Breaking Through Your Preferences: It's Sometimes Necessary

 We all have our own set of personal preferences which bias how we react to everything.

When it comes to gaming, I dislike a high degree of randomness. I like a fair degree of player interaction. I dislike having to reference charts continuously through play.

So why do I like Pizza Box Football? Seriously.  The game is a quick rock-paper-scissors game with a chart lookup. This tells you what column on another chart is rolled on. That chart gives you a modifier for yet another chart (on which you then roll for final result). Now, I love a good football-themed game. I really do. I even enjoy a fair number of bad ones. But I keep coming back to this one, and I honestly can't figure out why. The game is almost purely randomness and charts. Defense is underpowered.

I could go on for a while about why I should dislike the game, but it highlights something for me: Sometimes you need to set aside your preferences and give something different a shot.

It worked for Dixit. My preferences even boosted its sales.

Here's the thing about our gaming preferences that everyone forgets: You learned them. When I was eight, I didn't sit down at the Monopoly board and complain, "There's too much randomness and not enough direct player interaction!" I had no idea that there were less random games out there. I didn't know that there were games with varying degrees of player interaction.

My gateways to gaming in general are probably very similar to yours at first. Candy Land, Cootie, Monopoly, Aggravation, Battleship, Clue (or Cluedo, if you're in the UK). I was odd in that I rarely played Sorry or Trouble. And I didn't play Risk until I was an adult. These are the gateways through which most US gamers learn boardgaming.

When I was twelve, I played Axis and Allies for the first time (not the version I've linked to - the original Milton Bradley Gamemaster series one). That was a real eye-opener. That year, I was also introduced to Castle Risk - when I played Risk a few years later, I was very disappointed. Castle Risk is a far superior game.

By the time I was seventeen, I'd also played Diplomacy, Kingmaker, The Awful Green Things from Outer Space, The Great Khan Game, Illuminati, Hacker, Talisman, and a number of others. By this point, I'd started to define what I liked and disliked in a game.

Over the next five years, I added a number of games to my list - Robo Rally, Empires in Arms, Shogun, Fortress America, and a whole lot of others.

Some of you are aware of a split in boardgaming between "Euro" games and "Ameritrash" games. Some of you will further note that all of the games listed above are AT-style.  That is, theme before gameplay, lots of bits, lots of dice, lots of direct player conflict. It's worth noting that party games such as Scattergories or Wits and Wagers or Apples to Apples don't seem to fall into either camp.

 I was in my early twenties before I played a Euro. It was, of course Settlers of Catan, and it was (for me and many others) a real eye-opener. On September 13, 2002, I finally acquired my own copy of the game. At that time, I was twenty-six - and already a hobby gamer.

Settlers seemed, to me, to be nearly the perfect game. There was non-conflict interaction, and (through initial placement), you had a degree of control over your luck.  After that, I sought out Euros. There were some ... missteps. Nautilus springs to mind (steer well clear).

Somewhere along the way, I became very set in my ways. Or, as my wife calls me, "A Game Snob." I started sneering at games where dice ruled. I ignored games that were "too light."

Asmodee sent me the rules to Dixit and Cyrano, and I ... flinched. These didn't sound like good games to me. They sounded like party games. And Asmodee had made a habit of publishing good games.

Even after reading the rules to these ones, I hesitated to bring them to the table. But I knew I'd have to be ready to demo them. Which meant I'd need to play them.

Dixit was ... well, the art dragged me in. Honestly, for the first play or two, the game played second fiddle to the art. The next few games, I enjoyed for itself. In fact, the more I played it, the more I liked it.

Now, one of the things I do is take games to some of our local game stores. While I spend the bulk of my time and money at Phoenix Games, I do spend some time at Uncle's Games (less, now that their Southcenter Mall location is gone). I've visited  most of the other local stores, too.

I took Dixit to Uncle's games to demo for them. I ended up not having time to play, so I loaned it to them. When I came back a few weeks later, the district manager told me, "It's not his usual style of game, so when he recommended it, I knew it would be a good one."  This was before it won the Spiel des Jahres.

It rapidly became a top-seller for them, and was their best-seller over the following holiday season. They had so much demand for it that they ended up buying copies from a Canadian distributor because the US was sold out.

They sold so many that I mentioned to Christophe that I'd brought it in to Uncle's to demo, he exclaimed, "We love Uncle's games!" Apparently they'd sold more than just about anyone else.

And all because I reached past my preferences and recommended a game.

So the point is this: When we reach past our preferences, we sometimes find games we would otherwise have missed. And some of these games may become favorites, if we give them a chance.

7 Wonders

At last! The phenomenon known as 7 Wonders has arrived in my home. And it highlighted to me the dangers of being taught a game poorly.

You see, I'm not the first member of my usual group to have a copy of this one. I'm also not the first one to bring it to game night. And I had to fight to get it to the table, because the person who taught it previously had one rule wrong.

I guess that's why Asmodee keeps bringing me back to GenCon ...

7 Wonders is a drafting game. If you've done Magic drafts, this won't seem that foreign to you. You start with a hand of seven cards, and you'll choose one and pass the rest of your hand. The difference is that you're not building a deck - you're building a city. And you immediately use the card you've drafted. You can build it, you can cash it in for money, or you can use it as a build marker to represent construction of your city's Wonder.

Cards have a fair amount of info on them, too. In the upper left is the build cost. The top center shows you the effects of the building. Some of them provide resources, some of them provide victory points. Some provide military strength. There are some other effects, too, such as discounts for purchasing materials from your neighbors or advancing science (which is points at the end of the game).

After you've drafted (and played) six of the seven cards, the 7th card is discarded. Players then compare military to their neighbors and place victory point markers on their boards based on their military standings. But don't get too reliant on the military. At most, you will earn eighteen points from military strength.

You repeat this for three Ages. After the third age, players calculate their scores. There's the points from the military, there are points for having money, there are points granted directly by buildings, and there are points that some buildings give you based on what else you (or your neighbors) have built.

Highest score wins.  It's that simple.

The most common criticism I have seen on the 'Geek is "It's lighter than I had expected!" As I've discussed previously, I think there's a place for light games - and this one actually as more depth than you think it does. Especially at the 4-5 player level.

It bears mentioning that in some ways this game plays completely differently with four players than it does with six or seven. The rules are the same, but you'll see what's left of your starting hand multiple times, so you may see cards you want returned to you later in the round.

Unlike most games, you don't need a degree of table awareness. You really only need to keep track of what the players to your left and right are up to, because they're the only ones you will interact with. The only awareness beyond that is a matter of keeping track of which cards have been built so you have an idea of what may be available to you.

All in all, I can see why this game rocketed up the charts on BGG (at the time I'm writing this, it's in the top 20). It's one of the better games in my collection - it won't beat Dungeon Twister on my list of favorites any time soon, but it's definitely up there.

The Origins Awards

The Academy announced the 2011 Origins Awards Nominees last week.

It's ... odd for me.  Their list demonstrates their nomination process remarkably well. The process goes like this:

A small number of "hobby game professionals and knowledgeable enthusiasts" assembles a short list of games for each category. Then each category is voted on by retailers at the GAMA Trade Show. The top five from each category become the final nominees. Those final nominees are voted on by attendees at Origins.

In other words, excellent games may be on the short list but if they don't sell well, they probably won't become a nominee.

This is why Gamma World is on the list, but Smallville isn't.

There are more indie RPG's on the list this year - but that just means that more indie games are selling. Which is good.

So here are my thoughts, category by category - and keep in mind that my record at choosing winners isn't great:

Best Roleplaying Game:
Smallville needs to be on this list. It is (no question) the single best RPG product I have seen since Legend of the Five Rings first blew my socks off more than a decade ago.

That said, the list is ... pretty good. The Dresden Files RPG is very good, and deserves to be on this list. I've heard good things about Dragon Age. Fiasco is really neat. Gamma World is ... it's okay. DC Adventures is yet another d20-rooted Mutants & Masterminds product.

My projected winner: Dresden Files.

Best Roleplaying Supplement:
I think every game in this category deserves to be here. This is a category with five very strong contenders, and I don't know that I could have picked any better (having said that, however, I'm going to get a comment with a better choice). A Song of Ice and Fire Campaign Guide is solid. The Advanced Player's Guide for Pathfinder is pretty good (for my money, it's the weakest link in the category). The Sixth World Almanac was a surprisingly-good Shadowrun book (I love the game, but its recent releases have been a bit ... uneven in quality). If you have Dresden Files, then you probably already have Our World.  I don't even think of it as a supplement.  And Sunward for Eclipse Phase continues the Hard SF with Horror Elements reign of the game (and it is amazing).

My money is on Our World - but Sunward is a very close second to my mind.

Best Board Game:
This is a category with some definite hit-or-miss. Castle Ravenloft is good. Defenders of the Realm is (by all accounts) a solid game - I haven't played it, though. Fresco is fun. Lords of Vegas just left me cold. Nuns on the Run. Really?

Where is Innovation? Or Earth Reborn?

My money is on Castle Ravenloft.

Best Traditional Card Game:
Some good games, but some glaring omissions, too. Ascension is good. Hex Hex XL is a lot of fun. Back to the Future: The Card Game is ... eh. I don't know the other entries.

But where is Gosu?  Where is 7 Wonders? Either of these is better than Back to the Future.

I'd like to see Hex Hex XL win, but Ascension will probably take it.

Best Family, Party, or Children's Game:
The only one of these I'm familiar with is Wits & Wagers Family Edition. And I like it. The entire Wits & Wagers series has been really good.

Best Gaming Accessory:
This has always been a strange category. This year, the nominees include a primer for miniatures painting, tile sets for RPG's, terrain pieces for miniatures gaming, terrain for Battletech, and a combination dice bag/stuffed animal. I have no idea what was overlooked for this category - did anyone create a gamer-focused line of pencils this year? Are my d20 Shoelaces lacking an award?

My money is on the Cthulhu Dice Bag, only because it has name recognition.

Best Miniatures Rules:
Two games I've never heard of, two new editions, and a technical readout for Battletech. I just don't care about this category this year. Sorry. If I were at Origins, I wouldn't vote in this category due to not knowing the nominees well enough.

That said, the smart money is on Hordes.

Best Historical Board Game:
Warlords of Europe, Catan Histories - Settlers of America, Conflict of Heroes, and Panzer General: Allied Assault. Unfortunately, the voters will be the "general public" of Origins - Catan has name recognition outside of wargaming, and will probably take it. But Conflict of Heroes is the better game. By far.

Best Game-Related Publication:
No Quarter Magazine - Privateer Press' house organ. All Warmachine and Hordes all the time. Hamlet's Hit Points was a really amazing little book for me. Family Games - the 100 Best is supposed to be a very intersting read - I have yet to read it, however. Shadowrun: Spells and Chrome is (near as I can tell) only available as an e-book - on Kindle or as a PDF. I can't say definitively that this is the first time a digital-only publication has been nominated for an Origins award, but I think it is. And I don't know World at War: Revelation.

So where is Kobold Quarterly? It's better-written than No Quarter, and supports multiple games (Pathfinder, D&D 4e, and - with Issue #17 - Dragon Age).

Either way, I suspect that Family Games - the 100 Best will win. I'd prefer it if Hamlet's Hit Points won. I will only be disappointed if No Quarter wins.