own decisions than to allow one person to tell everyone what to do, anyway.

I'm confused what you mean by objective, though. The BSG game has crisis/super-crisis cards, character cards, loyalty cards, skill cards, destination cards, even quorum cards, but no "objective" cards. Your objective as the humans is to travel a total distance of 8 and then jump again; your objective as the cylons is to make the humans lose before that happens (use missiles or a raiding party to destroy the ship, or run it out of a resource).

[angelfromanotherpin]

I assume he means from the Pegasus expansion, where Cylons can have Hostile or Sympathetic Agenda cards, which modify their win conditions.

[Manxome]

How does one design a game to discourage this sort of behavior?

What do you mean by "this sort of behavior"? It's not clear from your story what you think the root problem(s) are.

Making mistakes when strategizing or interpreting the rules? You can make the strategy or the rules simpler (though that has other downsides). You can also try to explain the rules more clearly (which is something I think FFG could do better with many of their games).

Intentional misinterpretations in their favor? You could put everyone on the same team, but BSG with no cylons would kind of be missing the point, wouldn't it?

All games require a social contract where the players agree to play by the rules (and goals) of the particular game that they're playing. Establishing and maintaining that contract is mostly up to the players, not the game.

[RadiantPhoenix]

I assume he means from the Pegasus expansion, where Cylons can have Hostile or Sympathetic Agenda cards, which modify their win conditions.

The player was a human, no agenda. If he had been a Cylon, or had an agenda such that he wouldn't have won anyway, I wouldn't be so annoyed, because that would be within the expectations of the game.

It was clear that after his turn, two cylons would get to go before anyone could do anything about it. All civilian ships were lost, and population dropped to exactly zero.

It was also clear to everyone (including him) that if he had used a card that let the Admiral take an action, the Admiral (who was definitely human) could just have the ship depart, and we'd win. He had the card, but refused to use it.

Actually, if the previous player had known what this player was going to do, he could (probably) have given the Admiral an action, and we could have won. It would have been a slightly less impressive victory (a few more civilians dead), but it would have been a victory.

[...You Lost Me]

Better Question: Why did the player do that?

[Orion]

I got to play Atlantis Rising at the game shop last night. It was very good, even though it clearly should have been called Atlantis Sinking. The only problem we ran into was that the Athenian Attack Die was missing from the box, and the rulebook doesn't actually indicate what the attack numbers are supposed to be. From contextual clues I'm guessing 1,1,1,3,3,5 but can someone enlighten me?

[RadiantPhoenix]

Better Question: Why did the player do that?

Because there had been an argument on a previous turn, and his character had wound up in jail because the player making the decisions had decided that was the less dangerous option.

Also, his character kind of maybe would have been left behind to be killed by Cylons. But his character was probably killed by Cylons after the game anyway. Also, a whole bunch of civilians got slaughtered by Cylon raiders rather than escaping, because of his lapse of character.

Note: none of this changed that he would only win if we won and only lose if we lost.

[...You Lost Me]

So he was butthurt that someone put him in jail?

I seriously don't see a way around this. Problem players are problem players.

[RadiantPhoenix]

Some of us also suspected him of being a Cylon.

I honestly didn't care until we suddenly realized that we were in real danger, and then by the time his turn came around, another player had revealed himself as the last Cylon.

[Zinegata]

I always play Battlestar Galactica with a simple policy.

There are only two kinds of people in this fleet: Competent people, or people in jail.

We once ran the fleet with four out of six players in jail, despite having only two Cylons. Us two competent people got the fleet to an almost-win position before the Cylons finally revealed themselves. At which point Team Human still rolled over them and won anyway.

The two incompetents remained in jail for the rest of the game. We didn't bother letting them out.

In some games, a Commissarial approach to leadership is the only option to ensure the inevitable triumph of the human race.

[Manxome]

In a hypothetical pure-cooperative version of BSG with no cylons at all, I'm pretty sure the optimal strategy would still involve putting several players in the brig, so that you have more player actions and skill cards per crisis card (spam Executive Order from your cell). That's probably not true if you have revealed cylons taking strictly harmful turns (though I'm not ruling it out yet), but in a game where the cylons are behaving well enough to maintain their cover, I suspect throwing one or two people into the brig at random likely improves the humans' odds (compared to keeping everyone free). I've only played a few times, so I could be wrong, but the brig is...weird.

"I move to the Admiral's Quarter's and try to throw myself in the brig...and we somehow fail the skill check. Fracking toasters!"

-=-

Anyway, if the player decided to throw the game out of spite for his teammates, I don't think there's much the designer can do about that (and some people might even argue it's a feature...it could certainly be roleplayed, if you're into that).

[TheFlatline]

I recently lost a game of Battlestar Galactica because one of the players on the human team refused to take actions that would have ensured victory. (Also because I drew an objective from the wrong deck (at another player's insistence) and that player later figured out he was wrong and made me switch to an objective from the 'correct' deck (after he discovered which team he was on))

How does one design a game to discourage this sort of behavior?

How do you design a game that ensures that players follow the rules?

I"m not sure that you can.

Otherwise as far as the brig thing is concerned, this is an old, old problem. It's called Kingmaking. There is absolutely no solution to it in board gaming since it involves free will.

I'd probably tell the person that temper tantrums aren't endearing to bring the player back.

[TheFlatline]

I've only played a few times, so I could be wrong, but the brig is...weird.

"I move to the Admiral's Quarter's and try to throw myself in the brig...and we somehow fail the skill check. Fracking toasters!"

Actually that happens in the show a few times... Someone shows up to be tossed in the brig and Adama basically says "nope not going to happen I need you too much."

[RadiantPhoenix]

I'd probably tell the person that temper tantrums aren't endearing to bring the player back.

Well, I'm certainly not playing a game that requires cooperation with him on my team again, even potentially.

Unless I'm really, really desperate.

[Guyr Adamantine]

My gang loves that game, especially since we really get into it. The rage is a great part of this game, but god is it emotionally exhausting.

[schpeelah]

How do you design a game that ensures that players follow the rules?

I"m not sure that you can.

You could start by designing a game where the group's victory isn't advanced by screwing over members of your own team unless you want players to stab each other in the back.

[RadiantPhoenix]

You could start by designing a game where the group's victory isn't advanced by screwing over members of your own team unless you want players to stab each other in the back.

Given that he lost because of his choice to betray us, rather than winning by not doing so, I think the game already has that.