Latest / Pick Up and Deliver / Never Tell Me the Odds

Transcript

Never Tell Me the Odds · Pick Up and Deliver

• 0:00
  (wind blowing)
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  Welcome to Pick Up and Deliver, the Podcast
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  where I pick up my audio recorder
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  as I step off the train and deliver an episode
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  to you while I walk home.
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  I'm Brendan Riley.
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  (upbeat music)
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  One of my least favorite parts about living
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  in the Midwest is the way that particularly spring weather
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  is so unsettled.
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  Some days it'll be a really nice balmy time
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  and temperature and other days it'll be downright chilly.
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  Today definitely falls into the downright chilly category.
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  In fact it is very cold and it's snowing
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  and I don't like that it's snowing in April.
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  So I say boo to the snow.
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  Not as not cold enough the snow is accumulating
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  as soon as it hits the ground.
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  It melts, but still... yuck.
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  And then I had a game experience yesterday
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  that I thought I would share
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  and talk about the subject that it's
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  made me think about today.
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  And so the title of this episode is Never Tell Me the Odds.
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  This is of course a Star Wars reference
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  in Han Solo and C3PO and the gang are making their way
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  through the asteroid belt C3PO tells Han Solo
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  that their odds of surviving navigation through
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  the asteroid belt are very low and Han Solo says
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  "never tell me the odds."
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  I'll say you had that yesterday or a couple days ago.
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  Not was yesterday.
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  My son and I were collaborating to play our Solo adventures
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  for our Frosthaven characters.
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  He's playing the Trapper and I'm playing the Pain conduit
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  and we have both of them have just reached their
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  eligibility for their Solo missions.
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  And so yesterday we played them both.
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  We had both played them once before and done poorly
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  but on the replays we did pretty well and succeeded.
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  So I wanna talk a little bit about that experience
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  so for him particularly,
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  his approach to the Solo adventure was meticulously planned.
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  Mine was a little bit more slip shot
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  but still pretty tactically careful.
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  There were a couple times where he was trying
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  to decide whether to do something or I was trying
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  to decide whether to do something.
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  I ended up looking at like what are the odds
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  that the bad guys will, that the monsters will do a thing
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  that would disrupt this plan.
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  There was one time where he wanted to do something
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  and it was a one in three chance
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  that the bad guy would disrupt the plan
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  and he said well Yolo and he went for it
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  and it worked out just fine.
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  So that's a fun twist.
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  I never, I did not examine things quite the same way.
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  I think I did at one time where I'm like
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  well is there any situation in which the guy can move five
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  or whatever was most of the time they could only move four
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  or something like that.
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  So in those instances we were trying to evaluate the odds
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  but it did get me thinking about the way
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  that often when I play games,
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  something being of low odds often does not deter me
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  from trying it.
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  I am an eternal optimist about the luck potential
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  of the dice and the willingness of the universe
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  to let me have a win even if I don't deserve it
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  or it would be ridiculous.
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  And so in that regard I thought I would talk a little bit
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  about some games where this sort of thing happens
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  and I fully acknowledge that it's not good strategy
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  to do it this way, but I often do it anyway.
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  Places where the game, the setup of the game is so fun
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  that I don't wanna know the odds
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  I just wanna do the thing.
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  So to start with Terraforming Mars.
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  I played Terraforming Mars many times,
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  quite a few times on the table and count way more times
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  on digital implementation,
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  particularly since it showed up on board game arena.
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  And I always like accumulating blue cards.
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  So if you haven't played before,
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  there are cards that let you build things
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  in on the ground.
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  There's cards that let events happen
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  and then there are cards that let you
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  add different kinds of bonuses and machinery
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  to your tableau.
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  And my experiences, the bonuses in the machinery
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  in the tableau need to be very carefully chosen
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  because for the most part they are a time sink
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  and a resource sink that they are less valuable
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  than they appear to be or you would hope
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  that they are going to be.
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  Generally if you have a choice between doing something
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  that adds to the map and doing something
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  that are your resource production or doing something
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  gives you like a machine or an action,
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  a special action that you can do.
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  Generally the machine or a special action
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  is only gonna be useful if you do it really early in the game.
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  So you have plenty of time to run that machine.
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  The later you do it, the more likely it is to not be useful.
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  This isn't to say that they don't feed off each other
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  and they can't be useful,
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  but they're just not as good as if you
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  spent those same resources doing some of the other things
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  that advance the end of the game and get you points directly.
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  The premier version of this, two cards that I almost always take
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  when I get the chance and generally are not an effective use
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  of resources or energy or effort, I mean not energy.
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  Would be the microbe card and the advanced research projects.
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  I think that's what the second one's called.
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  I might have the title wrong, but in the microbe,
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  the advanced research projects, you can activate it
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  to draw a card and then you can pay three
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  to keep that card if you want.
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  Or maybe two, I think it's three though.
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  So it's just like you got an extra card on the draw,
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  but I always like to have the option of more cards.
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  And then the other one, and this is the real ridiculous one,
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  would be the microbe card.
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  So this card works, you pay a certain amount to build it
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  and it's not a very extensive card.
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  And then every time you use the card, you pay one money
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  and you get the draw card.
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  And if it has a microbe tag on it, you add a microbe to the card
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  and each microbe on the card is worth one point.
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  Well, this is a terrible deal
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  because your odds of drawing a microbe card are terrible.
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  So you could spend oodles and oodles of money
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  and never draw a single microbe card.
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  So you never get a single point, which is a real bummer
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  when you look at how you might do with that money
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  that would get you points.
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  Now that's not to say you can't have success with it,
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  you can, but the odds are terrible.
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  But I almost always take that card if I come across it
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  because I love the thrill of drawing a card
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  and seeing if I get a microbe.
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  And then if I do get one or even two in the game,
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  that feels pretty good.
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  It feels like I got my money worth probably.
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  It's a really dumb thing to be excited about
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  and speaks to, I don't know, some element,
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  hope, hopefulness in my play that defies logic or skill
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  but is instead built around the idea of optimism in how I play.
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  So that is the microbe search from Terraforming Mars.
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  This is very similar to another kind of hope that I have
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  and this is looking for a match in a large card deck.
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  Whenever I have a game where you're gonna be drawing cards a lot,
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  I always overestimate the likelihood
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  of finding the card I need from the deck.
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  So in Ark Nova, this might mean building a strategy around
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  acquiring certain kinds of animals,
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  even if those animals are relatively hard to get
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  and I don't have very many of them to begin with.
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  In Everdell, it might mean building a strategy around
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  finding the dungeon or finding the ranger
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  and then I never find those cards
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  and my whole strategy is blown to heck
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  or even Skyjo, which is a game we've played quite a bit lately.
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  In that one, you can try to set yourself up
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  to get rid of a column by drawing a card you need
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  from the draw deck.
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  And if you fail on that, it's way worse
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  than just getting rid of those high cards to be in one.
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  But completing the column feels so good
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  that I often want to do that,
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  even if it turns out it's a dumb choice.
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  Finally, one of the big games of last,
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  the big party games of last year is Flip 7.
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  This is another game where I often,
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  just I like to push my luck.
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  If I get to the point where I have revealed five of the seven cards
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  and now I need two more,
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  oh, I almost always go for it.
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  Now if my whole deck, if my whole display is like 10s, 11s,
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  and 12, like 9, 11, and 12 or something,
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  then I often won't because the odds are terrible.
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  But if I feel like I have a reasonable hope
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  that the last card would be something I don't have,
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  I'll often go for it because I love pushing the odds.
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  This is certainly related to pushing your luck,
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  but it's almost more just like even in games
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  that don't have pushed your luck as a mechanism,
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  I will resort to that aspect of it sometimes.
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  In die rolling, that bad odds optimism,
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  manifest in a couple games, of course,
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  Perudo or Liars Dice is a classic
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  that would have this kind of choice in it.
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  Do I think the people around the table
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  have a specific number of dice or not?
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  I always think I can squeeze one more out of it
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  or hope for one more.
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  But I would say I would point to a bigger example
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  of this kind of effect would be Elder Sign.
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  Elder Sign I talked about recently
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  is a game where you're trying to complete
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  dice rolls to complete locations.
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  It's not a push your luck game because once you choose,
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  it's sort of like manage your luck,
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  once you choose a card you're gonna play,
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  then you continue till you either defeat the card
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  or you take the penalty.
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  There's no benefit to like quitting partway through,
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  either complete the card or you don't.
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  So it's not a push your luck game,
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  but it does often make you feel like
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  you should be able to win
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  because you're just looking for like one symbol
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  on three dice or something.
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  But the odds of rolling a single side of one of three dice
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  are comparatively low.
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  I don't know what they are precisely,
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  but it's not high.
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  Even if you get to roll those dice
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  and succeedingly smaller groups.
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  But when I play Elder Sign,
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  I'm often just intrigued by the possibility.
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  It feels like oh, it should be easy enough to do.
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  I get to roll five dice.
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  I only have three of them match the symbols I'm looking for.
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  It's a compelling blind spot in my brain
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  that I feel like makes for fun gameplay.
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  Even though it often means that I lose.
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  So I'm not sure how to describe that effect,
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  the idea that even if it means I'm gonna lose,
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  I have fun gambling with the odds of whether I win or not.
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  Because the correct role is so delightful.
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  It's such a satisfying experience
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  that sort of having it fail
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  isn't really that bad an element.
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  Two other places where I see this kind of thing come up
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  in Cascadia and it's tighter cousin Calico.
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  And both of these drafting games
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  you are taking something and hoping
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  that you will get what you need in a future draw.
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  Every time you take something,
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  you're reducing the possibility
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  that you will get what you need.
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  Far away is another one that works like this.
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  When you take cards early and play them,
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  you are hoping that you're going to have the symbols
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  you need to complete those cards later on.
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  And the mix of those two is the really interesting
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  and effective part of what's going on in the game,
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  finding that connection between the two different pieces.
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  The last game on point two that has that kind of gambling
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  on the future element is Seven Wonders.
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  This is of course a game where you're trying to get
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  a mix of things that will give you the most points.
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  If you take some of the long-term development things,
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  you're just hoping you're going to get something
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  that pays off for them in the future.
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  Of course other games that have this sort of hope you can do it,
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  even if the odds say you can't aspect something like
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  Dungeons and Dragons of course is all about mitigating
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  or managing your luck and trying to find
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  just the right time to ask or pursue
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  a particular kind of victory.
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  And co-op games often end up being about
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  managing the luck at play in the system.
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  Trying to figure out, do I have the right combinations
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  of things in order to succeed?
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  I think a game like Ghost Stories,
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  which encourages you to imagine that you could use
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  the dice to win the tasks.
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  And as long as you think you can use the dice
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  to win the tasks, you will fail at task after task
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  that having that enticement there is a great misliter
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  for how the game works.
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  And our odds are at contrast with our feeling
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  about what we should be able to do.
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  So what games do you find yourself wishing you didn't know the odds?
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  Or where you find yourself gambling against,
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  gambling against bad odds so that you can do well?
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  Head over to Board Game Geek, guild 3269
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  and share your thoughts about those.
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  You can reach out to me on Board Game Geek,
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  username, Wombat929, send me a message there if you like.
• 13:08
  Thanks for joining me on my walk today.
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  I hope your next walk is as pleasant as mine was.
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  Bye-bye.
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  (upbeat music)
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  (upbeat music)
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  (upbeat music)
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  (upbeat music)
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  Brought to you by Rattlebox Games.
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  (upbeat music)
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  (gentle music)