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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pedantic" data-source="post: 9615066" data-attributes="member: 6690965">Alright, give me a little credit as a person who's played games before. I don't particularly like poker (I'm in the particular board game camp that objects to gambling as a game mechanic in general), but I by no means don't understand it. I'd have more fun playing a round of The Gang, but question of risk analysis combined with push your luck can be an interesting and valid gameplay mechanism, it's just not a lot of fun in its pure form. There's a surprisingly small overlap between people who are good at (and enjoy playing) poker, and your eurogame crowd, precisely because the gameplay loops offer entirely different kinds of engagement. On the other hand, I've put more time in Netrunner than any other game, and that's entirely repeated risk analysis, modified by matchup knowledge, and is interesting entirely as a function of card distribution.My objection has to do with the deployment of randomness, because the when and how it's used in a design is significant to the outcome. I used the card game scenario because I think the particular approach (controlled randomness of available resources, mitigated by planning for specific matchups) is a good analog for the kind of gameplay Alarm encourages in D&D. Generally, I object to randomness playing a significant role in determining resolution, vs. determining board state going into the situation. Your MtG player proposal is pretty funny actually, because there's a whole trend of fairly expert TCG players going on to design games that undermine the necessary variability of card draws. It's easy to misunderstand the drive as a player to reduce variability as a design directive instead. I've got a whole other rant on the underlying problems with what I'd call "dude-basher" card game design to begin with (in the briefest, most provocative terms: if your ability to draw for answers is determined at deck construction, your game is bad), but that's an entirely different diversion.Ultimately though, I don't think the test you're proposing here, "can we separate good vs. bad players through analysis of repeated play?" is getting to the heart of the problem, That it's possible to be skilled at a game doesn't really say much about whether the game is engaging. I'm much more concerned with the kinds of decisions the gameplay creates, the points at which variable lines of play become possible, and whether or not different strategies are viable. I agree that a game that does not permit skilled play (or with trivial optimization cases) isn't interesting, but that's just one criteria. There's a lot of things to worry about after that that different players will evaluate differently, but I'd probably start with these questions:<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">How often does it produce non-trivial decisions?</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">How much influence can a player build over the board state?</li> </ul>This is the usual no-true-simulation version of the No True Scotsman argument, which, much like you have given up trying to break out into its component parts, I have no real patience for at this point. Until a better simulative technology than a human making up the world comes along, I'll continue to use the one we have. The gameplay enabled by a player interacting with the wide array of possibilities that can spin out from an unbounded board is too valuable and interesting to toss out with the resulting shortcomings.However, something substantive here that I do want to focus on is the proposed interrelation of the GM modeling these complex systems and what you're calling "principled opposition," because it is significant to the simulated opposition I'm talking about that the GM behave differently when performing those two tasks. It's an interesting historical accident that we combined with the judge who in theory is maintaining and reporting the board state with the player animating the opposition. You can just as easily envision wargames that shifted toward a one vs. many structure, while maintaining a separate judge. Regardless, the GM is functioning as a separate entity across those two roles; the hunter is not the board state, and is, ideally, as limited as the PC in accessing that information.This is what I mean by "simulated opposition." The GM takes on the role of the opposition, attempting to limit their interaction with the gamestate to the same tools available to a PC.This focus on "skill" does such a disservice to the whole endeavor. The whole reason people develop these skills is because the thing they are doing is interesting. Games are a fun trick for the human pattern seeking endeavor, where we create and model systems, then find patterns in these artificially defined and limited spaces that we can exploit toward an agreed end. Being good at that is less important than wanting to do it, and appreciating those patterns in the first place. I will certainly learn from a conversation after a game about a different line I could have taken, and may play better in future, but I played the game to see what would happen when I pursued a line, and to enable the conversation at all. Getting to make an interesting and impactful decision at all will always be more important than making the right choice.</blockquote>

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