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Peter Darby
United Kingdom
Welshpool
Powys
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A belated follow up to ramblings about the meaning of games: why does it matter whether I call it meaning, or theme, or whatever?
Well, remember when I said I was looking to develop a course for adult learners looking at teaching modern boardgames? Part of the learning outcomes is to provide students with a a critical language for the discussion of games.
In the instances I'm most aware of, a language of games discussion has come essentially from two sources*:
Developments from reviews of individual games, the main driving forces coming from "fan reviews" starting with fanzines and later the internet. This leads to the current state of common discourse on board and card games on the internet, with all the richness and problems inherent from a discursive, accretive jargon, in that many terms are commonly used where their meanings may differ greatly between users of the same language, or map poorly onto the actuality of games (where "Euro" games are designed and produced in America, many iconic "Ameritrash" games were produced / designed in the UK , etc.)
Academic courses, most commonly focusing on the design of games, which while it is invaluable in, for example, mapping the concept of design patterns into the use of game mechanics, concentrates on games as something to be made to be played, rather than an analysis of the experience of games as they are played. Metaphorically, this is the difference between a language for scriptwriters or directors and a language for play reviewers. And while an understanding of the crafts of writing or directing (or stage design, or acting, or sound design, or lighting...) is necessary for informed critical appraisal of theatre (if only to know who to blame when things go wrong), if all a play review consists of is a bare assessment of the individual contributions to the experience, it will probably miss the vital target of discussing the experience of attending the performance.
Which brings me to where I am: firstly for my own use, and to develop as a tool for students of games, I want to develop a language of game criticism where, within those discussions, the terms used in that critical language are unambiguous.
This is of course, impossible, but there you go, it's worth a try.
To widen this a little further, I'm working from the following principles:
That game design guides player behaviour within a given game by defining which actions are rewarded within the game, which are punished, which are explicitly mandatory, permitted or forbidden, and which are implicitly mandatory, permitted or forbidden.
That where a product of the creative process has even a nominal subject, says something about that subject, even if it is something banal, and board and card games are no different from other products of creativity in this regard.
Where a game does not have a nominal subject (as in abstract games), the game may still speak to more abstract themes, again in however a banal or bland manner.
Further, that board and card games as played are as legitimate a subject for critical study as any other creative endeavour.
That the "meaning" of a game is only one part of critical assessment of a game, as with any other creative endeavour. In the case of games, the elegance, efficiency and propriety of any give combination of mechanisms to produce strategic and tactical depth, the "decision space" available, the creation of memorable "moments" and coherent experiences, the relative balance in the game, the length of the game, the presentation of the game and rules, all these and more go into the melting pot of critically assessing and discussing a game.
Of course, any critical assessment of games has to come from whether an experience was worthwhile, but the purpose of a critical language is to express the nuts and bolts of that. Not so much as to say that "this game is good" or "that game is bad", but "this game does this, this is how, this is what works, this doesn't so much"
At least, that's the idea.
(crossposted from https://agameoflife.wordpress.com/2011/11/16/back-to-basics-...
*As ever, I'm more than happy for people to point out where I'm wrong about this
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Peter Darby
United Kingdom
Welshpool
Powys
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Catan Scenarios: Oil Springs has just been published: it adds a new resource to the base game, which can be very useful, but it's use can bring about negative consequences for everybody and it's deliberate removal from circulation can give a minor bonus.
The resource is Oil, and it's publication has brought accusations of political correctness against Kosmos and Mayfair. It's also been pointed out that front runners in development have more incentive to sequester oil against disaster and less developed colonies have more incentive to exploit oil and take the risk for everyone (they have less to lose), allegedly reflecting a first / third world split arising from a mechanism that was not explicitly designed to produce such an effect.
So... does adding a new resource give Catan a "meaning", a literary theory style "theme" that wasn't there before? Did it have no meaning before and only get one now?
If the resource was called "schmoo", what difference would that make?
I hope this helps to make clear what I'm talking about when I talk about "theme in games..."
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Peter Darby
United Kingdom
Welshpool
Powys
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Theme is an emergent product of play arising from the elements of setting, subject and mechanisms.
Just as you can't tell the theme of a play from the set alone (even though it may inform the theme), you can't tell the theme of a game from the setting or subject, though they will certainly inform it.
Theme is what the play of the game says about the subject of the game.
(Remember, this started from a nitpick of "theme doesn't mean that!" along the lines of Scott Nicholson's nitpick on mechanics not being the right word for mechanisms).
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Peter Darby
United Kingdom
Welshpool
Powys
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It's common to talk of the subject of a game as it's "theme", as in "the theme of Settlers is colonizing an island" or "the theme of Ticket to Ride is building railway routes."
As an humanities graduate, this bugs me.
Let's take an example from literature, what is the theme of "Romeo and Juliet"?
Everyone who said "forbidden love", take ten points.
Everyone who said "Renaissance Verona", congratulations, you too can write board game reviews. Sadly, that's it's setting, not it's theme.
Everyone who said "Ooh, it's about this boy and this girl", well, nearly, Romeo and Juliet are the subject of the play "Romeo and Juliet", but they're not the theme.
Similarly, the setting of "Citizen Kane" is the upper echelons of early 20th century US society, it's subject is the life of Charles Foster Kane and it's theme, gosh, we could debate that all night, but I'd plump for "The emptiness of material success."
So subject and setting are pretty easy to pin down for most subjects of critical analysis, but theme, the meaning of a work, that can be very hard to agree on (or in some cases, find).
So what about board games?
The setting of Settlers of Catan is, well, Catan.
The subject of Settlers of Catan is, well, the settling of Catan.
The theme... well, that gets interesting doesn't it? I'd argue that Settlers theme is a model of basic economic theory, that trading unequally distributed resources can be mutually beneficial (though not equitably beneficial), or in a nutshell "Competitive co-operation."
So, if theme is "What the game is saying about it's setting and subject", that can help to articulate what we feel about a game.
As an example, Arkham Horror and Munchkin Cthulhu share a great deal in terms of setting and subject. Setting, Lovecraft's horror infested new England, subject, investigators confronting horrific entities.
However, the theme of Arkham Horror is "Co-operative struggle to prevent disaster in the face of overwhelming odds", while that of Munchkin Cthulhu is "Kill monsters, take their stuff, stab the other players". I would say.
And to a great extent your enjoyment of each would depend on the thematic treatment of the subject: anyone liking serious interpretations of the Cthulhu mythos may be disappointed to find Munchkin Cthulhu in their stocking come Christmas.
So yes, a lot of this is nitpicking, and you can go through a lot of discussion of theme in boardgames with the mental note "for THEME read SUBJECT" and it will be fine.
But the fact that boardgames can have genuine themes is interesting to me, and not been greatly explored outside of deliberately constructed "art" games.
Bonus question; What's the theme of Ticket to Ride?
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Peter Darby
United Kingdom
Welshpool
Powys
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My daughter is ten, and I want to be like her when I grow up.
She's smart, determined and focused, funny as hell and a bit crazy.
On our way back from Bolton Games Day last month, we got talking about games of all kinds, video games, board games, board games on computer, and she, as you can guess, has definite opinions.
"I prefer playing board games. You can really get into the game with the other players, you can chat and have a joke and talk about what's happening..."
She didn't mention laughing like a maniac with a big toothy grin, which is one of her favourite tactics.
"But," and I know I'm going to get shot down, "When I'm playing online I can chat with the other players..."
She let out a withering sigh. "Yes, but I've watched you, and you don't. It's not like when you're playing with people and you do your voices and bad jokes...."
So that's where I'm starting from, stealing the wisdom of my offspring; modern board and card games are a fun past-time for everyone, young and old.
And while cheering on the efforts to draft in more young players into playing more and better games, I thought I'd see if I could do something to start drafting in new players from the adult sector, even, if possible, from outside geekdom.
To which end, I'm trying to develop a course for adult education evening classes to introduce modern board and card games. Heck, if people are prepared to give up good time and money to learn how to make sugar flowers... I'm currently looking to get funding, but if I don;t get it, I'll just go ahead and run the damn thing and pay for the fliers and room hire myself.*
So this blog is partly to waffle on generally about games and life, I'm doing it with one eye on getting material together to engage with and teach "muggles" about the hobby** of gaming. A lot of it may look like going over old ground, or teaching you to suck eggs, but it's with a view to talking to people who never sucked eggs, and if they did, it was a long time ago and the eggs were rotten. Wait, that metaphor ended somewhere stinky.
So who am I? I'm 40, I look like the Simpsons comic book guy without ponytail but with specs, having been playing board, card, role-playing & video games for as long as I can remember. I'm a regular with the Shrewsbury board games group, intermittent with local D&D and WH40K groups and constantly struggling to set up a family games night on a regular footing. My play by web site of choice is Yucata, though you can find me and probably beat me on Boardgamesonline, Isotropic and BSW on occasion. So, you know, geek.
I home ed my two kids and live in a co-op owned permaculture site, making me a big stinky old hippy too.
Paradoxically, I work for a big honking multinational corporation. You may call me a hypocrite, I prefer the term "glad to have a paycheck".
So that's me, this is this, and let's go!
* Oh dear jeebus, let them fund me. Even a little.
** Pastime? Art? Science? Craft? Magic?
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