I am attempting to generate a formula that gives a rough guide to the complexity, or perhaps the length, of a Brit-like game. Playing my various B2 scenarios brought this on...

The first attempt multiplied number of areas, number of nations, and number of turns. I added number of players to that, though most of these games are four-player. (I understand 3 player Maharajah is better than 4. I don't know of any game that is best with five.) This gives 40,256 for B2 (37 areas, 17 nations, 16 turns, 4 players). I am not including sea areas because no conflict can occur there, in effect they are merely staging areas.

What I really wanted, though, is average number of pieces on the board, as a gauge of complexity, rather than number of areas. But I only know those averages for a few games, so at first I was supposing that number of areas would be proportional to number of pieces. However, in "Euro-ized" games, especially ones not using dice, the number of pieces per area may be significantly lower.

At some point I recognized that it may be average number of nations on the board, not total in the game, that really counts (since we're accounting for number of turns separately). This is around nine in Brit, and I can derive some figures for my other games to make comparisons.

However, average number of pieces is the best gauge of complexity of movement, so how much one should count the number of nations is open to question.

At that point I have a formula which is average number of pieces times number of turns times number of players.

This latest formula yields 2080 for Caledonia(TM), which is certainly a much shorter game than Brit (3328).

None of this takes into account the time spent in combat. One could assume it is about the same (especially as the published versions of Brit-like games all seem to use virtually the same combat system), but I have a radically different system (no dice) which is quite quick, and table-based systems which are significantly quicker than the old system. I'm not sure, though, how much difference that would make to time as a whole...



I don't know where this has brought me, other than to realize that my Viking Brit may have a length problem (haven't played it yet). Hellenia (TM) comes up large on the originla formula numbers (5,100 on the latest formula), but doesn't seem to be all that long a game; I think that's because there are no big invasions and only a few minor ones, as opposed to Brit where we have big invasions that tend to take a long time to play out. Moreover, in Hellenia(TM) the Hellenistic nations often receive few new pieces each turn owing to the economic system. So my formula may need yet more of a tweak, including something like how many new armies come on the board during a turn whether from appearance (Invasion) or from Increase.

I tried running a formula for Diplomacy, which averages 33 pieces, has 7 players, and lasts about 22 turns (maybe less). That yields 5,082, to 3,328 for Brit. But Diplomacy is a simultaneous-move game; OTOH it emphasizes negotiation, which takes a long time. At any rate, I'd certainly agree that Diplomacy is a longer game than Brit, in general.

Another impracticality: it's easy to count number of areas and number of nations, but harder to know the average number of pieces and average number of nations (I do count, sometimes, in solo play).

Brief advice to would-be game designers/developers:

First, read Game Inventor's Guidebook by Brian Tinsman. This tends to cover marketing far more than design, but it's short and sweet. Unfortunately it's out of print, but sometimes a used copy is available through Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0873495527/sr=8-1/qid=1144850887/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-3833292-6136003?%5Fencoding=UTF8

There are several online sources.

Yahoo Groups Board Game Design often involves questions by novice designers, and sometimes more meaty design questions. There is a lot about self-publishing. The archives are all there, so read all those old discussions and messages! http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/BoardGameDesign/

The Boardgame Designers Forum is an online discussion group that can be useful for many purposes. I don't check it regularly, but it has many regular inhabitants. http://bgdf.com/

Boardgamegeek, a general online discussion group for boardgames, has a game design section with many interesting dicussions going back years. http://www.boardgamegeek.com/

USENET rec.game.design is mostly useless, often overrun with junk.

Someday I may have a book out about the nuts and bolts of game design. There are no "nuts and bolts" books presently available, though there are many books that talk about games, analyze games, and talk about computer games in particular. They are not "how to" books, for the most part. Check Amazon for a selection.

Some articles I've written are on my own web site at: http://pulsiphergames.com/gmarticles.htm

(Disclaimer: I own Amazon stock.)

Brief note about how I organize my game designing

First, I believe that you must write everything down (or perhaps I should say, record it). You may have an idea that you'll never have again--do you want to lose it? Moreover, when you write down your ideas, reading them can stimulate yet more ideas. Of course, writing down ideas forces you to actually figure out and understand what you mean; so many novice designers have "ideas" that are only in their head, and when they're asked to articulate them, they find out that there's a lot they haven't figured out.

Similarly, when playtesting you should write down anything you want to keep track of. I keep printed copies of the rules at hand so that I can change them, or I write all notes on scrap paper and then, after the game, transfer to computer.

Recording ideas starts with my PDA, which has a one touch record button (not all do). This allows me to "leave voice messages" to myself, so to speak. I can press the button, talk, and when I let it go it stops recording--the only reasonably safe way to record things during my 50 minute commute. I transfer these to my desktops (gives me three copies, one in the PDA, one at home, one at work), and then write the information down (on computer) when I have time.

I rely heavily on a program that has been around for a very long time but is not well known, Info Select (www.miclog.com). This is a free text database program. It not only allows me to organize information, it allows a full text search in the blink of an eye (because all the stored information is loaded into memory). You might think this would take a lot of memory; no, an entire novel is roughly one megabyte of text, so as long as you don't store a LOT of graphics, it won't put much of a dent in your RAM.

Microsoft OneNote is another program somewhat like this. I'm sure there are others.

I also use a free program called Memento at times and a little program I wrote myself (in dBase and Clipper), to track ToDo lists,

I also have a paper spiral notebook, for occasions when I'll be away from home for a while but don't want to wield a laptop computer.



So when I have an idea I record it, then copy it to other places, and ultimately get it into Info Select.

When I'm to the point of organizing ideas into a semblance of a game, I make a separate note for each category of rules (such as movement, combat, economics). I usually print these out to help me when I'm playing, write further notes by hand on the sheets, then make changes on the desktop computer. (If I were a little more with it I'd probably have a laptop with me when I playtest, but that's one more thing to carry and secure. So I don't.)

At some point I try to write rough rules, as opposed to notes, in these same notes (or in new ones). I can color code the notes accordingly.

I write actual sets of rules in WordPerfect (Microsoft "Worst" is not my favorite word processor). Much of the preliminary writing is done in Info Select, then transferred. But there are many, many revisions to a set of rules, and those are done in WordPerfect. I am not fanatical about it, but I usually save each significant revision as a new file, so in the course of designing and developing a game I might end up with 20 versions.

WordPerfect makes it easy to make usable cards for games. I print on business card stock using the WP template, then put the cards in collectible card protectors (which can be had pretty cheaply, on sale, at Dave and Adam's Card World on the Internet, or at conventions sometimes). The protectors make the cards easy to shuffle, the card stock gives them sufficient stiffness. These are text-only cards; I've seen many prototypes with beautiful graphical cards, but I am not interested in spending the time needed to do this, preferring to concentrate on game play. Moreover, if I did spend a lot of time on a playtest prototype, I'd be reluctant to change it, and that is truly a Bad Thing. Change is the norm when designing and developing games.

I am not an artist or a graphics person. I draw maps in CorelDraw, which does a fine job except that I haven't yet figured out an easy way to shade things (an airbrush or something like it would do, but CorelDraw is a vector graphics program, not bitmap, and while this makes printing very flexible, it seems to make shading elusive, at least for me). You can see some examples on my Web site at www.pulsiphergames.com/projects.htm

I get base maps from the Internet (out-of-copyright historical maps are available, especially at the Perry Casataneda Library (google it)). CorelDraw usually won't autotrace them satisfactorily, so I laboriously trace (with a mouse) what I need. This is not fun, but is quite practical. (Tracing with a tablet PC is easier, because you're using a pen, but I rarely use my wife's tablet laptop.)

I work on about 30 games in the course of a year, and there are many more than that in some stage of work. I really need something to organize what I'm doing, and this helps a lot. Another time I'll describe how I cope with pieces and prototypes.

During Easter vacation I had an unplanned minor ego trip, reading the personal comments on Boardgamegeek about Britannia. (It helps that I only read down to the 7.x ratings!)

One fellow didn't like the graphics of the new game, which I can see might be "too bright" for some tastes. As a non-artist I think the board is beautiful, even though I liked the sea better before the wave pattern went onto it. The cover art is excellent (I like the darkness of it). I don't pay attention to the figures on the pieces, relying wholly on the symbols (axe, spear, Viking ship, shield), and I'm very glad FFG took my suggestion (I don't recall who originated it on Eurobrit) to use the symbols. FFG's original idea was round pieces with a second color circle along the outside to differentiate side and nation, but they switched to the rounded-corner squares, which I really like. They feel a little bit like plagues or tiles rather than cardboard. I started gaming when every wargame used half inch cardboard counters, but nowadays I almost never use cardboard in my designs (I've collected lots of blocks, chips, glass beads, and figures). (I've learned since writing above that the commenter didn't like the difficulty of identifying the pieces, preferring the nation names on the old. I think the symbols on the new pieces are much easier to see, though I'd like them to have been much larger and the figure smaller.)

Many people remarked that the game is too long, and that is addressed in "Brit Lite", which may someday be published. There is some sense that Britannia is an extraordinary game because it is long, giving it the feeling of the "sweep of history" over centuries. In that respect it's like a mini-Civilization: some people cannot conceive of a game being like Civilization if it isn't at least four hours long (it often goes 8-12).

I think that a shorter Brit must have a combat system that has less standard deviation. About 80% of the players responding to my Web survey (http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=504421468301) think the amount of chance in Brit combat is OK (all but one of the rest think there's too much luck). In Brit the dice rolls tend to "even out" (but only tend); in a shorter game this would not be so, hence a different combat system is desirable. My experience playing short Brit scenarios I'm working on confirms that a few good dice rolls can have a major effect in a short game.

I have three combat systems that involve less luck (one uses no dice, but is not luckless). The diceless one is used in Brit Lite. "Advanced Britannia" will probably use the standard system. Other (dice table) systems are used in Dark Ages (TM) and Hellenia (TM).

Someone mentioned an innovative "for it's time" mechanic used (and I think the reference was to the point system). I confess that I've never cared whether a mechanic was innovative or not, as long as it modeled reality well or worked well for the game, but nowadays, as someone pointed out, some people admire games for the mechanics rather than the modeling (reflection of reality). I suppose there are some "Euro" aspects to Brit (no player elimination, usually short downtime between your turns), and I continue to try to think of ways to make this type of game more attractive to the "Euro" crowd.

Lots of Euro methods and characteristics were used in games before ever "Euro" games existed. I think there's an attraction here that is the equivalent to the attraction of designer jeans. Sorry, I NEVER bought anything because it was "designer" clothing and never will. I care about how good it is, and I know that many "designer" garments are identical to non-designer garments except for the label.

On 13 October of last year I wrote:

"I begin to think that the only way to get a lot of games published is to design but not develop them."

After my conversations at PrezCon, I am even more inclined to that opinion.

I talked with some developers and manufacturers about games, of course. The conversation turned at one point to prolific wargame designers. There is one (call him "X") whose games I have never played, but I have read several sets of the rules. They always give me the feeling that the "game" is actually a simulation first, game second; and from various readings, plus my own impressions from these rules, I felt that the games probably weren't well-playtested, and probably weren't much fun as games.

Opinions ran even more strongly at the con. One person was of the opinion that only good developers could save games designed by X. He thought X does hardly any actual playtesting. Another called X a "one book wonder", that is, he'd read one book, design a simulation, maybe play it a little, then pass it on to the developer who might or might not make a good GAME of it. As this all jived with my impressions (and they can be no more than that), I wasn't surprised. Someone talked about another designer (call him Y) who delivered his "design" as "a box of notes". Yet, this person felt, better games came from Y than from X. And Y could be paid a small lump sum rather than a designer's royalty.

Jim Dunnigan of SPI fame--SPI appears to have created the concept of "developer"--compared the developer to an editor (or in computer games, a producer); the expectation at SPI was that the guy doing the research would only come up with some sort of decent prototype, perhaps 80% complete, not publishable as is. The developer would do the work to make the game playable.

There is no doubt that the last 20% of refinement of a game takes 80% of the time. Playtesting is time-consuming, tweaking rules is time-consuming. Even when you don't intend to change the rules, rewriting them introduces unintended consequences (as evidenced by the Britannia Second Edition rules rewrite by FFG--and then having no testing of the new version of the rules compounded the problem). When you rewrite to change a rule, the repercussions are often larger. So a remarkable amount of testing is needed.

At some point recently I've also realized that, while delivering the "80% finished" game is far more practical than delivering 100%, to some manufacturers it doesn't matter. They are going to change it, and possibly not playtest the changes, whether the designer likes it or not.

I remember talking to Andy Lewis of GMT two years ago at PrezCon, and being put off by the assumption that a developer would likely need to change the game. Now that I've heard more about some of the well-known current designers, I'm not so surprised by the notion.

In effect, "designers" who don't deliver complete games make it harder for those of us who do. At any rate, I have realized that I am pretty much afraid of letting some "developer" take on one of my games with a license to change it. I have had very mixed experiences in that regard, some good, some bad (see http://www.pulsipher.net/gamedesign/developers.htm). I suppose I need to figure out which games I need not get ego-involved with, and which I do. I may also be able to arrange that my final version can be made available on the Web so that, if the published version is eviscerated mangled, people can see what it was intended to be. (You might say, "who are you to know what's best"? Well folks, if the person who created the game cannot use the playtesting to make the best version possible, who can? Some designers are not writers, I know; some are not editors; I've been both.)

This reminds me of my experience as a freelance writer long ago. I actually had "editors" change my correct spelling to incorrect! Some editors are more interested in fitting an article in a space than the meaning of the article. Some, on the other hand, make useful suggestions, and I am open to suggestions. What I'm not open to is someone changing something in a way I disagree with: it is MY GAME.

At this point some people might say, "get a grip, as long as it's published you'll get paid". However, I'm not in this to make money (very few do, and as one person said, you could spend the time scavenging bottles for deposit and aluminum cans for recycling and make as much money). I'm in this because I saw how much people enjoyed Britannia many many years after it was released, and I wanted to do more of the same. That means it is indeed MY GAME and I want it to be right (Britannia as originally published isn't quite right--changes by publishers).

Some publishers routinely minimize the importance of the contributions of designers, and assume that they know better. Perhaps the trick is to find the publishers who, if they don't like what you submit, won't try to change it to their way of thinking, they'll just say "no thanks".

A while ago I wrote a few notes in my trusty Info Select about "designing against the grain". That is designing a game that's a lot different from what you usually design, perhaps from what you like to play. I'm always a bit leary of this, as I've also written that if *you* don't like the game you design, why should anyone else?

Maybe I should modify this latter to "if you dislike the game you design, why should anyone like it?" Because I have recently designed a game that I don't care to play, because it's abstract, but that has been very well received by my local playtesters.

I like games that model reality, or "a reality" in the case of fantasy and science fiction. I want to be able to compare a move or play I'm making in the game with something that could happen in the (or a) real world. If I cannot, then I have trouble getting any interest in the game. I played chess when I was a kid, but gave it up at about age 15 because it was too much like work! Yet chess originally modelled warfare.

In the end, it's my interest in history that combines with the interest in games.

So I don't care for abstract games. Nonetheless, a few months ago I started with the premise that I wanted to design a game that uses the colored glass beads or "stones" that were originally made to decorate plants, but which now have many uses including games. At first I tried to come up with a system without chance that just used the stones, but that seemed too sterile., insufficiently varying. I didn't want to use dice, of course, or any overt chance mechanism, but I wanted more happening than you get in a "typical" abstract no-chance game such as Go or Chess. So I came up with the idea (used in Fluxx and, I suppose, other games) of varying the rules. There are cards for different victory conditions and different capture methods, plus some action cards, that players may have in their hands. Players can play the cards to change the victory and capture conditions of themselves or of other players, making for a rapidly-changing game.

Because the game combines the positions of the stones on a hex board with the wild variance of the cards, I called the game "Law and Chaos"(TM). It is much shorter than my other games (30-40 minutes), and feels more "Euro" than my others (no one is really out of the game, surprises occur). I'm not a Euro fan. And I have been quite unable to come up with any theme for the game at all--to me it is purely abstract.

I tried it first as a two-player game, which worked but didn't seem terribly exciting to me (the disliker of abstract games....). But when the local playtesters got hold of it, especially when they started playing with three players, it has turned out to be very popular and to be a "natural" three player game, where "kingmaking" is necessary, but difficult enough that it works out very well. We have found a second way to play (the Law way) that de-emphasizes the changes produced by the cards, and consequently rewards planning and "strategy" much more than the first (or Chaos) version, which rewards efficient reaction to frequently-changing conditions.

At this point, then, "designing against the grain" has proved once again to be quite worthwhile.

Britannia Rights

I am occasionally asked about the rights for the systems used in Britannia. The following is from the government copyright site (retrieved 11 March 2006):

http://www.copyright.gov/fls/fl108.html

"The idea for a game is not protected by copyright. The same is true of the name or title given to the game and of the method or methods for playing it.

Copyright protects only the particular manner of an author’s expression in literary, artistic, or musical form. Copyright protection does not extend to any idea, system, method, device, or trademark material involved in the development, merchandising, or playing of a game. Once a game has been made public, nothing in the copyright law prevents others from developing another game based on similar principles.

Some material prepared in connection with a game may be subject to copyright if it contains a sufficient amount of literary or pictorial expression. For example, the text matter describing the rules of the game, or the pictorial matter appearing on the gameboard or container, may be registrable."

[Emphasis added by L. Pulsipher]

As you can see, the ideas or systems of a game cannot be copyrighted, only the written expression can be. The Britannia game is copyrighted, hence no copy can be made that uses the words or pictures in it. However, if someone designed a game about British history from the Roman invasions to the Norman Conquest, and used many or even all of the ideas and techniques of Britannia, but used a different title (which may be trademarked), a different-looking board, and completely rewritten rules, it would be legal, however reprehensible it might otherwise be.

A patent covers a particular expression of an idea. Very few games are covered by patents. The Britannia "game system" has been used in many other published games such as Maharaja (Avalon Hill), Hispania (Azure Wish), and Rus. The fundamental idea for Britannia actually comes from a game called Ancient Conquest, for which I read the rules while watching a game being played. (Recently I bought a used copy of the game, to see what resemblance there is between it and Britannia. It is a hex-based, combat-factor combat table wargame; all the nations have exactly the same number of potential points, and all the nations of one player play at the same time. In other words, there is little resemblance to Brit beyond the fundamental idea, and even that is differently executed.)

I have been aware of this for many, many years, as any experienced game designer is aware, and as has been described numerous times on numerous game designer Web sites and discussion groups. Moreover, I am very careful about my rights (which is why I long ago stopped writing for Dragon Magazine, because they decided to insist in buying all rights to articles, and still do). I would never sell any of my "game systems" to anyone even if I legally could. If anyone tells you that any person or company owns the rights to the "Britannia game system", they simply have no idea what they're talking about--please let me know about it.

(Usual disclaimer: I am not a lawyer, so what I've said is not legal advice. But you can read what the copyright office says.)

Lew Pulsipher, designer, Britannia

It's been more than a week since I returned from PrexCon, and I still don't have my notes together. Guess I'll have to publish things bit by bit, as this one:

At PrezCon one of the game manufacturers told me about what he called the "collapse of the distributors". Along about 1995, distributor orders for wargames dropped drastically. At that time collectible card games were really big, and I understand from other information that in effect the CCGs took over the retail stores. This manufacturer now acts as their own distributor (and can actually make more money, as they got 40% of list from a distributor, but charge 54% of list directly to the retailer).

This came to mind when talking with someone who preordered a copy of Brit in the Washington DC area. The store called him to come get his copy. While there he asked to buy another. Other than two other preorders, they had none! The store caters to miniatures gamers, boardgamers, and role players, but despite having three preorders for Brit had ordered (or at least, had received) no more.

When he put in his preorder, he originally asked the clerk if they would stock Brit. "Uh, what company makes it". He said he thought it was the same company that made DOOM. "Oh, yes, we get all the FFG games". FFG is identified with role-playing, cards, and and fantasy in general, as well as with boardgames.

So it's good fortune, from the point of view of introducing new people to the game, that it's published by a company that still has clout with distributors. Despite the experience with this particular store.

My article The Essence of Euro-Style Games (it's another attempt at definition) has been published by Games Journal. Yes, Games Journal is alive again, though on a reduced/occasional basis rather than in a monthly format.

http://www.thegamesjournal.com/articles/Essence.shtml

I'm told that a European publisher will be co-publishing my boardgame Germania with an American publisher. But there is a long way between intent and actuality, so we'll see how it goes. It took three years for me to revise Britannia, find a publisher, and get it published (should be in stores in the next couple weeks), so I've learned to have patience.

I hear second-hand that Brit 2 will be in stores either late this month or early next.

I expect to be at PrezCon in Charlottesville 24-26 Feb, arriving Friday evening. (I expected to be there last year but got sick... as I'm sick now, maybe I'll avoid it then.)

I've ordered some plastic Vikings (1/72 scale made for miniatures battles) for my Viking games, not quite as cheap as ordering extra pieces from Eagle Games, but not too horrible, either.

In a surprise, considering that I haven't felt well, I wrote the full rules for the "one hour wargame" this week. 4,500 words, much shorter than even Seas of Gold (TM) rules. Also surprising because I've had writer's block about writing new rules sets. We played two-thirds of a game last Friday, first time anyone other than myself has played it. Sometimes playing the game with others stimulates the rules-writing.

Goldsworthy, Adrian, The Fall of Carthage: The Punic Wars 265-146 BC. Cassell, 2000. 412 pages including notes and index, paperback, purchased from Amazon.

When I've not felt the energy to do much of anything else, I've been reading this interesting summary of this subject. The author takes a particularly realistic view, I'd call it, trying to see things as the participants would without imputing modern values to them. Moreover, his ideas of how battles were fought seem to me far more likely than the wild charges and melees we see in the movies.

My history prof used to say "there were just too damn many Romans", and (including non-Roman Italians) that seems to be the way it was. This, combined with the uniquely Roman determination to fight until the enemy was not merely defeated but subordinated (permanently, it was hoped) meant they, not the Carthaginians, would prevail in the long run. Where Hellenistic states expected negotiated peace with a possible renewal to the struggle later, the Romans fought on. Disasters that would have prompted any other state (including Carthage) to sue for peace only made the Romans fight harder. They thought they had finished it at the end of the First war, but Hannibal's family found a way to continue in the Second. The Third war was terrifically one-sided, a consequence of Roman arrogance and fear of the economic revival of Carthage that resulted in the utter destruction of the Carthaginian state.

Once again we see how much of the history of the ancient world was lost in the Dark Ages. For the greatest prolonged struggle of the ancient world--much larger in scope than Greece vs Persia--we have large holes in our knowledge and often sometimes depend on only one (unreliable) author.

I have released another game-related poll (mostly about sweep of history games):

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.asp?u=807321722096



In my previous post, I've misued the term "kingmaking". That evidently should refer specifically to cases where one player knows he cannot win, but can determine who DOES win. "Leader-bashing" is often used to represent the tendency to gang up on the leader.

At the request of someone on Boardgamegeek, I have activated the comments capability for this blog.

Lew

Questions that must be answered by the designer about every game design

Can we come up with a set of questions that can be used to define the nature of a game (whether non-video or video), if we have settled on the structural choices?

As a reminder, the structural elements are:
1. Theme/History/Story.
2. Objective/victory conditions.
3. “Data storage”. (Information Management)
4. Sequencing.
5. Movement/Placement.
6. Information availability.
7. Conflict resolution/interaction of game entities.
8. "Economy" (resource acquisition).
9. Player Interaction rules.

What's the difference between the structural elements and these questions? A designer MUST choose something within each of the structural elements (not choosing is itself a default choice). On the other hand, he or she can ignore any of the following questions, but other elements in the game will create some answer to each as the game is developed. As a designer, I'd prefer to answer the questions initially rather than stumble into an answer, but others may have a different point of view.

Here are the questions I've come up with so far (in no particular order):

How complex is the game? Complexity can come from the rules or from the play, or both. The rules of chess are fairly simple, but the play is complex. Generally speaking, the more plausible choices a player has, the more complex the play, but that is not always true.

Role of chance
Anywhere from essentially none (chess, checkers--the only chance is who plays first) to complete chance (the cardgame "war"; or just rolling dice against each other; Candyland, Chutes and Ladders)

Number of "sides" (generally, 1, 2, or many) and players
football has 22 players, but only two sides
Axis & Allies or War of the Rings can be played with four or five people, but is a two-sided situation (regardless of attempts to use strange victory conditions to make it appear otherwise, there are only two primary interests)

Symmetric vs. Asymmetric
symmetric--similar starting positions/forces (typical of abstract games)
asymmetric--different starting positions or forces (and sometimes different objectives)(typical of historical simulations)
["Big box" video games are often symmetric; asymmetry often comes from different starting characters]

Zero-sum (ZS) vs. non-zero-sum--in the former, any gain by one player comes from a loss by another
Diplomacy is an epitome of zero-Sum; Risk has some aspects of it, as do many wargames with strong economies (e.g. Axis & Allies)

Another way to pose this: is your opponent's loss your gain, or your gain your opponent's loss? If the game is two player ZS, the answer will always be "yes" . If it is multi-player, someone will gain when someone else loses.

ZS vs. non-ZS can be posed a different way, not quite the same thing: how easy or hard is it to hinder an opponent while at the same time helping yourself? If it's easy, you're closer to ZS; if it's hard, you're farther from ZS. An important aspect of most "Euro" games is that they are far from ZS.

Games in which you score points regularly through the course of the game tend to make zero-sum unlikely, I'd say, and encourage situations where it's hard to hinder an opponent while at the same time helping yourself. (How many games let you take points away from another person that have already been scored?) Of course, there are exceptions, this is a tendency only.

What is the outstanding mechanism involved? [Someday I'll attempt to list genres/mechanisms separately. Not anytime soon, for mechanisms!] What is the genre involved (this is related to theme/story, and is very important in video games).

How strongly will the decisions of the players influence the outcome of the game? Some Euro games, and almost all traditional American family games, are designed so that even if a player is making mistakes, the gameplay can allow them to recover and win. In other words, we want the non-adult or inexperienced players to still have a chance to win. Many wargames are not so designed, and a person who isn't concentrating and isn't making good decisions will rarely, if ever, win. Years ago I christened this characteristic the "gyp factor". If a game lets a less skillful player win often, the skillful player is "gypped" (you can see what school of thought I come from . . .). See http://www.pulsipher.net/gyp_factor.htm. Here's the lead sentence: "The Gyp Factor (GyF) of a game is the degree to which it permits or prevents the expert (near-perfect) player from winning consistently against less than expert but at least average players. If the GyF is very low, the expert will beat the good player virtually every time--chess is an example. If the factor is very high, the expert wins no more often than the good player--in other words the expert is gypped because his additional ability cannot be exerted in the game"

What is the "take that" factor? Is the game "serious" or "just for laughs"? This one requires little comment.

See http://www.pulsipher.net/game_playing_styles.htm or the February 2005 Games Journal. This article about Romantic and Classical playing styles also has application to the next two questions just below.

Which kind of skill does a player need to use, adaptability, or planning? Some games such as War of the Ring, and "card driven wargames", place the premium on adaptability, because you don't fully control what your side does. The roll of the special dice, or the draw of the cards, makes a big difference. Other games (chess, obviously, and traditional hex wargames) place a premium on planning. Euro games tend to focus on adaptability, which often makes for less analysis than older wargames. You can also suppose that the more information is available, the more planning is emphasized (think chess), and vice versa.

Related to this is the level of Fluidity or Chaos in the game. How much does the situation change from one "play" (turn) to the next? How much can a single "move" by one player change the situation? A high "take that" factor often indicates a highly fluid game, and a fluid game usually requires adaptability more than planning from the players.

Is the game "mechanical" or "psychological"? That is, is the game largely determined by positions and pieces, or by psychological effects? This is a very difficult question: Which one is Diplomacy? While the mechanical aspects are important and occasionally vital, mostly it is a psychological game determined by negotiation (as most people play it). "Romantic" players tend to make any game psychological, while "classical" players tend to concentrate on the mechanics.

How is "kingmaking" treated? "Kingmaking" might be defined as the tendency of players to gang up on, and drag down, the leader. If this is too easy, the game becomes an attempt to avoid looking like the leader. If it is too hard, the game becomes multi-player solitaire. Some games address this question by making it unclear who the leader is. In a three-player game in particular, the "petty diplomacy problem" (as R. Wayne Schmittberger calls it in New Rules for Classic Games) is related to this: when one player realizes he cannot win, how easily can he determine, by his actions, which of the others wins? If it is easy to do this, then the game probably isn't much fun to play, in the long run, for many types of players.

Some people believe that a good game naturally falls into three phases, the opening or beginning, the middle game, and the end game. Chess is often looked at in this light. While not all games need to have these phases, the question might be, What phases does the game naturally fall into? For example, Britannia has four phases: the Roman dominance, the Anglo-Saxon dominance, the Viking invasions, and finally the endgame with three (or four, in Britannia Second edition) kings in competition.

My structural list rose from seven to nine elements through discussion on design forums, and I suppose this list will grow and be modified, as well.

Lew Pulsipher

Starting seven different classes this week, then having visitors, has left me very busy. I think next weekend there will be lots of playtesting, at schook, at Rick Steeves', and at NCS Game Day.

Physical description of Britannia 2, using advanced copy sent to me by FFG before they'd received their shipment (which they're going to modify).

I noticed, and my wife saw immediately, that the box doesn't close properly, in the sense that the top doesn't come all the way down over the bottom. That turns out to be a problem caused by the cardboard insert, which is too high. This is the insert that will be replaced (perhaps by one that has four compartments rather than one for storing pieces, as well--we can hope).

The box is 11 by 11 inches, and would be 2.75 inches thick if it closed all the way.

The board is six sections each 11 by 11 for a total of 22 by 33 inches. It is mounted on folding hard cardboard, the six sections together about five eighths inch thick.

There are four counter sheets each 11 by 11 (see the pattern?). The four sheets together are three eighths inch thick (thicker than the old pieces, I think). Standard pieces are seven eighths inch square with slightly rounded corners. Leaders are shield-shaped (like the shield used for heraldry), 1.25 inches long and 15/16 inches wide. Round pieces (mainly the point counters) are 13/16 inches in diameter. As with the original games, the pieces are individually cut (unused cardboard between each piece), not mass-cut as with many old-time wargames. They are printed on both sides.

There are 251 pieces, I'm told (I didn't count).

The rules are 24 pages, 11 by 11 inches.

The nation cards are 5 by 7 inches on quite thin stock, much like photographic paper. I believe these are going to be replaced with more sturdy stock.

There are five dice, five eighths inches square, made of wood, surprisingly.

I should say something about late changes in any game, anywhere, anytime:

Experienced game designers know that *any* change in a game, whether in actual rules or in how the rules are written, can have unanticipated effects whether due to unexpected/unforeseen interaction with other rules or simple misunderstanding. Last-minute, untested, changes in rules are *poison*.

It was inevitable in the case of Brit 2 that when the rules were rewritten at the publishers in major ways (though with no intent to change the game), under a deadline, there would be glitches through misunderstanding and through sheer human error (typos and such).

This is much like making last-minute changes in a computer program. Writing rules is much like writing a computer program insofar as there will be "bugs", some of which may never actually rear their ugly heads, some that will be more often encountered. The last version you *tested* is the version that should be put into use, not one in which further changes have been made.

Yet those of you who play video games know that many are issued with so many bugs that they are not really completely playable until the first patch is issued. (Which makes for interesting problems in console games, where patches are sometimes not possible.) What happens is, companies need to get their stuff to market so that they can make money, and there is every incentive to rush a bit and get it out earlier rather than later.

In Britannia 2's case, changes were made in the rules because they were rewritten, but if they were tested in the new form, they were not tested much, and probably not in a "blind" environment (using people who had no previous experience of the new rules). An obvious example is the use of counters for scoring. I think the counters are useful insofar as they help people use "hidden" scoring, if they wish, but I'm also sure most people who use a scoresheet will then prefer it. Whatever your opinion, though, you have to recognize that little or no testing of the use of scoring counters occurred.

Now this situation, little or no testing of changes, is the norm in non-video game publishing, not the exception. And that's one reason why we have so many games with misunderstood rules or rules that simply don't work. The more complex the game, the more bugs there will be; even though Brit is usually characterized as a "light wargame", it's still fairly complex in its rules compared to many games popular today (such as "Euro" games).

To go full circle: designers know that new rules MUST be thoroughly tested; but publishers rarely test the late changes they make to a game. What designers hope for is that the new rule bugs won't mess the game up too much. In Brit 2's case I think we're in very good shape in that regard, and much better off than we were with the Avalon Hill version.

Most of the forums and listservs I check have gone very quiet beginning early December. It's remarkable how much the season and end of year affect people.

At Rick Steeves' last Friday I played "Pitch Car", an audacious French game that is "caroms on a wooden racetrack", more or less. You flick a wooden disk around a race track (the track cna be set up many ways) in competition with others. Everyone walks around the table trying to get the angle to get ahead when he shoots. There are railings on the curves (Rick doesn't use the railings for the straights) to help keep your "racecar" on the track and going around the curves. (And if you don't get the reference to "caroms", most people under 40 seem to have never heard of it.)

The set is quite expensive, as the wooden track is very substantial and well-made. I won all three races I was in, so naturally I liked it!

I watched a game of Citadels, a clever card game. It probably has a slightly stronger connection to reality than most "Euro" games, but the result is the same--you admire the cleverness of the mechanics rather than the cleverness of the depiction of reality (which is what you get in historical games).

Another game of Seas of Gold was played as well. The near-simultaneous rules worked well, the economic tweaks worked well, the game is nearly finished (but I've said that before).

While Brit 2 is being sold in Finland and Germany, I'm told by FantasyFlight that there is a problem with the plastic trays produced for the game, and it will not be issued from FFG until this is rectified, at the end of January 2006.

I am having a good time with the "one hour wargame", which is working out pretty well as a new "system" related to Seas of Gold (TM) but still rather different from it.

My first taks next Tuesday (start of Christmas break) is to play Caledonia(TM) and try to sort it out.

I hear of one person who has bought Britannia Second Edition in . . . Finland! It is also supposed to be in stock at German retailers.

Having had time to think about it, I suppose that the reason the game is first available in Finland and Germany is that it was shipped from East Asia, past India into the Red Sea, then the Med and perhaps Black Sea, to be trucked through eastern Europe (hence France and UK should have it in a few days).

Berlin to Hong Kong as the crow flies is 5,512 miles. (Helsinki is 4934, but again that's straight, not by sea then land.) Hong Kong to Minneapolis is 7,508 miles, but there are fewer corners to turn. So how long will the extra miles take? Dunno. Then it has to go from
Minneapolis to distributors to retailers in this country, another long trip.

At least many people will be able to have it for Christmas, if they wish.

I've played the "one hour wargame" (Eurowargame) three times and am pretty pleased so far. You don't have to be warlike to do well, but it probably helps.

The listservs and design boards seem to go dead at this time of year.

I have finally played the "one hour wargame", four players, worked pretty well but needs the Event Cards (which I didn't use). In some ways the game resembles a very-much-modernized version of Diplomacy, in other ways not (obviously, if it's intended to last just an hour). The diplomatic system may be too rigid, that is, once a war starts, it may tend to lock in. Scoring systme works well, but I've revised the Progress/Culture/Well-being to require supplies.

Anyway, I'm ready for another go with the revisions, but with work things hanging over my head, I don't know when that will be.

This must be the first game I've solo played in a couple months. Hellenia(TM) will be the next game to be soloed, I think. It's always an exciting time, the first play of a new game...

I have been taking some notes about "one hour" with the idea that I'd use them to illustrate the development of a game in a design book. Of course, the "one hour" idea goes back to Germania(TM) and through Seas of Gold(TM), and there are resmblances between SoG and this new one.

After reading Warriors of the Steppe, I was inspired to complete the Central Asia map.

I seem to be sending a fair number of things to Boardgamedesign, boardgamegeek, and BGDF, connected with the possible game design book. But this kind of thing can always soak up time without much result; I need to write some proposals.

One Caledonia PBEM test has finished. Not much testing otherwise.