Defining Conflict

There is a trend in the hobby of people calling for more development of conflict-free games. This leaves me a little baffled. In some cases, I think what is happening is a mismatch of terms—my definition of conflict is not the one they are using. In other cases, I believe there is a desire for games that deliver experiences that I am not sure analog games are capable of providing. So, what is conflict? What kinds of conflict are found in board games? What would a conflict-free game look like? 

Conflict exists when something or someone stands between you and your goal. Any obstacle is a form of conflict. Conflict creates tension and urgency. Overcoming conflict creates feelings of achievement and satisfaction. If we look at the eight types of fun, conflict relates directly to challenge and indirectly to narrative and expression (and you could argue fantasy, fellowship, and discovery also benefit from the existence of conflict). Challenge is the enjoyment we get by striving with/overcoming obstacles. To be conflict-free, a game would need to lack challenge. Expression is the enjoyment we get from creating or expressing ourselves. The primary conflict found in expression is inner conflict. My inhibitions, skill level, and imagination provide limits and obstacles to my ability to express myself. My argument for fantasy, fellowship, and discovery is that conflict adds a sense of purpose (and drama) to our make believe, our social interactions, and our exploration. And then there is narrative. 

Narrative conflict (in literature) has long been divided into around a half-dozen types. Narrative conflict is stated as person or character vs. the source of conflict. The types are as follows: character vs. self, character vs. character, character vs. nature, character vs. supernatural/fate/god, character vs. technology, and character vs. society. The existence of narrative conflict provides characters with the impetus for action and gives meaning to the action. A story without a conflict is a story without a plot.* In board games, conflict-free themes can seem at odds with the win condition, can seem pasted-on, or can seem half-baked where the players don't fully know why they are taking the actions of the game. (Assuming that the game contains challenges but the theme attempts to be conflict-free.)

In video games we find another way to designate conflict: player vs. player (PvP), player vs. the environment (PvE), and various combinations of the two (PvPvE, PvEvP). These terms let players know who is the antagonist, aka who is trying to kill you—the game or other players or both. These terms are relegated to only a few specific types of video games. 

By comparing how conflict is described in literature and video games to how conflict exists in board games, we can create terms for the main modes of conflict. There are three main types of player conflict in board games:

Player vs. Self—This could be expressed by players trying to beat their high score/best time or by players accessing their creativity/self-expression. This conflict is most prominent in party games and some solo games, but exists in games where there are avenues for creative expression within the components and rules, such as engine builders. There is often tension between players' creativity and optimal scoring, which may or may not be a desirable trait in a game. 

Player vs. Game—This is the challenge the game poses to the player. Almost all games have this conflict to an extent (and to the extent that what we consider a game is something with rules that restrict our freedom of choice). But we see this conflict most prominently in solo games, cooperative games, and multi-player solitaire games. A subset of this conflict is player vs. time, where is game imposes time constraints on the players. 

Player vs. Player—This exists whenever a subset of players can defeat other players. This conflict is magnified by direct player interaction, especially negative player interaction. 

So far, we have seen that several types of fun generate or benefit from conflict and that types or styles of gameplay can provide different types of conflict. Now let's look at the intersection of theme and game structure: the win condition. Specifically in this case, what or why are we trying to win? Some games, even thematic games, don't provide a reason for why you want to win. However, most games have at least one of the following three goals.

Beat your opponent(s) in a competition—If there are victory points in a game, it is likely a competition. Races are also competitions. Earning the most money is a competition. Does the game measure your performance against other players? It's a competition. To double down on the theme, many games explicitly state that player characters are thematically challenged to a competition with their peers. Competitions can be team-based or against a game AI. 

Destroy or eliminate your opponent(s)—Most games with player elimination (or that end when one player is reduced to 0) have this type of victory condition. However, you could be destroying NPCs controlled by a game AI (and vice versa). In team-based games, one team may win when all (or a majority of) members of the opposing team are eliminated, such as in Werewolf. 

Outlast your opponent(s)—This is much more rare. Here, you are not actively fighting other players. Instead the focus is surviving what the game throws at you. The goal is to continue to be able to play after other players have failed. I can't think of a tabletop game that does this, although I'm sure there are some (maybe in the dexterity genre?). Dance marathons from the first half of the 20th century fall into this category, as does that car contest where you have to keep your hand on the car for the longest. 

Now let's return to the question of what a conflict-free game would look like. I posit that a conflict-free game would have no win condition. The prospect of winning (and especially losing) generates conflict. Likewise, challenge generates conflict; so conflict-free games cannot be challenging, to the extent that it cannot present difficult or meaningful decisions. Self-expression can generate internal conflict, so that's a no go. Narrative is largely defined by the conflict of obstacles that get between a character and their goals. Yes, I am saying that a conflict-free game can't have story-telling or much in the way of creativity. What kind of game are we left with?

RPGs provide some interesting options if all you want is a game without competition or a win condition. However, due to their narrative nature, all RPGs contain some form of conflict. For conflict-free games, I think we have to look at video games. The types of fun least associated with conflict are sensation and submission. A game that delights the senses (honestly, that's optional) and functions as a rote pastime with goals and rules but no obstacles other than the time commitment to playing is a game that is truly conflict-free. Video games that focus primarily on 'grinding' or 'farming' stand out as exemplars of submission-focused games. Other games that fit this category are Candyland and bingo, because they lack challenge, expression, and narrative, even though they have win conditions. Indeed, bingo is an example of a submission focused game that also has a high degree of fellowship. 

It is possible to want a conflict-free game, but also to think that my description of what that looks like sounds boring. I think here is where we find the mismatch of definitions. When people talk about conflict they may be referring to violence, domination, artificial scarcity promoting needless competition, an us vs. them mentality, antagonism, or just an unhealthy obsession with winning. Games can be free of all of these things but still have conflict. The conflict found in an educational game may be around the obstacles of learning the concepts rather than winning. Overcoming obstacles is often a learning process and learning usually involves overcoming obstacles. Also, as we have seen, the conflict in a game does not have to come from pitting players against each other. By understanding what conflict is, we are better able to carefully craft the sorts of conflict found in our games. 

I believe that board (and card) games are best suited to challenge-related conflict. Games create space for us to model overcoming obstacles and failing safely. Games let us practice how to respond to conflict. Conflict is just another tool we use when designing games. Instead of blaming the tool, let's learn how we can be more proficient in its use. 

*I'm coming from a western point of view. There are other ways to think about literature. However, I think that my broader point about how the types of fun intersect with conflict still stands. 

ShippBoard Games is a board game design blog that updates most Mondays.