A Step Back
June 10th, 2005 10:58 am

Okay, premise: card games are small-scale economies driven by the consistent input of random values and the idea that certain of these values are worth more than face in specific contexts (eg as a sum of 21, in a set of four, or in response to a Jack). I’m talking about trump (playing) card games, here, not CCGs.

Now, a question: are all board games essentially set dressing on top of a mildly complex graph with a simple economy, driven by consistent random inputs?

I imagine that Reiner Knizia would say yes, and with good reason. There’s certainly evidence for it–Risk, Ticket to Ride, Settlers of Catan, Sorry. Heck, Candyland. Monopoly and its thousand licensed knockoffs demonstrate the viability (economically, anyway) of separating setting from rules.

Then again, chess, checkers, Stratego and Terrace have no economy and no randomness. If we accept that my description of board games above is accurate some significant percentage of the time, these obviously need their own category–but is that because they’re nonrandom, or because they have no economy? (Or do we accept that description at all?)

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Will
May 1st, 2007 5:53 pm

I’m reading this very late at night so I could just be crazy, but I think it would be better for them to be classified as ‘nonrandom’ - even chess has an economy, sort of, if you consider all the pieces to have different values.

I can’t think of any, but are there any boardgames where there is randomness but no economy? If they’re mutually inclusive, I don’t think that it’s necessary to distinguish between them.

Brendan
May 1st, 2007 5:54 pm

Hmm. Chess does arguably have an economy if you’re keeping score, I suppose, but I don’t know anybody who actually plays that way. And now that I think of it, Candyland doesn’t have an economy–just a random advancement mechanism–but then Candyland sucks.

Ben
May 1st, 2007 5:54 pm

And when you think about it, the combinations of cards are worth more precisely because they’re scarcer… You’re less likely to have a hand with four of a kind in it than a hand with two pairs. Which is fairly economy-like, as well.

Will
May 1st, 2007 5:55 pm

Rather than ‘keeping score’ per se, I was thinking more along the lines of the idea of ‘trading pieces’: You’re not going to trade your queen for a rook, but you might trade a knight or bishop. The value of the trade also depends on what phase of the game you’re in and how many (as well as which) pieces your opponent has.

It isn’t really an economy, though, is it? Because you can’t buy pieces (except with pawn advancement) - oh, except for that weird multi-board variant of chess where when a piece gets taken it is moved to another board.

Brendan
May 1st, 2007 5:55 pm

Ah, Will, excellent point on the concept of trading. And actually, I do think that qualifies it as an economy, just barely Pieces are made more valuable by ability and (later in the game) rarity and position; the (only) end product is–as you mentioned–pawn advancement.

So maybe my definition should be “all board games are essentially set dressing on top of a mildly complex graph with a simple economy, driven by consistent random or nonrandom inputs.” That covers checkers and Stratego too… I’m not sure if it covers Terrace or not. Can you trade up in Terrace at any point? Anybody?

Royce
May 1st, 2007 5:55 pm

No, I don’t think you can trade up in Terrace. By the way, the phrase ’set dressing’ makes me think of some sort of weird number salad.

Brendan
May 1st, 2007 5:56 pm

Hey, Royce, welcome to the Dispatch!

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