Board Game Designers Forum

Matthew Rodgers post made me think of Matt Leacock's video about what went into creating Pandemic. If you have 50 minutes its definitely worth a watch. For those that don't have the time, reproduced here are the =Decision= do's and don'ts.

Each entry has a little cryptic entry followed by a game as an example.

Decisions TODO

• Resource Trades When to trade what to whom? Think Catan.
• Risk vs Reward Safe vs danger to get small or larger reward. Like in Risk maybe?
• Choice of Actions Want to do many things but cannot do them all. Agricola.
• Short Term vs Long Term Nice now or better later? I struck a blank. Can anyone think of a game with this in?
• Social information Dishonesty vs honesty. This one seems a bit meta-gamey to me but still valid. Diplomacy.
• Dilemmas Give up one of multiple things you really want. Battlestar Galactica.
• Emotional Decisions I add this here since I rather enjoy having some players battle with taking what is might be a good move, mechanically speaking, but which is has some negative emotional connotation. e.g. leaving a buddy behind in favor of better resources. Though this doesn't always work because some people just have no feelings. Game suggestion anyone?

Each entry has a little cryptic entry followed by how to fix it if you find it in your game.

Decisions DO NOT DO

• Meaningless Decisions "False Distinctions". This is a choice of two things that are actually the same. These should be removed.
• Obvious Decisions "Strict Domination". There is only one "right" answer or "best" strategy. These decisions should be automated.
• Blind Decisions There is no information to make a decision. These decisions should be randomized instead. There are probably the hardest to identify as some seemingly blind decisions actually have valid strategies available through the metagame e.g. rock/paper/scissors

Do you have any decision do's and don'ts to share?

Until next time

-H