Troy Goodfellow

Three Moves Ahead Episode 164: The PAX East Panel

Recommended Posts

We heard the people, and we brought Three Moves Ahead directly to the masses who gathered at PAX East. But what if you missed it? Will we punish you for your lack of dedication? Yes, but you can still listen to this episode. Listen to Rob forget to introduce himself or the panel, a panel that includes Troy, Julian, Paradox's Chris King (Victoria II), Stardock's Jon Shafer (Civ V), and Hasbro's Rob Daviau (Risk Legacy). Why is this such a good time to be a strategy gamer, and how can we make it better?

Listen here.

RSS here.

Subscribe on iTunes.

(And a reminder to rate and review us on iTunes please! Can always use feedback.)

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Really enjoyed being on the panel, thanks to my fellow panelists and everyone who came out to be a part of it. :)

I was pretty surprised by how few people who showed up had listened to the podcast before. I suppose that just goes to show how big of an event PAX is.

- Jon

P.S. If you haven't already bought Imperialism, do so!

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
I was pretty surprised by how few people who showed up had listened to the podcast before. I suppose that just goes to show how big of an event PAX is.

That's awesome. I haven't listened yet but I love the idea of turning on a bunch of new readers to the show through a topic that's obviously directly related to your podcast but not attractive exclusively to its existing base.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Just finished listening to the panel, and there were some great discussions had. I especially thought Troy's point about websites being reluctant to cover anything that is outside of their audience's perceived genre of choice to be quite salient.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

I just read an article in my college newspaper where the writer talks about how the pokemon cartoon taught young players like me the basics of the game beofre I ever knew it existed. Because of this I understood things like evolution, the different elemets and how one beats another without having to read the manual

This is kinda equivalent to the idea of youtube vidoes doing a better job than manuals at teaching new players board games rules. Maybe companies should say check out this youtube video, you could scan a QR code.

I would argue it takes you away from the game as less than having to read manual as it would probably take less time and everyone can see what to do instead of having to pass round the manual

I haven't played many board games so maybe this has already been done but what if board games had an initial tutorial missions/scenarios which you play as a way to learn the mechanics

Really enjoyed the panel, hopefully if it's running again next year I can see it in person and it has me really looking forward to playing crusader kings 2 and getting an ipad

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
Really enjoyed the panel, hopefully if it's running again next year I can see it in person and it has me really looking forward to playing crusader kings 2 and getting an ipad

Don't forget Imperialism... ;) I think of it as the official game of TMA (apologies to both Troy and Rise of Nations ;)).

I just read an article in my college newspaper where the writer talks about how the pokemon cartoon taught young players like me the basics of the game beofre I ever knew it existed. Because of this I understood things like evolution, the different elemets and how one beats another without having to read the manual

This is kinda equivalent to the idea of youtube vidoes doing a better job than manuals at teaching new players board games rules. Maybe companies should say check out this youtube video, you could scan a QR code.

I would argue it takes you away from the game as less than having to read manual as it would probably take less time and everyone can see what to do instead of having to pass round the manual

I haven't played many board games so maybe this has already been done but what if board games had an initial tutorial missions/scenarios which you play as a way to learn the mechanics

Teaching new players is a topic near and dear to my heart (in fact, it'll be the subject of the next game design article I write, which should be up in a couple days).

Your point about the Pokemon show serving as a lead-in for the game is great one. The key in getting anyone interested and invested in anything is hooking them somehow, then not overwhelming and scaring them off. Knowing the basic concepts from the show gave every player a solid base of understanding.

When teaching someone a board game I used to be all about explaining everything important up-front, but in the past couple months I've become a convert for the 'just-in-time' teaching model. Some (like the me of the past) might argue that you need to know the whole context of the game in order to make informed decisions, but the reality is that most players just aren't going to be able to keep everything in their head and apply all of that information the first time they play a game. You have to build up to really deep strategy, and to get to that point players have to feel comfortable at every stage along the way.

Here's a thought on teaching a board game, building on what Rob Daviau already did with Risk Legacy (which I'll also use as my example):

*****

The rules are completely broken up into discrete sections that tell the player to read them when they become relevant (of course, if someone just wants to plow through everything that's fine too). At the top of each section in large font it says "Read This When BlahBlahBlah" so that it's plainly obvious when certain sections should be read.

The first section of the rules which players must read before starting a game cover just the very basics: "This is a game about capturing territory, the goal is to get 3 victory points, the easiest way to do that is by capturing another player's capital, when two armies fight you roll dice and whoever is higher wins," etc. This section could also explain the basic strategies without going into any details, e.g. "at the beginning of every new turn each player receives new armies to place," and "it's a good strategy to capture and hold an entire continent."

Then in a very obvious section titled "READ WHEN A PLAYER STARTS A NEW TURN" in big, bold letters it explains that players receive new armies based on how many territories they control, and provides the formula for it. In the section titled "READ WHEN A PLAYER CAPTURES AN ENTIRE CONTINENT" it actually explains the bonus armies you get for doing so.

*****

This concept is similar to what Rob did with Risk Legacy, but he actually made the game itself grow more complex the longer it's played. I think the concept of rolling things out slowly could be taken even further and applied to the entire teaching process.

The big risk (no pun intended, really!) with this approach is that players forget to read the sections when they become relevant. I think that's a much better option than throwing new players into the deep end hoping they read and understood all of the rules before starting. I'm not in the board game space at all, so if anyone tries this out and makes it work, lemme know! :)

- Jon

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Its probably a testament to the good work they have done in the last year or two that after listing to the podcast the 1st place I checked to try & find a copy of Imperialism was GoG.com.

I wasn't entirely surprised to find no sign of it (given what was said in the show) but I thought rather than abandon my search at this somewhat disappointing conclusion that now might be a good time to mention GoG's "community wishlist".

Basically if you have a GoG account you can vote for what games you want them to try & get hold of next.

Currently Imperialism 1 & 2 stand at around a grand total of 300 votes

(to put it in context the top requested games typically have 10k +)

Now it was nice to hear Troy talking about how he feels there is a bigger demand for strategy games than publishers perceive. But here you have a supposed classic of the genre seemingly not gaining much traction.

So basically what I'm saying is... go and vote for Imperialism!

http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

This concept is similar to what Rob did with Risk Legacy, but he actually made the game itself grow more complex the longer it's played. I think the concept of rolling things out slowly could be taken even further and applied to the entire teaching process.

- Jon

What do you mean by the entire learning process? Are you talking about learning to play game or just learning in general if it is the latter case can you elaborate cause the area of learning and how to improve is something I am interested in.

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites
What do you mean by the entire learning process? Are you talking about learning to play game or just learning in general if it is the latter case can you elaborate cause the area of learning and how to improve is something I am interested in.

Just talking about games I'm afraid. My knowledge and skills are pretty much confined to that discipline. :)

In particular, I was thinking about ways to teach an entire game to players, in contrast to Risk Legacy which introduces new mechanics and explains those as they come into play, but you still have to sit down and learn the basics for everything before you start.

- Jon

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Great episode! Poor Chris was on the spot though. hehehe It made me very excited for future times in the strategy genre. I'm a fan of integrated tutorials in the proper game with the game pacing the challenges and explaining what tools the player have at his disposal along the way until the point where the game removes the training wheels and let the player run with it

and crash and burn

Share this post


Link to post
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now