Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Polk5440]

Even in the base game you don't use all of the ports available (if you use the port tokens) -- but it's not really that much variety.

What version of Settlers are you playing?  There are nine ports (1 each of each resource, 4 of 3:1) and nine places for them.

In the last year I got a recent copy of the original and had a couple extra 3:1 tokens. Maybe I just got some extras?

It could also be that I don't always set up the ports correctly. That happens from time to time, too.

[eHalcyon]

Even in the base game you don't use all of the ports available (if you use the port tokens) -- but it's not really that much variety.

What version of Settlers are you playing?  There are nine ports (1 each of each resource, 4 of 3:1) and nine places for them.

In the last year I got a recent copy of the original and had a couple extra 3:1 tokens. Maybe I just got some extras?

It could also be that I don't always set up the ports correctly. That happens from time to time, too.

IIRC, the setup rule is just that no two ports are adjacent.  You alternate port and blank water.

[shMerker]

So what game, not designed by DXV and not a ripoff, has a known random component subset? 

The Chaos Pack for We Didn't Playtest This At All has a dozen or so cards. Each is essentially an extra rule for the game. The intended use is to have one or two randomly selected and put into play for a game and then replace them afterward.

Mario Golf has a mode called Club Slots where before each hole the players use a slot machine to select what clubs they'll be allowed to use. From the usual 14 you only get 3 plus your putter.

I suspect one of the reasons that the mechanic is so uncommon is that adding components to a game increases it's cost, so adding components that won't always be used is harder to justify.

[sudgy]

Oh, sudgy, you don't know what you've started.  Last time someone asked that question we got a whole thread out of it, and we didn't have as many sets back then.  Sample question: have you accounted for the extra games where Young Witch is in the Black Market?

Crap.  Didn't think about that, just said if it was taking 10 random cards from 205.  Oh well.

[LastFootnote]

I suspect one of the reasons that the mechanic is so uncommon is that adding components to a game increases it's cost, so adding components that won't always be used is harder to justify.

I think you're right. Yet doing so has the potential to significantly increase the replayability of the game. It's counterintuitive.

[ftl]

I bet the market incentive for making someone's first play memorable is much, much higher than the incentive for making sure that a game lasts for hundreds of plays. And it's a lot easier to playtest for testing that than for longevity.

[LastFootnote]

I bet the market incentive for making someone's first play memorable is much, much higher than the incentive for making sure that a game lasts for hundreds of plays.

Sure, if you're selling a standalone game. Not if you plan to sell expansions. If after a dozen plays they're still interested in the game, I'd imagine it's easier to sell them more of said game.

[Polk5440]

Magic. Sort of. The universe of cards is large; what's in your deck and your opponents' decks are limited. Depends how you construct decks, too. Drafting from boosters for example would qualify here, probably.

[blueblimp]

So what game, not designed by DXV and not a ripoff, has a known random component subset? 

I listed two earlier in the thread: Boggle (the available letters are chosen randomly, shown to all players, and every player has equal access to them); Race for the Galaxy: The Gathering Storm (the goals).

[popsofctown]

I'm not sure that random organization of the board is totally different from excluding part of the board.  What if you play Catan with Seafarers, and sometimes the Gold hex is so far from everything else no one is really going to build to it.  The Gold hex is essentially excluded. 

DXV is just more aggressive about modularizing his game is all. 

[popsofctown]

On that note, the newest Innovation expansion has a large stack of cards that are hard to draw from, so the ones on the bottom of the random ordering get essentially "excluded".  I think this will make it a much better expansion than the previous one, which made it very easy to draw all the cards from the first 3 ages.

[Ratsia]

I'm not sure that random organization of the board is totally different from excluding part of the board.

Related to that, Power Grid uses map exclusion to create variability. It is done only when playing with few players and only produces a few alternative versions, but still.

It's indeed interesting how few designers have followed Donald's idea. In terms of production cost it makes sense to avoid lots and lots of components that are not used in most games, but the success of Donald's games has shown that for quick enough games it works. For longer and heavier games small-scale exclusion has always been used (think about games like Arkham Horror where you randomly choose one opponent, or games with multiple scenarios), and quite likely large-scale exclusion would not be a good idea anyway -- especially for theme-rich games the box often anyway contains a lot of stuff and even if not excluding parts of them explicitly you will not see many of the components in any single game (think of Mage Knight and such).

[Tables]

Having given this a little more thought, I'd say these are the key things the DXV games have to give them their unique feel. Note I wouldn't say you necessarily need ALL of them, and occasionally some might get broken (think Black Market) but in general I think these are the things that matter.

Modular components: You only use some proper subset of the components each game

Large impact: The modular components selected are one of the most major impacts on the game. Games will play very differently depending on what components are selected. As an example, Terra Mystica has bonus tiles and scoring tiles, and they have a reasonably big impact on races and strategies. But their impact only really makes some strategies a little better or worse, it's rare for it to make specific strategies become suddenly much more powerful, and the like.

Visibility: I think this is key. While many other games might only see a small subset of components each game just by virtue of a deck being too big, or nobody activating certain mechanics or the like, the DXV games explicitly show you what's available and by deduction, what isn't. For example pops mentions Innovation - and while it's likely a lot of cards won't be drawn (heck, ~10% of the cards in base aren't available due to achievements), you don't know in advance - you can't plan for the fact that Gunpowder isn't in the game because it might be, every time.

Huge variety: A little hard to quantify, but the amount of possible options should be massive, typically in the millions or billions of possible options, just in the setup. For example, Tzolkin has its monuments, but you only ever select up to 6 from 13 - which is only about 1,700 different options.

[LastFootnote]

Having given this a little more thought, I'd say these are the key things the DXV games have to give them their unique feel. Note I wouldn't say you necessarily need ALL of them, and occasionally some might get broken (think Black Market) but in general I think these are the things that matter.

Modular components: You only use some proper subset of the components each game

Large impact: The modular components selected are one of the most major impacts on the game. Games will play very differently depending on what components are selected. As an example, Terra Mystica has bonus tiles and scoring tiles, and they have a reasonably big impact on races and strategies. But their impact only really makes some strategies a little better or worse, it's rare for it to make specific strategies become suddenly much more powerful, and the like.

Visibility: I think this is key. While many other games might only see a small subset of components each game just by virtue of a deck being too big, or nobody activating certain mechanics or the like, the DXV games explicitly show you what's available and by deduction, what isn't. For example pops mentions Innovation - and while it's likely a lot of cards won't be drawn (heck, ~10% of the cards in base aren't available due to achievements), you don't know in advance - you can't plan for the fact that Gunpowder isn't in the game because it might be, every time.

Huge variety: A little hard to quantify, but the amount of possible options should be massive, typically in the millions or billions of possible options, just in the setup. For example, Tzolkin has its monuments, but you only ever select up to 6 from 13 - which is only about 1,700 different options.

I think this is a good list, but I would define the fourth tenant slightly differently. I would say that the raw number of combinations of options is less important than how many of the total options you use in each game. Donald X. games seem to use less than half (sometimes far less) of the modular components in each game. I think this is a big part of what makes each game feel so different. Having 25 cards and using 20 of them each game is going to start feeling samey way before using just 10 of them. Or having 12 and using 10 for that matter; that gets old fast.

[Tables]

Having given this a little more thought, I'd say these are the key things the DXV games have to give them their unique feel. Note I wouldn't say you necessarily need ALL of them, and occasionally some might get broken (think Black Market) but in general I think these are the things that matter.

Modular components: You only use some proper subset of the components each game

Large impact: The modular components selected are one of the most major impacts on the game. Games will play very differently depending on what components are selected. As an example, Terra Mystica has bonus tiles and scoring tiles, and they have a reasonably big impact on races and strategies. But their impact only really makes some strategies a little better or worse, it's rare for it to make specific strategies become suddenly much more powerful, and the like.

Visibility: I think this is key. While many other games might only see a small subset of components each game just by virtue of a deck being too big, or nobody activating certain mechanics or the like, the DXV games explicitly show you what's available and by deduction, what isn't. For example pops mentions Innovation - and while it's likely a lot of cards won't be drawn (heck, ~10% of the cards in base aren't available due to achievements), you don't know in advance - you can't plan for the fact that Gunpowder isn't in the game because it might be, every time.

Huge variety: A little hard to quantify, but the amount of possible options should be massive, typically in the millions or billions of possible options, just in the setup. For example, Tzolkin has its monuments, but you only ever select up to 6 from 13 - which is only about 1,700 different options.

I think this is a good list, but I would define the fourth tenant slightly differently. I would say that the raw number of combinations of options is less important than how many of the total options you use in each game. Donald X. games seem to use less than half (sometimes far less) of the modular components in each game. I think this is a big part of what makes each game feel so different. Having 25 cards and using 20 of them each game is going to start feeling samey way before using just 10 of them. Or having 12 and using 10 for that matter; that gets old fast.

Very good point. Yeah, I think you've hit the nail on the head. I was trying to think to myself, why don't the bonus cards in TM feel quite the same, and the reason is you typically use about 7 of 9. Using a much smaller fraction as well as having a huge number of possible combinations combines to give great replayability I think.

[popsofctown]

You raise a good point about forward knowledge of how things have changed.  That's pretty key to opening up new strategies.  Unfortunately even if Gunpowder is removed and in the achievements, the best way to play is to assume it isn't.

Games like Smallworld give you a limited forecast of what's coming up.  But it's impossible to strike a perfect balance between information overload and imperfect knowledge about what components are included