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[TiGD] Sources of tension

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jwarrend
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Many of us who enjoy German-style games appreciate the interesting and challenging decisions that these games present us. As we try to create games that present our players with tough decisions, it would be useful to know some of the sources of tension that lie behind these decisions and give them meaning.

As someone once said to me, even Candyland presents the player with decisions -- what hand to move your pawn with, what side of the draw pile to discard cards onto, etc -- it's just that these aren't terribly interesting decisions. This founders an important principle, that a decision, in and of itself, is not an inherently desirable entity. Rather, something must lie behind that decision; something must be motivating it. I'll list a few common ones, and ask that folks please contribute others that you can think of! Note: these aren't mutually exclusive; a game, or even a mechanic, may feature more than one of these.

Press your luck A course of action having a random factor has some non-zero probability of failure, yet continuing to take the action brings a desirable reward. The player must decide whether to "quit while he's ahead", or continue to take the action and try to increase his reward.

Examples of games that have this sort of tension include Can't Stop, Diamant, and of course, the TV game show of the same name.

High noon Two or more players have the same desirable action available, and the first one to take it incurs some sort of risk or penalty such that players don't want to be the first to take the action.

An example is the set collection aspect of Risk -- the first player to turn in a set of cards gets extra armies (a good thing), but this opens the door for other players to receive even more armies when they turn in sets; therefore, it's desirable to not be the first to turn in a set.

The building aspect of Carcassonne is also an example of this; if you have claimed a city, you want to make it as big as possible before completing it so as to max out your points, yet failing to complete it leaves the door open that another player could weasel his way into your city scoring. (this feels a bit like "press your luck" as well, actually...)

I think that he thinks that I think that he thinks.... The outcome of a decision you will make will be influenced by a simultaneous decision that another player or players will make. Hence, you try to anticipate what the other player(s) will do, but because you know that they are trying to do the same thing, you also try to calculate what the other player(s)
think that you are going to do.

The best example of this is the contest between Vizzini and the Dread Pirate Roberts in "The Princess Bride". In game terms, Rock Paper Scissors is the distilled essence of the mechanic, and any game with a simultaneous combat resolution mechanic, such as Lord of the Rings: the Confrontation and A Game of Thrones, will have this element. Really, any game with simultaneous decisions would have this.

Not enough resources This is the classic "German game" source of tension: you don't have enough resources to do everything that you want to. This isn't restricted to quantity of resources, but may also pertain to type as well; in a game with 4 resource types, it may only be possible to acquire two or three types at a time, restricting your options. Examples of this abound, and include Puerto Rico, Settlers of Catan, and even Monopoly.

Not enough time This is a close relative of "not enough resources", if one says that time is a resource. The idea here is that the number of turn actions you have available is limited, and so again, you can't do everything you want to.

Examples of this include Acquire's restriction of only 3 stock purchases per turn, Wallenstein's limit of one action per territory per turn, and Tikal's limit of 10 action points per turn.

Petty diplomacy This is probably more of a play style than a source of tension, but many games that include combat force a player to answer the question, "whom shall I attack?" Often, the answer is "the person that just attacked me, to pay him back for attacking me". Unfortunately, this isn't often a route to winning the game, however, it's such a visceral human reaction to fire back at someone who has just attacked us that at the very least, it can lead to a challenging decision -- get revenge, or pursue victory?

What other sources of tension can people think of?

-Jeff
Marked by Darkehorse as wiki fodder

zaiga
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[TiGD] Sources of tension

Perhaps this thread had a bit of a misleading title as there can be sources of tension that have nothing to do with tough decisions. Example: rolling the dice in Candyland or Settlers can be a tense moment ("anything but 7!"), but of course, this has nothing to do with what makes an interesting decision.

There's one principle that is at the base of each tough decision, and that is uncertainty. It may be uncertainty in the short run - like deciding to roll the dice in Can't Stop, which is a tactical decision - or uncertainty in the long run - like choosing which building to build in Puerto Rico, a strategic decision.

There are two things that make the outcome of a decision uncertain. The first is luck (rolling dice, drawing cards, etc), the second is unpredictable actions of other players. The examples you give have their roots in either one, or both of these types of uncertainty.

One final ingredient that is needed to create tension is competition. You not only need to make tough decisions, you need to make better decisions than your opponents. I would argue that this is variation on the principle of uncertainty through player interaction.

Example of games with little to no luck, and no player interaction save competition would be puzzle type games like Set, Turbo Taxi and Ricochet Robot.

Example of games with luck, but no player interaction save competition: Yahtzee, Can't Stop.

Emphyrio
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[TiGD] Sources of tension

How about short-term vs. long-term -- you have a choice of mutually exclusive actions such that one is certain (or very likely) to improve your short-term position or score, while another may lead to greater long-term success, but with a possibility of failure. This is similar to "press your luck", but involves two or more courses of action. For example, in RoboRally, when you land on a double-wrench space, you can either repair 2 points of damage (short-term benefit) or take an option card (long-term benefit, but you may get a relatively worthless card, and you have to manage with your current level of damage).

Build or attack? Again, you have a choice of mutually exclusive actions, where one may directly improve your own position or score, and another will hamper or worsen another player's position or score. A simple example of this is Mille Bornes, where you can either play a mileage card to get closer to your goal, or play an accident/out of gas/etc. card on another player to slow them down. In multiplayer games (Drakon is a good example), you can often manipulate this to force another player to "attack" someone who is about to win while you move yourself closer to winning.[/i]

Anonymous
[TiGD] Sources of tension

In the game medina you must choose either you should claim an palace or wait a little longer with the risk that someone else will take it.

Anonymous
[TiGD] Sources of tension

Another way to create tension:

Create an enemy against wich al players have to fight, in the fight you will have to help each other but you also want to have the best resources or countries or whatever. So how much do you help the other players, what do you keep for yourself and what do the other players got?

The idea is from Rick-Holzgrafe, after reading "agent in place" I found this idea from him.

larienna
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[TiGD] Sources of tension

In duel master there are some example of tension moments:

Each turn you can sacrifice one of your card and place it in your mana zone. It will then be used as a "land". The problem is that you generally always have good cards in your hand and you can't set your mind on which card would be best to sacrifice since you want to keep them all.

Another moment of tension is when you hit a shield. Everybody want to know if it is a shield trigger card and what effect will occur. Some times it can reverse the outcome of the game. (Shield trigger mean that when the card shield is broken, if this cards is a Shield trigger spell, it can be cast instantly for free).

I agree that theire is 2 type of tension : The "strategic thinking" and the "waiting for the result".

Challengers
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Tension and the Meta-Game

Chess (and any other tournament-type game) is notorious for what I call Petty Diplomacy's evil twin: Grand Diplomacy. So-called for the Grandmasters who practice it (as well as being the antonym of petit), Grand Diplomacy is the practice of playing a few opening moves and then making a draw offer. This is based on the fact that money is at stake in the tournament and the fact that draws count as half a win in the rankings.
The tension transcends or rather, subverts, the game of chess, in that it is not inherent in either player's ability to actually play the game. However, in the absence of rules prohibiting it, the Grandmaster Draw is an essential strategy for the tournament player.

Mitch

Xaqery
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[TiGD] Sources of tension

Mitch has made me think of money games and decision / tension.

1 - Backgammon has the doubling cube. This is a very clever game mechanic that has tension and decisions. Of course this is like press your luck.

2 - Poker (the VERY popular Holdem basement games) has lots of tension and decisions with the possibility of bluffing.

- Dwight

jwarrend
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[TiGD] Sources of tension

Thanks to all who have responded; I'm glad there's some interest in discussing this topic. I should clarify a bit what I am looking for in replies. To whatever extent possible, I'd like us to come up with sources of tension that are broadly applicable, elements that are common to several games (or one or two extremely well-known ones). The reason for this emphasis is that there are as many sources of tension as there are games, but I'd like to try to focus on broad themes in game design rather than simply compiling a list of the decision points in games we're each familiar with. However, I also don't want to zoom all the way out to the level that zaiga mentioned, where the two ultimate source of tension are randomness and interaction; I think it's a valid pursuit to get more specific than that, as the different sources of tension are different in feel within those broad categories.

Thanks for the replies! Keep them coming!

-Jeff

mawibse
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[TiGD] Sources of tension

I think Xaqery mentioned an important source of tension: Bluffing.

Also highly player interactive diplomacy and trading can be a great source of tension. (bhonanza, Settlers)

zaiga
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[TiGD] Sources of tension

Set collecting. Trying to complete a set of things together before the end of a round, the end of the game, before a scoring opportunity, before an opponent does, or simply as soon as possible. An incomplete set is worthless, or at least much less useful than a complete set. Many examples: Settlers, Traumfabrik, etc.

Win-or-lose. When you fulfill a certain condition before a certain point of time in the game you score a number of points (or gain some other beneficial thing). If you fail to fulfill the condition you lose that many points (or lose some kind of resource). Examples: Ticket to Ride.

Majority. Having the most of something (compared to other players) gives you some kind of benefit. A second place is worthless, or is much less useful than the majority. The tension here comes from the question if, and how hard your opponents are willing to fight for the majority. How much should you invest to try to dissuade your opponents from fighting? In short, uncertainty through player interaction. Again, many examples: Union Pacific, Acquire, etc.

I'm sure I can come up with many more, given some time. Perhaps it's interesting to take a well-known game and try to determine where the tension in that game comes from.

sedjtroll
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[TiGD] Sources of tension

Forced Moves:
There can be some tension when you MUST make a move and you have either several equally good moves. Or similarly, no good moves. In some cases whether the move is good for you or not, it helps opponents, and some moves help opponents more than others.

An obvious example here is Puerto Rico's role selection.

Another source of tension, for which I can't thnk of a succinct name offhand... oh, wait:
Multitasking: You're trying to do several things at once, and any given move furthers only 1 or some of the agendas but not all of them. That's where the tension comes from in All For One (if you have read about it) - you have several missions you could be working on, so each turn you have to decide which to work on. It seems to work well. A commercial example might be the Auctions/Actions in Princes of Florence - you want to play your different Profession cards, and you want to satisfy their requirements, so do you bid on the Park, or the Lake? Do you buy the Studio? Or Religion?

- Seth

zaiga
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[TiGD] Sources of tension

sedjtroll wrote:
Forced Moves:
There can be some tension when you MUST make a move and you have either several equally good moves. Or similarly, no good moves. In some cases whether the move is good for you or not, it helps opponents, and some moves help opponents more than others.

What about Pueblo? In that game whenever you must place one of your own colored blocks, it's almost always a bad thing. In that case you are looking for the move that hurts yourself the least. Perhaps this could be described as Hurt Yourself. Something like this is at work in Acquire as well. Often you want to enlarge a chain, but doing so will make stock in that chain more expansive as well. This means that you want to place another block first, but that often means helping another opponent, which you do not want to do either.

Quote:
Multitasking: You're trying to do several things at once, and any given move furthers only 1 or some of the agendas but not all of them. That's where the tension comes from in All For One (if you have read about it) - you have several missions you could be working on, so each turn you have to decide which to work on. It seems to work well.

This is a good one. Perhaps it's an offshoot of Limited Actions (did we have that one already?). There are many examples for this. Through the Desert springs to mind, you have five caravans to take care of, but you may place only two camels per turn. Something similar is at work in Euphrat & Tigris, where you may have four leaders on the board and four colors to work on, but have only two actions per turn.

jwarrend
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[TiGD] Sources of tension

zaiga wrote:
sedjtroll wrote:

Multitasking

This is a good one. Perhaps it's an offshoot of Limited Actions (did we have that one already?).

Sort of; I offered "not enough time" which basically conveyed the idea of wanting to do more than you're allowed to. Any of these labels are appropriate.

I think there's a very, very slight distinction between "not enough time/limited actions" and "multitasking". The former puts emphasis on what you're able to do, while the latter puts emphasis on what you need to do. For example, in Chess, you're only allowed one move per turn -- you'd really like 6 or 7, ideally, so this is a case of limited actions. But, there's no multitasking element to Chess, really; there's only one thing you're trying to accomplish (arrange your pieces in a desired configuration). In most games, tension arising from limitations and from a need to make progress on several fronts will go hand-in-glove, but they are slightly different.

-Jeff

larienna
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[TiGD] Sources of tension

I think for creating tension with multitasking, is when you have a lot of things to think about and you cannot coordinate you mind to manage everything efficiently. It could create some sort of tension.

Challengers
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[TiGD] Sources of tension

jwarrend wrote:
For example, in Chess, you're only allowed one move per turn -- you'd really like 6 or 7, ideally, so this is a case of limited actions. But, there's no multitasking element to Chess, really; there's only one thing you're trying to accomplish (arrange your pieces in a desired configuration). In most games, tension arising from limitations and from a need to make progress on several fronts will go hand-in-glove, but they are slightly different.

-Jeff

Hmm... are you saying that the only goal in chess is to arrive at a particular configuration, and that its tension does not arise from the need to make progress on several fronts?
I may be misunderstanding, but it seems like you're saying that since chess doesn't have multitasking, then the only tension it has arises from limitations. Or perhaps you are loosely equating multitasking with the concept of needing to make progress on several fronts.

If you define multitasking as simultaneous execution of one or more moves in a single turn, then I agree that chess has no multitasking elements in the context of creating tension (notwithstanding the rare opportunity to castle while simultaneously giving check!)

If you define multitasking as I do: being overloaded with more than one worthwhile task at a time then I would say that chess has quite a few multitasking elements.
Beginners are taught to Control the center, Develop their pieces and Castle the king to safety. During the flurry of opening moves, especially against a stronger player, the beginner invariably neglects at least one of these tasks. Soon, he finds his pieces trapped behind immovable pawns and his king is under siege. Each turn, he has to try to extricate one of his pieces, but he also has to keep an eye on the threats to his king. Indeed, at every level of play, this constant balancing act ("tension"?) between offensive (tactical) and defensive/prophylactic moves and watching the clock (in a timed game) are multitasking elements.

Finally, a forking attack represents a multitasking piece, while a "discovered" check, with a simultaneous secondary attack by the moving piece represents a multitasking opponent :)

Mitch

jwarrend
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[TiGD] Sources of tension

Challengers wrote:

Hmm... are you saying that the only goal in chess is to arrive at a particular configuration, and that its tension does not arise from the need to make progress on several fronts?

Two part question; part a, the answer is unequivocally yes. Part b, my answer is "sort of". Of course there are times when there are more than one piece you'd like to move (you'd like to attack with your queen but must instead move your rook to get it out of trouble). But it's usually possible to find a "best move" (which is why computers can play so well, and why memorization of positions is so useful at the highest level of play). The dilemma is you'd like to do this, then that, then that, but you're only allowed to do the first of these before your opponent moves.

I think that this is a mostly semantic argument; if we're talking simply about "wanting to do more than you're allowed", or what I called "not enough time", than of course chess has this. It's only if we want to break it down further into whether the tension comes more from the restriction on actions or from the variety of desired fronts on which to make progress, that I think chess tends more toward the former. I'm not criticizing chess so much as trying to come up with an example to illustrate what is, I think, a completely hair-splitting distinction.

But for comparison, consider a game like Puerto Rico, where you're trying to develop a production infrastructure, build a city, staff your buildings and plantations, ship your commodities, etc. Now that is multitasking! Chess doesn't have this kind of variety, and therefore, doesn't have multitasking in the same sense, to me.

-Jeff

Triktrak
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[TiGD] Sources of tension

Call me Captain Obvious but I think this has been overlooked: The uncertainty (with the possibility) of winning the game builds tension.

Think about games you have been bored with, many of them probably are ones where who is going to win is a forgone conclusion, and you are just sitting there going through the motions hoping those with still a fighting chance will go ahead and win, so you can play something else.

In many good games, everyone still has a chance of winning right up till the end of the game, German style games are known for this since they usually take out the elimination factor. In some games the game mechanics create a sort of fog-of-war where you can't be certain what you are doing is going to pay-off until later, so at least you think you have the posibility of winning.

Slot machines are creatures that feed off of this tension; that that next pull could be the winner.

People also get much more worked up about a close game, sporting event, accident or whatever than a blowout.

FateTriarrii
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[TiGD] Sources of tension

Well, I am not the one who started this thread, but looking at the responses and first post, it looks like it should be called something closer to "tough decisions." So what you say is very true, Triktrak, and a good point. I believe that the "fog of war" effect actually could be another tough decision. In many games you are given a few different choices and your opponent's future decisions influence which choice is best (such as in Scrabble). This may fall under the "he thinks I think he thinks..." category, however.

jwarrend
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[TiGD] Sources of tension

FateTriarrii wrote:
Well, I am not the one who started this thread, but looking at the responses and first post, it looks like it should be called something closer to "tough decisions."

There's certainly a relationship, but the thrust of this thread is to get at what lies behind the tough decisions; what makes them tough? If the thread were strictly about tough decisions, we'd get replies like this: "Well, in Puerto Rico, you have to decide whether to produce Corn or Sugar or Coffee". But why is that tough? What is in tension that makes you want to do all of these; what is it that motivates you to choose one or the other? And most importantly, are there broad trends across a variety of games?

Hope this explains the distinction. It's subtle, but there's definitely a difference between the topics.

Quote:
The uncertainty (with the possibility) of winning the game builds tension.

I suppose I should clarify a bit. My use of the word "tension" isn't exactly meant to connote "excitement" or "suspense", or at least, not exclusively. Rather, I have in mind the more literal sense of the word, the idea of different factors "pulling" you in different directions, influencing how you'll make a decision. In that sense, a slot machine would not be a game with any tension, because there are no decisions to be made.

-Jeff

zaiga
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[TiGD] Sources of tension

Another one I just thought of, perhaps a controversial one, is: imperfect memory. There could be tension in trying to remember whether an opponent already played a certain card, or trying to remember if he drew certain tiles, how many caballero's he tossed into the tower, etc.

Horoku
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I agree

zaiga wrote:
Another one I just thought of, perhaps a controversial one, is: imperfect memory. There could be tension in trying to remember whether an opponent already played a certain card, or trying to remember if he drew certain tiles, how many caballero's he tossed into the tower, etc.

I love playing cards, and card counting brings that factor right into the fore.

To this end, I was thinking of Faith In Self: The tension between what you feel you can do safely, and what you may be able to extend yourself to do for a greater payoff. (This is often found in dexterity games like Pilch Car and Hamster Rollen.) "If I try to go for a strong flick, I may knock the red car off the track, but if I miss, I may end up flying off the track myself..." This seems to cause you to second guess yourself, because unlike a roll of the dice which is random, YOU control your own hands, feet, etc. Of course, this also means you can't blame the dice if you fail...;)

And what about Turn Order: While there is no REAL way to predict the best place to sit, how many times have you had to sweat because "If player G takes that token I'm after, I'll have to switch to plan B, but if Player F has some cards, then maybe I can..." This can be linked to other player's actions, but in games like Ticket to Ride, Puerto Rico, or even the lengthy Twilight Imperium; if a person who wants the same things/roles/events as you is sitting right next to you, it can create some tense moments. I guess really this is like a hybrid of "I think he thinks" and "Player Interaction".

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