I'm a board game guy. I love them. I have an IKEA wall system full of them, two closets piled up with them, and several more dozen binned up in the basement in those clear plastic containers. I hated Monopoly the first time I played it and quickly went in search of better alternatives. When I happened on Starship Troopers, the die was cast and I began what now stands as a 40-year love affair with the form.
I hope I come as a friend to my grognard brothers when I ask them why they persist in playing certain games on the tabletop when there are manifestly superior digital equivalents.
Let me begin with Talisman, if I may. I remember playing this game in the original GW edition seemingly a lifetime ago. I was never enamored of it, but friends who wouldn't play War and Peace with me were at least willing to give it a go so I had to settle. When the short-lived Black Library edition was released I snatched it up a Gen Con -- took me three morning "runs" (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday) for those who have ever been there -- and eventually added the Fantasy Flight Games upgrade pack.
Then I saw the digital version during the Steam Holiday Sale.
A couple months ago, though, I wandered into my FLGS and found a fellow playing Talisman. Forgive me. I have understated matters. This gentleman was lolling about in a pool of Talisman. He was Scrooge McDuck diving into a vault brimming with doubloons, save that every doubloon was Talisman. I watched in amazement as he ran three other people through his game and as he did so was compelled to choose between dozens of card decks with each roll of the dice. He had the main, basic board surrounded by the expansion boards which were in turn surrounded by all the cards, counters, figures, &c., the twisted minds at GW could imagine. And all of this was in service of a game that, basically, is Chutes and Ladders with demons and a mighty set of "screw your buddy" mechanics. I was dumbfounded.
I went back home and fired up this game on my PC. There it all was. All the expansions, all the card decks, and all the characters. I mean, seriously, look at these card decks:
The PC version gives you the board:
Surely there must come a point where a boardgame is simply too much for the table to bear? All equal, why in the name of all the blue hells would someone prefer a tabletop Talisman to the PC experience?
And, seeking to parry one particular argument even before it's thrust my way, I don't think the whole "human interaction" component can carry the day. No game that has metastasized in this way can be enjoyable for actual people without a PC handling the drudgery. I've played ASL and La Bataille, so I certainly know from complex games, but this is something all together different. This is a game that, to my eyes, collapses of its own weight when reduced to paper and cardboard.
But, oh yes, ASL, I would like to talk to you next...
I think 2 factors contribute to the dichotomy you see here, beyond the ftf social aspect. The first is the tactile factor - for many, it's simply more satisfying to handle real components than a mouse/keyboard. The second is the double-down effect, aka "too big to fail". So you buy Talisman (or 40K, GW are masters at evoking this). It's a fun game! Then they release an expansion. Ok, not too big a deal, it'll just add to the fun, right? This goes on to infinity. At a certain point, the buyer has a decision point where he/she decides that enough is enough, and refuses to buy any more expansions, often leading to abandoning the system and moving on. Or, more expansions are bought. The game has now literally become too big to fail, so the buyer has to become a fanatic and ignore the fact that the game is no longer fun due to having bogged down, just because there is so much invested in terms of money and emotion.
ReplyDeleteNow you had to bring ASL into the discussion, lol. There are many worthwhile criticisms which may be leveled at ASL, and many that are not worthwhile.
I'd like to hear yours!
I absolutely agree with both your points, but, it seems to me, they ultimately should work against one another -- part of my surprise is that they don't. I love the tactile aspect of the Euros and play games like "Carcasonne" and even "Wallenstein" a fair amount because of it. Part of the pleasure, though, it has always seemed to me, is that the whole experience is managed with a system that doesn't revel in complexity almost for its own sake. I've often marveled at how much game these designers manage to stuff into such a small space. Part of their appeal, I think me. "Talisman" just seems bloated on the tabletop. And only slightly less so on a computer screen.
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with you that there are some remarkably elegant systems out there, that achieve results far beyond what would be at first suspected based on such simple rule-sets.
ReplyDeleteI also think that GW has rarely if ever achieved this, and never outside what used to be called the Specialist Games line. Their business plan just won't allow it, frankly. Look at what they did with Blood Bowl, where they managed to finally, after a lot of experimenting, stumbled upon an amazing ruleset, but one that wasn't open to adding heaps of new units and rules and such, ie making money. So it got buried, and was only kept alive by the fanbase for years and years.
Anyways, my point is that GW games tend to bloat for some very specific reasons, while Euros tend to be resistant to bloat, also for very specific reasons, although the huge popularity of the genre is leading to more bloating than previously. I'm still waiting for a Cthulhu expansion for Power Grid, for example.
But there is nothing wrong with complexity, so long as it serves a need within the game system.