Enjoyment versus Convenience

Kent Reuber

(kentreuber)

United States
San Mateo
California

I agree with on the War of the Ring Collector's edition. I'm tempted to find an alternate way of the game and the figures and leave the heavy wooden case in the attic. I wonder how resilient the paint jobs are to being stored in baggies or Plano boxes? Heresy, I know... sauron

Posted Tue Mar 1, 2011 10:39 pm
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Andrew P

(fateswanderer)

United States
San Francisco
California

Naturally, other logistical factors also affect convenience: whether it needs a certain number of players, whether it needs certain kinds of players (for example veterans for Puerto Rico, outgoing types for Battlestar Galactica or players friendly to Arkham Horror's theme, or players who don't complain about theme-mechanic disconnects for Hansa Teutonica); more generally if you have to struggle and work to get it to the table.

Posted Tue Mar 1, 2011 10:49 pm
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W M Shubert

(wmshub)

United States
Portland
Oregon

KGS is the #1 web site for playing go over the internet. Visit now!

Yes, I really am that awesome.

I agree on setup time for sure. Chateau Roquefort is a neat little kids game, but it takes me too long to set up (and again a long time to put it away) so I prefer not to play it too often. Fast setup and teardown don't seem like they should matter in a game's enjoyment but they do.

Posted Tue Mar 1, 2011 10:51 pm
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Tim Seitz

(out4blood)

United States
Glen Allen
VA

Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die. But God does not take away life; instead, he devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him. 2 Sam 14:14

Quote:

I can't help but wonder if convenience is a factor, conscious or unconscious, in my ratings or those of others.

I'm a huge Lego buff. So naturally, I bought some of the Rose Art Lego games, one of which was Lego Extreme Builder. According to the rules, you are supposed to lay out some 150+ odd pieces onto the board prior to playing.

I did this once.

Then we just left them in the bag and pulled from there whenever we played it.

Then we just left the game in the box.

Then I traded it.

Games that take more mental effort to setup than they do to play are not worth it. I'm looking at you Heroscape! Although, I can honestly say that my favorite part of Heroscape was the difficult puzzle of fitting everything back into the box. Partly because I was done wasting my time with playing it. And partly because I took no small satisfaction in successfully completing a challenging task.

Posted Tue Mar 1, 2011 10:56 pm
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Nick Avtges

(nix342)

United States
Bridgewater
Massachusetts

CONCEALED -3

Brrrrrr!!!

I'm not sure, but I think Forbidden Island has completely killed Pandemic for me, at least when playing with my family. Setup is a big issue for that game.

Posted Tue Mar 1, 2011 11:33 pm
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Warren Bruhn

(Warren Bruhn)

United States
Portland
Oregon

My family's short game of choice is Rook, a card game that we can play within minutes of clearing the kitchen table. It can be taught to kids, and it only takes a couple of nights of play to learn the strategy, longer than that for the kids, of course.

Another game that I think of as short is Merchants & Marauders, from Z-Man Games. This one has a lot of little bits to set up, but set up, play by four people, and take down should take only 3 hours between players who have experienced two or three games. Setting up the various bits and cards on and around the map is worth the effort.

One of my personal favorites is Empires in Arms from Avalon Hill (& ADG), a very non-historical fantasy role-playing game of diplomatic and military conflict over the period of Napoleon's Empire. Set up time takes weeks, in the sense of finding and recruiting players, teaching the game system to those who haven't played it yet, selecting players for each position, deciding all the optional rules, deciding on a list of rules interpretations, setting up the map, counters and markers and paperwork. And then the action takes place over many sessions which will total hundreds of hours. And then, when a couple of players drop out, it takes more time to recruit replacements. It's all an unholy nightmare, for a glorious rush of excitement as the diplomatic wheeling and dealing proceeds and the dramatic battles and campaigns are fought out. Is it worth it? Only for the select few...

Games like Paths of Glory from GMT (10 to 12 hours) and The Civil War from Victory Games (20 hours) are worth the 1 hour set up and 1 hour per turn, but it's definately hard to make that happen. And that's only 2 player games. Doing that with a 7 player Pax Britannica from Victory Games (10 to 12 hours), with plenty of little bits, and what looks like a tax form for each player to use is another kind of challenge.

The payoff, in my opinion, is the memories of great long games. The short games produce a few memories, but the stress and time invested in the big ones makes more of those games memorable.

Posted Tue Mar 1, 2011 11:36 pm
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Jim Reichert

(jreicher)

United States

Washington

Great post!

My friends and I have a game night and they have a much higher tolerance for learning the rules than I do. So much higher, in fact, that they'll sit there explaining the rules... thinking that I'm going to grok them so quickly that I'll be a formidable opponent by the time they're done explaining all the deep mechanics to me.

I play for fun, so I can certainly stand making some mistakes and abdicating any chance at winning for the first few rounds. I also cut them short in their explanations and say "Just help me play my turns until I understand the game better."

They're pretty good sports about it and it always works out for the best. I had the same experience when pitching my first title-- the publisher just wanted play to begin, seeing how fast he and his cohorts could pick up the game from observation... that's critical, I believe, to a game's success.

As far as your list of "convenience-related" sticking points are concerned, you danced around but didn't specifically call out "option paralysis." Sometimes a game's rule set is so open-ended that it becomes very unclear to even the best players (and perhaps even more so for the best players) what to do on a specific turn. Last time we played a game like that, a friend and I started a secondary game of Formula D to play in between other people's turns. Needless to say, we became distracted from the original very quickly. And Formula D required very little set-up time and explanation before I became an effective opponent.

Some games, like Dominion, have a "chain-reaction" effect when a player's hand is composed of cards that allow them to take more turns... as the game goes on, each person's turn gets longer and longer. This gets really dull for me, since in a game with a lot of people, it can be awhile before play comes back to me. The only thing left to do is grief the currently operating player for his tedious turn-taking.

I guess I'm just not looking for a deeply mechanical experience with tons of options... I like something abstract, with emergent behaviors, where the simplest decisions can be delightful, strategic, and surprising. All my designs target quick set-up, rapid turn-taking, interaction, and ease of use.

My games and I are all about convenience; my time is valuable and I treat yours the same way!

Posted Tue Mar 1, 2011 11:40 pm
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Aaron Riggan

(Cardshark1029)

United States
Oklahoma City
Oklahoma

I think another factor that affects convenience is table space.
I live in a very small apartment on the campus of my university. The table they gave us is round and about 3 feet in diameter. This sucker is TINY!!! I can barely squeeze basic boards like Kingsburg onto it. If I want to play some of my favorites (like Shogun or Arkham Horror), I have to pack it up, drag it to an apartment community center which has an enormous conference table and play it there.

Related to setup-time is sheer number of bits.
Ticket to Ride is great fun, but goodness, who wants to keep up with a bajillion plastic trains. Don't forget that if someone sneezes too hard next to the board...
Another good example of this is Through the Ages and those player boards... I pity anyone playing that game who has big fingers or is plain clumsy.

Posted Wed Mar 2, 2011 1:52 am
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Colin Hunter

(ibn_ul_khattab)

New Zealand
Auckland

Stop the admins removing history from the Wargaming forum.

1 Hour per turn in PoG is almost unbelievably slow, that is 5 minutes per card play. I would think this should be taking max 10 hours (maybe first play a little longer), once you get it down, it should be 6-8. Anyway good post.

Posted Wed Mar 2, 2011 2:04 am
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Jim Reichert

(jreicher)

United States

Washington

Cardshark1029 wrote:

Related to setup-time is sheer number of bits.

If I'm in a game store, flip over the box, and see an image of all the hundreds of pieces inside, I don't think "Wow, look at all the value I get for my money," I either think "Wow, these folks didn't take the time to boil down the contents." or "Wow, I this needs to be on a computer."

Lots of pieces = a cloud of indirection as opposed to abstraction.

More pieces = more junk, not more game.

Posted Wed Mar 2, 2011 2:04 am
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Phil

(Quarashi)

United States
Falmouth
Maine

Skyrim = Amazing!!!

O.o

To me, one factor of convenience for a game is the people that I want to play that certain game with, for example, some groups of gamers can be more prone to analysis paralysis than others. There are some games that I just won't play with certain people because I know I will not take any enjoyment out of it. On the opposite end of the spectrum there are certain games that I love playing with certain groups of people. I try to to be as impartial as possible when rating a game but I can't deny that I think my experiences with certain groups of people have factored into my rating of a game.

Posted Wed Mar 2, 2011 2:07 am
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Stephen Sanders

(caltexn)

United States
Henderson
Texas

25% Scottish, 25% Dutch, 18% English, 15% Irish, 9% German, 5% French, 3% "Black Dutch" (?) = 100% American!

Pure enjoyment - yes. I rate Merchants and Marauders a 10 for this reason. The setup is a bit more than for other games, and dice do play a role to some extent, but the gameplay experience surpasses these distractions enough to make this a favorite.

Posted Wed Mar 2, 2011 3:13 am
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Jim Cote

(ekted)

United States

Maine

ibn_ul_khattab wrote:

1 Hour per turn in PoG is almost unbelievably slow, that is 5 minutes per card play. I would think this should be taking max 10 hours (maybe first play a little longer), once you get it down, it should be 6-8. Anyway good post.

I hope so. I've only played 2 partial games twice. I still need to refer to the rules for every op I spend other than maybe RP. So far, it's worth the effort in a big way.

Posted Wed Mar 2, 2011 4:08 am
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Russ Williams

(russ)

Poland
Wrocław
Dolny Śląsk

The 1st and 3rd are indeed surely inconveniences by most anyone's measure (even if some might consider them minor inconveniences). I.e. all else being equal, surely everyone agrees it's nice to spend less time setting a game up or learning the rules.

The 2nd one partly depends on personal preference; I see enough comments by users here who are disdainful of any game that doesn't last multiple hours that I guess not everyone considers a long game an inconvenience, but rather considers a long game to be the only "real" kind of game.

The 4th one (long time to play well) also seems more a question of taste. Of course for many players it's a great thing that a game has a long deep learning process. I suppose it bothers people more when one player is stronger than the others and so always wins.

---

There are some "meta inconveniences", e.g. if a game is too expensive, or hard to find / out of print, or has lots of necessary expansions to track down, etc.

Another frustrating "meta inconvenience" is if no one you know wants to play the game, even though you personally love the game.

Posted Wed Mar 2, 2011 7:14 am
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J. Jefferson

(Jefforama)

United States
Columbus
Ohio

I've kind of tried to trim my collection to account for play time and setup time, I've only got a few games that are very long in those categories, and I know they aren't going to come out a lot.

It's the learning the system that keeps some of the other games on the shelf. For example, Race for the Galaxy sat on my shelf for a while, even after my first few plays. I knew the basic mechanics, but it took a few more games for the system to really click and for the game to start to be effortless.

Posted Wed Mar 2, 2011 1:43 pm
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Jeremy Brown

(Auricle)

United States
Gorham
Maine

I was thinking about this tonight as I putting my son down to sleep and realized that one of the biggest factors for me is a game's learning curve. A prime example is Race for the Galaxy. I have grown to love this game, but it requires such investment as well as a degree of faith from new players that it is nearly prohibitive to learning the game; eventually they pick it up and we have a great time playing, but getting there can be a bother for everyone involved. Similarly, I don't mind that the first few games of Arkham Horror will, for me at least, boil down to being essentially a solo game with multiple players, (well, I guess I do mind) yet it is a serious detractor. Consequently, I tend to only play these games with others who already have put in the time to get over the learning curve hurdle, which invariably means that they don't see as much play as I would like.

I rarely think of how this (in)convenience factors into the rating I give a game, but it is certainly interesting for me to think about. I would rate both RftG and AH a 10, but honestly they don't see as much play as other 10 games simply because of the learning curve investment they require.

Nice thought-provoking post, Jim. Thanks.

Posted Thu Mar 3, 2011 2:23 am
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Tim Seitz

(out4blood)

United States
Glen Allen
VA

Like water spilled on the ground, which cannot be recovered, so we must die. But God does not take away life; instead, he devises ways so that a banished person may not remain estranged from him. 2 Sam 14:14

Race has come full circle for me in that regard.

At first it was difficult to get to the table because of the learning curve. Once we had advanced past that point, it because an easy play, and we eagerly awaited the expansions. But with each expansion came more and more fiddliness and set up time. Getting the game out and setup became more cumbersome and we have since stopped playing it regularly. Now it sits, as it did before.

I may be wrong, but this may be one of the reasons for the "reboot."

Posted Thu Mar 3, 2011 3:38 am
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Scott Everts

(ScottE)

United States
Foothill Ranch
California

MITCHELL!!!

Push the button, Frank!

out4blood wrote:

Race has come full circle for me in that regard.

At first it was difficult to get to the table because of the learning curve. Once we had advanced past that point, it because an easy play, and we eagerly awaited the expansions. But with each expansion came more and more fiddliness and set up time. Getting the game out and setup became more cumbersome and we have since stopped playing it regularly. Now it sits, as it did before.

I may be wrong, but this may be one of the reasons for the "reboot."

This kind of happened to us too. I recently sold the 3rd expansion since it added so much complexity that I didn't think we'd ever play it again. Now I just have the first 2 expansions and never play with takeovers so not that difficult to pick up. I know some people prefer just the first expansion since nothing really was added that takes much more learning.

Posted Sun Mar 6, 2011 9:42 pm
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Hunga Dunga

(Hungadunga)

United States
Portland
Oregon

Good article!

I will take issue with one comment, though:

Quote:

most medium+ wargames are well beyond the complexity of the heaviest euros.

I don't think that's true. While many wargames have over 12 pages of rules, many have 12 pages or less, even more so if you don't count scenario set up, designer notes, and examples of play.

Besides, a significant portion of wargame rules are about defining terms being used. After you've played 2 or 3 wargames, much of this is already learned.

Along with the help of the BGG wargame community, I put together a geeklist that goes over the basic concepts in wargames.

Wargames??? YES YOU CAN!

Wargames are not that difficult to learn.

Posted Mon Mar 7, 2011 7:54 pm
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Dan Freedman

(Double Dan)

United States
Apex
North Carolina

ekted wrote:

ibn_ul_khattab wrote:

1 Hour per turn in PoG is almost unbelievably slow, that is 5 minutes per card play. I would think this should be taking max 10 hours (maybe first play a little longer), once you get it down, it should be 6-8. Anyway good post.

I hope so. I've only played 2 partial games twice. I still need to refer to the rules for every op I spend other than maybe RP. So far, it's worth the effort in a big way.

I'd agree. It can be very slow if checking the rules constantly. Maybe not that slow, but slow nonetheless. I'm fairly new to the game...and usually teaching it. IMO, it is often better to get some rules wrong and play faster. It can back-fire sometimes though.

In a not-so-long ago game, I marched some Russian armies (not corp) through Romania/Bulgaria and easily took Constantinople...putting all of Turkey out of supply. Doh, major rules blunder.

The sad thing was that I still lost.

Posted Thu Mar 24, 2011 3:21 pm
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Eric O. LEBIGOT

(lebigot)

France
Paris

jreicher wrote:

Lots of pieces = a cloud of indirection as opposed to abstraction.

More pieces = more junk, not more game.

It really depends on the details of the game. For instance, Space Hulk (third edition) has lots of miniatures, but only a few of them are needed during setup, and others come progressively into play (the Genestealers). Something similar could be said of Cosmic Encounter, which contains lots of alien races, but you only use a few of them in a given game. So, the way the bits are used does matter: do you have to use many bits during setup? do you have to manipulate lots of bits during each turn?

Posted Tue Apr 5, 2011 8:06 pm
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Patrick Carroll

(Patrick Carroll)

United States
Carver
Minnesota

"If a thing is worth doing, it is worth doing badly." (GK Chesterton)

"That's how the light gets in." (Leonard Cohen)

Quote:

What other factors affect the convenience of a game?

Scalability. If a game has a solitaire option, it's very convenient--in the sense that I don't have to talk anybody else into playing; I can just set it up and play.

A 2-player game isn't bad; my wife will probably play it with me. Or I can find an opponent somewhere.

If the game requires 3 or more players, it might never get played. If I'm intent on playing it, I'll have to ask around and invite people, make adjustments for their schedules, clean the house, shop for snack food--and so forth. To me, that's too much effort; so games for 3+ players only get played "accidentally"--when it just so happens we have people over and they want to play a game.

Posted Wed Apr 20, 2011 10:14 pm
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