I have heard a lot of comments where people say that cooperative games are like puzzle where you play against a system and that those games are not real games where you play against a real player.
Now I was wondering, what is the fondamental difference if there was a real player making the choice. For example, take "Shadows over camelot", compare the regular game where the black cards are played randomly, vs an alternate game where a player would have a hand of 5 black cards and choose which card to play.
What are the differences?
Sure, when using a real player as a villain, there could be more forward planning. He could set aside some cards, to try to push finish certain quest in priority to others. Maybe that could be the element that make the system feel less like a system. But that player can make errors and bad decisions too, so the advantage that a player could make better decision could be negated if he makes error.
In both games, the card play is the same, 1 black card is played each turn. The only difference is that one is random, and the other is not. Randomness implies that you will not always get the best card play, but sub-optimal card play is also possible when playing against a player. On the other hand, it could be possible that randomness creates a cardplay as good as a player.
Personally, I think the difference is psychological. Because if you have a real player as opponent, you can taunt him, you can try to mind read him, etc. But that does not change the game play. In fact I suspect (hypothesis) that playing against a player villain that simply put the top card drawn from the deck by assuming that he is actually making a choice would still give the players the feeling of not playing against a system even if they actually are.
That could be something worth experimenting.
Hmm! It's like if at it's fundamental states, games where puzzles. Then you could add various elements to the game to unpuzzle-ify the game:
- More players
- More interaction
- Randomness
- etc