Once More On the Game
What? Are we in Belle du Jour territory here? Well, of course not, we’re simply labouring under the yoke of a lame pun today, and not a poorly received cash-in book in sight.
So, I tried to create a card game yesterday and failed miserably. My aim was to put together something that involved the concept of rule changes...that a player had the chance of changing the rules as they played but without giving them too much power to overwhelm the game. There are reams of stuff about this on the Internet and I dipped into it a year or two ago with fascination; but for the most part the games described reeked of academia...or were played more as entertainment for an audience. I wanted something that could be played by a handful of players that involved skill...
The initial ruleset was to be simple – I was basing the game loosely on Whist – and the players could build on this ruleset as they went along, hopefully creating strange loopholes and groundwork for future cunning. But the damn thing proved impossible. Too many inherent contradictions. And whenever I added a rule to prevent a stupid situation from coming up, another problem popped up at the other end. I gave up and began to consider why some games work and others do not.
For a game to be great it must allow for the greatest possible variation from the simplest possible ruleset. This allows a player to grasp the rules immediately, whilst allowing the development of strategies and, crucially, the ability to become skilful in the game over time. This idea of skill should allow original thought and not simply rely on the need to memorise.
On the latter point it could be raised that the greatest exponents of a given game have become so close to the strategy and rules of a game that they know how to react to any given offence; in a way, for them the whole game exists within the realms of the memory. But what the hell, eh? We’re talking about having fun here. Let’s boil this thing down to one of the simplest rulesets we know...Noughts and crosses. This is a game for children and can never be played by the average adult because we have learnt every possible defence to any given offence by the time we reach double figures. Unless one’s pencil and paper skills are particularly blunted, every game will end in a stalemate, negating the whole point of the process. So the ruleset is simple...and the variation is limited.
The limits placed on strategic thought in a game are of great interest if we wish to analyse the game. Whereas the game of noughts and crosses is inherently limited and is therefore little more than a childish distraction, the game of scissors, paper, stone is far more interesting. Again, the ruleset is simple, but the variation here is surprisingly large. Bullshit, right? It certainly seems that way on first sight.
Ah, but consider how the game is played out of the realms of mere gameplay. The limits around this game are not focused on the physical number of rules or moves...in fact, the large expanse surrounding the game is the result of the game’s inherent psychological aspects. Psychology is one of the broadest churches in the religion of skilfulness. In successive games of PSS, the player builds a history with his opponent of game results which affect the outcome of future games based on how a player thinks...bluffs, second guessing and basic personality all play a part, along with the more obvious aspect of luck. Even one off games will be coloured by each player’s analysis of the other person’s most likely move, with personality analysis filling in for game experience.
Despite sounding like the waffle of a post-match interview with a pretentious manager, it can be said that football and chess are alike in the above respect. Both rulesets are lean and easily grasped, but the variation is vast, unless you happen to be playing a team recently purchased by a poisonous billionaire...but that’s not for now. However, both games still contain rules that slip under the barrier of simplicity. The offside rule is a curiosity because it is a technical rule that acts as a piece of chipboard nailed up to hide the perceived problem of attackers hanging around the goal line, rather than what feels like a fundamental and immediately obvious foundation to the game. In chess, a couple of oddities exist that, whilst all part and parcel of the game, still stand out as being not so fundamental. Castling and en passant pawn capture both fall into this category. Even the simplest rulesets need the occasional protection from exploitation.
Complicated rulesets, though, will frequently elevate the papering over of cracks to an art form. Rules can begin to contradict and counteract one another, creating loopholes and potential exploitation. With the worst examples of exploitation, a player may become ‘invincible’, defined here as a strategy that cannot be countered as it is set up and eventually executed. However, many games allow the state of invincibility provided each player has a fair chance of preventing the strategy from moving from the stage of setting up to the execution. An imperfect example of this would be the star player on the football pitch shooting on goal...the defence must prevent the situation from occurring in the first place, but if they fail in preventing the set-up, thus allowing the execution of the shot and possible goal. The execution may be unstoppable, but this is the fault of the defence, not the ruleset. However, if there was a rule allowing the kick-off to begin on the penalty spot with the star-player ready to go...the other team would be right to collectively growl like Marge Simpson on a bad day.
Another example of exploitation is quite the reverse; the game that can too easily be stalemated by a player. In chess, a stalemate is difficult to achieve when the player skill levels are mismatched...but when they are evenly matched, stalemate is more frequent, which seems logical. Some people dislike the ability for a game to end in a draw, but in context of a series of games, they make more sense. I would elaborate, but this damn thing is never going to finish if I did.
The point here is that the rules of a ruleset must be clearly thought out, logical and disallow unfair situations, whilst offering the chance to create unpredictable strategies. A player must lose because either luck or skill (or indeed both) is against them, not the game itself. A game lives or dies on whether it is perceived as fair.
You can apply these concepts to computer games, although this is too broad an area to be worth analysing in one small paragraph. In brief, computer games that have impenetrable rules and only have one or two winning strategies that can be repeated over and over to win will be found out and thrown in the river with a safe tied to their feet. We must be grateful that computer games began on primitive technologies that forced simple rulesets...those early designers had to squeeze the most fun and variation from a handful of 2-D asteroids, otherwise another game would be along in a minute to take the children’s 10 pence pieces for themselves. This means that the lessons from these early days could percolate down the years as technology became stupidly complicated. Despite this, bad games with silly rulesets come out all the time...provided a celebrity is involved somehow, the public will swoon and hand over their thirty quid.
Ah, another tangent to resist. Which is as good a place to finish as any.
So we appear to be one conclusion short of an argument today. This subject is massive and I can see many places in which I could have taken the lines of thought and ran for miles. Many people already have, and if I had Internet access as I write this I would chuck in a couple of links. Ah, well. If you give a damn about any of this, chuck some words into Google, although don’t be surprised when inputting the title of this post doesn’t return the results you expect.
So, I tried to create a card game yesterday and failed miserably. My aim was to put together something that involved the concept of rule changes...that a player had the chance of changing the rules as they played but without giving them too much power to overwhelm the game. There are reams of stuff about this on the Internet and I dipped into it a year or two ago with fascination; but for the most part the games described reeked of academia...or were played more as entertainment for an audience. I wanted something that could be played by a handful of players that involved skill...
The initial ruleset was to be simple – I was basing the game loosely on Whist – and the players could build on this ruleset as they went along, hopefully creating strange loopholes and groundwork for future cunning. But the damn thing proved impossible. Too many inherent contradictions. And whenever I added a rule to prevent a stupid situation from coming up, another problem popped up at the other end. I gave up and began to consider why some games work and others do not.
For a game to be great it must allow for the greatest possible variation from the simplest possible ruleset. This allows a player to grasp the rules immediately, whilst allowing the development of strategies and, crucially, the ability to become skilful in the game over time. This idea of skill should allow original thought and not simply rely on the need to memorise.
On the latter point it could be raised that the greatest exponents of a given game have become so close to the strategy and rules of a game that they know how to react to any given offence; in a way, for them the whole game exists within the realms of the memory. But what the hell, eh? We’re talking about having fun here. Let’s boil this thing down to one of the simplest rulesets we know...Noughts and crosses. This is a game for children and can never be played by the average adult because we have learnt every possible defence to any given offence by the time we reach double figures. Unless one’s pencil and paper skills are particularly blunted, every game will end in a stalemate, negating the whole point of the process. So the ruleset is simple...and the variation is limited.
The limits placed on strategic thought in a game are of great interest if we wish to analyse the game. Whereas the game of noughts and crosses is inherently limited and is therefore little more than a childish distraction, the game of scissors, paper, stone is far more interesting. Again, the ruleset is simple, but the variation here is surprisingly large. Bullshit, right? It certainly seems that way on first sight.
Ah, but consider how the game is played out of the realms of mere gameplay. The limits around this game are not focused on the physical number of rules or moves...in fact, the large expanse surrounding the game is the result of the game’s inherent psychological aspects. Psychology is one of the broadest churches in the religion of skilfulness. In successive games of PSS, the player builds a history with his opponent of game results which affect the outcome of future games based on how a player thinks...bluffs, second guessing and basic personality all play a part, along with the more obvious aspect of luck. Even one off games will be coloured by each player’s analysis of the other person’s most likely move, with personality analysis filling in for game experience.
Despite sounding like the waffle of a post-match interview with a pretentious manager, it can be said that football and chess are alike in the above respect. Both rulesets are lean and easily grasped, but the variation is vast, unless you happen to be playing a team recently purchased by a poisonous billionaire...but that’s not for now. However, both games still contain rules that slip under the barrier of simplicity. The offside rule is a curiosity because it is a technical rule that acts as a piece of chipboard nailed up to hide the perceived problem of attackers hanging around the goal line, rather than what feels like a fundamental and immediately obvious foundation to the game. In chess, a couple of oddities exist that, whilst all part and parcel of the game, still stand out as being not so fundamental. Castling and en passant pawn capture both fall into this category. Even the simplest rulesets need the occasional protection from exploitation.
Complicated rulesets, though, will frequently elevate the papering over of cracks to an art form. Rules can begin to contradict and counteract one another, creating loopholes and potential exploitation. With the worst examples of exploitation, a player may become ‘invincible’, defined here as a strategy that cannot be countered as it is set up and eventually executed. However, many games allow the state of invincibility provided each player has a fair chance of preventing the strategy from moving from the stage of setting up to the execution. An imperfect example of this would be the star player on the football pitch shooting on goal...the defence must prevent the situation from occurring in the first place, but if they fail in preventing the set-up, thus allowing the execution of the shot and possible goal. The execution may be unstoppable, but this is the fault of the defence, not the ruleset. However, if there was a rule allowing the kick-off to begin on the penalty spot with the star-player ready to go...the other team would be right to collectively growl like Marge Simpson on a bad day.
Another example of exploitation is quite the reverse; the game that can too easily be stalemated by a player. In chess, a stalemate is difficult to achieve when the player skill levels are mismatched...but when they are evenly matched, stalemate is more frequent, which seems logical. Some people dislike the ability for a game to end in a draw, but in context of a series of games, they make more sense. I would elaborate, but this damn thing is never going to finish if I did.
The point here is that the rules of a ruleset must be clearly thought out, logical and disallow unfair situations, whilst offering the chance to create unpredictable strategies. A player must lose because either luck or skill (or indeed both) is against them, not the game itself. A game lives or dies on whether it is perceived as fair.
You can apply these concepts to computer games, although this is too broad an area to be worth analysing in one small paragraph. In brief, computer games that have impenetrable rules and only have one or two winning strategies that can be repeated over and over to win will be found out and thrown in the river with a safe tied to their feet. We must be grateful that computer games began on primitive technologies that forced simple rulesets...those early designers had to squeeze the most fun and variation from a handful of 2-D asteroids, otherwise another game would be along in a minute to take the children’s 10 pence pieces for themselves. This means that the lessons from these early days could percolate down the years as technology became stupidly complicated. Despite this, bad games with silly rulesets come out all the time...provided a celebrity is involved somehow, the public will swoon and hand over their thirty quid.
Ah, another tangent to resist. Which is as good a place to finish as any.
So we appear to be one conclusion short of an argument today. This subject is massive and I can see many places in which I could have taken the lines of thought and ran for miles. Many people already have, and if I had Internet access as I write this I would chuck in a couple of links. Ah, well. If you give a damn about any of this, chuck some words into Google, although don’t be surprised when inputting the title of this post doesn’t return the results you expect.
posted by Jamie at 6:42 PM
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