Last Week's Games: Speculating on the merits of luck vs skill in tabletop games.

I found myself thinking about luck vs skill when it comes to hobby games, in the light of some of the things that have been happening in my house and in the wider gaming community. The argument is as old as games themselves but for those of you who might not know: In almost every game you play, there is an element of luck. Traditionally this is done through dice or cards, and lately certain games have mobile apps that can handle a lot of the random number generation those items provide. The games that are reliant on luck – Snakes and Ladders, for example – are usually easy enough to play, but they’re often less engaging in the long term (or even to the end of the game!) because the players never really feel like they’re in control of what’s going on. On the other hand, games that rely entirely on skill – Chess is probably the most obvious example – are potentially more engaging but as the player base is highly skilled, it also has a higher barrier for entry which makes the game hard to access in any enjoyable way. 

This came up in the news this week where I noticed that SteamForged games are bringing their support of their game Guild Ball to an end – a game that’s been going for six years that I meant 

Apparently these two are called
Ox and Shark. I never knew.

to try at some point but never got around to giving it a go. Since I never played the game, I’m going mainly on what they’ve said in their blog that covers it, but a lot of the problem was that Guild Ball relies almost entirely on the skill of their players to play the game. To echo the article, this created a situation where you would win your first game – the ones that the developers showed you how to play – and lose your next hundred, as you faced off against player after player who had been playing the game a lot longer than you, knew exactly what they were doing and what they needed to do to win. There was nothing in between; no lower class of players that would happily have a casual game you could just enjoy. You learned to play, and then you were in with the big boys who would show no mercy. A high barrier to… not necessarily entry, but to play on any level that might be engaging or fun, doesn’t create a sustainable business model, and sadly now it’s reached the point where the creators of Guild Ball are calling it a day on what was otherwise an excellent game. 

The most obvious basis for comparison is Games Workshop’s Blood Bowl – a game far more reliant on luck, but with a loyal fanbase, if not necessarily indefinite support. But I’ve never played the tabletop version of it either. 

Presumably some forest, or other. One that's Enchanted.

The game I’ve been playing is The Enchanted Forest with Jessie and Kirsty. This game relies almost entirely on luck and won Game of the Year in 1982, though from what I understand that wasn’t a great year for board games. As I said last week, it’s not a particularly well-designed game, we can’t really play it to the conclusion written into the rules as Jessie gets fed up with it before then once the initial novelty has worn off. But it’s easy for her to play, she’s even getting the hang of moving pieces on their movement squares, and understands what she needs to do to win – even if she hasn’t quite worked out that you’re not supposed to share that information with the rest of us. This game is nearly 40 years old and still being printed to this day, not many games can say that, and the ones that can is mainly due to the fact that their barrier for entry is far more broad than those games that rely on skill.