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4 Things About Deck-building Games · Pick Up and Deliver

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Welcome to Pick Up and Deliver, the podcast where I pick up my audio recorder as I head
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out the door and deliver an episode to you while I walk the dog.
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I'm Brendan Riley.
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Well good morning listeners it's a lovely day here in suburban Chicago.
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The sun is up, there's not a sky a cloud in the sky but there are still
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plenty of cicadas.
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I learned we have about two more weeks probably.
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We have a person who comes by once a quarter to spray around the house to keep bugs down
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and they said that we shouldn't see any more after the 4th of July so looking forward
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to that.
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Hopefully I won't get dive bombed today.
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They don't seem to be too numerous today so maybe we're at a low in the activity or
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maybe we are on the downward side.
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We can hope.
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So thinking about what to talk about today and it occurred to me to Google or to go into
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my podcast feed and search for the phrase "deck building" to see how often I use that
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or when I do. Because it occurred to me, while I have done episodes about like favorite
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games of each mechanism type and I did a couple episodes on gentle player conflict.
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I've never actually done an episode where I just talk about what I like about deck building
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games.
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So that's what I'm going to do today.
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This episode is four things about deck building games.
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So just to make sure we're all on the same page here and I suspect most of us are but
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I generally hold to the completely arbitrary gaming convention that's used on boardgamegeek
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and in other places to distinguish between games that you create the deck before you play
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and games where you start with a sort of standard deck and you augment that deck
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while you're playing.
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So games where you created a deck before you play would be something like most collectible
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card games, something like Lorcanna or Magic or Android Netrunner versus deck building
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games, something like Dominion is your your product typical example or your stereotypical
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example.
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So today I'm talking about deck building games games where the deck is built while you play.
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So I'm going to talk about four things I like about playing games in this genre or the
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games that focus on this mechanism and then I'll give a few examples in that mechanism
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for how it appears in different games.
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As always I'd love to hear your feedback on this maybe what is your favorite deck building
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game and when when do you get to play it you can share that information over on board
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game geek and guild 3269 to pick up and deliver guild.
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I'm a little behind on my board game geek feed so apologies if you've posted something
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there and I haven't replied right away I'm trying to get caught up but I subscribe to
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too many things so like I'll log in and I'll knock I'll mark I'll skim through and mark
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100 threads red and the next time I log in there's 100 more to read so it's getting it's
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getting difficult to catch up and the summer I'm not spending quite as much time in front
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of my computer so there it is.
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All right to start with I really like that deck building games offer a lot of variety
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that comes through setup and player choice.
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Now those are two distinct things I could say variety through setup and variety through
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player choice but I'm going to kind of lump them together because they sort of have to
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do with the notion of the market or the idea of the market.
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So there are as I can think about it really two primary models that get used for the
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market in deck building games there is the market of the set market of cards which is used
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in Dominion & Arctic scavengers and what's the third one that oh Aeon's end all three
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of those use a set market of cards meaning at the beginning of the game you pick out some
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number of cards from the set that's in the box it's usually not as many as the whole box
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has so you're not using every card in the box you're usually picking some set of them and
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those are the cards that are available in the market to buy and generally those are available
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until they run out and then you can't get any more and everybody kind of has equal access
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to them though that's not always the case.
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What I like about that kind of setup is that you can then decide which cards to include
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in the market and the game often offer you different sets of suggestions based on kind
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of maybe how you want to play or it suggests that you randomize them with the idea of being
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that part of the fun of each game is trying to find the optimal mix of cards to buy based
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on what's available this time around.
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I think the ultimate example of that is Dominion particularly as I read or heard from people
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who have like all the Dominion expansions you know they have literally dozens or maybe
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hundreds of different card sets to choose from and they build the game by randomizing those
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cards as there's a card choosing mechanism you can use an app or you just have like I
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think each card set has one card that's like the just the name of the card and you shuffle
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all those together and then deal out ten and that's your market.
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So I really like that as a way to create randomness and options in the different kinds of
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games that you have access to.
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Other different kinds of cards you have access to.
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So the other kind of card market that you see in games are the river of cards.
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Now the river has an advantage as it manages and disadvantages.
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In a cooperative game I think the river is excellent.
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The river makes for an interesting kind of variety and challenges the players to think more
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tactically about what's available because the stuff's not always available right.
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It's coming through and it goes away as people buy it and that's when we get new things
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but you don't have the same array of things available all the time.
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Games like Ascension and Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle and Legendary all use the river mechanism.
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So I think the river mechanism is really neat and it's actually my preference.
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Now in competitive games the river can be a little frustrating because sometimes it will
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seem to benefit your opponent more than you.
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I've had games of Star Wars deck building game where the river doesn't
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benefit the player like river benefits one of us more than the other to a level where
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it feels bordering on not fun.
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That doesn't happen often but it is one of the dangers of the kind of randomness of the
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river model.
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So in the market element of setup I find that very compelling.
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I also like the other side of it which is how player choice creates a variety in play because
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in most good deck builders there are multiple ways to approach winning and part of the idea
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of the game is to outthink your opponents and outplay your opponents in assembling a good
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mix of cards to purchase.
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There are a lot of things to balance but the overall mix of skills that are available and
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so you have to figure out how those slot into the game versus standard strategies that
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you always have available to you or are always good.
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Those two things together make for really interesting play.
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So that was thing number one to say about deck building games.
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I love variety through setup and player choice.
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Number two, cool gimmicks.
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I am a sucker for a game that uses a neat novel mechanism.
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That deck building games have a history of innovating on the things you can do with the deck building
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skeleton.
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If you look at Dominion as the sort of arch-typical example, I am assuming everybody knows Dominion
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just in case you don't.
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You are trying to build a kingdom and you build the kingdom by accumulating points in your
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deck.
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The point cards generally don't do anything else for you so the more point cards you buy,
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the less effective your deck is.
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You kind of want to wait some amount of time before you buy too many point cards.
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But at the same time, if you wait too long then someone else will buy more point cards than
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you and they'll win.
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Or if you try to build an elaborate machine by assembling other things in your deck you
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might have a really cool deck at the end that doesn't earn you any points.
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That's kind of the standard model for how deck building games work and usually you get
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some resources that allow you to do something in the game.
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And then some resources that allow you to buy cards.
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In Dominion you are allowed to, each turn you can play, you can take one action and you
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can buy one card.
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And so a lot of what you're doing in Dominion is getting cards that give you extra actions
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or let you buy extra cards.
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I really like games that come up with some sort of gimmick of what to do other than that
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central model.
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The first and actually my preference over Dominion is Arctic scavengers.
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In Arctic scavengers you have a totally different set of things you can do on your turn.
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You can do more than one action.
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But the real gimmick is any cards you don't play then you send to the brawl and the brawl
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is a sort of shared contest for a really good card that you win by sending people and strength
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rather than by spending money.
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And the mix of those two things works really well.
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And gives you a consideration that's different from the considerations you have in something
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like Dominion.
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With other games there are other gimmicks as well.
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I'll name just a couple more that I really like.
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In big book of madness you have this gimmick of the space on your board, the reserve they
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call it I think.
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And in the reserve when you put a card in the reserve it's now available to anyone to use.
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And this is a really cool way to keep the game flowing and to make it actually feel
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cooperative.
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And Valley of the Kings and Dale of Merchants in both of those part of what's interesting
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is you have to pull apart your deck.
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In order to score points you have to take things out of your deck and put them into the scoring
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area at which point they stop being effective as scoring.
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They stop being effective for you as cards you can use to do stuff.
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A lot of times the better scoring cards have the better powers on them so you don't want
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to send them in the scoring because you want to use them but if you're not sending them
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in the scoring you're probably going to lose.
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So I like that gimmick.
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I really do enjoy deck builders that have a board space where you're using your deck building
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mechanism to move stuff around on a board or do things on a board.
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Of course Martin Wallace was sort of cutting this ground with a few acres of snow and other
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similar games as we've talked about recently.
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And you also have something like Clank which has you moving around on a board using the
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deck building or the tyrants of the Underdark does this really well or more recently
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lost runs of Arnac and Dune Imperium both involve deck building combined with other things.
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Now those games deck building really feels like one of a sort of mix of mechanisms as
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opposed to like in a handful of stars where a deck building is still the center of the
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game because as you use your cards to do things on the board whereas some of those other
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games have other things like yeah they have worker placement there as well so sidelines
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the deck building a little bit.
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But I really do or another good example of a gimmick that I just a clever change.
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gimmick it's a pejorative so maybe that's not the right word to use but a neat innovation
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that I think adds to the gameplay experience.
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One of those would be Aeon's End.
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This is just a really clever shift at the end of your deck once you've bought all your cards
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and played all your cards then you flip the deck over from the discard pile to the draw
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pile and you do that by just turning the deck over you don't shuffle it.
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That one shift is incredibly interesting as a mechanism or I just played
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Quest for El Dorado last night.
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That game is really interesting because there's a limited market of six cards and then there's
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12 more that are available but you don't play you don't get to buy any of the available
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ones until if you're the person who buys the last card in the limited market then you
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get to pick the next card from the unavailable ones that will get moved up into the available
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category.
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Of course you're doing that and then other people take turns so you could actually not
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even get a chance at that card because it's empty.
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So that's really interesting.
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So cool gimmicks, something I really like in deck building games.
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Next up I will say I really like that deck builders feel like they have a nice mix of
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randomness and control.
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The randomness I already talked about some but a big piece of the randomness comes from
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how the cards come out of your deck that that has an interesting element where sometimes
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you just get screwed by the way that the cards got shuffled together.
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Of course each game handles this differently that never happens in the end because you're
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the one who put the cards in the order you put them.
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So if you get screwed by the order it's your own fault.
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So sometimes randomness really hurts you or like I was talking about it with a game that
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has a river market sometimes the river will feel like it's really screwing with you.
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Other times you'll get exactly the cards you need exactly the right moment and that
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feels really good as well.
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You have this nice mix of cards that flow through for you.
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Those things together are really interesting and fun and I like the way that all of that
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works together.
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In particular I like the way that some of the games add as part of the play of the game
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the ability to manipulate how random your deck is and how much control you have but usually
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with an opportunity cost.
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For example sometimes there will be cards that you can buy that help make your deck run
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better but don't do anything else to advance your game.
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So in Quest for El Dorado for example there are cards that you can buy that let you draw
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more cards.
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This is actually a pretty common technique in deck building games where you can get cards
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that will let you get more cards and since cards are actions usually being a little draw
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more cards is a useful and effective way to make your deck build work better.
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And once that card is in your deck it usually is pretty effective because it starts to come
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up and every time it comes up it helps you.
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At the same time the turn where you buy it you're not advancing into the other things you
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need.
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So if you wait too long to buy it or you buy the wrong engine advancement card you might
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find yourself actually hurting yourself by spending too much time making your deck run
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better.
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That was the situation I was talking about with regard to Dominion.
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I also like that a lot of games allow you to remove cards from your deck and that in many
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games being really good at a deck building game definitely involves removing cards from
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your deck because whenever you buy a new card from the market it's almost always better than
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any of the cards you could have bought that any of the cards you started with.
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When you buy a card from the deck it's almost always better than any of the cards you started
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with.
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So removing a card from your deck is generally pretty good if you can remove the cards that
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you started with that are bad.
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Now one interesting example counterpoint to this is the Game Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle.
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In the most deck builders the cards that you buy are good enough that it's almost always
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a good strategy to buy a card when you can.
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Not always.
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Once you have an effectively running deck buying more cards that don't do what your deck needs
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to do to be effective is difficult.
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With Harry Potter Hogwarts Battle that is amplified dramatically because the most powerful thing
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you have in that game is your characters bonus power.
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This character in that game has a bonus power that they can do that gives them power, something
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that they can do that other players can't.
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And when they do that it's generally a very effective piece of the collaborative puzzle.
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For example and it's been a while since I played so I can't remember precisely but for example
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I believe that Neville is or Harry gives people extra lightning bolts when something happens.
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And a big part of doing well playing with Harry is to maximize the likelihood that something
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is going to happen so that you can give people the extra lightning bolts.
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So every time with Harry every time you buy a card in the game if it's a, even if it's
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a good card, if it's not a good card toward activating your special power you're probably
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making your deck worse not better.
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That's a really interesting mechanism to me.
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The other thing I find interesting is that many of the enemies in Harry Potter have you
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flip card, have you reveal your next card in your deck and then like lose it or discard it
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or do something if it's a good card.
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But if it's your basic regular card then nothing bad happens.
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Sometimes the things that are bad are pretty bad.
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It'll make you lose a card or sometimes it'll make you lose health or there's also to stuff.
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So one of the things I find really interesting is trying to balance that question of how
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much to buy versus keeping some of those basic cards so that you don't fail because you
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didn't keep enough of those basic cards because you keep getting hit by enemy action because
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you've made your deck too powerful.
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And weirdly we found in the Harry Potter game that you and you did decide what your deck
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is doing very early and only by cards that help you do that thing.
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That was generally the way we were most successful.
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Which could be really frustrating because then sometimes there's just cards that nobody
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wants or nobody can buy and the game doesn't have a market circulation mechanism and it
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makes it less fun.
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Like it's not fun to buy a card you don't want so that the market will change.
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So we actually added a mechanism when we played where if you didn't buy a card on your
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turn you have the choice of discarding one of the cards in the market and then drawing
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one new card in the market.
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So that way it does revolve a little bit and that works.
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That's nice.
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I like that.
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So all of these methods involve making choices to minimize the negative effects that randomness
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can have on your play.
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And I really like that deck builders have a very specific set of systems.
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Kind of comment throughout the genre that let you do that.
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Right, the final piece of the puzzle, the final thing I wanted to talk about in terms
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of deck building games is I like a game that punishes you for having what I call.
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Eyes too big for your stomach.
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This is a thing my parents used to say when I was a kid because I was a light eater when
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I was young.
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That's not really true anymore but when I was younger it didn't eat a lot.
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And so sometimes when I would order food or whatever I would order more than I could
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eat and my mother would say I had eyes too big for my stomach.
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And I carry that metaphor around the idea around because I think deck building games,
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especially those with a river.
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Games will offer you lovely shiny things that actually are bad for your deck because they
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look cool and maybe they do a cool thing but if they don't fit what you're trying to do then
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when you buy them they take up space in your deck you draw them and then you're not able
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to play them for whatever reason or not able to use them well.
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This also happens for the end of a game that if you have a very well functioning deck sometimes
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it's tempting to take a card that looks really cool or does something really cool.
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If you're not thinking about the flow of the game this actually happened to me in
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Quest for El Dorado last night we played we were toward the end of the game and I had bought this card
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that basically lets you have the chance to take a much better card.
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So it's a good card to have early in the game because you'll have time to take another
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card get that in your deck and use it but I had bought it too late in the game so on
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my final turn when I had a chance to win instead I had a card that let me get
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another card.
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And then the space where I wanted to be able to play a card I needed I couldn't instead
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I had to I had this card that I couldn't do anything with except get another card and
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that new card I got goes in the discard pile.
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So I was hoisted on my own petard and I was too big for my stomach I'm like yeah I'll get
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a great card next time well was too late in the game to take that card when I did.
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And I love games that demand you pay attention to the flow of the game where your choices
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and your goals should change over time that the ebb and flow of experience in the game is
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part of what makes it really interesting and I think deck building games often do that
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really well.
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Another good example of that is the game Clank. Early on in Clank you maybe won a lot of strength
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but you also won a lot of movement and you also want a lot of gold so you can buy things.
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At the end of the game you just want movement and if you don't have movement all that other
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stuff is not useful to you.
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But if at the beginning of the game you only take movement you really focus on getting a lot
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of movement then sure you're able to run around but you can't buy any of the cards that
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give you points.
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So there's an interesting back ebb and flow in the game where at some point you want to
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switch to buying cards that are good to give you points because you're probably not
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going to see any of them in your deck again.
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At the same time if you do that too early or you just buy movement cards the whole time
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then you're having a deck with almost no points in it you have to get all your points
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from your treasures which usually won't win you the game.
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So that's sort of choice I find really compelling.
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So what do you like about deck building games?
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Head over to Board Game Geek Guild 3269 let me know if you want to see some links to other
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episodes where I've talked about deck building games those will be in the show notes at
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rattleboxgames.com.
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You can send me a direct message on Board Game Geek wombat929 or on an email.
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And then at rattleboxgames.com.
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Well 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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Brought to you by rattlebox.com.
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