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Weird Scoring Conditions · Pick Up and Deliver

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  Welcome to Pick Up and Deliver the podcast where I pick up my audio recorder when
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  I step off the train, and deliver an episode to you while I walk home.
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  I'm Brendan Riley.
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  Well, it's a lovely day here in suburban Chicago.
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  I'm on my way home after having gone into campus for a meeting.
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  The birds are chirping and I'm happy to be talking with you.
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  Well, planning to talk about, I thought I would start with thinking a little bit about
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  weird scoring conditions.
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  What was it that made me think of this?
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  Oh, so the other day I in my music shuffling, I was just listening to a variety of different
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  tunes in my MP3 library.
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  I happened across an old song from Moxy Fruvous, which is a Canadian mostly acapela
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  band from the 90s and they had a song they performed in their live album called
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  Lowest Highest Point.
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  It was like a trivia quiz for the audience and they said which state has the lowest
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  highest point and then they did a song, (singing) Lowest Highest Point, Lowest Highest Point, etc.
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  And the idea was, it's just which state do you think it is?
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  It got me thinking that it might be interesting to talk about interesting scoring conditions.
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  One of my favorite things about playing a new board game is discovering that it has an
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  interesting scoring condition, something counterintuitive, something weird, something that makes
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  you think about the game in a different way.
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  Most games have uninteresting scoring conditions - earn the most points being the most common
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  one, have the most money being the second common one, which is basically earn the most points.
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  I thought that it would be interesting to explore five different interesting win conditions
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  and talk a little bit about why I find them interesting and go from there.
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  So start with I do want to go to acknowledge:
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  I did in a quick glance at the Pick Up and Deliver pages.
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  I believe that I did do one previous show where I talk about an issue sort of related to
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  this and that is there's an episode I did called Currency As Points where I was specifically
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  talking about how I like when a game makes you think about spending your points to do things.
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  Any game that uses money as the final score and you have to spend money to do stuff is already
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  doing Currency As Points but there are some games where you just have to give up points in
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  order to do things.
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  One example that came to mind was Small World where you have to give up points in order to
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  choose a different faction or a guy a project where if you want to take a bonus from one of your
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  opponents doing it doing an advancement you have to spend points to do that and there's an interesting
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  trade-off to think about like getting a bet getting a benefit in the game but giving up some of your
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  scoring edge to do so and you know I like that trade-off. We're not talking about that today
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  necessarily but I do want to mention it. I'll put a link in the show notes if you want to go
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  back and review that episode. It was a long time ago but I thought I would talk about five different
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  endgame conditions or win conditions that I think are pretty cool and always make me interested
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  in again. The first one is the first one I want to talk about is sort of in its strongest mode
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  in Cockroach Poker but appears in a number of other modes as well in a slightly less dramatic way
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  and this is just one loser. Now in Cockroach Poker there is no winner of the game. If you haven't
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  played that game it's a memory game where you're passing it on cards and telling each other the cards
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  are this or that and if somebody incorrectly challenges those cards a certain number of times they
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  lose the game. When they lose the game that's the game is over one person lost everybody else wins
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  and can laugh at them but there are a number of other games where when one person loses enough
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  that ends the game and then the winner is the person who has the most points or most money or whatever.
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  The example that I'm thinking of lately is That's Not a Hat which if you've played Cockroach Poker
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  and then you go play That's Not a Hat you're like oh this is an iteration on this idea. It's a fun one
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  and I actually like That's Not a Hat better than Cockroach Poker but they're very similar games
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  in a lot of ways but the idea of That's Not a Hat again when somebody loses enough to get a certain
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  number of negative points then the game ends and the person the people, the person are people who have
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  the fewest negative points win the game. I know that there are other games out there where the game ends
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  when somebody loses and then we determine the winner. I can't think of any others off the top of my
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  head but I know there are others so I would say that's an interesting win condition to me is like
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  the game ends when somebody loses and then we determine a winner or not. All right the second one I
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  wanted to point to is: I like end game conditions where it's points but the points come from making
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  your own point choices. Now on some minor games the way this will work is something like in like
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  Coimbra or Shipyard there will be condition end game scoring conditions that you're aiming for
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  and if you achieve those then you get points. If you're playing Shipyard with the variant rule where
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  all five instead of getting an individual scoring condition which is more traditional in terms of
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  scoring instead there are five on the board and you can aim for one to resolve that feels interesting
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  to me you are deciding on your own win condition. A more dramatic version of this is the card game
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  Arboretum. Arboretum you're building a display of trees and you score the trees where you have the
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  most trees in that number I believe if you have the most trees in a line of anyone else then you get
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  to score that kind of tree you also have to have in your hand the highest value card of anyone else
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  of that type of tree so like if you want to score an oak tree you have to have a line the biggest
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  line of oak trees in your in your park then you also have to have the highest value oak tree in order
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  to score those things you need both as I recall it's possible that you just score your line of oak trees
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  if you have the highest number but I think you have to have both so there's an interesting element where
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  you're trying to hold on to a really high number to screw your opponent out of scoring and that's
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  really fun so if you haven't if you haven't tried Arboretum it's worth a try if you remember it is a
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  ridiculously mean game so make your own scoring else I said Coimbra because in Coimbra there are a number
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  of scoring conditions that you can activate by going around on the board and so you kind of get
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  to decide which ones you want to try to score. All right next up I wanted to mention bottom
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  loser/top loser and these are games that usually have some sort of win condition that's determined by
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  points and so there's not anything really special about that except that you usually also have
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  a secondary rule where if you are the bottom loser or the top winner then you don't win because
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  you are the bottom loser or the top winner and there are a couple different games I can think of
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  like that in High Society if you have spent the most money you lose the game even if you
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  even if you have the most points so there's an element of you want to get the most points but you
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  don't want to spend the most money because then you're poor and the whole thing of High Society is
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  you're not supposed to be poor. Similarly in QE if you spend the most money in that game you also lose
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  and then you win if you have the most points after the person who spent the most money is eliminated.
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  So both of those games turn on the idea of their auction game so you're trying to decide how much
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  to spend but if you spend too much then you lose the game even if you got the most points.
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  And then there are games where there's a bottom loser as well sometimes it'll be the person with
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  the fewest the lowest score in some secondary track is out the best example of this or my favorite
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  example of this is taught in A Study in Emerald. A Study in Emerald is an excellent Martin Wallace
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  area control game where players are in one of two teams and you don't know who's on your team
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  or not except by their actions and maybe what they say and at the end of the game everyone reveals
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  their team and then you look at the scoreboard and whichever player on the board has the lowest score
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  everyone on their team is out of the game and then the winner is the person with the highest score
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  who wasn't on the team with the person who had the lowest score it's a great and wild
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  result that I just I really enjoy so that's bottom loser/top loser as in the side it also strikes me
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  one one that I didn't mention that I do find a lot of fun our individual scoring
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  individual win conditions where each player has their own thing they're trying to do and the game
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  ends if one of them accomplishes it the best example I can think of for that is Nanty-Narking but of
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  course ROOT also has that element now in ROOT you know what everybody's win condition is. In Nanty Narking
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  you know what all the possible win conditions are but it's secret who has which one so a part of the
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  game is trying to figure out who's going for what and not let anybody achieve any of the win
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  conditions because they might be going for that one I'll call that an honorable mention no it's not
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  one of my five all right so the last one is gonna go back to a mystery I started at the being the
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  episode. Pay attention friends that's what's you that's what you call a narrative cohesion. it's going
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  back to the idea of the lowest highest point, Now there are two games I want to point to that have
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  interesting lowest highest point mechanisms the first is gonna be Tigris and Euphrates although
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  this stands in for many Reiner Knizia games that do this and many other games that do the same thing
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  which is there are a variety of scoring conditions or ways that you can score different things
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  and at the end of the game you look at those categories in whichever category you've scored lowest in
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  that's the category that is actually your score so in tigers and your friddies you want to have
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  as many points as you can in a lot of things but as I recall the one you scored worst in is the one
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  that you score similarly in the game Between Two Cities you have two cities and one of them will
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  have one score and one have another whichever score is lower that is the score that you get to
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  use as your score for the game so there's an interesting balance there where if your second city
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  is the lower score for both you and your opponent then you have a tie and you have to see who do
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  better on your better city but I really like that balance because the game forces you to try to
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  keep them even, but I think the game if I'm going to point to one game that I think has the most
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  interesting win conditions this is the game Lords of Xidit. Now Lords of Xidit is a weird game it is a
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  programming game where you are arranging different adventurers and you're going around a map collecting
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  different kinds of points and there are three different ways that you can collect points as I recall
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  I don't remember the specifics of each one but there are three different ways you can collect
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  points you can put points in the wizard towers you can earn points from saving cities and
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  there's one other way that you can earn points and all but all three of these different point
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  structures you earn different amounts of them from different things you do and you get some flexibility
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  into like contributing them or whatever but your goal is to look at them in a variety of ways and the
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  game lists has all three metrics in order and what makes the game really interesting is that when you
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  get to the end of the game this is randomized which three is it is for second or third when you get
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  to the end of the game we examine scoring condition one first whichever of the three forms and
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  whomever has the worst score in that category is out of the running for winning the game
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  they're out of the game then we go on to category two we look at category two whoever has the worst
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  score of the remaining players in category two is out of running for winning the game then we go
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  on to category three of the remaining players whoever has the best score wins the game so that one is
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  really the lowest highest point what a fascinating score mechanism and boy does it bend your brain
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  when you're trying to decide where to put your energy to the point that for some people it ends up
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  being really hard to just figure out what you're supposed to be doing because it's so brain-vending
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  but it's really fun and I sure enjoy it so loads of zidit coolest scoring mechanism that I can point
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  to today so what games did I miss what games would you add what mechanisms would you add for cool
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  scoring mechanisms to think about these could be games where you win not having the most points but
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  I'd love to know what it is about specific sets of points that makes you think x y or z share your
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  thoughts over on board game geek and guild three two six nine and or send me a message wombat929
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  is my username there brendan@rattleboxgames.com is my email address I'd love to hear from you
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  to know what are your thoughts on these specific elements. well thanks for joining me on my walk today
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  so I hope you're next walk is as pleasant as mine was. Bye bye
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  - Brought to you by Rattlebox Games
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