Transcript "What video game designers and teachers can learn from 50 years of tabletop game development" Dr.

"What video game designers
and teachers can learn from
50 years of tabletop game
development"
Dr. Lewis Pulsipher
FTCC. Pulsiphergames.com
18 Mar 2010
Note about the slides
 Slides
are provided primarily for those who
want detailed notes later, not as an
accompaniment to the talk
 Consequently, they are “rather wordy”
 Available at
http://pulsipher.net/teaching1.htm
 Or just go to pulsipher.net (not .com) and
look for teaching material
Who Am I?
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Designed my own games from a very young age
Began playing commercial wargames in early
‘60s
Early video game experience: Atari 2600, DOS
Designer of six commercially-published board
wargames (most recently, foreign language
editions of Britannia, Nov ‘08)
Forthcoming: Law & Chaos (Mayfair), Germania,
Dragon Rage
Worked in computer support (programming,
chief of PC/network support) at Womack medical
center 9+ years, taught networking at CCCC
Teaching/Writing
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First to teach game design in North Carolina as
far as I know (Fall ’04)
Teach game creation topics at FTCC
Presently finishing a book about how to design
games, and how to teach people to design
games
Monthly contributor to
Gamasutra/GameCareerGuide (and “expert
blogger” there)
Contributor to books: Hobby Games:100 Best,
Family Games:100 Best, Tabletop Game Design
(forthcoming)
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Teaching is my profession, game design my avocation
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Pulsipher.net, pulsiphergames.com
http://pulsiphergamedesign.blogspot.com/
http://teachgamedesign.blogspot.com
Some of my work
Let us Proceed
 Lessons
video game designers can learn
from tabletop (board and card) game
development in last 50 years
 So we aren’t counting Monopoly,
Scrabble, etc.—not even Risk (1959)

Just as well, these tend to be poor game
designs
 We’re
interested in lessons from
wargames and “Euro”-style boardgames
(originating in Germany)
Brief list of lessons
is “more fun” (has broader
appeal and potential)
 Playtesting is sovereign
 Simplicity prospers
 "Atmosphere" sells games in the 21st
century
 Replayability is variety, not repetition
 Multi-sided
Lessons directly related to multisided games
 The
three-player problem
 Problems of multi-sided games:
 Turtling
 Leader-bashing
 Sandbagging
 Kingmaking
Important Distinction—”multiplayer” means “multi-sided”
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Tabletoppers call any game with more than
*two* players “multiplayer”
 Video gamers mean “more than one player”
 In video games, a “multiplayer” game often
has just two teams, as in Team Fortress,
whereas “multi-player” to tabletoppers usually
means “more than two sides or teams”
 So I try to use the term “multi-sided”,
meaning more than two separate interests
regardless of the number of human players.
The crux of the difference (and
of the lessons)
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Video games traditionally are for one person, with
the computer providing challenges devised by the
designers
 Tabletop games are for more than one person,
with the game system providing ways for players
to challenge one another, as devised by the
designer
 More and more video games are of the second
type
 In tabletop terms, many traditional video “games”
are interactive puzzles, not games
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“Solve” it and you’re done. Tabletop games are rarely
“solved”
Another way to look at it
 Video
games are traditionally “p v e”
(player vs. environment)
 Tabletop games are traditionally “p v p”
(player vs. player)
 But video games tend to be avatar based
 While on the tabletop, some kinds of
games are avatar-based, some not
 When you don’t have an avatar, things are
less “personal”
Lesson: multi-sided has broader
appeal (more potential)
 It’s
more fun when you play with (and
often against) others
 Wii games, MMOs, Left4Dead
 People can provide more creativity and
variety than programmed computers can
provide (though someday that may
change)
 “Memorability” is much enhanced when
there are other players to remember with
Lesson: Playtesting is
“sovereign”
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Until you have a prototype, you only have a
plan, not a designed game.
 To improve a game, you must have a
playable prototype
 No game is worth much before it is playtested
and modified
 If a game doesn’t work well, you can suppose
it wasn’t playtested sufficiently
 This is not news to the most successful
companies, such as Epic and Firaxis
Playtesting is sovereign
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Gears of War II about 40,000 playtest hours
Civilization I—Sid Meier programmed, Bruce
Shelley tested, they talked, Sid modified,
Bruce tested again, day after day
Meier said on slashdot,
"My whole approach to making games revolves
around first creating a solid prototype and then
playing and improving the game over the course of
the 2-3 year development cycle... until we think it's
ready for prime time… I definitely spend a lot of time
playing the game before I let anyone else look at it."
Playtesting is “sovereign”
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The rules for a tabletop game are the equivalent
of the programming of a video game
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Both represent the mechanics of the game
Programming must be precise and is very time
consuming (even with game engines)
A playable set of rules can be much less precise,
relying on the mind(s) of the designer(s) when they’re
present, and (inevitably imprecise) notes
 And
that’s a major reason why learning to
design starts with tabletop games.
Lesson: Simplicity Prospers
 Tabletop
games are more easily focused
on the essence of the game
 You cannot “hide behind the computer”
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"A designer knows he has achieved perfection
not when there is nothing left to add, but when
there is nothing left to take away." Antoine de
Saint-Exup'ery
Simplicity…
 If
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something doesn’t work, “lose it”
It’s much easier to alter a tabletop than video
game, especially for beginners
 Prototypes
don't have to be pretty
 Paper prototyping saves time and money
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Xbox Live Shadow Complex (3D side-scroller
with exploration) prototyped all levels on
paper
Lesson: “atmosphere” sells
games in the 21st century
 “Atmosphere”
(sometimes called a “skin”
or incorrectly lumped in with “theme”) is
the supposed setting/purpose
 Theme must influence how the game is
played, atmosphere does not
 Abstract games are hard to market
 Video game example: Puzzle Pirates?
“Atmosphere”
 Euro-style
boardgames are often abstract,
with an atmosphere tacked on; but the box
back describes the atmosphere, and that
(along with the art) strongly influences who
buys the game
 Shooters are usually about shooting and
blowing up stuff, but the atmosphere can
be quite different (and occasionally
becomes a theme when it affects
gameplay)
Lesson: Replayability is Variety,
not Repetition
 Traditional
video games, as interactive
puzzles, can be solved, and then there’s
no further reason to play
 Games involving other people usually
have no “solution”. Variety, mixed with
different players, can provide near-infinite
replayability
 Britannia as an example—people play 4-5
hour game 500 times and more
Replayability
 At
the other end of the spectrum, so many
video games (especially on Facebook, and
MMOs) thrive on repetition, effectively
training people (Skinner style) to do the
same thing over and over again
 “Achievements” are busy-work, not
gameplay
 This is mind-numbing if not actually evil;
replayability implies stimulation, repetition
is the opposite.
Lesson: the “three-player
problem”
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Three sided games either:
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1) No time limit, two gang up on the one who’s
ahead, game never ends
2) Time limit, “petty diplomacy problem” where
one who thinks he’s losing can decide who wins
Solutions:
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A race or “multi-sided solitaire”; players cannot do
enough to hinder/harm another to make a
significant difference in the end portion of the
game
Three player solutions
 Solutions:
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Sudden victory that can frequently be
forecasted and prevented, with changing
victory conditions
“Equilibrium”, no side can drastically alter the
situation in a single turn
A game that is almost entirely positional
Extreme uncertainty about who is winning and
losing
 See
forthcoming article in “Tabletop Game
Design” book
Multi-sided conflict games:
Turtling
 Sitting
away from the action in order to let
others wear themselves down/out fighting
one another
 Akin to “camping”, but the camper is trying
to kill people; the turtle just wants to avoid
getting involved at all
 Even a poor game like Risk has
mechanisms to discourage turtling
Turtling
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Solutions:
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Positive rather than negative economy (more gain
than loss as the game goes on)
Zero-sum game (one player’s gain is another
player’s loss)
Extreme uncertainty about the situation: the turtle
then cannot know when it’s time to “come out of
his shell” and win
Points that are scored continuously: even if
others wear themselves out, they can score
enough to win by the game end limit
Multi-sided conflict games:
Leader-bashing
 When
it is too easy to attack (hinder)
whoever is ahead without harming yourself
 So, most everyone attacks the leader (why
not?)
 Hence no one wants to be ahead even as
the game draws near an end
Leader-bashing
 Solutions:
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Make it harder to hinder other players (a map
game can often do this, because of location)
Make it uncertain who is ahead (Britannia
example)
Make it harder to attack the leader without
harming yourself (Britannia again)
Multi-sided conflict games:
Sandbagging
 This
is the reverse side of leader-bashing
 Everyone wants to be behind rather than
ahead, so they won’t get bashed
 Also a strategy used by “turtles”—avoid
looking “dangerous”
 Solutions:
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Tend to be the same as for leader-bashing
Multi-sided conflict games:
Kingmaking
 This
is the general case of the “petty
diplomacy problem”
 A player who thinks he will lose can
determine who wins (or at least, who
doesn’t win)
 Negotiation: “if you attack me I’ll throw my
forces at you and another person will win”
Kingmaking
 Solutions:
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As with leader-bashing, reduce the capability
of players to attack every other player
Uncertainty about who is losing/winning
The more sides/players in the game, the less
one (losing) side can determine the outcome
Summation
 Perhaps
owing to more powerful
computers and faster Internet, video
games are “converging” with tabletop
games
 For the past several years, video games
have been moving more toward “multisided” play.
 Tabletop games are the best way to start
teaching video game design
Questions?
Comments?
Copyright 2010 Lewis Pulsipher