Is house ruling fair to the game or gamers when first introducing it?

[Hussar]

Interesting....

You see, while the folks at boardgamegeek are generally correct that the common house rules (or, more often, poorly understood rules) of Monopoly don't generally lead to better game play, I find the criticism a little ironic, and oddly parallel to RPGs. Most of the supposedly "great board games" I see these days need a special turn track monitor, and a person expert in the rules to lead new players by the nose through their first half-dozen games before the player can be expected to get the hang of it.
/snip

I'm really not sure that's true though. There are a huge number of very popular games that don't have much of a learning curve at all. I just picked up Endeavor to play with my ESL students. The way the game is set up, you basically learn as you go. Ten minutes of instruction and we were into play and this was with two of the four players not having played any board games other than Scrabble.

Catan is about as simple as it gets as well.

Are there really complex games out there? Oh, sure. Squad Leader anyone? But, really, from the research that I did when picking a new game for my classes, most of the games are pretty newbie friendly.

 

[Umbran]

I'm really not sure that's true though.

YMMV, of course. And sure there'll be games in various parts of the complexity distribution.

I go to an occasional boardgame gamedays held by a couple different folks I know. The games are newbie friendly if you're a boardgame geek kind of newbie - new to a particular game, have lots of experience with and love for the boardgame genre, and think more about "resource management" than "playing a game".

I will be honest with you: Settlers of Catan is not a simple game. Its rules take up 10 pages: 8.5" x 11" in 11 point type, 4700+ words - I checked. The rules of chess or Monopoly take up more like 2500 words each. Checkers takes about 375 words!

While word count isn't the sole measure of complexity, it makes a useful yardstick.

 

[nedjer]

YMMV, of course. And sure there'll be games in various parts of the complexity distribution.

I go to an occasional boardgame gamedays held by a couple different folks I know. The games are newbie friendly if you're a boardgame geek kind of newbie - new to a particular game, have lots of experience with and love for the boardgame genre, and think more about "resource management" than "playing a game".

I will be honest with you: Settlers of Catan is not a simple game. Its rules take up 10 pages: 8.5" x 11" in 11 point type, 4700+ words - I checked. The rules of chess or Monopoly take up more like 2500 words each. Checkers takes about 375 words!

While word count isn't the sole measure of complexity, it makes a useful yardstick.

Never a truer word spoken. Catan is stunningly complex. Does it with abstraction, so no pop at 1000 page RPG rules, which don't require understanding pure machine code and five card stud.

Like Chess, Catan should be an essential game design primer, But not ahead of the no skill, hardly any rules, 'swashbuckling', over-priced entertainment offer by Dread Pirate. I've gotta fetch you a link: here on the blog from last Christmas. Catan was in the 11+ section, but Dread Pirate - kept that for the adults.

If you like go look 2nd hand, as it's way expensive for the flash version

 

[nedjer]

Damn! Sorry Hussar. I didn't read the whole thread before posting. I like to read them backwards, it's more fun

Catan is not hard to learn to get going. I've played online at the web site and those guys are real good at Catan

 

[Hussar]

Heh Nedjer - been guilty of that a few times myself.

Play in Catan can be surprisingly complex. But, the rules themselves are very, very simple.

Endeavor is like Catan in that the actual rules aren't terribly hard to master - it's all pretty straight forward. But actual play, while not mechanically complex, is bloody hard to win.

Kind of like chess really. Relatively small number of rules that lead to very complex interactions.

Umbran - I would point out that the rules for Catan cover about a page and a half. The rest is examples and very, very newbie friendly explanations. Heck, they even provide a basic game setup for you for the first time you play.

As I said, I played Catan with four players, other than me, none of them played board games (and I hadn't played any board games in years), and, again, other than me, they were all playing in a second language.

Bitch of it is, I keep losing.

 

[Jhaelen]

Kind of like chess really. Relatively small number of rules that lead to very complex interactions.

I think, most non-gamers are of the opinion that chess is pretty much a very complicated and difficult game. So much so, that they typically aren't even interested in learning it.

 

[Hussar]

I think, most non-gamers are of the opinion that chess is pretty much a very complicated and difficult game. So much so, that they typically aren't even interested in learning it.

I think that's an opinion pressed upon non-gamers by chess geeks who want to keep out the riff raff.

The rules of chess are not really any more complicated than the rules for cribbage.

OTOH, I think most people don't want to play chess, not because it's too difficult, but because they think it's mind numbingly boring.

 

[Jhaelen]

I think that's an opinion pressed upon non-gamers by chess geeks who want to keep out the riff raff.

The rules of chess are not really any more complicated than the rules for cribbage.

OTOH, I think most people don't want to play chess, not because it's too difficult, but because they think it's mind numbingly boring.

You may well be right.

Myself, I enjoyed playing chess up to a certain point. Then I realized, I'd have to put a lot of time and effort into playing chess to get noticably better, and that was totally not worth it for me. Too much work for the fun I got out of it.

Anyway, do you remember the nerd-rage about an online newspaper article (I think it was Boston Globe or something) reviewing a bunch of board games?
One of them was 'Ticket to Ride' and it was dismissed by the 'playtesters' because they felt it was too complicated and they simply couldn't figure out how it was supposed to work.

They gave high grades for some inane party game, though, IIRC. Some people simply aren't into board games.

And if the only board game you know is 'Mensch Ärgere Dich Nicht', every board game is bound to seem to be too complicated.

 

[Joshua Randall]

I do remember that article about TTR, and it made me think that what the 'playtesters' (I think it was the article author, his son, and a son's friend or something like that) really needed was a person experienced with TTR to teach them. TTR is a great game, and it's a shame that they had a bad experience with it trying to learn themselves. (Maybe the rulebook isn't very good? I haven't looked at it in years!)

Which ties back into this thread: when teaching TTR would it be "fair" to teach it using house rules? (I can't really think of any needed house rules for TTR, but just for the sake of argument.)

And my answer remains the same: sure, it's fair, as long as you tell the new players up front that you're using house rules, use very few house rules, and only use good house rules.

 

[Hussar]

I take a slightly different tack. If I'm teaching someone who is completely new to a game, has never played it before and has no preconceptions of how this game is supposed to work, and the only way I think that this game will be fun is to start injecting my own rules, perhaps it would be better to pick a different game.

After all, if you're injecting (or ejecting) rules, obviously there is some failing in this game for you. Why not pick a different game?

I gotta admit, having had a fairly revolving door in my gaming groups (for some reason, the fifth player seat is certain death for any new player. 4 players? Had them for years. That poor 5th bastard, lasts a couple of weeks tops. Sigh) and I've seen all sorts of bizarre house rules come floating through the door from players who didn't actually know that they were house rules.

Typically not a big deal, but, it has caused some friction in the past, so, if I do houserule something, at least for people who are a bit experienced with the system, I'll generally point it out and explain my reasoning.