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Rob Zacny

Episode 193: A Million Little Plastic Pieces

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Rob Daviau joins Rob and Julian to talk about components, game enchancements, and theme. How does component quality factor in design decisions, and how much should they support theme? Why do we get so attached to the sensations that accompany a game, to the point where it can profoundly affect the quality of our experience? Why did War of the Ring nearly get Rob Zacny pulled over at the border?

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Really fun episode, but I have a question, what is the picture depicted at the "listen" page?

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What I wish the picture was is a picture of Boromir taking a massive toke.

One thought on spectacle:

You mentioned that the problem with some forms of spectacle in a board game, such as a massive infantry charge, is that they take a long time to set up and aren't worth the time. Earlier, however, it was mentioned that towards the end of Risk, it's very satisfying having the mass of troops to conquer the board. I'll propose that a strong exception to the setup rule is when the setup takes place over the course of the entire game. Just a thought.

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That, my friend, is a picture of Krieg Spiel. The original wargame. I don't know how heavily adapted it is from its origins as a Prussian General Staff exercise in the 19th century, but it remains fairly serious. Thinly disguised homework. But I haven't played it, and i kind of want to.

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That, my friend, is a picture of Krieg Spiel. The original wargame. I don't know how heavily adapted it is from its origins as a Prussian General Staff exercise in the 19th century, but it remains fairly serious. Thinly disguised homework. But I haven't played it, and i kind of want to.

Whenever I heard Kriegspiel mentioned at the podcast I always thought of this: http://r-s-g.org/kriegspiel/about.php

But it seems the version I had in mind is more modern (1977).

The picture looks great, appropiate for the discussion. Reminds me of what Bowen Simmons defines as "the look" in his Napoleonic wargames, I thought "Napoleon's Triumph" and "Bonaparte at Marengo" were the prettiest boardgames in existence but that board of Kriegspiel is just excellent.

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A fun, if a little aimless, show. Rob Daviau is always a great guest (I'd love to hear him on the panel for a regular show, rather than just the board game centric ones.. I'm sure he has a lot of cross over insight).

I have a dead pack of cards that could do would a proper send off... so i'm looking forward to the game rules!

One note: I'm surprised you talked so little about miniatures. Maybe it's a UK/US thing, but over here, I imagine a lot of gamers are at least familiar with Games Workshop stuff. I think there's an interesting comparison between unit customisation in computer games (which 3MA are generally down on) and customizing/painting miniatures, which surely enhances the spectacle and personal attachment to your game! I've been on and off slowly (and poorly) painting my WotR minis... usually while listening to a podcast!

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Actually i found out a quite intrestig (to me at least) bit of info about the way Games workshop design their games /armies.

I've always had a pet theorythat games workshop designed armies to fit a particular play style, so this year at the UK gamesday (a sort of mini 1 day convention for GW) i went up to the designers & asked, "so whats the process behind a new army? do you try and design with a type of playstyle in mind? a role you want a army to play in the overall lore or what?"

the answer back was basically that it's nothing so complicated as that.

Their lead artists will sketch new ideas and then their writers/designers add rules to them.

In other words they design the bits and then build the game around them.

So you end up with a near totally imbalanced mess, but a gorgeous looking tabletop.

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In other words they design the bits and then build game around them.

So you end up with a near totally imbalanced mess, but a gorgeous looking tabletop.

When Games Workshop went through their management buyout in the late 1990s this was pretty much the first thing they did. They pretty much realised the only way they were going to make enough money to keep going was to monetize the "plastic pieces" as much as they could and minimise the actual gameplay to a simplistic rule set. They pretty much abandoned anything they didn't think they could get a decent return in hence they stopped supporting their best games - Bloodbowl, Space Hulk, Necromunda (which by the way Firaxis' XCOM engine would fit like a glove) even the epic scale Space Marine - and just concentrated on Warhammer and 40k.

However, from a commercial point of view they were completely right and went from strength to strength with games simple enough for little Jimmy to play and pester Mum & Dad for miniatures to go with it. They alienated a lot of more mature gamers back then though it must be said.

I suppose it's the ultimate example of what was being discussed - the point where having good quality pieces becomes more important than the actual game.....

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Whenever I heard Kriegspiel mentioned at the podcast I always thought of this: http://r-s-g.org/kriegspiel/about.php

But it seems the version I had in mind is more modern (1977).

I always think of the Avalon Hill game: http://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/3602/kriegspiel

On the topic of this episode, usability guru Donald Norman's Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things argues that beautiful objects are inherently more functional than ugly ones:

Advances in our understanding of emotion and affect have implications for the science of design. Affect changes the operating parameters of cognition: positive affect enhances creative, breadth-first thinking whereas negative affect focuses cognition, enhancing depth-first processing and minimizing distractions. Therefore, it is essential that products designed for use under stress follow good human-centered design, for stress makes people less able to cope with difficulties and less flexible in their approach to problem solving. Positive affect makes people more tolerant of minor difficulties and more flexible and creative in finding solutions. Products designed for more relaxed, pleasant occasions can enhance their usability through pleasant, aesthetic design. Aesthetics matter: attractive things work better.

I.e. casino-style poker chips, metal coins, and well-crafted miniatures may actually help us play better.

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Excellent episode. Can't wait to play Viking Funeral.

One great game with truly evocative components is Rob's Star Wars: Queen's Gambit.

BTW, War of the Ring's original publisher was the Italian company Nexus Games, not FFG, which just sold the game in the USA under license. Current publisher is the Italian company Ares Games.

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@Manresa Ahh gosh darn it someone beat me to mentioning Donald A Norman!

I haven't read Emotional Design, and while I agree with you that the intrinsic value of beauty is often undervalued I think when it comes to the role components play in the board games the more prosaic Design of Everyday Things is perhaps closer to the heart of the issue.

What Norman focus's on in that book is that bad design is when a person's conceptual model of how something works, doesn't match up with the way it actually does work.

This feels to me exactly the sort of problem that the guys talked about back in episode 185 when 3MA discussed how we try to teach games.

As Rob Daviau put it, board games are ”the only form of entertainment where you have to take it all in before you begin”.

This moment of information overload is just the sort of thing that well designed board game piece's can help mitigate.

I mean for example think about those oversized pieces the guys criticise in Fantasy Flight's Game of Thrones. If they representing a mechanic other players need to be aware of as they make their play decisions, then I think there's no problem with them being big. It would only be disproportionate if the information provided wasn't important.

Yes it might be excessive, but even if you look at chess you can see that size is one of the easiest visual shorthand's available to a designer when they set out to show the value of a piece.

Going back to 185 again and listening to Rob Daviau talk about the moment when “fun goes to die” my immediate gut feeling is this is exactly the sort of moment Norman talks about. I think players start to build a conceptual model of how components should work the moment they see them. However If a game then fails to help players build this model, or when a peice's behaviour begins to diverge from players expectations, then problems begin to surface as the player's conceptual understanding begins to collapse.

@Sorbicol I think Games Workshop can't be blamed for focusing on creating a very readable game. I at times I think war gaming (and maybe even strategy games in general) can sometimes be a classic fit for a comment Normal makes at the end of his book, that “difficulty and challenge should not be confused with frustration and error”.

WYSIWYG (What you see is what you get) is properly the simplest but most important rule that appears that appears in any of GW's rulebooks, and a principle you can see in much of the best multi-player video game design as well.

You only have to look at the way that Valve created such recognisable silhouettes for TF2 to see what a difference it can make. Being able to at a glance visually asses the different threats to you is invaluable in any game.

At the moment I'm in the early stages of testing a board game design, and very much in the process of learning all the stuff Rob Daviau probably knows almost instinctively.

Nevertheless even in my limited experience I have seen a noticeable improvement in my testers understanding and enjoyment of my game after I made a prototype with far higher production values than my original.

To me pieces that communicate their purpose can be a invaluable tool, the problem only occurs when people give in to the temptation to start gilding the lily. Every bit of information a object gives to a player that doesn't does help them understand how that object fits into a system has the possibility of slowly but surely eroding the readability of the games field. I feel strongly that a well designed pieces can help teach players how to play the game, because they give them a conceptual framework before they have even read the rules.

How you achieve maximum readability with the cheapest components however remains the $64,000 question.

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I can't believe this was the topic of the week. Awesome! and exactly what I've been looking for oddly enough. About a year ago I started working on designing my own board game, but the way I started working on it was by thinking of the aesthetic I wanted and working backwards from there. I realize now that that is most likely the wrong way to go about actually designing the game. I started by designing the components then the rules. I wanted to create a game that had the feel of one of those World War II war rooms that you'd see in a classic movie, with pieces denoting armies, cities, and chief targets, etc, I know that it's not exactly an original idea, but since I was doing this in my spare time I figured I didn't have to be mind blowingly original as long as it was something that I enjoyed. I also wanted a map that could change every game so I designed hex tiles, not unlike Settlers of Catan.

Anyhow, it's nice to hear people out there are as passionate about game components as I am. If anyone has the desire to see the components that I designed for my game feel free to stop by http://cogsandgenerals.wordpress.com, I'd appreciate some outside opinions on my little project. Also keep in mind as with most things in life my blog is a work in progress.

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@Manresa Ahh gosh darn it someone beat me to mentioning Donald A Norman!

I haven't read Emotional Design, and while I agree with you that the intrinsic value of beauty is often undervalued I think when it comes to the role components play in the board games the more prosaic Design of Everyday Things is perhaps closer to the heart of the issue.

What Norman focus's on in that book is that bad design is when a person's conceptual model of how something works, doesn't match up with the way it actually does work.

...

To me pieces that communicate their purpose can be a invaluable tool, the problem only occurs when people give in to the temptation to start gilding the lily. Every bit of information a object gives to a player that doesn't does help them understand how that object fits into a system has the possibility of slowly but surely eroding the readability of the games field. I feel strongly that a well designed pieces can help teach players how to play the game, because they give them a conceptual framework before they have even read the rules.

How you achieve maximum readability with the cheapest components however remains the $64,000 question.

I mentioned Emotional Design rather than The Design of Everyday Things because the episode was more about aesthetics than functional design, and I find it fascinating that beauty by itself improves usability. Even if a paper cutout, cardboard chit, plastic chip, or metal coin had the same information, the more pleasing components could make a game easier & more fun to play. This is in contrast to whether or not a NATO symbol or an icon of a tank is a better representation of an armored division in an operational wargame.

I agree that the best, most functional designs are pared down to the bare essentials (I'm a data visualizer, and cringe every time I see an over-wrought infographic). But they should still be elegant.

I would love to hear a full 'cast about interface design and usability sometime in the future.

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What a brilliant episode, and a perect counterpoint to the "blah" that was #191: Generic as opposed to specific, inclusive as opposed to exclusive.

Maybe someone has interesting things to say about component re-use between games? Beyond Cheapass Games' neat idea, having rules that allow extra components to be brought in is something I'd like explored.

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