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Designer Notes....Gotta Lov'em

Posted by Tom Stearns

18 Feb 2011

Tom Stearns

(gohrns)

United States
Houston
Texas

Does anybody read designer notes at the back of rule books anymore? I have noticed that many new games lack designer notes all together. One of the things I loved about Dean Essig games were the designer notes.

A brief check of 3 of my latest acquisitions from GMT Games, Normandy '44, Clash of Monarchs and The Conquerors: Alexander the Great revealed that 2 of the 3 had designer notes. Normandy 44 had a brief 1 1/2 page designer notes section. Clash of Monarchs was by far the most detailed. Alexander had none. COM and NORM44 have detailed examples of play that go on for pages. TC:AtG has examples through out the rules.

I love designer notes. Many times I skip reading the rules and head straight for the back of the rule book to find them. After reading the rules, they really help clarify aspects of the rules that may be confusing. Putting them into a context of reasoning. Avalon Hill and SPI were really good at including detailed designer notes for their games. For me they also give insight about how best to approach a game. If playing a game with an unfamiliar system or about an unfamiliar battle or campaign, designer notes can guide you through the learning process. Lose a game because you had bad strategy, okay; but lose a game because you made mistakes related to the system or mechanics, well that is just plain unacceptable.

In my opinion, the advent of CDG's calls for a return to detailed designer notes. One of the reason's I don't enjoy Dominion is you have to have an understanding of how the card combinations interact. You can only learn this through experience. If I am not going to play it 100 times, then I am always going to be behind the eight ball against most other players of the game. One friend asked me before we began playing if I had played Magic: The Gathering CCG. I said no. He said well, too bad because that would help you play this game better. Now with the CDG's I notice that the rules include detailed information about the cards in the game, their description and their relation to real life events. What I don't see is much information about how they are best utilized, in combination with units or other cards.

Some people will say that they don't want to know up front. They want to learn through play of the game. Some of these games are not quick playing (see COM). I don't want to spend an entire day or weekend playing a game, only to learn I screwed up my game play. Give me more to work with. I'm not asking for it on a silver platter. Just give me more information about card interaction. I saw on COM forumn a question about not rolling well with the play of the Karl von Zinzendorf card and how it will effect the economy of Austria. How can you know what strategy to utilize in the game without better information about how the cards impact the strategy?

A big thank you to the publishers and designers who continue to give us designer notes at the back of the rule books.

16 Comments

Fri Feb 18, 2011 6:15 pm

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Ae2 DL2o3DG

(kiraly)

United States
Fort Wayne
Indiana

Four Time Stanley Cup Champion

Seven Time Norris Trophy Winner

Tom Stearns wrote:

Normally I'm not one that seeks them out, but the designer notes in The Gamers' stuff are just excellent!

Posted Fri Feb 18, 2011 6:35 pm
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[1/2]

(Benjro)

United States
Fort Wayne
Indiana

MwwaHAHA

I certainly do. My favorite is a good annotated bibliography. Just like with a good book on a subject, this is vital for further learning.

Posted Fri Feb 18, 2011 7:32 pm
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Eric Neff

(lesulm1)

United States
Indianapolis
Indiana

"A good soldier obeys without question. A good officer commands without doubt."

"Just once, I'd like to face an alien menace that wasn't immune to bullets!"

kiraly wrote:

Tom Stearns wrote:

Normally I'm not one that seeks them out, but the designer notes in The Gamers' stuff are just excellent!

I usually skip over them also. But, when reading the rules for Civil War, Brigade (CWB) Series I didn't get a good grasp of the orders system until I read the designer notes.

Posted Fri Feb 18, 2011 7:37 pm
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Edward

(theory)

United States
New York City

Quote:

One of the reason's I don't enjoy Dominion is you have to have an understanding of how the card combinations interact. You can only learn this through experience. If I am not going to play it 100 times, then I am always going to be behind the eight ball against most other players of the game.

I'm curious: is there a game you do enjoy where, if you haven't played 100 times, you are not behind someone who has?

In other words, if you don't enjoy Dominion because someone who is experienced at the game is better than someone who is inexperienced, then what games do you enjoy?

Posted Fri Feb 18, 2011 7:43 pm
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Tom Stearns

(gohrns)

United States
Houston
Texas

theory wrote:

Quote:

They are better because they know how the card combinations work and ineteract, vs someone who hasn't played as much and may not have that knowledge. And yes getting my head handed to me time and again because I don't have the knowledge of every card in the deck and the interact or combine is not fun to me. Go figure.

Anyway, that knwoledge is the key to card drafting games. My inexperience with such games in the past put me at a disadvantage against someone with that experience. I realize that without a ton of plays of this one game, I will never be much competition in a game, because others will be far ahead of me in that regard.

Now your last question. Really? Are you really curious or is that a rhetorical question? I'm going to assume you are serious and have never read one other post (Review, Session, Blog, Game Forum) that I have ever written and thus really don't know the answer. First, there is no game I've ever managed a hundred plays of. (Yet card drafting games lend themselves to this because they play quickly.) I have, in fact, enjoyed playing other types of games where I was new to the game, and often times I've won. Why? Because intimate knowledge of specific content and it's relationship to the game mechanics were easily explainable in the rules, and or the designer notes. Someone explaining the game pointed out nuances of the system to make sure I noticed them. Card drafting games you can really only learn through experience, unless the designer bothers to point out the relationships of the cards. Could someone exlpaining the game to a noob do the same thing? Yes but then it would be an hour or so before you actually started playing.

I admit, card drafting games are not for me. But to generalize my dislike for that genre to all games that I play is just asinine. BTW, I don't like Race for the Galaxy either, for the same reason. Obviously by your micro-badges I've stepped on your toes by my statements. Step back. I didn't say they weren't good games. I said I don't enjoy playing them. I'm sure I love some games you don't enjoy playing.

Posted Fri Feb 18, 2011 8:11 pm
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Edward

(theory)

United States
New York City

I didn't mean to be hostile; I just thought it was a peculiar reason to dislike a game.

If your point is just that you prefer games where the designer has dropped a few hints as to basic strategical concepts, then I can certainly empathize. (Though I've always found the joy of games like Dominion/RftG/etc. to be discovering the deeper intricacies on my own.)

But the part of your post that I quoted sounded to me like you saying that you didn't like Dominion because it's hard to overcome another player's "experience advantage". And I dispute your claim that experience only matters for card drafting games. Maybe there are some small differences in degree, but there's really not a single game that I play where someone with 100+ plays (or even 20+ plays) would not stomp all over a person who has never played before. (I've certainly won games playing my first time, but that's usually against other people who are new.) So I think it's unfair to single out card-based games as being tilted towards those with more experience; to take the most extreme example, there isn't any 'memorization' of specific cards or concepts in Go, but the experience advantage in that game is far, far greater than any card game I know of.

If anything, I would think Dominion would be one of the more accessible card drafting games, since all the cards that you'll be playing with are in front of you and there's no actual need to memorize anything. (Compare to a card-driven wargame or RftG, where you basically cannot be successful until you have some idea of the cards in the deck.)

Edited Fri Feb 18, 2011 8:31 pm
Posted Fri Feb 18, 2011 8:29 pm
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Tom Stearns

(gohrns)

United States
Houston
Texas

I took your comment as sarcasm, so I responded in kind. No harm, no foul.

I understand what you are saying, but I too stand by what I said. Another example is the game Feudal. My primary gaming opponent grew up playing this game and had tons of experience with it. He taught me to play and to this day I've never beat him. Not even close. Will I play it again? Sure. Why? Because my ability to beat him is based on figuring out the strategy of the game. Maybe I'll never beat him. At least though it isn't because of not knowing card combinations.

I have played Dominion, without looking it up, maybe 10 or 12 times. RftG maybe, 5. The first few times I played, I played without the understanding that I needed to seek out certain card combinations. That some cards work well together and others don't. It wasn;t until I was getting pounded time and again that someone bothered to mention that was the key to winning. As I said before I hadn;t played earlier CCG or card drafting games, so I didn;t know any better.

All I'm saying is that designer notes that discuss this nuance of the game and showing how the cards relate and interact would have helped me out. As it is, I soured on the game and don't have a real desire to play it anymore.

BTW my copy of the base game is up for trade.

Posted Fri Feb 18, 2011 8:42 pm
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Rob Renaud

(rrenaud)

United States
New York
New York

I love Dominion, and I realize it's certainly not for everyone.

You started your post by saying you dislike Dominion because an experienced player has a big advantage over a new player, but then admitted that in the same situation for a different game, you actually enjoy it. So it's not that there is a return on experience which makes you dislike it.

On the other hand, you are being a bit unfair about card combinations in Dominion. I am an expert player. If you sat me down in front of a new expansion where I had never seen any of the cards, I bet I'd still do pretty well. I am pretty confident that I will do better than someone who had played the particular expansion a few times, but not all that much Dominion over all. It's true that a good Dominion player will see the powerful combinations in a given Kingdom set, but it's not merely because they have remembered some giant list of pairs of cards that work well together. There are a few unifying concepts that are important, and from those concepts and careful thinking and analysis, you can really figure out most of the good combos on a given board. Sure, an expansion might introduce a new concept or two (hopefully it does!), but the fundamentals won't change much.

It's roughly like saying I didn't like physics it's only the kids who were good at memorizing equations did well. But really, knowing the equations comes from understanding the physical phenomena. Sure, the good students can tell you the formulas, but they also know why they worked. They have a good grasp of a conceptual model. If you are looking at physics as 'a bunch of formulas', you aren't really the big picture.

Likewise, if you look at Dominion as 'a bunch of combos', you aren't seeing it either.

On the other hand, I have no emotional attachment to you liking a game that I do.

Posted Fri Feb 18, 2011 10:40 pm
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Tom Stearns

(gohrns)

United States
Houston
Texas

Thanks Rob for offering your insight.

Your points are quite valid. I didn;t mean to say in my OP that experience alone is the difference maker. I meant that only through experience do you gain the understanding of which card combos work best. You are correct that it takes an understanding of how and why they work well, not just knowing which ones they are. (BTW I didn't like Physics in high school either... yuk

)

The point of the OP though wasn't to debate the merits of Dominion as a good game or not. The point was to suggest that detailed designer notes that explain the concepts beyond just the rules would have helped me to learn the game better and therefore probably like it better.

Dominion and RftG are popular games and my personal like or dislike for that type of games doesn't really matter to anyone but me anyway. There are other game types I don;t like as well. I am sure that there are games and game systems I love that just as many people hate. There is no winning a debate about whether a game is good or not because it is purely subjective. I actually think that for the kind of games they are Dominion and RftG are probably quite good. Just not ones I care to play, for whatever reason.

Thanks again for adding to the discussion.

Posted Fri Feb 18, 2011 11:03 pm
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Darth Pete

(petegs)

Australia
Fitzroy North
Victoria

Dum, dum, dah, dah dah

I too love designer notes, and I especially like reading the Gamers ones. I also enjoy the annotated bibliographies when they're included. I just bought DAK and Tunisia second hand and have enjoyed going through the bibliography and reading the books that were used.
Also did the same for Pursuit of Glory which covered a part of WW1 that I didn't know alot about apart from the Gallipoli campaign.
I'm not looking for strategies or even advice on how to play the game, I just want some information about what the game is covering.

Posted Sat Feb 19, 2011 12:46 am
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Roger Taylor

(rtaylor)

United States
Unspecified
Virginia

I always read the designer's notes first. The best ones explain the design decisions and abstractions, and what they simulate. Good designer's notes can head off a lot of player objections and confusion, so it's in the designer's interest to put some effort into them.

Posted Sat Feb 19, 2011 4:25 am
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James 3

(flamejuggler)

United States
Atlanta
Georgia

Tom-

I think the demise of designer notes is likely tied to the internet: a much better place to put designer notes for folks that want them, where they can evolve and be a conversation.

For Dominion in particular, the creator has posted articles on BGG for each expansion, giving background on the intent and development of the set. Check it out here:
http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgamedesigner/10525/donald-x-va...

That said, I agree with others that DOminion in particular has no hidden cards, with all possible cards in play that game on the table in front of you. You don't need to know ALL the cards that might be there (like Magic: TG, RftG,etc), but can learn in bite size chunks as you play.

Yes, there are certain concepts that a good player will start to pick up on, like realizing that there is no +buy, no+cards, or no way to thin a deck etc in any setup, and adjust their gameplan accordingly. But like any game, strategy and tactics comes with experience, so I think it is pretty weird to diss a game because you don't understand every nuance in the first play! Your complaint seems to be that experience matters and helps people win...of course it does, as is true in most everything in life.

I think thats WHY people like Dominion: its simple on the outside, but deep on the inside, with lots of replay inherent in how different combinations of kingdom cards change the values of any one card in context. Card details are not static, and some get better or worse if other cards are there or absent. That IS the game in many ways. And if you want to get better at understanding what types of interactions to look for and get a better feel for card mechanics since you don't have strategy card game background, there are tons of blogs that can help. Check out theory's blog here:
http://dominionstrategy.com/

Planning and understanding deck ratios and synergy help you win in DOminion, but the way cards are drawn is random and lets anyone have a chance to compete, especially with the fact that decks start fizzling near the end as they fill up with green vp cards, allowing folks a chance to comeback. Many games are difficult to beat an experienced player, but I really don't think the advantage in DOminion is as great as you seem to think compared to some other games that have less luck of the draw in them.

Posted Fri Mar 4, 2011 9:06 pm
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Tom Stearns

(gohrns)

United States
Houston
Texas

Thanks James for your thoughts. I think one of the key points I made above was that it takes a lot plays of the game (ok I said 100, but probably not that many) to understand how the combinations work best. I'm not saying that after 50, 75 or 100 plays of Dominion I wouldn't pick it up. I'm saying that, for me personally, I don't want to have to play a game that many times to become good at it. You are right there are no shortages of resources to help me get better. I think that what I learned from my plays of RfG and Dominion, is that I don't enjoy those types of games. Just as I don't enjoy abstract games and air combat games.

I never said Dominion was a bad game. I said it wasn't for me. One mistake I did make was to lump Dominion in with CDG's, which of course it isn't, it's a deck/card drafting game. Either way, I still believe designer notes are necessary. Yes the internet allows for a better distribution of such material, but there are places you don't take the internet. I also enjoy printed material vs internet. Many of the games here on BGG are without designer notes posted on the site. It is still a much needed part of the game package/rules nomatter how you slice it.

Posted Fri Mar 4, 2011 10:07 pm
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Helmut Apel

(TylerDax)

Germany
Darmstadt

I LOVE Designer´s Notes - every Wargame should have them. Latest i enjoyed very much were the notes from Uwe Eickert in the "Conflict of Heroes: Price of Honour"-Referencebook and that of all 3 designers involved in "The Barbarossa Campaign" from Victory Point Games.

Edited Thu Mar 17, 2011 2:42 pm
Posted Thu Mar 17, 2011 2:40 pm
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Tom Stearns

(gohrns)

United States
Houston
Texas

As an update to the ongoing saga of Dominion; I traded Dominion for 1960: The Making of the President. I think I will enjoy this game more than Dominion. I have played Twilight Struggle which is the same kind of design and really enjoyed it.

Posted Thu Mar 17, 2011 2:56 pm
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Philip Slater

(GozoPhil)

Malta

Designer Notes, for me, represent an important facet of the game overall.

A bit of history.. a bit of game strategy and tactics and very often an unwritten guideline for ethical and accurate rule interpretations.

Under Lily Banners is a fine example of the highest order designer notes and historic information, which help to align the player towards the historically correct battlefield methodology.
Very often, annoyingly to say the least, I find myself fighting Roman battles utilising 2nd world war tactics and systems and vice versa.
A designer note/historic background just helps trim the mind so that the correct period tactics can be used.

I readily admit to finding this one of my more common wargame problems and I would be somewhat concerned if I thought that I, alone, sufferred from it!

Edited Tue Apr 19, 2011 3:01 pm
Posted Tue Apr 19, 2011 3:00 pm
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