The affirmation:

Simply put, your best is your best. This is more straightforward than "be competitive" to the best players. Its more of a obligation to remain focused on the game rather than watching tv, reading a book, wandering around the house etc etc

Sometimes playing to have fun rather than to win or "do your best" in terms of winning potential contradict. I find it appropriate for certain settings to play to win and others to play to have silly fun (i.e. not to play fully focused or ambitiously, etc). In either case, the choice is made to please all other players as well as myself in their gaming experience.

I agree (except, of course, in certain situations: e.g., teaching game, playing [some] games with children). "Your best" is simply the best that you are able to do, within the rules of the game, that results in the highest possible rank for yourself. I don't see your "problem" as a problem at all - people will always have different skills. This is no different for Yahtzee - your best is whatever you think will give you the highest score in that game. I do not believe you should go for the rare but high-payoff roll because odds are against it. If, however, you are playing a game where the metagame is more important - poker comes to mind as the best example - then the rules are different: you may want to lose every now and then, to ensure your overall average winnings.

When it comes to a large difference in ability, you should follow the Go maxim, which is:

If you are much better than your opponent, the goal of the game is to win by 1 point. Anything more than 5, and you have lost.

The anything more than X number can vary depending on your skill, but if you think you are such a great player of a game, than you should be able to manipulate the game such that the victory is incredibly close.

I like that a lot David, I will probably try it some future time.

I second this. To me it's more fun to lose while enjoying the ride down than to win a boring easy victory.

(daw65) you bring up an interesting thought (excuse me while I put my devil's advocate hat on... there)

Would fast-tracking the game be acceptable if you were already in first place? Or instead of trying to end the game, should you instead try to increase your lead?

From another point of view, if you have no chance for 1st place, but hold a narrow lead over 2nd, would fast-tracking the game to the end be acceptable to secure a second place finish, even if it guarantees you won't win the game and you would, in effect, be helping someone else win?

I can see fast tracking the game when holding the lead. After all, the goal is to win, and ending the game quickly gives opponents less of an opportunity to catch up.

Doing it when in second place is a bit iffy, IMO. It's still colluding with the leader to give the win to the leader, so I think I'd generally say "Eeww!" Personally, I'd much rather mentally concede the win, and then pursue winning second place, as it's the best I could do. Also, it's good practice for the next game, when I plan on whipping this game's winner's butt.

One thing I like about Citadels are the checks and balances against making the optimal move every time. You're best strategy is often to take the second best role for your position, to avoid getting clobbered. Ah, nothing sweeter than stealing a bucket of gold someone has carefully saved up.

On speeding the game in second place:
Again, this depends on what you define as "best". Speeding a qualifying game while in second place when that place secures you a place in the finals is perfectly acceptable in my book. Focussing on second place in almost all other circumstances I view as mildly reprehensible. Pretty bad if you rob someone else of a reasonable chance of winning, than it's kingmakering (shame!).

Kompa Nanzi

I did this on my first game of Vinci. I could attack one of two people (I was dead last by 30 points) so I attacked the leader, and allowed the 2nd place player to pass him.

Also, the leader had been stomping on me the whole game.

In two of the games of Ticket to Ride that I played in over Christmas people violated this item. In one my sister's boyfriend just played randomly making whatever connections he could without trying to complete routes. At least at the end he started trying. In the other my cousin went out of his way to mess up people's routes. I was seriously frustrated. If you don't want to play, don't play.

A corollary of the "If you don't want to play, then don't play" concept would be "If they don't want to play, then don't make them play."

Wearing someone down to finally get them to play a game is sometimes just asking for trouble.

Very interesting one. I think this one depends on the game/group. I wish there was a way to tell beforehand what the accepted etiquette for this was in new game/groups.

Some games are all about ego and backstabbing and revenge, and thats fun. Other games are about beautiful (if perhaps not strategic) moves that are too much fun not to do.

And then there's lots of games where your idea of the game isn't shared by everyone in the group.

I think I tend to play tit for tat- If the leader's played well, hasn't shitted on people, and I'm not in a position to win, I'll play to improve my own position. If they've played in a nasty way, and I'm not in a position to win, then I'll stuff them up.

In any case, I'll ignore other players telling me what I *should* do. If they wanted a robot to play, they should have invited one.

It took me a long time to learn this, but it may well be one of the most important things a boardgamer can learn. I've got years of watching people who have been dragged into games doing everything in their power to sabotage the game to prove how boring it is. And yet, only a few months ago, I was invited to a friend's party where she specifically requested games. I tried to figure out the best easy starting games for a group of essentially non-gamers. I tried Time's Up. My friend hated it from the description, but we still tried to slog through it, hoping she would allow herself to see the fun. After the first round, and lots of complaints about how she didn't know any of the people on the cards (and yet still she and her partner had come in 2nd!), she begged that we stop. The rest of the people wanted to continue, but her negative reaction clinched it. They then wanted to play Apples to Apples - and another disaster. Finally, the rest of the group went off to play something else, and my friend, my daughter and I played Attika.

She loved it.

Now, if someone expresses that much disgust at the description of a game, I will quickly put it away, and if they display that much discust at the prospect of playing a game, then we'll probably watch a movie. It's just not worth the pain.

The most danderous game I know for causing real life hatred and verbal violence.

AVOID.

Sometimes playing to help other players is part of the metagame. Say you were playing some game with a negotiation element vs. Ned and Ed. Ned has totally stopped you the entire game from having any chance to win, not just hindered you in a normal manner. Ed spread out the damage or focused it on the whoever led at any given moment.

My solution: attack Ned at every opportunity and help Ed to win the game even if it means giving Ed your own money/points/resources.

This strategy will maybe make Ned think twice next game before he nails you to the wall for no reason.

It may sound harsh or retributive, but if you think about it, Ned was guilty of kingmaking (or peon-making maybe in this case) in the early game when he sent every negative effect your way.

I have a cousin that plays Settlers of Catan in this way. If he gets behind, he just hands all his resources over to someone everytime for one resource in return. The problem is that no game that I can think of rewards a player for coming in 2nd, 3rd, 4th, etc. Second place is the first loser.

I've been trying to work on a system where you play a 'season' and points are awarded for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd (if there's four players). The overall winner is the one with the most points at the end of it all. The problem here is, of course, someone getting behind in the rankings so that even a 1st place finish in a game won't help them

[quote]The easiest examples, of course, are always in 3 player games - incidentally, where this "Kingmaker" problem is at it's greatest.

Kingmaker - "I cannot possibly win. I'm not sure which one of you will win if you Duke it out, but I'm going to end it right now and pick . . . YOU. Congratulations!" I hate winning or losing a game in this situation, and have made it a policy never to do this for any reason.[/quote]
The problem is, you're in a catch-22. You CAN'T avoid kingmaking in a 3 player game a lot of the time.

For example, let's say there's a 3 player game of Puerto Rico, it's your turn, and it's the last turn of the game. You are in 3rd place and nothing you do will change that. Player A is winning, and player B is in 2nd. Player B has 2 large buildings that are unmanned, and manning them would certainly bring player B into the lead...

Let's also say that you have an unmanned Fortress.

Do you choose Mayor?

If you do, you have crowned player B the winner of the game. If you do not, you have crowned player A. Perhaps player B passed on Mayor, expecting you to choose it to inprove your score.

So what do you do? If you choose mayor to maximize your score, player A is upset that you handed the victory to player B. If you don't then B complains you didn't play to maximize your score.

There is no good answer here, and my initial point is there's no way out of kingmaking.

- Seth

"The most danderous game I know for causing real life hatred and verbal violence."

What is to be avoided here is the sort of player who cannot - usually due to low or no self-esteem - separate interpersonal reality from in-game events. Such a player, indeed, will find he is seldom invited to play again. Or, if he is invited back, no-one will in any way modify their gameplay in order not to upset the "poor, wee laddie."

The true Diplomacy player is a bridge to the superman -- all others would do well to stick with Monopoly or, better still, solitaire card games.

So you found it strange that the players who did have a chance to win wanted to keep playing???

I think this is one of the more important social contract rules, and further, the discomfort that it can cause is enough to make me want to avoid games where it's easy for it to come up. Although I've never played it, Adv Civ seems to be a good example. Even if I was winning, I would not want to continue playing out a game where 25%-75% of the players had lost interest because they were out of it. 30 minutes of that would be too long, 3 hours would make me suicidal.
Monopoly is another example. I don't want to sit there with $100 and 10 mortgaged properties, waiting to see which of the two superpowers will knock me out, and I certainly don't want to sit around waiting for them to finish up. I wouldn't want to subject anyone else to that feeling either.
I'd rather play games where everyone can be fully engaged up to the end, and once it becomes obvious who's going to win, the game's nearly over anyway and we'll be able to rack 'em up again.

2 interesting alternatives to the "never quit" rule.

1) (slightly less interesting) Lunchtime. Sometimes people get called away, need to leave early, or the game goes on longer than they thought. They just quit the game and we muddle on without them. Sure, it's annoying, but we're at work playing a game.

2) The only game I've ever walked out of was Ninja Burger. First of all, I hated (*hated*) the game. Secondly, I could see no adverse effects on anyone else from me quitting at that point in time, as most of NB is completely non-interactive and we were nowhere near the end.
If quitting has no impact on anyone I have no problem with it. Note that there are few games where this is the case! but Ninja Burger is one of them. Munchkin probably another.

There is absolutely no excuse, barring uncontrollable circumstances outside the game, to justify not playing out one's position to the end. Exceptions being a game whose rules allow for concession or retirement (e.g., chess), or if all concerned are willing to concede to a mutually agreeable endgame (as in Diplomacy).

Similar to my comment regarding Diplomacy (above), the player who consistently refuses to play out a game because he is bored or not doing well (the most selfish and objectionable reason of all), will tend not to be invited to play again.

There is absolutely no excuse, barring a gun to the head, to justify insisting that someone play out an anticlimactic game who's winner is obvious. An exception would be a game in which a player has made it clear at the beginning that he'd like to practice his endgame.

Similar to my comment regarding Diplomacy (above), the player who consistently insists on playing out a game because he enjoys seeing his opponent squirm (a cruel and objectionable reason to enjoy a game), should be dealt with harshly in all metagaming strategies.

The affirmation:

Do I need to. Have to say you have a lot of guts to admit to this. I remember cheating in some roll die and move game when I was a little kid. I felt so ashamed that i remember the feeling to this day if not any other details of the game.

I think theres a difference between "cheating" and "funding" though. When your playing with certain people your doing it to promote their fun rather than trying to win. You just need to know when you get to the point where you should start playing properly.

If I can see another players' hand of cards, I ask them to cover them up.

This is a great point... With larger groups gathered around a smaller table, this is very easy to do. Sometimes it's purely accidental, sometimes it's abused... If another player is carelessly holding their cards -- are you bad for cheating or they a sucker for not paying attention?

I think it's cheating... But it is one of those blurry lines, because there isn't always intent, and it's something other players have control to correct, not just you... But I'm not advocating this.

When I was younger (12-15 years old), my grandmother would take the 4 grand girls to the beach for the week. Durrning this time we had a continuous game of Partner Uno. My cousin S. and I were always partners. We devised a way to let the other one know which color we needed when we had uno. In the thoughts that it might help us win. Well the score proved otherwise. By the end of the week (This was every year not just a one time experience.) My other Cousing A. and My sister were always a few thousand points a head of us. It was very frustrating.. but it proved to me that cheating does not work. To this day my sister and A still don't know that we cheated.

Tish Soulliard (Melsana) -- the cardplay "cheat" is another excellent point...

For partnered card games where bidding is important (pinnochle and bridge come to mind) proficient players and skilled partners can convey a lot of information about the strength of their own hands by how they bid...

Is letting your partner know you've got a strong hand and really need to win the bid cheating? What about if your bidding style/system also conveyed suits/ranks? Where is the line between legitimate passing of information and unfair advantage?

Hard to say, another grey area.

I want to weigh in on cheating.

And yes, temptation always lurks around the corner.

But, I have three kids. And I have a goal to raise them as honest and ethical as I can. And I play games with them. So the issue of cheating is covered very early on. I have made it clear to them that if they cheat, they will no longer be invited to play games with us. I also try to instill in them that obvious but often forgotten fact -- in a 6 player game, 5 people will almost always inevitably not win. That is, more people will lose than win, always, and the more games you play, the wider the gap will become. Therefore, the enjoyment of games cannot possibly come from winning alone, otherwise, why bother. Lastly, when I play with them I will always give them advice, if they want it, and it will always be the best possible advice I can give from their perspective at that moment. But, I will also never 'cheat' to let them win. If I ever play suboptimally, I will do it openly, by giving them a handicap, or by letting them take a move back, or more rarely, by openly 'holding back' a turn or two to allow them to "catch up" in a game where I hold too much of a skill advantage. This tactic means that they will lose games against me far more than they win. But, when they do win straight up against me, they will know that they did it on their own.


As for temptation -- I got a chance to play the prototype for Ticket to Ride: Europe a few months ago at Gulf Games. And I was playing quite well, and I knew I had a significant lead, and I realized that if I drove the game to the end in the next two turns, I would clinch it. So I did.

We all counted up our own individual scores. And as I did, I realized that I had neglected one 2-track connection for one of my long routes. Now, this would have been one of the few wins I would have had at this GG. Sometimes it is like that. And, as we all know, at least one win or two is really nice to have. So it would have been trivial for me to just pretend not to see that I had missed that connection and just count up my score and claim the win. After all, everyone I was playing with was as easygoing as can be, and probably wouldn't have even noticed, and if they had, I could have easily feigned ignorance too. I mean, I only noticed it myself by chance, because I had already convinced myself all my routes were complete. But, even though they would never have known that they been cheated, I would have known. They would have thought I'd won the game -- I would have known that I really didn't. And, more importantly, I would know that the respect that they held for me for being a person worth gaming with would have been falsely earned.

I earned a button "Clueless" from my daughter for that play, but I wore it the whole weekend with pride. I've won my fair share of games, and lost way more. But more than that I've won some of the best friends I've ever had playing games, and every game I play with them I come away a winner.

Well we can finally agree on something 100% although this is the only one that I break from time to time.

Tempers suck. My temper sucks... I am banned from certain games due to a few, um, childish outbursts. Fortunately my gaming group hasn't been broken over them, and I do try to not let things bug me as much as they used to. It *is* just a game and copping an attitude *isn't* fun for anyone.

Amen.

It's an easy thing to lose sight of, and the most important principle while gaming.

The most important thing is to have fun!

This used to be my number 1 rule. It seemed intuitively obvious. And then I had someone show me its weakness.

I had two people in a six player game turn a 15 minutes rules explanation into 45 minutes, laughing, joking, playing, as we use to say in the service, "grab ass", and otherwise repeatedly disrupting the explanations. It was a crayon rails type game, and they also managed to break two of the crayons before the game had even started.

When I finally called them on it, they shot back at me, "But I thought you said, 'The most important thing is to have fun!' Well, we were just having fun. So what's wrong with that?" Well, the other people weren't having fun.

So, now I have a new rule, and whenever I'm introducing new people to gaming, this is what I tell them:

The most important thing is for each person to try to make sure that everyone else has fun!

Works like charm. But, even I need to be reminded occasionally (see comment above at Vinci)

And a dependent corollary to "We're All Here To Have Fun" is "Fun For A Few Is NOT Fun For All" ... This applies to a wide variety of gaming situations, but for me and our group, it's most applicable to RPGs... If one person in a group goes off on their own, steals from members of his own party or does other things that are legitimately "in character" but against the group, it gets quashed. Quickly.

Fun at the expense of another, or what's fun for one by ruining fun for others, is implied -- because if we're all here to have fun, and a few people take it upon themselves to leech fun from others to improve their own experience, well... a pox on them. Or something mildly annoying and itchy, anyway.

This point would perhaps be better served using Diplomacy as the referenced game, but I entirely agree.

This is the one I'd put under the heading "Play for yourself,not for others".

Twice I've had the game wrapped up only to have another player give the game to someone else for the sole purpose of depriving me of the win ("I'll give you 4 bricks and 3 lumber for a sheep"). Not cool.

One of my gaming group has a second objective in every game (after trying to win)... never letting me win. See entry about tempers...

Oh, this is pretty applicable. Some games actually require you to "pick" on another player... By either sending a disaster their way (Advanced Civ, unless you'll take it on the chin yourself), stealing their resources (when 7s are rolled in Catan), or some other mechanic.

It does tend to get old when you're repeatedly picked on for no apparent in game reason -- and if you're already in last place, it can be downright insulting.

However, if it's in the mechanics of the rules, if perhaps not the spirit of the Social Contract, are you being a sore loser for denying them a mechanically viable playing option, or are they being a poor player by not choosing an option which improves their own position/hurts the leader?

Picking on the leader makes sense, but I wonder what the social contract says about pointing out the leader (truthfully or otherwise) to persuade others to pick on somebody besides you.

"Wow, Jason has five roads already. We have to do something about those two points he just got. Oh, and look, he's on all the good sheep numbers.

So what if I have 4 towns already. I have no ORE! This game is all about ore, you know -- there's no way I'm going to win. Now if I had *sheep*, you should be worried. Hmm, now who is sitting on all the sheep numbers?"

In my opinion it's okay, especially when skill level and/or rules knowledge is roughly equivalent among the players. If somebody is playing "trick the newbie", or is using subtle persuasion tactics disguised as rules explanation, then it becomes questionable.

(Rubric)

A keen observation... This happens in a lot of games, and often introduces a dimplomatic aspect to games generally devoid of any such element. Getting others to fight your enemies for you is an ancient tactic... But manipulating newcomers or taking advantage of another's inexperience with the rules falls into the grey area of acceptable behavior...

An interesting beginner-player observation here:

Settlers game. Early/midgame. No apparent leader, everyone's got like 4 or 5 points. Joe plays a Soldier and places the robber on a hex with two different players' settlements on it. Who does Joe choose to steal a card from?

Guesses, anyone?

That's right: The player with the most cards.

But why?

1. Joe wants to attack the stronger player.
2. Joe feels that more cards = better chance of drawing something good.

Joe is making a mistake in two ways here.

1. Taking a single card from a player with a lot of cards will probably not affect their play. Taking a card from a player with three or fewer cards will more likely be damaging to their plans. If you have to choose between making negligible impact on a player with many resources, or making significant impact on a player with few resources (considering the game scores are fairly even and it is early in the game), you should go for the greater impact.

2. It is likely at this point in the game that Joe has placed the robber on this specific hex because he is hoping to steal a specific resource. (Rather than as a blocking maneuver to impede runaway production, which typically starts to happen later in the game). What is also likely is that Joe is hoping to steal the resource of the hex he has placed the robber on. Newer players do this consistently for some reason. If Joe is savvy at all, the number of that hex has been rolled recently, so the players settled there should both be holding the desired resource. Joe should steal from the player with the fewer cards. It's more likely to draw the resource you want from a small hand than from a big one.

Come on, Joe! Get with it! Are you playing to win, or what?

~Josh

I feel I have to add a little note here: I've been on the receiving end of this kind of bad play far too often, and it really does get old real quick. I've played games with the explicit contract from the other players, "It doesn't matter who wins as long as Camo loses". Mostly, that's out of spite because I tend to beat them unless they gang up on me. (In other groups, I just lose because they're better than me...)

(oops, forgot to add to the previous post)

the only reason i think the fact that i own the games is significant is that i read the rules and teach the games when they're first introduced -- for some reason, they think that since i've read the rules beforehand, i have a much better grasp of the gameplay and strategies, and therefore already have an advantage in the game before we even start.

it's absolutely not the case, as i can't always remember to put pants on let alone remember all the intricacies and potential strategies of a new game...

Jason - i don't see Camo's experience as strange? Every group is different - and sometimes it only takes one person in a group to sway all the others to a concept, faulty or not - look whos prez in the states

oops - sorry that was directed at AVA

I think it's highly amusing when someone says: My group has a mantra that it doesn't matter who wins as long as it's not me. The reason they say this is I usually win unless they gang up on me. That sucks that they do that.

Well how much does it suck to play a game and one guy always wins? I would band together to break that up to. I play to win, but I do have people that I know are just good at games. If I don't see that person go down early, I'm not going to win. So if there can only be one winner, and left unchecked someone always wins, I will gladly join up to gang screw that person so I have a non-zero chance of winning.