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Transcript

The ‘Geek Asks 13 · Pick Up and Deliver

0:00
(soft music)
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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 out of the store
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and deliver an episode to you while I walk home.
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I'm Brendan Riley.
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(upbeat music)
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Well, good afternoon listeners.
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It's a lovely day here in suburban Chicago.
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The clouds are out, but just a little,
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it's kind of that wispy temperature
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or wispy cloud cover.
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Temperature is pretty nice.
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I'm feeling very comfy
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and I have a nice walk home.
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Well, it's been, I looked, it's been almost
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a hundred episodes or so since I did this last.
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I'm trying to do it less often
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'cause when I started doing it, that was really fun.
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And this is, it's time for another episode of The Geek Asks.
0:49
This is a particularly narcissistic approach
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to board game podcasting, which really feels like,
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"Ah, just chatting with my friends."
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'Cause what I do is I open up board game geek
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and I go to the recent posts forum
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and I scroll through and I look at the subject lines
1:06
of posts and without reading them,
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I respond to them as though they were questions submitted
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to me, to be answered by me here on the podcast.
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It is outrageous nonsense
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and I think really fun to do.
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I don't know why I enjoy it so much,
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but hopefully you enjoyed as well.
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If you wanna see the threads that I'm talking about,
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you can head over to board game geek guild 3269
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where you can find links to the threads on our show notes.
1:31
I will add that I've also begun once again
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making transcripts for the show notes and posting those.
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It is an annoying amount of time to do that,
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but and I suppose if I was willing
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to have the transcripts be not good,
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it would be almost no time at all.
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But the process is I upload the episode
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to the transcription site that I found
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where it will take your episode and transcribe it.
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And then I have to read through the transcript
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and fix things that don't make sense
2:00
because it got words wrong.
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The main thing is it gets names wrong
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and names of games wrong.
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And both of those don't work if you are not paying attention.
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The episode on Svensson and Østby for example,
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had all sorts of crazy nonsense
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whenever I would say their names.
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In fact, now that I've said their names,
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I have to go fix it in this transcript.
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So anyway, I read through the transcript
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and once it looks okay,
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I don't have time to read it perfectly,
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but I get it looking fine.
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Then I upload that as well.
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So if you're ever looking for a transcript of the show,
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they are available sometimes,
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but I'm trying to do that more often now
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because I've encounter people who are like,
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"oh, I'd like to hear your podcasts, but I can't hear.
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So is there anywhere I can read it?"
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And it stinks to say no.
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So I'm trying to fix that.
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All right, so let's jump into the geek asks.
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Once again, I am looking at the recent posts on board game geek
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and I am responding to the subject lines of the post
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as though it was a question asked of me.
3:01
Gamifying Candyland, a thought exercise.
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I think there's something worthy
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in thinking about gamifying Candyland, of course.
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The challenge is it feels like you've forgotten
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the purpose of Candyland,
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which is to entertain very, very young children.
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The Candyland is meant to teach like taking turns, basically.
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And the basics of like, I draw a card, I move my piece.
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So the problem with gamifying Candyland is that you are then
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making it not be Candyland.
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And if you're making it not be Candyland,
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then why gamify Candyland?
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Why not just make a new game that has the mechanisms
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you're thinking you would use instead of Candyland?
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So my main instinct and response to the idea
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of gamifying Candyland is, I don't think you should
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gamify Candyland.
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All right, paced on themes and rating games in genres you hate.
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Ooh, man, I think this is definitely going to go into
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a bucket of posts I want to pay attention to.
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I think what an interesting forum theme.
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So paced it on themes.
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I think, okay, I don't generally like a game
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where the theme is paced it on.
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For me, paced it on means they had a game
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and they came up with some sort of setting for it
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and they applied the setting to the game.
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The reason I generally don't like that,
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I mean, I don't have a big problem with it if it's a loose theme.
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Azul is an example.
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The theme of Azul is you are making a mosaic.
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Fine, it doesn't matter.
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Nobody plays Azul and feels like they're in Portugal, right?
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But it is nice for it to have some sort of thing
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that it's about, even if it's only the very loose.
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I don't have a problem with that.
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Where I don't like it is when they take a theme
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that is meant to generate a story or a narrative
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and they apply it to a game that isn't meant
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to generate a story or a narrative
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and then the game doesn't make any sense.
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The things you're doing in this game don't make any sense
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for the setting or the story that they've applied.
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It feels like I've heard something about how
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Stefan Feld games tend to be like this
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that Stefan Feld doesn't actually come up with themes at all.
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He just comes up with mechanisms
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and then the publishers come up with themes.
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I don't know if that's true.
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And I feel like it's probably less true lately
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than it used to be.
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Might maybe it used to do or maybe he does come up
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with a game first and then think about a theme that would fit.
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But like Trajan is an example of a game
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that I don't feel like the theme matters at all to Trajan.
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You're just playing a bunch of many games
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getting a bunch of points
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and the theme itself is nonsense.
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So I don't like that.
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What I do like is when the game, theme and mechanisms
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play off each other in a really thoughtful way.
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I would say Ark Nova is an example of this.
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I would say a lot of Vladimir Suchy's games
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are examples of this where the ideas behind the theme of the game
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shape the mechanisms that you interact with
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even if at some level they are weird.
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Like a Praga Caput Regni is an example of a game
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where the mechanisms don't entirely fit the theme.
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Why should each turn you be limited
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in which of the actions you can take?
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There's no narrative.
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We're not provided any narrative reason
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that you couldn't just take the gray build action every turn.
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But there are some things where you can't take it
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or you have to pay a bunch of money to take it.
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Why? I don't know.
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That part's not really explained.
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But the reason for the points
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meaning what they mean,
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I like that it has a historical basis
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even if it's pretty loose.
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Now, rating games in genres you hate.
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Oh, I'm a mixed opinion about this.
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On the one hand, I feel like your ratings in Boardgamegeek
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are there for you.
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The schema that Boardgamegeek has posted of what the ratings mean
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are entirely subjective.
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They are about my opinions of games.
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And so when I play a game, it makes sense that I would rate it.
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That's part of what's going on in Boardgamegeek.
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That's the idea.
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I'm rating the games, therefore me.
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And the conversation, the utility of that rating
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for other people is only good and so far
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as they have similar tastes to me.
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But the fact that that rating then aggregates
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and counts as a vote about the game
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is the place probably where this person is chafing.
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The idea that if I rate a game low,
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because I don't like that kind of game,
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Boardgamegeek gives that game a low rating,
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even though for people who do like that kind of game,
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maybe it's the best game.
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So I can see why the idea of rating games in genres you hate
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would not be appropriate.
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Now, I would counter, or I would say,
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reviewing games in genres you hate should be a no-no.
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And let me explain.
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This is a deep held opinion I've had for a long time
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because I used to read newspaper reviews of movies.
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And for two summers, I was working at this office
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where they had a copy of this one newspaper
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called the "Saint Paul Pioneer Press" in the break room.
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And so when I would be on my break,
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I would look through the paper
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and often I would read the movie reviews in that paper.
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And the lead reviewer would always review the movie
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that was gonna sort of break the most,
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have the most biggest box office that week.
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Like his review was always the top movie.
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And the thing is, often those were horror movies.
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This guy clearly didn't like horror movies.
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Like every review of a horror movie,
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he talked about how bad it was,
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and how dumb it was, or whatever, blah, blah, blah.
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But I feel like if you're reviewing something,
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you should be in the audience of the people
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who might like the thing.
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If you're reviewing a thing,
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and you're not the target audience,
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your review is not useful to the target audience.
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So I think that reviewing really ought to have a narrower subset
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or should really involve a careful consideration
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of how you review it.
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You might say, like I generally don't like horror movies.
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I saw this movie because of this and this,
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and turns out, yeah, I didn't like it.
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If you don't like horror movies, you probably wouldn't like this.
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You'll notice that often when I talk about a game,
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I will say if that kind of game is usually your taste,
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you might like it, or this game wasn't for me,
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but it might be for you if something I said described it well.
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Like, right?
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That is part of my review philosophy,
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even though I'm not generally doing reviews,
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I'm doing first impressions.
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So, yeah, I feel like you shouldn't rate games
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in genre's event.
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One person posted, "Hello,"
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and they introduced yourself for him.
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I will say back, "Hello."
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How would you approach designing a game
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that relies on a huge amount of cards?
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Well, there's two thoughts about this.
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One thought is, I think, as you are designing things,
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you should keep component counts in mind
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that a game's viability as a thing to shop around
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is shaped significantly by the components it uses.
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A game that uses more cards will cost more
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than a game that doesn't.
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That said, cards are pretty cheap.
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I mean, as far as game components go,
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cards are not very expensive.
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So, having a game that's a couple hundred cards,
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if that's the whole thing,
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it could still be a relatively cheap game.
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I mean, we got Skyjo, that's probably a hundred cards,
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and I think it was 15 bucks or something.
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So, if your game is just cards, great.
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Now, if your game is a ton of cards and minis
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and boards and tokens and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,
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well, then you're in a different place.
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So, I mean, my first thing would be,
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make the game you wanna make.
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You can have an eye toward components,
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but make the game you wanna make.
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Second thing is, think about whether you can increase
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the interest in the game, the replayability in the game,
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by making the cards multi-use.
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Are you sure you need a couple hundred cards?
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Is there a way you could get by with 100 of them?
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Or 104?
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I'm trying to remember the, it's good to know
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that the number of cards that are printed on a sheet,
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'cause that can make a difference in terms of pricing.
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So, I mean, the first thing I would do would be,
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I would really think about what I can do
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to making a game that fits the genre I'm going for.
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That's what I would do first.
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'Cause, you know, there's lots of good games
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with tons of cards.
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In fact, that's kind of a thing lately.
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Underwater Cities has a ton of cards.
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Ark Nova has a ton of cards.
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Terraforming Mars has a ton of cards.
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But, if you're making a really small game,
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you know, it's worth asking,
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like, why do you need all these cards?
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What is it that they're doing?
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How does having fewer cards make the game better or worse?
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Or whatever?
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So, that's, you know, it's very specific.
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Any D&D groups in hope?
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I mean, I think hope is the, is a central core value
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of D&D.
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I heard an interview with Brennan Lee Mulligan lately
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where he was talking about, he's a D&D role-playing person.
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He runs a number of live play,
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things most prominently on Dimension 20,
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on Dropout TV.
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And he talks about his philosophy of Dungeon Mastering,
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is that a good D&D game or a good role-playing story
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should present these moments of heroism
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in the moments of drama with real scary villains
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who do cause danger and there should be hope for the players.
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The players should have hope and a good story
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is often about hope.
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As I look at the heading here,
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I'm wondering if this person lives in a place called hope
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and is trying to find D&D groups to play with.
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That's probably what that means.
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Web app to visualize your collection.
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Interesting.
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This is exactly something that I am interested in.
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My son was saying he was thinking about a programming project
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where he could use the BGG app API
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to then build an interactive site for me to look at my collection.
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And wouldn't that be cool?
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Yes it would.
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Yes it would.
12:44
When you run out of chairs at the table,
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this is always an interesting challenge.
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I run a couple board game clubs
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and there's always the problem of people
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who show up 10 minutes after everyone else.
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So everybody gets into a game
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and then somebody shows up 10 minutes late.
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All the games have started at my board game club last night.
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We added people on.
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We had two people who became parts of teams in Clue.
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Other people were playing a party game
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that you could just kind of add people into as we went.
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And then we divided up into bigger groups
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and played other games and stuff.
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But I think if you start your game night
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with some games that have flexible player counts,
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that's a really good way to do it.
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Some party games or whatnot
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so that as people come in they can join.
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And then you can shift into a more complex game
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as time goes on.
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That's what you should do.
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I think that's really the way to go.
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So that's what I would do if I,
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if we have more people than we have spaces to play.
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But what do you literally do
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if you run out of chairs at the table?
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I mean that's hard if you have a small group
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and more people show up than you can seat.
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I don't know how you solve that problem.
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You go get a bucket from the garage
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or a folding chair or some chair from another spot.
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Feels like the way that you do that.
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I don't know if that, how that fits in terms
13:56
of what you're playing.
13:57
It can be a real bummer to show up late to game night
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and discover everybody's already in involved games
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and you've got half hour or an hour to wait
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before you get to play something.
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But you know, I mean such is the danger
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of going to a public event, I guess.
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What's your favorite game day food?
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I think this will be the last question of the show.
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I have a lot of different things.
14:16
I guess M&Ms.
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M&Ms are my favorite game day food.
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And they're immediately a snack, unhealthy,
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not a good choice if you're trying to watch what you're eating,
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trying to be thoughtful about your food intake,
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carrots are a better choice.
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Tomatoes are a better choice.
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But I really like M&Ms.
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I really like chips.
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When I'm eating chips and I'm playing games,
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I will eat chips with one hand and play games with the other.
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It's good to have some care
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with how you're handling people's game components.
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But generally, my favorite game day food is something tasty.
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I don't have a lot of picky stuff.
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I would be interested to the pickup and deliver community though,
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what kind of things do you like best to eat
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when you're playing games?
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Head over to board game geek guild 3269
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and share your thoughts there.
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I'd love to know.
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I'd also generally like to know what you think of the geek asks.
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It's been a year since I've done this, give or take.
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Is this a segment you'd tolerate two or three times a year?
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Or should I really hold off till I can't take it anymore?
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And then you'll tolerate it.
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Or do you skip it all away?
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If you skip it, you didn't hear this episode.
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So, ah, jokes on me.
15:21
Well, that's about it for me today.
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I'd love to hear from you over on board game geek guild 3269
15:26
We can send me a direct message,
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Wombat929 is my username there.
15:30
Thanks for joining me on my walk today.
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I hope you're next walk,
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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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Brought to you by Rattlebox Games.
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(upbeat music)