(no subject)
Apr. 22nd, 2013 11:40 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
seekingferretI must confess to a certain frustration with games like Apples to Apples and its somewhat wittier, nastier cousin Cards Against Humanity. I say this having played the latter again at a party last night. Oh, I mostly had a good time. I like my friends and I like playing even bad games with them. But these games represent a sort of gameplay so close to my platonic ideal, and yet so far away.
I once won a game of Apples to Apples by playing random cards. For me, that was the last straw with the game. No game that can be won entirely on random is worth playing. Since then, even though I play by the same rules as everyone else I never have the same objective. Once I tried to spend the entire game without getting any green cards, and almost succeeded.
I'm very fond of freeform gameplay. Among the games I do count as my favorites I number N, 1000 Blank White Cards, Calvinball, and other games where making up the rules is part of the rules. And in theory Fluxx ought to fall in the same category, but I don't like Fluxx. There is too much constraint in the way rules are changed for me to find it interesting. You're not so much changing the rules as you are manipulating a predefined set of modes within the rules.
Apples to Apples is the same way. In theory this is a game with a wide field of possibilities. In theory there is an unbounded relationship between cards, such that even playing the same red card in response to the same green, with a different player judging, constitutes a new coordination. This is the professed merit of the game- you are challenged to psychologically analyze the judge and find a match that works correctly for them, not find any particular 'correct match'. But in practice I don't really find this to be the case. I do not possess any particular skill at choosing the correct card when when my closest friend is judging and a pile of complete strangers are the other players, because of two factors that conspire to limit the game's field of possibilities:
1. You're choosing from a handful of cards. Even if you are in psychic tune with your friend and you know exactly what answer would satisfy them on this card, the odds are fairly strong that you don't actually hold that card.
2. Your opponents are choosing from a handful of cards. Even if they are completely out of psychic sync with your friend and have a completely wrong-headed idea of what answer would satisfy, they still have a chance to mistakenly play the correct card because their choices are constrained.
I generally appreciate the introduction of randomness into gameplay. I like when you have to make decisions knowing that you cannot possibly know if you have made the best move, because a random operation to come will alter the game's probabilities. I think this makes gameplay more dynamic, and as a player who is not a serious tactician this tends to make games more fun for me. But I am not a fan of randomness that can't actually be taken into account in a meaningful strategic way, and I'm not a fan of randomness that categorically makes games less fun, by restricting the matches to inferior combinations. Instead I'd gesture to party games like charades or pictionary that in practice offer a much wider field of possible communications. I'm not particularly good at either of those games, but I have more fun playing them because my failure at them is not determined by a random fluke that I can't control or account for. (The randomness that is inherent in those games, in the selection of the topics to act out or draw, is a reasonable kind of randomness even though I suppose it does sometimes generate inferior matches between player and topic.)
Again, these games come so close to the kind of game I enjoy. They resemble my favorite games in substantial ways, and many of my gameplaying friends love them. I just can't get excited about them because I end up frustrated by their limitations.
/curmudgeon
Today is the twenty seventh day of the Omer
I once won a game of Apples to Apples by playing random cards. For me, that was the last straw with the game. No game that can be won entirely on random is worth playing. Since then, even though I play by the same rules as everyone else I never have the same objective. Once I tried to spend the entire game without getting any green cards, and almost succeeded.
I'm very fond of freeform gameplay. Among the games I do count as my favorites I number N, 1000 Blank White Cards, Calvinball, and other games where making up the rules is part of the rules. And in theory Fluxx ought to fall in the same category, but I don't like Fluxx. There is too much constraint in the way rules are changed for me to find it interesting. You're not so much changing the rules as you are manipulating a predefined set of modes within the rules.
Apples to Apples is the same way. In theory this is a game with a wide field of possibilities. In theory there is an unbounded relationship between cards, such that even playing the same red card in response to the same green, with a different player judging, constitutes a new coordination. This is the professed merit of the game- you are challenged to psychologically analyze the judge and find a match that works correctly for them, not find any particular 'correct match'. But in practice I don't really find this to be the case. I do not possess any particular skill at choosing the correct card when when my closest friend is judging and a pile of complete strangers are the other players, because of two factors that conspire to limit the game's field of possibilities:
1. You're choosing from a handful of cards. Even if you are in psychic tune with your friend and you know exactly what answer would satisfy them on this card, the odds are fairly strong that you don't actually hold that card.
2. Your opponents are choosing from a handful of cards. Even if they are completely out of psychic sync with your friend and have a completely wrong-headed idea of what answer would satisfy, they still have a chance to mistakenly play the correct card because their choices are constrained.
I generally appreciate the introduction of randomness into gameplay. I like when you have to make decisions knowing that you cannot possibly know if you have made the best move, because a random operation to come will alter the game's probabilities. I think this makes gameplay more dynamic, and as a player who is not a serious tactician this tends to make games more fun for me. But I am not a fan of randomness that can't actually be taken into account in a meaningful strategic way, and I'm not a fan of randomness that categorically makes games less fun, by restricting the matches to inferior combinations. Instead I'd gesture to party games like charades or pictionary that in practice offer a much wider field of possible communications. I'm not particularly good at either of those games, but I have more fun playing them because my failure at them is not determined by a random fluke that I can't control or account for. (The randomness that is inherent in those games, in the selection of the topics to act out or draw, is a reasonable kind of randomness even though I suppose it does sometimes generate inferior matches between player and topic.)
Again, these games come so close to the kind of game I enjoy. They resemble my favorite games in substantial ways, and many of my gameplaying friends love them. I just can't get excited about them because I end up frustrated by their limitations.
/curmudgeon
Today is the twenty seventh day of the Omer
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-22 03:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-22 04:01 pm (UTC)The players still speak in hushed tones about the Madagascar Game, an epic Risk game ten years ago where I decided I didn't care if I won, as long as I maintained control of Madagascar at all costs. Completely destabilized the game.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-22 07:50 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-22 04:05 pm (UTC)Interesting, that is exactly what I enjoy about some of my favorite games: Fluxx, MtG (at least when I played it back in the early 90s, when they started changing the rules on me by adding things like land-walking, that started to leech the fun out of it for me), Robert's Rules of Order (which most sane people would consider a way to run meetings, not a game). I like the fact that there is a set number of rules, and you need to manipulate which apply to any given situation and use that to your advantage. If you have access to more rules than your opponent (for example by having better cards in your hand, or by knowing the rulebook better), then you can choose which rules to use to help yourself and hurt your opponent. Some of this is just the luck of the situation and what's available in your hand, some is how you built your deck beforehand by spending time and/or money, and some is how well you understand the rules, and all of this combines to make the game.
That reminds me, I keep wanting to get certified as a parliamentarian. I should look into that this summer.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-22 05:32 pm (UTC)You say: "No game that can be won entirely on random is worth playing." This resonates with me, but on the other hand, I'm not sure that Apples to Apples or CAH is really about the actual gameplay. I know almost no one who really plays to win; most play for the amusing conversations it sparks. When I stopped thinking of them as games and started thinking of them as laughter-inducing activities, I liked them more.
Also, sometimes I do find myself holding onto an answer card because I know exactly who at the table will enjoy it most, even if it's a nonsensical answer to the question they next draw. And I don't care, then, if I win, because it makes them laugh.
Anyway, this is a topic I've thought about a lot. I enjoy those games but I'm not always thrilled when they're brought up as an alternative to a more traditional board game, etc., because of the way I think about them.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-22 06:34 pm (UTC)As far as Dreamwidth goes, you can use your livejournal id as an OpenID. http://www.dreamwidth.org/support/faqbrowse?faqid=123 Advantage of that over anon login is that if you set it up right, you'll get email notifications of responses to comments. Or you can keep posting anon, I don't mind.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-22 07:48 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-23 04:44 am (UTC)...I don't actually know the name of this game. I think my sister, when she taught it to our extended family, called it "Fruit Bowl" or "Hat Game" or something like that, for boring reasons.
Each person comes up with several names (we usually play with 4 names per person, maybe fewer if you have a bunch of people, more if you have not so many). I don't think there is a restriction on whether they have to be real people or not. It works slightly better if at least one other person in the room is familiar with the name, but it isn't actually necessary, which is the brilliant thing about the game. All these names are written on slips of paper, which are then put into the bowl or hat.
Everyone then sits in a circle. If you want to play competitively, every even person is one team and every odd person is another team. (Sometimes it just disintegrates into everyone guessing because this game is just That Fun.)
The game has three rounds, all of which build on one another. The bowl is passed around; each person has one minute to get her team to guess as many of the names as possible. She can use as many words as she wants and any words that she wants aside from using a word in the name of the person itself. (This is why there is no restriction on everyone else knowing the name; one can use "sounds like" or "sort of like this other word," and eventually the person who put it in will guess it.) (I think we've always played no charades this round, but I can't remember.) The bowl is passed in these one-minute increments until all the names are used up.
In the second round, again the bowl is passed around in one-minute increments, but each name must be described in five words (or less). This is the only round where passing is allowed; if no one's gotten it after the five words are used up in, oh, twenty seconds, you can pass to another name.
In the third round, again the bowl is passed around in one-minute increments, and now you have to do CHARADES.
The genius of this game is that even people who hate charades (me!) love it, because by the third round everyone is fairly well familiar with the names and with how people describe it, as well as the ones that people don't know so well. It's a joke in my family that the first time we played it, my cousin-in-law put in "Steve McQueen"; the rest of us, being cinematically illiterate, had no idea who this person was (the unlucky person who drew it in first round somehow got us to guess Steve and Mc and Queen and put it all together). In subsequent rounds, and indeed whenever my family plays this game, if anyone ever hesitates we all yell out "Steve McQueen!"
Anyway, it beats Apples to Apples all to heck :) (And you don't even need to buy anything for it!)
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-23 04:56 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-23 05:20 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-23 05:03 am (UTC)The rules of N are simple. Write them down on a blank piece of paper.
1. Play moves in a circle, starting with one player.
2. On each player's turn, they propose a rule. If a majority of players vote in favor, it becomes part of the rules. Add it to this list.
3. First player to win, wins.
I have seen this game in so many different directions.
(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-23 05:21 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2013-04-23 01:02 pm (UTC)One game, there were points available for having three noses, so me and two other players waited a while until people had forgotten the rule, and then passed a rule that we would all be counted as one person for game purposes.
One game, only women could propose rules and only men could vote.
One game, which we started early in the morning after a sleepover, we had a rule that every time someone woke up and asked us what we were playing, we had to greet them with a creepy, choreographed non-answer.
One game, the third rule was immediately revised to "The second person to win, wins."
It is the best game ever.