Hey Kids! What time is it?

Time for more Axis and Allies blogging!

Yes, we do go to this particular well quite often, thank you very much for asking. But today is gonna be different, because this time, we played Axis and Allies Revised!

I expect at this point, some people are asking, "What's so different about Axis and Allies Revised, as opposed to Global 1940?" If this is the case, you probably haven't played both of them, and I'm glad to offer my services as one of the players, assuming you have a free weekend or two, and a large surface area on which to put the 1940 board.

The major differences, other than board size, include fewer rules and abilities for Revised, a later starting date (1942), with Panzer divisions poised to parade victoriously through Red Square, Japan more or less ascendant in the Pacific, and fewer nations. 1940, in a historically accurate but otherwise misguided move, also includes France, however in most iterations of that version Germany at the least takes Paris on the first turn, dooming them to well-deserved irrelevance.

For the first time in a long time, we managed five players, but since I'm too lazy to give a nom de blog to any of them, I'll be referring to them as the countries played. Havoc Jack commanded the Imperial Japanese forces, and in a stunning departure from normal roles, I was in charge of the American armed forces.

Having made that long prelude to the actual meat of this post, I find again that I should've taken notes if I wanted to do a proper blog about it, and probably have done it in two posts, if only to boost my count. At any rate, starting from the end, the Allies were victorious due to having mostly locked down Germany; the Japanese forces were nearly poised to backstab Russia however their forward bases (one of which was provided by me, necessarily or not) could not have produced enough to cause too much devastation before Germany went under.

Some other items of note from the game:

After Germany successfully invaded Egypt, the UK attempted to take it back, and failed miserably. This temporarily led to them losing both India and much of Africa, however they were able to offset it somewhat by taking Norway and by the US launching an early invasion of Africa.

Japan did well on its early assaults, however as tends to happen they lost most of their ground forces. Had they more land units to take and hold territory they may well have wreaked more havoc then what they did manage.

In a spectacular bout of bad rolling in one round, Germany, rolling for 10 tanks attacking at 3 or less, managed a single hit. While they did win the battle in the end, due to at best average defense from Russia, it's still worthy of a mention.

The US didn't get nearly as much action as they could have, I probably could have just gone straight for Europe and had better results, especially vis-a-vis Japan's poor showing in terms of infantry.

Germany did a fairly effective job of protecting its air force up until near the end, when it was found that owning Denmark does NOT protect the Baltic sea from being invaded. Which it shouldn't really, given that here Denmark is grouped into Western Europe. When this was discovered, the Allies could have gone for the quick victory and taken Germany, which at this point was covered by only a single fighter, however we allowed a redeployment. Instead an attack was launched at most of the German air force, which happened to be unprotected by infantry, and actually succeeded in taking the territory.

Anything else? Oh, right: I don't like playing as the U.S., especially in this version. They hardly ever get any of the epic die rolling you can expect from the Eastern Front.

Also, when in doubt, buy infantry. I saw two examples of what happens when you don't, an example of why you need to do so, and, full disclosure, one minor counter-example. (To be fair, I wasn't expecting Germany to launch a more or less all-out air assault on the Royal Navy, but that's because I wouldn't do it.) WARNING: That link is to TVTropes. Go through at your own risk.

Design blogging: The Zombie Game

All right! We're back in action in 2012! Okay, enough of that, tonight we're going to be live-blogging our design meeting on one of our games, currently titled "The Zombie Game". Whatever merits we may have as game designers, coming up with good titles is not one of them. The idea for this game came about after watching the movie "Zombieland", and a discussion about why military forces always seem to be unprepared for zombies.

The premise of the game is such: zombies have overrun China, and the other powers of the world are attempting to end the threat before it becomes uncontainable. Why China? Mainly the large population to be zombified and government censorship to prevent the news from getting out. The playable nations are the U.S., India, Russia, and the Arab League, a loose and probably unfeasible coalition of Muslim nations. We originally included the European Union but discarded it as they don't have much viable territory on our game map, plus their military response would be pretty anemic anyway. (Havoc Jack adds there's some doubt it will exist by the time the game is published.)

Gameplay is similar to the Axis and Allies model, with specialized rules for the expansion of zombies and event cards which do things like add random zombie outbreaks around the world.

With the basic explanations out of the way, let's talk about the changes that are being made after our few initial rounds of playtesting, with random excerpts whenever.

First things first: we got rid of the U.N., or at least the game version. As its purpose was more or less similar to the actual U.N. (i.e. condemn Israel and the U.S. and give diplomatic cover to random dictators) it was an unnecessary mechanic and the only reason we could find for keeping it in was to continue to make fun of them. Since we don't need the game to do that it went.

We also removed the oil purchase mechanic we borrowed from the game Powergrid, which mirrors a basic supply and demand function, raising the price as barrels are purchased from the market. While it is admittedly an awesome mechanic, it adds unnecessary complication to the game. With any luck we can get it back in the game later on.

...insert distraction by Youtube here.

Okay, back. Decided to test out various battle scenes. After about 50 test battles against five zombies, it was determined that three tanks are the minimum necessary to have a decent chance of winning a battle. Two infantry and two tanks both only managed to win one battle out of 10, three infantry managed two of 10, and the three tanks won nine of 10.

Last but not least we worked up some notes for national abilities, although these mostly haven't changed much. Still happy with the Arab League having martyrs, although it could be likely to get us in trouble with someone. Being able to take out zombies without fear of losing troops to make more zombies is quite useful, IMO.

Replays and Replayability

(No, this isn't going to be a what-if featuring Jane Austen playing D&D. -ed) (Hey, that's not a bad idea! -B) (No! -ed) (C'mon! -B) (Dammit, I said no! -ed)

Warning: This post will contain links to game wikis. If you are worried about spoilers, I suggest not following those links through.

So yeah, this issue's been bugging me for a while, and if I can't get a suitable discussion out of it, I can at least get some content in here. First of all, what makes a game re-playable? Using some of our standard examples, in Kingdom of Loathing, once you beat the final boss, you are given the option to ascend and start at level 1, keeping one or more skills from your previous run, and doing the new run in a variety of different ways. In Fallout: New Vegas, and the other Fallout games to varying extents, you can play through using different skills and/or make different choices, leading to other endings. Another option used in New Vegas is that of achievements, giving you some sort of boost to your fragile ego by giving you awards for things that you either might normally not do, or for doing a lot of the things you would usually do. If you have a couple spare hours, you might ask Zerg_Rush how he got the title "The Insane" for one of his WoW characters. I'm sure you've run across these tactics to squeeze more playtime from other games, I'm just using the examples I've run most recently. Some, of course, are more effective than others.

The more philosophical question is what actually causes one to replay a game? Havoc Jack just spent at least one post talking about how he's restarted Diablo II, but I can't normally seem to muster up that much desire to replay a lot of games, especially after I just finished it, whereas I've seen him finish a Starcraft I campaign and immediately start replaying the same campaign. Every once in a while, I will go back into the vaults and work up some game I haven't played in a while, but for the most part I don't replay games that much. Starcraft II was pretty awesome, but after playing it once I haven't really gone back to it at all, except for running a few missions trying to get achievements. I haven't actually finished Fallout: New Vegas yet, but I don't really plan on playing through again once all the DLC comes out and I actually do finish the game. I ran though Fallout 3 twice, although that was primarily because I got DLC for that and decided it would be simpler to play through again. On the other hand I play KoL all the time, and am constantly ascending. Perhaps it's just that easier accessibility to a wiki and easier character optimization makes me want to play it more, although according to Steam I have played New Vegas for 62 hours, so I guess that's a decent amount of time spent on it. And of course, I did end up reading a lot of the wiki, and sometimes I find that reduces my desire to actually play the game.

I'm not sure why this single-play tendency only applies to video games, though. I've played any number of board games any number of times, I've watched many movies as much as I could stand, and nearly all the books on my bookshelf have been read dozens of times.

Insofar as no one else can answer the question for me, perhaps if anyone actually reads this blog instead of it being a vanity project for us they can attempt to answer the question for themselves.

Women.

Women. I tell you. See this? This annoys me.

Basically, the girl sets up an online dating account, and goes out on a date with Jon Finkel. She finds out he's a gamer. He played and plays Magic, the Gathering. And she decides "I'm never talking to this guy again."

Ok, I understand that being a nerd means you don't get the girls. And as a shlub who's main magic achievement is occasionally taking down a Friday Night Magic tournament, well, it isn't the thing I talk up when I'm trying to impress someone. Still, there's less stigma now than before, since pretty much everybody's a gamer now. At least amongst the younger crowd.

The thing that really annoys me about this whole bit is the impossibility in her mind of mitigating circumstances. Aside from the basics, he's not just good at the game, he's the best. Over the course of his career, competing against some of the smartest and most dedicated people in the world he's earned $291,865. And I'm pretty sure that number is low; the profile in question doesn't mention his surprising return from retirement to out and out win Pro Tour Kuala Lumpur. This guy lived the dream. But apparently having touched the cards is enough to make him undateable.

"Look, I understand you're Wayne Gretzky, it's just that I don't go for hockey players."
"Oh, you're THAT Angela Merkel? Well, I'm not very political, and seeing as you're the prime minister of Germany..."

MMO Arbitrage

So today I'm going to talk about an idea I had back in the day, possibly even while still in high school. As the title says, it's MMO arbitrage. I'll assume here that anyone reading this blog knows what an MMO (or MMORPG if you want the full acronym) is, but arbitrage may not be, so if you're too lazy to click that link, it's the process of making profits by trading something (usually currencies) at different rates. How does this work? Let's say I can buy euros with dollars at a 1:1 ratio in Lisbon. I can then sell the euros for $2 in Prague, then return to Lisbon and purchase twice as many euros, and repeat the cycle. The really good arbitrage is going to go through three or four currencies along the way and won't make near as much money per unit. (Ideally you'd also cash out with dollars and head to the States to spend them up, or find another arbitrage cycle to play with)

Anyway, how does this relate to games you may ask? Again, I'm assuming you did, because that's the question that's about to get answered. My plan was to create a stable of characters in several different MMOs, each of which had a certain amount of ingame cash. (The amount? Large) This would allow players who'd accumulated a large amount of cash in one game to trade it for cash in another game, so they could enjoy the wealth they had accumulated. Of course, most people could see several problems with this, such as:

1. Wouldn't it take a lot of time to accumulate that much wealth on that many games? Yes, it would. Unless of course I were able to recruit already rich players or buy them off. I suppose buying resources would be reasonable, given that most businesses expect to start off with a certain amount of investment.

2. How would you determine the cash value of the ingame currencies? The only one I can give a good accounting for is Kingdom of Loathing. As has been previously discussed, the game's currency is Meat, and there's no subscription fee. You can however donate $10 and receive a Mr. Accessory, which in addition to being pretty useful its own dang self can be traded in for monthly Items which do even more nifty things, and more importantly be sold to other players, making for a decent currency conversion. Currently they're selling for 8 million meat, making the conversion roughly 800,000 meat/dollar. So there's one.

3. How would you make money? Besides taking a commission on trading currency from one game to another, there would presumably be personal arbitrage trading and other deals going on the side, assuming the time and wherewithal to do so.

4. What would cause people to trust you? If my word of honor isn't enough, I shall demand satisfaction! Really, though, there's not much of a way, although I'm not familiar enough with PayPal to be sure that there's not a way to enforce a deal if it goes south.

5. How would you know what games to work with to actually get profits? Again, I've no real idea. My guess would be it would require one character in pretty much all MMOs that had a decent fanbase.

6. What about games that don't allow reselling of currency or items via third-party vendors? What about them? This is probably the biggest hurdle, but not the one that actually stopped me. (It was laziness more than anything) If I thought I could actually make a decent profit off this thing, I'd be willing to see if I could work around this. Unfortunately, I think it's just a decent idea. Still worth blathering about though.

Of Forsight and Fourth Graders

Recently I was linked to a video where a teacher describes his efforts to teach world politics to fourth graders. He does this by means of a complex "World Peace Game". I came away from the video with two distinct impressions:

That game can't be nearly as effective at generating solutions as he claims

and

Nevertheless, I would so love to play it.

The problem with that game, or any game really, is that it's always an imperfect simulation of reality. While I give plenty of credence to the genius of fourth graders, there has been quite a lot of World to go around for quite a long time, if the solutions were that easy someone would have implemented them already. So I suspect that the way he models his world in the game makes it deceptively easy to come up with solutions.

When you make a game, you're making a simulation of how the world works. Or how the world works if you've got spaceships flying around, and wizards casting fireballs, and if you were the head of a major bank. Or some such. But necessarily your model of reality falls short of reality in some ways. At times this is inevitable, at times it is necessary for good gameplay. I've seen dozens and dozens of comics asking how a murloc with just a wet loincloth can be hiding Svuthos, the Bulwark of the Damned. And why you can then shove a tower shield that spiky into your belt pouch and be not at all encumbered for your next fight. I've written a bit about that sort of sacrifice of realism in pursuit of good gameplay already. But sometimes it's inevitable.

How exactly does magic work? You say some strange words, you make a mystic pass with your wand, and presto bango someone's a newt. Which strange words? What exactly is a mystic pass? Will any old bit of lumber work as a wand? Since we don't have magic in our modern world, these are things that people make up as part of their world building. More subtly, just what it takes to kill a charging bear is subject to your worldbuilding; maybe the player's machete is enough, maybe a howitzer would be more appropriate. (Scratch that, a howitzer is always more appropriate. Bears.) This only becomes an issue if you're going to construct real world solutions from your model.

A while back I was really impressed by Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Specifically, the game did very will with confusion of war, people shouting, smoke and guns firing and so forth. And playing the game, I got very proficient at picking people's silhouettes out of rubble and cover. So I wonder, will the game make it easier to transform your mouse jockey into an actual soldier? To an extent; that's a useful skill and all, but your mouse tells you nothing about the recoil of a rifle, and sprinting across a virtual field doesn't prepare you for sprinting yourself, and trying to stay alert at the edge of exhaustion. While you can get useful results from your model, you always have to keep an eye on where your inputs and outputs don't match the real world.

So back to the video; he mentions that his fourth graders solved global warming in ten minutes. How? He doesn't say, probably because his topic is on the game and the fourth graders, not specific world problems. But the solution the fourth graders came up with is necessarily dependent on what the teacher thinks is an acceptable solution. In the real world, would Cap and Trade solve the problem? Having seen the numbers, I'd say no, but the professor might disagree with me. Therefore a class of fourth graders might use that solution, and be credited with solving the problem, even if it wouldn't solve the problem in real life.

Take as the clinching example his description of the last second game victory. Full of drama, unanticipated solution and all. It makes a good story, but it illustrates the problem with the model. The game could only be won if all countries were better off than they were at the start. Why? Because that's the sort of solution we hope for, not the sort of solution that necessarily happens. Carthage had salt sown into it's fields. Rome stayed a prosperous nation for what, a millenium after that? I'll grant the sense that we all lose in war, but in the more classic sense, Rome won, Carthage lost. The world peace game was won in that situation by a donation, and in that sense I admire a clever use of resources, but it clearly doesn't demonstrate a real world solution, since the real world doesn't have a 'game over' point.

With all that said, there's much that's awesome about this game. I'm still fascinated by the idea of persistent, long lasting and complicated games. As you can no doubt tell from the Terrible Secret of Space. I'd love to play it, to set my hand against the problems of the world, and show all you miserable cretins that you don't truly know problems yet... Sorry, letting my megalomaniacal tendencies get the best of me again.

Returning from Madison

Last weekend I travelled to Madison for some quality role playing. Rather than go over the results of the session (we started two wars, and got a commendation rather than a court martial-- I'm still flabbergasted about that), I'm going to discuss my trip home, and the skill roles executed.

(If you're unfamiliar with the GURPS system, they use three six sided dice, for rolls between 3 and 18. Lower being better and higher worse.)

I had planned to leave early that afternoon, but the weather was poor. Snow, sleet, bits of hail, scattered storms and high winds. Not pleasant driving conditions. I elected to wait a bit of time to see if the weather improved. This decision, amongst others, leads me to believe that I failed to take the [Common Sense] advantage. The weather failed to improve, and seeing as I had to be back Monday morning, I had to leave as it was getting dark.

Driving roll: 9- Success
Despite the sleet I did not crash my car. Driving rolls will continue to be made throughout.
Navigation: 12- Success
I manage to escape Madison with a minimum of fuss.
Area Knowledge (Wisconsin): 12- Failure
My windshield wipers need replacing. I don't find an open store that carries them on a Sunday night. Imagine that.
Driving: 11- Success. I successfully make it to the next town, despite the right side of my windshield being partially obscured. This town also gives me the opportunity to make another check for windshield wipers.
Area Knowledge (Wisconsin): 10- Success
Despite a false start, I manage to find some wipers in a Wal-Mart
Mechanic (Automobiles): 4- Critical Success!
Despite previous failures in this department, I manage to replace my windshield wipers in inclement weather without fuss. Huzzah! This roll is actually a default off of Driving; I don't have the Mechanic skill myself.
Driving: 13- Success
The roads aren't pleasant, I have to take extra time, but I manage to drive.
Health: 11- Failure
Driving in poor condition requires quite a bit of attention, and I'm worn somewhat from a marathon gaming session. I'm required to pull over and take a short nap.
Driving: 5- Success
Just a success, not a critical success. My driving skill isn't that high.
Health: 10- Failure
Again I have to take a break before I can continue driving.
Navigation: 12- Failure
I attempt a new route passing through Eau Claire. I get my exits confused, and take extra time.
Driving: 16- Failure
The local roads I have to return on are covered in snow. Deep, too. Someone is stuck on the other side of the intersection. When I stop, I can't start again.
Mechanic: 16- Failure
Luckily, as I get there the other guy had summoned help, in a guy with a truck and a tow cable. Unluckily, the first attempt takes off my makeshift bumper.
Mechanic: 14- Success
The second attempt pulls me out
Strength: 7- Success
We push t'other person's car out of the snow.
Will: 13- Failure
This is a self control roll, as apparently I have the disadvantage [Overconfidence] Against my stated intentions and better judgement I try taking the next road over back home. It is also covered in snow. Driving conditions are abysmal, I'm forced to make driving rolls every minute here. Skipping ahead to
Driving: 15- Failure
I manage most of the distance on this road, but get myself stuck again, right in the middle of the road.
IQ: 16- Failure
Despite the obvious presence of winter and the bad conditions, I failed to plan ahead and provide myself with a snow shovel.
Driving: 14- Failure
I don't manage to extricate myself from the middle of the road. After some time, a truck arrives behind me and lends me a shovel. I get to roll again
Driving: 11- Success
After some shoveling, and some shoving, we get my car moving again. I pull it over to the side. I decide to leave my car here, to retrieve it in the morning.
IQ: 6
I remember to retrieve my bottle of Coke from the backpack, preventing it from freezing, exploding and melting all over the GURPS sourcebooks. Tragedy averted.
Survival (Winter): 10- Success
Having decided to leave the car where it is and walk the next two miles, I make it home with no more ill effect.

Breaking out of the skill roll narration, in the morning we retrieved my car, and I made it in to school on time. If I had taken four hours less traveling, like I would have in clear weather, I could have spent some time studying. Then maybe I wouldn't have had to default on my IQ for the essay questions on the test.

The Briefcase of Wonders

I am the sort of man who walks around with a briefcase. I also wax my mustache and wear a fedora, but that's the subject for another time. While there are many and varied uses for a briefcase, the one I'm going through right now it it's ability to work as a mobile repository of games. I've been making an effort to carry as many games as I possibly can around in that thing, so as to be prepared for whatever the situation might dictate. Let's take a look, shall we?


That's the briefcase in it's packed form. In the bottom is a visible bit of wood, that's a cribbage board. Directly up from it are two decks of standard playing cards. Above those decks are two blue deck boxes which contain a prototype for the Presidential Rumble, one of the Awesome Games we're designing. Then are the two be-artted mid sized boxes. They originally came from Magic the Gathering fat packs, for Shadowmoor and Eventide. Now I'm using them as conveniently sized discrete storing units. The one contains a set of dime store poker chips and a complete chess set, the other contains a couple Magic decks.

"Which magic decks" is an interesting question. Assuming I'm going to be using this briefcase amongst an unknown audience I don't want to bring too many. I can (and have) filled the entire space with decks of various kinds before. The main thing though, consonant with the purposes of the briefcase at large, is to provide myself options for any sort of pick up magic game I might run into. Currently the box contains an Elder Dragon Highlander deck (Sedris, the Traitor king as general), my standard Goblins deck, my extended five color reveillark deck, and two simple starter decks, which are designed as a way to teach the game to anyone willing to learn. Naturally, that's not nearly enough. I'd like also to bring along a low power silly casual deck (for environments where tournament decks are less welcome) and at least a draft set of sealed packs.\

Moving on, to the right you see another blue Dragon Shield deck box. They make good good card sleeves. We use them all the time for proxying up cards for our games. If you take the sleeves, put a bulk common magic card in them, you can slip a piece of paper in front of said card and make a game card, which can be shuffled over and over again without suffering wear and tear. In this case though, I believe that box in particular holds a magic deck, Zombies.

The large brown box also holds a number of magic decks, but this one is mostly a place holder. I'm looking to fill that space with more diverse games, although I'm not sure what goes in there. More on that later. Hard to see in the picture, but underneath that box you'll find a notebook where I keep permanent notes, a notepad where I dash off scores for games, and a chess/checkers board.

The pouch on the lid of the briefcase contains a wealth of dice; 25 six sided dice, four twenty sided dice (two of which are the spindowns from those fat packs) various D4s, D8s, and D10s, but oddly enough no D12s. There are a couple pens, and a couple documents stashed there, some boards from various games we're making and the occasional rules printout.

Again with the picture, only all laid out:



So here comes my next question: what else do I try to fit into my briefcase? I already pointed out the brown box can probably go, seeing as I only really need so many magic decks (All of them!). The problem is I've got to fit it that same size space. I've been considering fitting a RISK set in there too, since the cards and the armies wouldn't take up much space, but I'm not sure I can manage another board; the thing can be tricky to close as it is. On the other hand, there isn't much else I can think of to stick in that last area. Well, there are plenty of things, just they aren't games.

One other thing, I can fit an entire role playing session in there real easy. I've got a couple GURPS books on the thumb drive in my keychain, so all I need are a couple peripherals and a premade, one session adventure. I've been drawing up character sheets, maybe I'll post them one of these days.

On the definition of "Game" and why not to

Today I'm going to be ranting.

A friend of mine linked me to GameDesignConcepts, an online class in game design that apparently ran last summer. I've started reading through the back lessons. Normally I'm suspicious of this sort of thing; any two bit idiot can make posts on the internet about designing games, it doesn't mean they know anything about it. (You want an example? oh, say, my entire blog.) My suspicions are not at all allayed after the first couple posts. In his first lesson he spends the majority of the time trying to define exactly what a game is.

That's a worthless question. Let me repeat myself. It doesn't matter one whit what is a game and isn't a game.

The definition of "game" has to be some sort of grand, overarching categorization scheme. It's got to include D&D and pong and candyland and solitaire and craps and pin the tail on the donkey and chess and darts and warhammer and drinking games and what have you. Why? Because all those are games. We know they're games. But how do we know they're games without a proper definition? The answer is, we don't need a formal definition to know what a game is and isn't. The vague definition that we all share to one extend or another is generally good enough. If you take a corner case you'll get people disagreeing on whether or not it's a game, but whether that particular label applies to that particular corner case isn't really important.

Let me try an example. While I was in college I studied physics. When (and I'm ashamed to admit that this was all too often) when I wasn't studying physics I was playing World of Warcraft. When I WAS studying physics I was studying things that were quite obviously physics (balls falling off of cliffs, the motion of charged particles in magnetic fields, the laws of thermodynamics etc). The thing is, I noticed a problem in playing World of Warcraft that could be solved with the mathematics and methods I learned in the physics classroom. (If you're interested, it involved selecting items to maximize damage; I'll write it up here someday.) The question is, is it physics? I mean, it used the method, and it described the way the world worked, but in this case the "world" in question was "of Warcraft", that is not at all reality. I've wondered about that question, and came up with the same answer I have for the definition of a game. It's not really important. The physics techniques I applied let me solve the problem. Whether or not the problem exists in the realm of physics doesn't change the solution one whit.

So let's try that again, only with games. Take one of his definitional corner cases. Is a crossword puzzle a game? Well, maybe. I'm at that page though, because I'm trying to learn to design games. And hey, maybe the lessons learned will help me design better crossword puzzles. Whether they do or not doesn't depend on whether crossword puzzles are games. So in that sense it's completely useless to argue over the broad definition of games.

But whaddabout building a shared lexicon? For the most part our vague definition of game covers that. Not everybody's gonna agree that a crossword puzzle is a game, but everybody's gonna agree that RISK is. If I make some sort of crazy weird thing that may or may not be a game, it doesn't matter if I define it as such and you don't, as long as we know how it works. Sharing a lexicon is useful, but in terms of what a game is it's already as shared as it's going to be. You don't have to waste time trying to sharpen the definition.

Specific definitions become a lot more useful the smaller your general category is. "Tabletop Role Playing Games are a type of game where one person controls the game world and the opposition forces and the other people play as characters in that world." It's enough to give something to work off of as to why they are different and what that implies. "Unlike other games, players only need to know a few of the rules to get along, so long as the Dungeon Master knows how the game works." That's useful to know, but you don't need to know precisely what I mean by saying "other games".

A couple other notes about that first lesson and the associated reading material:

Katamari Daimacy: It's like Quake, where you're running around a 3D environment, only instead of shooting things you roll a giant ball around. You collect things like in Pac Man, only they come in different sizes and you can only collect things that are smaller than your ball. You gain experience like in RPGs, only instead of being expressed by levels and such it's expressed by the size of your ball, which gets bigger the more stuff you collect." There, that gives you the essence in the game by reference to different games. If I was actually pitching it for the first time to someone I'd probably have to follow up with "no, seriously, it works. It's surprisingly fun."

From the reading material: He's describing how the game requires participation. Ok, seriously? If you want to sell me on something, don't compare it to the works of John Cage. Yeah he allows his musicians more ability to participate in making the song,but he does so at the expense of such things as aesthetics and structure. In an effort to make interesting, unique music he got rid of everything that made the music worth listening to. If you're telling me that you know useful things about game design, don't try to give me the impression that you prize meaningless innovation over fun. Other than that (and getting caught in trying to define what a game is) the article is well worth reading, but I almost put it down at that point.

Oh, and one last thing before I go. Here's the fifteen minute game I created in MS Paint, in all it's glory:



Players advance one space for each quote of Lenin or Marx they know that their competitors do not know.

Nontransitive dice

Without making you slog through the Wikipedia article, it's possible to make a set of dice where the first die will generally roll higher than the second die which will generally roll higher than the third die which will generally roll higher than the first die. Confused? Let me try again. Stealing an example from the wiki:

die A has sides {2,2,4,4,9,9},
die B has sides {1,1,6,6,8,8}, and
die C has sides {3,3,5,5,7,7}.

Now, if you roll die A versus die B, then die A will roll higher most of the time. Die B will roll higher than die C most of the time. Now here's the mind bending part. Die C will beat die A most of the time too. A beats B, B beats C, but C beats A. Sort of like a paper rock scissors game.

I'm calling this interesting, but it's hardly the only or simplest way to make a paper rock scissors mechanic. So I'm filing it away for future reference.