Misrepresentation of ideal player counts in board games

So as summer comes to its annual conclusion, I decided to return to the roots of BGHaven and focus instead on an aspect of board gaming that I find consistently problematic. I am referring to the matter of player counts. There is a fine line between what can be considered a manageable, enjoyable game and a behemoth of a game with significant downtime verging on the intolerable. What I am hinting at here is the notion of the duration of a turn of play versus an optimal player count that does not lead to substantial downtime. As you will appreciate, turn-taking is subject to the ease with which players progress through a turn, the number of options and/or decisions faced during any given turn, as well as other contributing factors such as individual characters and propensity to overthink actions. So the issue does present itself as a composite of factors that manifest as a complex intertwined mesh of actions and processes.

To better understand the complexity of the matter, you need to break down a board game into its constituent components. When players engage with a board game during a session, they are essentially engaging their attention on many levels.

1.      They will typically manipulate gaming components in specific ways. There is a tactile element to the process, which is used primarily to remind the player of the initiation, ensuing decision process and completion of a given turn. I also include any upkeep tasks carried out in preparation for the subsequent round.

2.      They will refer to a set of rules linked to the game to execute the manipulations required during any given turn.

3.      Depending on the ruleset, players will also be expected to interact with other players as part of their turn. This interaction increases when one considers cooperative games that demand a certain amount of discussion before a final decision is taken by the active player.

4.      In most cases, they will experience a certain amount of player downtime in between turns.

5.      This downtime could be caused by any, or all, of the following issues.

a.      It could be caused because of the number of actions that would need to be taken per turn.

b.      It could be caused consequently by the learning curve required to fully understand the game.

c.      It could be caused because of indecision on the part of the active player which could in turn lead to a situation termed analysis paralysis.

Now that I have framed the interactions that are necessary during gameplay, let’s see how each of them could contribute towards establishing the ideal number of players.

So, while listed as point (1) above, the physical manipulation of gaming components is normally expected to happen following some rules-based decision taken by an active player. This physical manipulation can be a) preparatory, b) execution or c) housekeeping in nature. Preparatory actions are those actions taken mechanically, in line with game rules, but antecedent to the actual action taken by the player. Execution-based manipulation of components occurs when the active player decides what action to take on his or her turn. This is a manipulation players take for granted, as necessary, for the execution of a turn. Then there is the housekeeping manipulation of components. This takes place once the execution phase has been executed affecting the game state for that player.

Given these listed stages, one needs to appreciate that the more components a player needs to uniquely manipulate per turn, the more actively these actions will impact the duration of a turn. While it is tempting to design games that employ several components, the impact on turn duration needs to be kept actively in check. The reason here is obvious since there is a direct relationship between the turn duration for a given player and the downtime for the other players involved in a game.

The second point listed above refers to the ruleset employed. It is appreciable that the more extensive and unnecessarily verbose a ruleset, the steeper the learning curve. Keeping rules simple is an art unto itself. Yet some designers tend to forget this undeniable truth. Most of the timeless board game classics, that have survived the test of time, have the shortest rulesets. Think how simple it is to teach the rules of Checkers, Chess or Nine-Man Morris, it all boils down to stripping a game to its simplest purest form.

Some will argue that the purpose of a ruleset is not solely to explain the movements and processes but rather to weave a virtual world around the players, establishing context and purpose. For, apart from pure abstract strategy games, most games are built on a premise or theme that aims to weave a virtual world around the players, a fantastic illusion within which the game exists. I posit that this can still be achieved without standing in the way of clarity or ease of use. Ease of use is key here. During active play, participants need to find it easy to access key rules to determine the legitimacy of an action. This is more important during the early stages when players are still learning how to play. If the rules are unclear, interspersed with game-specific jargon or irrelevant blocks of text, they will become stumbling blocks rather than assist the flow of play. So, should designers simply give up on creating eye-catching or thought-provoking themes? Not at all! On the contrary, the theme or virtual world built should be offered a space but one which must in turn give way to practicality and common-sense design concepts. For example, the rulebook could be structured in such a way as to follow a logical and rational representation of the gaming process. Let us for a moment consider the following sequence:

1.      Brief introduction highlighting the world within which the game exists.

2.      A concise description of the game objectives and win conditions

3.      A review of the components used.

4.      A clear description of the setup process

5.      A breakdown of turn-taking including sequence of actions, available choices, and final housekeeping on turn conclusion.

6.      A comprehensive glossary of terms used within the scope of the game.

7.      A breakdown and illustration of any game-specific iconography used.

8.      An appendix offering a more in-depth foray into the world within which the game exists including any histories or flavour texts as required.

You will note that the structure puts more emphasis on pushing relevant gaming materials at the front of the rulebook with any further materials relegated towards the end of the publication.  This is not the perfect sequence but close enough. Some ruleset creators may, for instance, relegate points 6 and 7 to the very end of the rulebook for practical reasons. Others may opt to segregate the appendix mentioned in point 8 as a separate companion booklet further contracting the length and content of the main ruleset.  Others still may decide to create flashcards that summarise the turn-taking noted in point 5 as well as offer a summary of iconography used on the same flashcards. These are all stratagems aimed at simplifying the learning process and thus rapidly reducing downtime to what is essential for the game to proceed at a brisk pace. The third point raised above is player-to-player interaction. Along general lines, all games will demand some manner of player-to-player interaction, it's only the extent of the interaction that varies. In classical, two-player abstract games, interaction is mostly limited to responding to an opponent's moves once these have been completed. Yet in a modern Eurogame, the levels of interactions can be several, ranging from well-thought countermoves to specific actions taken which may or may not be directly influenced by an opponent's actions, to resource and worker management.

If we consider cooperative games, this level of player-to-player interaction necessarily balloons. Here players are encouraged to exchange ideas and opinions which could inform the final decision taken by the active player. The deeper the players are into a cooperative game, the more intense these discussions can get. While I have never been in a situation where time was called to hasten the decision process in a cooperative game, we got close!

All this leads to the notion of downtime. Reducing the amount of unproductive downtime is a real concern in most game designs. If players disengage from a game because they have nothing to do but wait, you have a real problem. Downtime can, in turn, be either “perceived” to be so on account of a player not fully appreciating the game, or “actual”, in the sense that even if the other players are efficient in executing their turn of play, the number of manipulations is such that downtime is still significant. While there is nothing one can do to address the former, actual downtime can be tackled by one of two methods.

At a very simple level, actual downtime can be reduced by reducing the number of actions needed to complete a turn. If a player needs to complete fewer actions to complete a turn, then the downtime experienced by the other players will be less. Another simple way to reduce downtime is to reduce the player count. This makes sense in that if you have a four-player game with each player taking two minutes to complete a turn efficiently, then each of those four players will have to experience a downtime of six minutes before they can get back to executing their next turn. There again I am assuming efficient play, if any of those four players take longer to execute a turn then the downtime will grow accordingly.

I have seen the effect of turn duration on player downtime in quite a few board games but nowhere was it more obvious than in deck builders like the card game “Ascension”. The game starts quite snappily, mostly because each player starts with a relatively small, standard, 10-card deck. The situation, however, does not last as, turn after turn, players acquire additional cards from the common marketplace. Added to that, the acquired cards can offer added actions when they are played, and each turn can become an extended process of cards calling out more cards which in turn leads to further actions. In a two-player game, the drawn-out turns, towards the latter stages of a match, can be considered quasi-acceptable. At higher player counts, however, it could turn into a downtime purgatory.

 

Yet there is one kind of action, which could be enacted by the active player, which is not easy to control. This is the time spent by the player in active deliberation, often consequently to indecision, sometimes termed “analysis paralysis”. Here we have a situation where a player ends up taking a disproportionate amount of time weighing options before deciding what action or line of thought to pursue. There is no real remedy to this phenomenon since this is often linked to an individual's character. Yet it is possible to perhaps curtail the negative effects by actively encouraging players to take shorter turns. This could be achieved to an extent by endorsing planning and being more decisive during their turn-taking. In extreme situations, analysis paralysis could affect the other players adversely. In particularly severe situations, the game coordinator could advocate the use of an egg timer to force the player to act and conclude the turn. One hopes that these situations never arise, but egg timers or stopwatches could become necessary if the offender keeps holding back gameplay with excessive deliberation time.

 

So, what can we take away from all this? Well, principally the number of game components, ruleset complexity, turn duration and by association downtime, can strongly influence the playability or enjoyability of a game at a given player count. Yet a balance needs to be struck by the designers between integrating enough actions to make a game engaging, while at the same time catering to the number of players necessary to make the game work. As we shall see, striking this balance can be achieved in various ways.

 

In truth, there are a few design hacks aimed at reducing downtime with higher player counts. For instance, some designers opt for some actions to be taken simultaneously or some actions could be taken in between turns or on other players’ turns. However, this stratagem may not always be feasible and may make sense only in so far as the selected actions do not offer one-sided advantages to the active player.

Another mechanism often implemented, and somewhat reminiscent of what I have just mentioned, is to offer piggyback actions on the decisions made by the current, active player. Here I would like to point out Tiny Epic Galaxies, which uses this mechanism in its gameplay. Furthermore, to reduce downtime, actions could be aggregated or moved to the upkeep or housekeeping stage of a turn. In this latter stage, no active decisions would be required, hence reducing downtime.

When cards are drawn, or actions are taken, towards the end of a turn, there will be a tendency for a player to work on the cards received “in between” their turns rather than “on their turn”. This will have the effect of keeping them engaged as they plan for their next turn, and they will also have a higher incentive to observe the plays made by others. The overall result is that of reducing perceived downtime by increasing player involvement.

However, there is a counter side to this strategy. Some players do not look forward to further decisions in between turns. These players see downtime as an opportunity to chat, stretch, or just disengage from the action at the table. In the case of these players, you will notice a tendency to adopt an aloof and detached approach to end-of-turn housekeeping to the point that they will frequently delay reviewing any new material or information right to the last possible second. Doing so, they end up still carrying out most of their decisions when the action at the table returns to them.

This brings us full circle to the purpose of, and limitations to, downtime. In most board games, downtime is fundamental to offer players some breathing space.  At the same time, gamer psychology plays an equally important role in the perception and utility of downtime. Players who are “always on” will find unnecessary downtime tedious. On the other hand, players who know how to utilize that same downtime to prepare for their next move could benefit from it. This does not mean that designers should not pay attention to curtail unwarranted downtimes but that they should aim for a style of action optimisation that does not impact gameplay.

To be fair with some of the best board game titles out there, this aspect of balancing downtime and player count is mostly taken seriously. Yet I feel that some titles fail to properly address the matter and present board games that essentially do not scale up properly from 2 to 3 or 4 players. What I normally do when I realise that a game works better at lower counts is to put a marker or reminder within the box for the next time, I play the game.

This is because, in truth, the player count on the box can be misleading. In most instances, the best way to determine the ideal player count is to playtest the game with different numbers of players. However, there are some further pointers you could use to guide you during the playtest which could save you some time.

Start by looking at the mechanism used in the board game under consideration.

For example, a game that requires lots of player interaction may work better with a larger group, while a game that utilises individual player boards may fare better with a smaller group. There are exceptions of course but along general lines this premise holds. A game like Mysterium for instance works best with larger player counts whereas games like Wingspan are ideally played with smaller player counts. I prefer 3-4 players for the latter and most probably 2- 3 players if you want to play a relaxed game with little downtime.

As can be seen from all I have presented here, addressing downtime is a complex affair that needs a holistic approach to be resolved. I have noted that changes to the ruleset or how these are presented could help reduce downtime. I also pointed out that depending on the mechanisms chosen, downtime itself could be used to carry out actions that might help reduce player inactivity in between turns. Yet there is so much one can do by tweaking rulesets and gaming mechanisms. To ensure downtime is kept to essentials one must also address time lost due to analysis paralysis. We saw that this too can be curtailed by adopting various strategies like the introduction of a timer as well as properly structuring rules and actions to facilitate understanding and learning.

Before concluding this foray into player counts and downtime, I wish to stress that despite what I have said here, there are games that truthfully reflect the player count as well as the anticipated game duration. Yet I feel that many designers need to clarify that their statements are a best-case scenario and do not reflect the realities faced by new players who might have just cracked open a board game for the first time. From experience, I think it would be fair to say that for first-time players, the game duration could be anywhere from two-thirds to twice as long as the duration reported on the box itself. For instance, a 45-minute game will most likely last 70 minutes, whereas a 120-minute game could well last close to 200 minutes when played for the first time.

I hope that you have found this foray into board game player counts both interesting and informative. I also hope that it will help to guide and inform your decisions when it comes to selecting a new board game to play with your gaming group.  Principally remember that you could face a situation where the recommended number of players on the box may not always be the optimal one when you sit down to play. Also, you can arrive at a realistic, optimal player count by considering “player turn duration” as well as downtime. Also, keep in mind that character and player psychology will impact both turn duration and downtime and that you may wish to take this into consideration when recommending a board game to a gaming group or determining the ideal player count. Ultimately try to bear in mind that playing a board game with first-time players will take longer than what it says on the box, so plan extra time for that. More importantly, always discuss these matters with your gaming group to make sure that expectations are met and that everyone has a great time.