A Game's Conceit

A brief description of your game that's meant to grab the interest of players or a publisher is a hook. A description of the central actions that players take over and over throughout the game is a core loop. If you are describing the fictional or historical subject and setting depicted in the game, that's the theme. You should be able to describe all of these concisely when asked about your game, plus at least one more aspect: the game's conceit. 

A conceit is the basic idea of what is happening in a game. This includes the main decision point(s), the main objective, and possibly a little of the theme and/or mechanics. For example, the conceit of Clank! is for players to try to amass the most treasure without making too much noise then escape the dungeon in time. How players do this is by deck building, but while deck building is the main mechanic, it is not really part of the main conceit of the game. However, the conceit of Dominion is build up a deck, then pivot to buying victory points. Basically, a conceit is the answer to "What are we doing in the game?" without going further into the description of "how." 

When describing the objective of the game, you can describe the mechanical objective or the thematic objective. However, I would use whichever makes the most sense for the crucial decision points in the game. The pivot in Clank! shifts from plundering treasure to rushing to escape. You could try to frame that mechanically, but it makes more sense in thematic terms. In Dominion, the pivot is the shift to buying victory points, so mentioning the theme doesn't add clarity. Pivots are an obvious decision space when thinking about conceits. On the other hand, you may not want to bring up a pivot if you want players to discover that moment for themselves. The important thing is that if there is a single decision point that stands out in the game as vital to progressing toward the objective, it likely belongs in the description of a conceit. Whether that decision point is framed mechanically or thematically depends on how it is framed in the game. 

I consider a conceit different from just explaining the objective of the game. When players ask about the objective, they want to know the threshold for winning and nothing else. Again, a conceit is "what you do in a game." That should include the objective but also a hint of the action and decisions that will occur. Objectives are usually framed as "be the first to do X" or "get the most of Y" without letting you know what that will look like. Being able to state an objective simply is important but only useful when attempting to teach the game (or on a sell sheet). Clearly stating the conceit of the game is useful when introducing the game to players, marketing, etc. 

So, what's the difference between a conceit and a hook? A conceit is always, only the one sentence description of what happens in a game. A hook could be a mechanic or component or thematic element. The conceit could be the hook, but a hook is the most interesting part whatever that part is. The conceit is only ever the main idea of the game. Knowing both will allow you to talk about your game in a way that clearly highlights what the game is and what makes it interesting. 

Referring to the main idea of a game as a conceit is not a hill I'm going to die on. I usually borrow terms from literature or theatre when trying to name what I am describing. I don't insist on the term or any term I've coined. I suppose I bring this up now because I really don't see designers adding "conceit" to their lexicons. That's fine. I care more that designers get better at describing their games. 

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

On Attribution

It puzzles me that listing playtesters is generally accepted as a practice in an industry where writers, developers, editors, etc often don't receive credit for their work. I think we think that because playtesters generally aren't paid, their payment is credit in the rulebook. But because developers, writers, etc were paid, they don't also need credit. I believe every rulebook should have a credits section, even if that section is in fine print. It is especially important to credit people who were paid for creative work. If that work was valuable enough to receive payment, it should be valuable enough to receive credit. 

I have no problem with people who choose to do creative work under pseudonyms, provided that the pseudonym covers a specific person or persons. If you want to use a studio pseudonym, the best practice would be to also credit your creative team by name in a credit section. 

Why is credit important? Obviously, designers who are uncredited can still list games on their resume in order to procure future work. Is credit just street cred or an ego boost? 

No, crediting creatives is important for documenting, studying, and criticizing bodies of creative work. Currently, only a few board game developers have a reputation outside of being known to certain publishers for being good at what they do. And the current system of becoming more well known is word of mouth. In addition to recognition, crediting developers consistently across all the games they work on allows critics greater insight into the creative process. Designers and artists are often not the only creatives who work on a project. Give credit to the ones who make good games great. Board game historians will thank you. 

Providing full credits also conveys to the consumer the reality of making a game. This is never a one person project. (Unless you're hand crafting your own components. I only know one person that applies to.) Games take way more work than most people expect. The timeline to get a book published is around half that of a game. Listing everyone who worked on a game conveys the amount of work and money that went into creating it. This is very similar to why movies have credits. 

Lastly, people really do deserve recognition. Especially people who belong to marginalized groups and people just starting out in the industry. Creative output is the unique work of individual imaginations. That is irreplaceable. The reality is that the pay is never going to be enough when margins are as tight as they are. So, the least you could do is also provide proper attribution. 

If you are reading this and have failed to fully credit creatives in the past, I urge you to go add as many names as you can to the expanded credits section on BGG. It's never too late to recognize people's work. 

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

Insecure Guide to BGG Ratings

 Or How An Insecure Designer Perceives BGG User Ratings.

We all have slightly different systems for how we rate games. Some people take full advantage of the ability to use hundredths in decimal points. Some people truly believe no game is a ten. This post is not about that, but about how creators perceive the ratings their games get. This is a silly post to remind designers (especially this designer) that perception is not reality. Some people actually do like games that they rate a 5. Those people probably don't understand the impact on a game's rank, but that doesn't mean they are acting out of malice. It just feels that way sometimes. Anyway, here are how the most common BGG ratings feel to insecure designers.

1: "This game is rated too high and I mean to change that."

2: "This game is rated too high, but I don't want it to be obvious that I am trying to tank the score."

3: "I want the designer to know I think they are bad for designing this game."

4: "I want the designer to know I think the game is bad."

1.5, 2.5, 3.5, 4.5: "I dislike so many games that I need sub levels to keep them straight."

5: "Someone made me play this game. It's not for me, and that's the game's fault."

5.5: "This game is the definition of 'meh'." 

6: "I used to like this game, before I discovered good games."

6.5: "I own this game because my spouse likes it."

6.75: "The first time I played this game was fun, but I haven't been able to recapture that experience."

7: "I own this game, but I have only played it once."

7.5: "Played it twice. Would probably play again."

8: "I respect this game's design."

8.5: "I think this game is actually good."

9: "I backed the deluxe edition on KS, but have only played it once."

9.5: "This is one of my favorite games, but I don't rate any game a ten."

10: "I am a big fan of some aspect of the game, and am thus blinded to the game's flaws."

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

The Transportation Paradox

Long time readers of this blog will know that the concept of immersion can be divided into absorption and transportation.  Transportation is the sensation of being transported into another world for a time. The term comes from literary criticism where it is known as narrative transportation. I refer to transportation in board games as thematic transportation so as to include games without traditional narrative structure. This post is just an observation about thematic transportation. 

Transportation, generally, is most effective on passive audiences. When we watch movies or plays or read books, the only thing we are asked to do is suspend our disbelief so that the story can affect us. For the span of a few hours, we can almost fully set aside our real world concerns. 

I contend that more active participants in an activity must juggle competing concerns of safety, rules, and transportation, thus making transportation more difficult to achieve. The next level from audience is "serious improv" where actors perform dramatic scenes without lines or instructions on how to act. This level adds safety concerns, which are significant because this kind of improv can delve into traumatizing topics. LARPs and TTRPGs can at times fall into this category, although they typically also have rules. 

The more a participant must actively think about concerns beyond experiencing the narrative, the less transporting that narrative can be. This is one reason why actors rehearse, to reduce how much they have to actively think about their blocking and lines. The more they can rely on muscle memory, the more they can immerse themselves in the scene. We see this as well in complex TTRPGs. The more rules you have memorized, the more space you have to explore the setting. Players new to D&D, for example, will have their heads down in the books trying to figure out what they can do rather than interacting with imaginary world around them. This crosses over into board games as well: the more time players spend stuck in the rulebook during play, the less time they will spend experiencing the theme. 

But board games takes this difficulty a step further. Because players cannot simply experience the theme. They have goals as players that must be achieved in order to play the game correctly. There is a game state that must be managed. When we design thematic games, we ask players to stand in two worlds at once. We want them to be transported by the theme, but we also want them to remain aware of the rules and win conditions. This hampers their ability to be fully transported. 

We can take steps to mitigate this phenomenon. We can theme the scoring and end game so that players are always acting as their characters. We can limit the amount of non-thematic elements and icons. Such measures don't always make the game easier to play, but we can also simplify the rules. Another trick is to add blocks of narrative text. Alternating passive listening with active play allows players moments when they have no competing concerns and can focus solely on being transported. I'm not a big fan of this option because it only works if the writing is good and if it makes sense to pause the gameplay. 

Thematic board games strive to achieve an experience that they aren't really equipped to do well. But if we were to change board games in order to make them better at transportation, they would cease to be board games. The things that make board games a distinctive activity are the things that impede transportation. It is a Sisyphean task. However, those moments of transportation, when players get swept away by the theme, make the imperfect conditions worth it. Perhaps more so, because the deck is stacked against us. 

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