The racehorse paradox

One of the readers of this blog suggested that I write about his incredible boardgame losing streak. As I'm tremendously flattered that someone actually found their way here and found the time to read through the posts I'm going to do just that. Now, I don't really know anything about this poor fella's losing streak, but on the subject of losing or winning in games is indeed an interesting one. Why do some people win more often than others?

Let's get the obvious explainations out of the way first. Some people are just better at certain games than others. The more complex a game is and the less random elements it has the more likely that this is the case. I believe Chess is the staple here. The best player will almost always win, and as there is really no limit to how good you can get at this game there is also no limit to how bad you can be in comparison. This is why a grand master can beat an entire chess club simultaniously.

But I don't think this is my reader's problem. In fact, as the losing actually seems to bother him, I suspect he is a rather skilled player, reading through strategy articles on boardgamegeek, analyzing his play. It reminds me of a problem I used to have playing poker a while back. Me and a friend started playing at about the same time but he quickly sped past me in terms of results. He started making lots of money online while I barely broke even. I was frustrated. A lot of the time I felt his plays were rash or even stupid and that he just got lucky. But as time wore on I realized that he had qualities that I lacked. I played safe. By the book. He played hard. With a vengence.

There is something called the racehorse paradox which essentially means that the more competitors in a game and the steeper the prize curve, the more it pays to be agressive and to take risks.

Say two horses compete. One of them is predictable, running at a constant 20 mph (I know jack shit about horses – how fast do they run?). The other is inconsistant, running at 15 mph most of the time, but every once in a while gets excited and pushes to 25 – let's say every fifth race. So if it's just up to those two, we will bet on the predictable horse to win as he will win four out of five races. But what if we add more horses? Let's say we add three more horses who are about as consistant as the predictable horse. The unpredictable horse will still win every fifth race, but the predictable horse's chances have worsened considerably. One of five races will be won by the unpredictable horse and in the remaining four races the other horses are about equal, meaning that they too win one out of five races. And if we add a sixth horse our unpredictable horde is suddenly the favourite.

Psychological factors aside, this explains, in part, why my friend was more successful at poker than I was. We played mostly ten player tournaments, and while I almost always made it to the top four, I very rarely won. My friend on the other hand often got obliterated in early rounds but if he made it to the top he usually managed to win.

War on victory points

Victory points are an amazing tool for balancing a boardgame. If you're making a game about, say, warfare and you notice that your generous trading rules makes it unfrofitable to fight you can adjust the victory points slightly so that military objectives are scored higher. Just by toying back and forth with the victory points you can create perfect balance without having to redesign the whole game.

But while victory points are no doubt great for the designer I can't help but feeling that they are an unaesthetic feature. Like a carpenter built a house but didn't remove the scaffolding. Or a painter put her charcoal sketches on top of the brush strokes.

Not only are victory points inelegant, but oftentimes they obscure the purpose of the game, making it harder to learn and to grasp.

Puerto Rico is the perfect example of a game that has lost itself in victory point extravaganza. When I first read the rules of this game I understood nothing. Then I read them again and I understood even less. It seemed to me that they weren't rules so much as a run through of a chain of events – they told you what to do but didn't explain why you should do it.

In all it's compact eurogame glory Puerto Rico is thoroughly non intuitive. It takes at least three full games before you can truly wrap your head around it. A gamer has to give this game many chances before she can actually fall in love with it. The problem is that you can't really tell who is ahead before the ritual counting of victory points at the end, and even then you can't actually be sure what you did wrong.

To be fair, the victory points are only partly to blame. Puerto Rico is a somewhat schizofrenic game. At first, the objective is to create an efficient economy, then at some unknown midgame turning point you need to make a one-eighty and try to convert all your assets to something else. This is in itself a strange practice and not really backed up by the theme, but if the victory points had at least been represented by something else the game would have been easier to understand: Say you bought techical upgrades or bigger ships, or the winner of the game was the first player who could afford a castle.

I'm not suggesting a redesign of Puerto Rico (although it could use a facelift). It seems to be appreciated in all it's qirkyness. But the victory point phenomenon is something for future designers to think about. Germany has revitalized the boardgaming hobby with their flood of easy yet clever games. Sometimes thy get a bit abstract, though. It's time to go to the next level now. Give the games back their soul. Lose the victory points and make winning conditions a little less obscure.

Company at the bottom of the pit

There's nothing sweeter that sharing your loves and obsessions. The internet makes this possible on a massive front. Participating in boardgaming communities, baking forums and World of Warcraft newsgroups makes me feel less alone. But the real challenge is dragging your real live friends into the darkness of your hobbies.

I have, as you may have understood, a severe gaming addiction. My friends play too, but they are all a lot more casual users than I am. They like to smoke weed on the weekend, while I sometimes want to spike my veins with high grade smack or inhale the sweet fumes of crack cocaine from a stainless steel pipe. Of course I could go the full mile and start hanging out with some real junkies, but there's also the respect from my loved ones to be considered. No one wants to live with a substance abuser.

On a couple occations, though, I have been able to drag my friends down with me.

I used to be heavily into World of Warcraft (then I quit, because it stopped giving me the thrill I needed, read more about this here). While I was just starting up I gave the ten day free pass to a friend. To my great joy he took the offer and before I knew it he had passed me in level. Now, we had some great times in that parallell universe, but sometimes I wonder if I really should have slipped him that ticket. I hardly see the guy anymore, and, though his girlfriend seems to be okay with it, he's only a part time resident of earth nowadays. All mixed up in guild business and skipping soccer games for raids in the dungeouns of Azeroth.

Last week I gave another friend a plastic container of active sourdough culture and bullied him into making his own bread. I was pleased to hear the bread turned out great and tasted fantastic. It seems like the hobby is catching on. Next on his list is Austrian whole grain rye. The question is, will it turn into an an addiction, and do I want that on my conscience? What if he drops out of the university and go start himself a bakery?

You have to look out for yourself, too. Perhaps you need a sane environment to stay in touch with the real world. Before you break out that nice little gateway boardgame or ten day free trial to kick off your win over campaign, think it through. You may need people around you to help you stay put. My girlfriend for instance, I would never want her to come over to the dark side. She is my lantern in the blackness. My north star to keep the ship straight. Without her I might have quit my job and started selling The Big Issue.

Boardgame nostalgia at the end of time

We had two full bags of boardgames and a week to play. We were isolated in a house on an island. This, I felt, was a chance to sink our teeth into some of the more time consuming games out there. I was anxious to get a game of Epic BattleLore going as well as a four player Dungeon Twister.

However, the week played out a little differently. Plenty of gaming, but our restless thirty plus city souls never found time for the more ambitious projects. We played several games of Ticket to Ride and Thurn and Taxis. We also managed to squeeze in Settlers of Catan and Citadels.

Time didn't use to be an issue. In my gaming peak, about twelve years ago, we could play through the night and well into the morning and not even finish the game. Games like Civilization and Mighty Empires could take an hour per turn and it really didn't bother us. There was nothing else demanding our attention. We played through hunger, thirst, fatigue and even sickness. Somehow, as long as there were huge bottles of Coca-Cola around, we were fine.

I miss those times. I miss the ability to shut everything out but the rolling of the dice. Our island boardgaming trip was great. I love the lighter games too. But Ticket to Ride can only get you that deep. And I realized on that trip that the days of boargaming trancendance would never return.

Two hours is the upper limit nowadays. Any game that takes longer than that will get one play only and then returns to the shelf, never to be dusted off again. Sadly. Because Dungeon Twister is a really cool game. And don't you just love Diplomacy?