Games without winners

Can a game be competitive and have no winner or loser?

If you're making a board game about it, there had darn well better be, or else the universal reaction will be "why the heck am I playing this?"

I think that a game understood in the common sense implies, at the least, a goal that is set before the players; an objective. What you refer to as the "parachute game" is really more what I would consider to be "play". And I think it stretches the language beyond the point of usefulness to consider all types of play to be "games".

Now, there are games where the objective is secondary to the activity of the game itself. Party games are a good example of this -- often the social interaction is the point, and the goal is just tacked on, but isn't central to the fun of the game. But it's still important. In Apples to Apples, e.g, you don't care who wins, but if there was no concept of "winning" in the game, it would simply be an activity, and would fall flat.

But is it possible to have a game, in the conventional sense, without a goal being set before the players (achievement of which would connote "winning")? I don't really think so. The more important question is, "would anyone want to play such a creation?" Can you think of an example where anyone would?

Just my thoughts. It's an interesting question.

-Jeff

I asked the question because the only game I see being a GAME and having no winners are the creative social games where everybody make something together... such as a story or a drawing.

The obvious equivalent to the console-wars 'game' is poker (not the tournament elimination variety). The companies don't care about being ranked #1 except insofar as it results in them making as much money as they possibly can. As I understand it, the status of a unique 'winner' has been made to be psychologically important over the centuries in large part through offsetting the declining popularity of gambling on the results of the game. Just have an ante enough that the players feel each point and you'll move into a different style of play...(May not be legal in all locations. Some restrictions apply. For external use only. Beware of lint.)

Jeff hit the nail on the head for me. "Game" and "play" are not synonymous terms.

And then everyone else hit the nail on the head: the definitions are tricky!

Good observations Mitch :)

Yes, but because there is clear ranking in The Great Dalmuti, it's actually fairly easy to quantify how well or otherwise players have done (it often devolves to a scoring system that rates people on how they have moved, rather than necessarily their final positions since once you are at the top a competent player should stay there.) But you are playing to improve your position and there are strategic and tactical judgements to be made in reaching that point.

Instead, I would proffer Fluxx as a better example of a game that isn't a game. It clearly has a very defined ruleset, and there is equally clearly an endpoint and a winner. But anyone who has played it would agree that it cannot possibly be said to have any real strategic or tactical element; OK, it has a minor tactical element but not really one that affects the outcome that much!

p.s. My posting yesterday about Apples to Apples got lost somewhere, so I'll try again. I think A2A is actually an excellent example of an "activity" that is enjoyable regardless of whether you put a scoring system and/or an endpoint on it. It would be easy to add more complexity to A2A by e.g. adding a scoring track that restricts types of cards according to where particular markers are at the time - an approach taken by similar packaged party games such as Pictionary or Scattergories - but (imo sensibly) they decided not to take that approach.

Let me toss in a couple of examples here...

There are a few games out there in which one player will not necessarily win the game. In Piranha Pedro, the game ends with one "loser," and all other players share the victory. Betrayal at House on the Hill will either end with one "loser" or one "winner." In the case of multiple victors triggered by one player losing the game, it's difficult to tell who the single winner is.

Also, we may want to toss campaign-style games here. I'm still working on my GDW game, Championship Dynasty, in which each player runs a sports team and tries to win three league championships. However, the three is arbitrary, and if I don't screw up the design, players should be able to resume a previous game from scratch, ending the session when a single player wins three more championships. Thus, you have an individual "session winner," but in the grand scheme of things, there is no winner or loser - everyone is playing to experience the ups and downs of a professional sports dynasty, watching players enter the league, age, and retire. If I can make it anywhere near as compelling as a computer GM game (Championship Manager, Out of the Park Baseball, Front Office Football), then I think it will succeed on both counts.

On that note, we can step outside boardgaming for a second and look at RPGs. No single winners or losers there - everyone plays for the experience (points).

So to me, a ranking system is important. Most board games have a specified end and use the ranking system to determine the final scoring. But if extended to a campaign setting, then a gaming session ends at an arbitrary moment. Ranking can occur as a short-term payoff, but the long-term reward will be seeing the campaign's "storyline" (whether scripted or just watching empires rise and fall) develop.

Hmmm.
On what do you base the idea that an RPG'er who keeps getting killed would not consider such a series of events as "losing"? Or, if the quantifiable outcome is to achieve some über-rank via the aforementioned experience points, could it not be stated that attaining such exalted rank constitutes "winning"? In both cases, the affected player no longer has an incentive to continue the game.

Mitch

Yet I would argue that The Sims is an excellent example of a computer toy, something that's in a different class than a computer game. I suspect, from interviews that I've read, that Will Wright, its inventor (along with other computer toys that were a little more game like, including SimCity) would agree.