God plays dice

Don’t worry, this is not a post about quantum mechanics. It is about randomness in games. Specifically, I want to discuss  the different kinds of randomness you can have in board and card games.

Typically, a game that works with dice is a game with randomness. In general, I do not enjoy randomness, and I am not alone in that. Still, there are games with dice that I enjoy. The reason is that there are different kinds of randomness. Broadly speaking, we can distinguish two: non-determinism, and imperfect information.

Non-determinism means that certain decisions of a game are resolved in a random manner. Imperfect information means that aspects of the game are unknown to one or more players. At first glance, one would say that only non-determinism amounts to randomness, while imperfect information does not. However, imperfect information can be the result of randomness, and that is the kind of randomness that I can enjoy!

Let me give an example of randomness: the game of Risk. In Risk, a player might decide to attack another player with a certain amount of troops. He then rolls dice to determine the damage that the troops do. His opponent defends by rolling dice. The two dice rolls determine how many troops are removed from the game. This is a typical example of non-determinism: the randomness gets applied after the decision to attack has been made.

On the opposite side of the coin we have a game such a Poker. Poker is a game of imperfect information. Each player knows his own cards, and open cards of his opponents, cards on the table, and the bids that the opponents made. They do not know the hidden cards of the opponents. Therefore, they have to make a decision in a situation with unknowns. There is no non-determinism involved, however; it is not as if the best hand will be decided by a die roll or something. The best hand is the best hand in the current situation, and the fact that part of that current situation is unknown makes the game interesting.

Some would argue that Poker has non-determinism in the dealing of the cards. That, however, is not non-determinism, even though it concerns randomness. The initial game situation is set up randomly, but that all happens before the first decision of a player. Therefore, Poker is purely a game of imperfect information.

There are no dice in Poker, but there are many games with dice that are imperfect-information games. An example is Backgammon. In this game a player rolls dice to determine his possible moves. He then decides which moves to make. The player has complete knowledge of the state of the game when he makes a decision, and the outcome of the decision is purely the result of his decision. However, whether or not it was the best decision depends on the situation in which the opponent must make a follow-up decision, and that situation will be partly decided by the rolling of dice.

To give a very simple example to distinguish non-determinism and imperfect information: suppose I have a game in which I have two pawns that move along a track. How far a pawn moves is determined by a die. Now, if the game rules specify that I should first decide which pawn to move, and then roll the die to determine how far it moves, that is non-determinism. If the rules specify that I first roll the die and then determine which pawn to move, that amounts to imperfect information. Personally, I’d say that the second game is more interesting than the first, as it may allow deeper tactics. Although I probably would still rather play Arkham Horror.

I recently stated in a newsgroup that the difference between imperfect information and non-determinism is similar to the difference between science and religion. In science, we examine in what shitty situation we are and take steps to get out of it. In religion, we place our trust in fate to get us out of shitty situations. I thought this was a fun observation but I got a warning from the moderator: I had not surmised that my (fairly innocent) remark might offend religious people.

The moderator was probably right. Still, the response brought me a slightly deeper insight in why I prefer imperfect information over non-determinism: it might be because I am a scientist. I don’t mind being thrown into a shitty situation in a game, and I don’t mind that my opponent gets into a less shitty situation. It is the situation I have to work with and which I have control over. It is a challenge to overcome, and the shittier the situation, the sweeter the victory if and when I manage to achieve it. On the other hand, winning because the dice fell favorably just feels hollow.

Well, yeah, I can relish in the knowledge that Fate was on my hand, but that means that Fate, not I, won the game. And frankly, if Fate really must win a game, I say let her pick her own game group.

Protection racket

The abbreviation IP stands for “Intellectual Property”, and IP rights are government-granted, exclusive rights to exploit some intangible assets, such as music, art, and designs. Due to the ease by which digital material can be copied by computers and spread by means of the internet, IP rights have got quite some attention in recent years. So much, in fact, that a whole branch of lawyers has been bred to deal specifically with IP rights.

I am very much in favour of a system of IP rights. If someone creates a new and unique work, that person should be able to exploit the fruits of his efforts in a way that pleases him or her. If someone makes a successful design, and later finds someone else has copied that design and gains considerable profits from it, it is only just that the orginal creator shares in those profits or even can prohibit making the profits.

Individuals and companies have enjoyed the benefits of IP rights for quite some time. But the rise of the Internet seems to have struck fear in the hearts of many rights holders. Or rather, it seems that IP lawyers have seen it fit to strike such fear in the hearts of IP holders. Two cases:

Some time ago I had a website where on my “about” page I had a cartoon which I had copied from a book of cartoons. This cartoon was quite apt at describing me personally, and I liked it a lot. I knew that copying from a book is allowed if it is short and an adequate reference is made, so I added a caption to the cartoon, stating exactly from which book it was, and who the author was. At some point I received a so-called Cease & Desist (C&D) letter from the author’s lawyer, stating that I had illegally copied a cartoon, and that I should remove it immediately. I complied. However, I also wrote a nice email back stating that I was not going to act against the wishes of the author, but that I believed that I was actually in my rights in copying that one cartoon, and I thought that having that cartoon in that specific place would actually help the author in selling more books. Naturally, I did not receive an answer. I suspected, however, that this particular C&D letter was not sent on orders of the author, but by an over-zealous IP lawyer who had been hired to scan the whole Internet and threaten anyone who was “ripping off” the author. Frankly, I did not see how that lawyer would be worth his money by threatening me, as I certainly would not cost the author any sales.

The second case I wish to offer is a lot bigger. There is a great website about board games, called BoardGameGeek (BGG). This is a community site for and by board gamers, on which thousands upon thousands of games are reviewed, commented, discussed, and reported upon. It contains a wealth of material on every board game in existence. Now, a group of IP lawyers, on behalf of the game publisher Games Workshop (GW), has sent a C&D letter to the maintainers of BGG to remove any and all files on their games from the website.  The maintainers complied, and removed hundreds of files which supported the GW games. They removed helpsheets, user-created scenarios, and rule summaries. They removed everything that the community needed to enjoy the GW games.

The big question is “What does GW hope to accomplish?” Do they strive for more profits? Well, then this is not a good action to achieve that. Profits are gained by selling games and game materials. Games are sold to gamers, who are often part of gaming communities. This holds in particular for GW games, for which many communities exist. Such communities want and need the community-created materials which are no longer available. Will the members of these communities be happy with GW’s actions? Of course not. They are outraged. There is no doubt in my mind that GW lost many sales by sending these letters.

I can think of no good, business-related reason why GW would act this way. But they seem to think they made a good move here. The only reason I can think of is that they were approached by some IP lawyers, who, on the lookout for more business, made the publishers afraid by telling them they had discovered many of their “IP rights” up for grabs on the interwebs, and that they could help GW to mitigate the damage if GW would only pay some “protection money”.

It is not hard to alienate your customers, which is what GW has done. And they will have a hard time winning them over again. The only winners here are the IP lawyers.

It is good to have IP rights. And having rights means needing some protection for them. But it also means having the ability to graciously allow the world access to them. Not arbitrarily, but judiciously. If it helps you reach your goals, why not?

Longest game ever

I recently finished the longest game I ever played. It took about 50 days from start to finish. It concerned the popular board game Battlestar Galactica played by forum.

We all know that usually tie-ins to popular books, movies, or games are not very good. Harry Potter books are OK, Harry Potter movies based on the books are not not so good, and Harry Potter video and board games based on the movies are pretty bad. But there are exceptions. One such exception is the Battlestar Galactica board game. On the famous website BoardGameGeek, on which thousands of boardgames are reviewed, this game actually ranks in the top-20 (in comparison, Settlers of Catan‘s rank is between 40 and 50).

Battlestar Galactica is an SF television series, spanning four seasons, in which the human race is virtually extinguished by robots called Cylons. The last remaining humans are fleeing with a fleet of spaceships, led by the Galactica, in search for the legendary planet Kobol to restart human civilization. The twist of the series (in which it differs from the 1980′s series with the same name) is that the Cylons can appear as humans, and there are actually Cylons posing as humans on board. Some of the Cylons do not even know their own nature, until they get a wake-up call.

The Battlestar Galactica board game, created by Corey Konieczka and published by Fantasy Flight Games, ties in to the first season of the television series. The game is for 3 to 6 players, but is best with 5 or 6. It is a cooperative game, which has two teams: the humans and the Cylons. The loyalties of the players are unknown at the start of the game; they all appear human. Someone might know that he is actually a Cylon, but it might also happen that someone thinks he is a human, while halfway through the game he finds out he is actually playing for the Cylon team.

In the game, each of the players fulfills the role of one of the 10 major characters of the series. They move on the ship, collect skill cards, perform actions, and try to deal with crises that pop up every turn. The goal for the humans is to reach the planet Kobol by performing several faster-than-light jumps. The goal for the Cylons is to stop the humans from completing their goal, either by destroying the ship, or by dropping one of the key resources of the ship to zero.

The game is quite complex because it offers a myriad of choices, and the game’s mechanics are not very engaging. These are both minus points. However, where the game shines is in its atmosphere. It is all about the interactions between the players. The humans know that there are Cylons amongst them, and if they can smoke them out, they can try to make them harmless. The Cylons, on the other hand, try to stay hidden while not helping the humans too much, until they see their way clear to do some big  damage. In the meantime, the crew tries to stay alive under a bombardement of crises. The atmosphere of the game is one of paranoia. There are dangers lurking from every side. Sometimes the humans luck out, sometimes things go wrong — but if they went wrong, was that just chance, or was a Cylon actively messing with them?

I really like this game, but I cannot bring it to the table as often as I would like. It is quite a long game, usually spanning 2.5 to 3 hours. And while most players like it, the complexity might seem daunting for new players. Also, some players are turned off when they realize the game ties in to a television series that they have not watched. Actually, the game can be enjoyed by anyone, though it does come alive more for those who have some experience with the series.

On BoardGameGeek people have started to play Battlestar Galactica through forum posts. A moderator creates a forum thread, and invites five or six players from a list, who then have in-game discussions and post their actions in the thread. The moderator sends players their cards and executes random factors when necessary. It works really well, and the game is a joy to play in this fashion. It is, however, different from the tabletop game, as it is much easier for players to track all in-game information. This makes a Cylon’s job quite a bit harder, as messing with the humans will give his identity away much faster. Still, the Cylon team wins about half the games played this way, so it seems balanced.

Reading the threads is also a nice way to get familiar with the game. A few threads which I recommend:

• Battlestar Galactica – Online BGG Game The first game played by forum. This was a very tight game, with truly excellent players.
• Battlestar Galactica Online Game Session IX – AustraliAsia This game contains some hilarious roleplaying, specifically by the guy in the role of Gaius Baltar.
• PBF Game 18 – Battlestar Europa This is the game I participated in. It is rather short, but contains interesting twists.
• BSG 31 – Battlestar Ulysses This is the game I am currently in, and that has just started last week. Already we are almost unable to handle the crises.

If you want a list of all the games, visit the BSG_PBF Wiki. If you would like to read a thread without knowing the identity of the Cylons, you should watch out, as that information is found on the Wiki. If you own the game and wish to sign up for a PBF experience, you can do that through the Wiki also. Owning the game is a must, as Fantasy Flight Games does not allow the publishing of card texts in the threads.

Highly recommended, both the game and the forum-playing of it. And OK, also the first season of the television series. So say we all.

Addendum (July 3, 2010): In the meantime, I finished two more games of Play-By-Forum Battlestar Galactica: BSG 56 – Battlestar Isoroku, and BSG 72 – Battlestar Lincoln. Both were good fun, but if I have to pinpoint my favorite of the four games, it is Battlestar Isoroku. It was exciting, tense, and quite funny. I think it will make a good read. Should someone take me up on that, I challenge you to guess who the second Cylon is before it is revealed.

Board gaming etiquette

One issue troubles virtually every board game that supports three or more players: kingmaking. Kingmaking means that a player who is not going to win, with his actions may hand the final victory to one of the other players.

As games are about interaction between players, usually the potential for kingmaking is unavoidable. In some games the possibilities a kingmaker has are bigger than in others. For instance, in a wargame (such as Risk), if one player consistently attacks a specific opponent, regardless of the current game state, that particular opponent is very unlikely to win. Neither is his attacker.

Personally, I do not like to have kingmakers in my games. I enjoy neither losing nor winning because of a kingmaker’s actions. In my view, good boardgaming etiquette should prevent players from kingmaking. But what kind of behaviour should the etiquette prescribe?

Think of the following situation (which everybody has encountered). You are playing a game, and you are in a good position to walk away with the final victory. The other players notice this, and suddenly everybody is attacking you. You get beaten down, while the until-then-second player is making the victorious move.

This feels fair to many people, but is it? Basically, the player who performed best until just before the very end, ends up in second place, while the one who did good but not best, ends up being the winner. And that because of, lets be fair, kingmaking actions. The players in third and lower positions had nothing to gain by attacking the leader; they had no chance of winning anyway. The only reason for their attacks was to postpone the game’s finale.

My own behaviour in board games is to try to finish in as high a place as possible. If I am in first place, I try to maintain that position. If I am in second place, I try to dethrone the first-place player and take over his position. If I am in third place, I am striving to gain second place and from there climb to first. Etcetera. Until recently I thought this was proper behaviour, but now I am less sure.

I recently played a game of Small World (which I alluded to in a recent post) with three players. One of my opponents showed a keen interest in attacking the other one of my opponents. He did so without regard for his own position. After the first two rounds, it was clear that I was probably going to get the final victory, while the victim was in second place, and his nemesis in third. Yet, the attacker did not lay off.

I told the attacker that he was playing a stupid game. He should attack me, because I was in first place. But then I realized that that is exactly what my personal gaming etiquette prescribes to do not. As the attacker was now in third place, and the victim in second place, the best thing for the attacker to better his own position was actually to attack the victim. And as the best option for me to maintain my position was to attack the person who threatened me the most, I should also attack the victim. The game was going to be about second and third place, no longer about first place, and the victim was going to have to deal with all his opponents’ attacks.

As the game was not turning into a direction which I liked, I decided for myself just to go for “as many points as possible”, regardless of who I had to attack to get them. Furthermore, I encouraged both other players to try to level the playing field by doing something similar, or if need be, attack me.

But what about the etiquette? Evidently, the behaviour that I prefer is not appropriate in all situations. It may be appropriate in the final gaming round (and frankly, usually that is the moment that kingmaking becomes a problem), but it probably is not during the part of the game that leads up to it.

What should good gaming etiquette achieve? In my view, it should achieve that the final ranking is according to the players’ relative strengths during that particular game. This is what I would call “fair”. Note that that does not mean that always the same player should win: many games have a chance factor, and a player’s strength might be that he was lucky. Or, the tactical situation might have been such that the player who is usually the best, was unable to deal with it well, and thus during that particular game he was not the best player.

And what rules should gaming etiquette prescribe to achieve such fairness? I have not yet formed a firm opinion about that. Not kingmaking is one of the rules, at least for the final gaming round. Trying for a personal best score is another one, but it is a shaky rule, as a personal best score is calculated relative to the other players’ performance, so focussing attacks on one particular opponent could be defended.

Anyway, such rules of good gaming etiquette do not preclude explicitly the behaviour of the attacker in my game of Small World, who focused his attacks on one particular opponent. What counts against his behaviour was mainly that he seemed to do it out of some form of personal spite, but in itself gaming etiquette is about actions, not about reasons for actions.

Still, I do not like this kind of behaviour, and I rather not play with people who show it. Although in this case I forgive it, as the attacker was a pretty young player. He still has time to learn.

An umpire’s nightmare

Four friends of mine became the Dutch boardgame champions. They scored the most points in four different games out of nineteen teams. One of them even proved to be the best player all around, with three wins and one second place. Because of their success, they are now invited to compete in the European Championship Boardgames, which are held in Essen in October.

The four games they have to play are Chicago Express, Diamonds Club, Power Grid, and Small World. I don’t know Chicago Express (but in general, I am not a big fan of Queens Games). I have never played Diamonds Club, but it was part of the Dutch boardgame championship, and my friends told me it is a very good game.

I think that Power Grid, which is one of my favorite games, is a truly excellent choice. It is a tough game, rather unforgiving, with very little chance involved, and lots and lots of player interaction. The game is already pretty seasoned, so there will be no unclarities in the rules.

With Small World, however, I predict there will be serious problems.

Small World is a modernized version of the game Vinci. It is a light war game, in which players invade a small map with armies. An army consists of between five and twenty units (but will usually have about ten units). Each army has a “race”, and a “special ability.” The game has fourteen races and twenty special abilities available. When a player has to select an army (which he does one or more times per game), he chooses between six random combinations of a race and a special ability. So, in one game there might be “flying sorcerors”, “swamp ghouls”, “merchant elves”, and “hill amazons,” while in another game the fight might be between “merchant giants”, “seafaring tritons”, “commando skeletons”, and “spirit elves”.

The random combinations make the game great fun. The key to winning is selecting the most powerful combination available. However, while some combinations are powerful per se, others might be powerful specifically against the combined powers of the opponents. Some combinations are only powerful if employed in exactly the right way. And some combinations might seem to be powerful, but are actually quite easy to defeat if the opponents find the correct approach.

The big problem of the game is the interaction between all the race powers and special abilities. The rules of the game, which seem clear from the outset, actually fail to answer many of the questions that crop up during gameplay. Often, the rules are unclear because they use terms that are not well-defined. For instance, a rule says that a race that has the “pillaging” special ability gains a point for each “non-empty region” that it conquers. But what makes a region “non-empty?” The rules don’t say. This question has already been posed to the publisher, and the answer is that a region is “non-empty” if it is occupied by an active or non-active unit, so that one is settled.

But questions like this crop up all the time. Last night I played the game and we raised a question that hinged on the definition of the word “you.” Is “you” the player, or the race that he plays? You would probably guess that it refers to the player, but the rule made much more sense if it would refer to the race. In almost all cases, it would not actually matter whether you refered to the player or the race, but in the particular situation we were in, it did.

Such issues arise because a game designer cannot acknowledge all possibilities of all combinations of all races and special abilities on one board. That is simply too big a search space for a human to grasp. It is the same with video games, which often have lots of rules, and designers are expected to foresee every tactic that a human player can employ with these rules. That is impossible in practice, and therefore, even after many man-years of playtesting, games still contain bugs and exploits in their rule sets.

Normally, in boardgames such issues are no big deal. Players simply agree on a house rule, and gaming can continue. But in serious competitions, there must be a set of undisputable rules that cover all possibilities, and all players must be aware of those rules.

Currently, competitors for the European Championship Boardgames are training to excell in Small World. They will be discussing rules interpretations. If they cannot decide on how a rule should be interpreted, they might consult the organizers, who will ask the Small World publisher for a judgement call. So from this exercise we might actually get a better set of rules.

However, I predict that many teams will interpret game situations differently, without asking the organizers because they feel that their interpretation is the most logical one. And thus disputes will arise during the actual Championship games. At that point, the rules will be interpreted and changed ad hoc, to the dismay of all the teams that are playing at that time. This will be chaos.

Small World is a really bad choice for a competition. Why was it chosen? Because it was sponsored by Days of Wonder, the publisher. And Days of Wonder sponsors it, because it want to promote this particular game. But the organizers should have refused. The fact that a game is nice in a friendly, recreational setting, does not necessarily make it suitable for competition play. And Small World definitely is unsuitable.

My friends now have to root out all the issues that they can possibly have with the Small World ruleset. I do not envy them. Playtesting should be done by the publisher, not by the players. Still, that is more or less practice with video games too.