TBM: Ep 22 script

In an attempt to transition out of hiatus, I will be posting the scripts of my Thinking Beyond Mechanisms segment. I don't plan to edit them, so there may be some differences between the audio and written versions. Take the audio as the correct version.

Social Distance

Welcome to Thinking Beyond Mechanisms, an in depth look at the other aspects of game design, the segment that looks at some of the theory of board game design that goes beyond what typically gets covered when we learn how to design games. My name is Sarah Shipp and today I want to talk about what I think is the most important difference between board games and video games: the social distance. 

The differences between board games and video games strongly remind me of the relationship between theatre and movies. While there are many genres of movies and plays, generally speaking movies have a bias toward action. Even sedate conversations in movies will have a sense of motion with dynamic camera shots switching between actors. Theatre on the other hand has a bias toward emotion. A character’s interior life is almost always prioritized over action scenes. It is a common practice in theatre to describe action that is happening just off stage. 

My favorite example is the end of Macbeth when Macduff kills Macbeth onstage, exits with Macbeth’s body, then reenters the stage holding Macbeth’s severed head. It’s a completely unnecessary implication about action that happened just offstage, when Shakespeare could have either kept the body onstage or gestured to it offstage. 

Obviously, movies shifted away from theatre conventions in large part due to the technological capabilities available to moviemakers. Movies can simply do more with not only special effects but locations and camera angles and editing than can’t be replicated on the stage. 

But I would argue that the shift also occurred because movies are markedly worse at what theatre is good at. Showing the interior life of a character is much more powerful when you are physically in the same room as the actor portraying the character. The emotional feedback loop between an actor and a live audience is fundamentally different that the emotional buzz of seeing a movie in a movie theatre. 

I am reminded of an acting exercise that illustrated how humans interact in different contexts. Two actors stand across the room from each other and improvise an argument. The instructor stops them and moves them progressively closer together. Turns out, most people have a hard time yelling at full volume when within a few feet of other people. Perceived physical distance shapes our emotional response. I think this physical distance between more than one person which affects interactions is a form of social distance. 

According to Wikipedia, social distance “is the measure of nearness or intimacy that an individual or group feels towards another individual or group in a social network or the level of trust one group has for another and the extent of perceived likeness of beliefs.” Social distance affects what we consider social norms and the amount of sympathy we feel for others. In recent years there have been discussions around the ways social media increases and decreases social distance between groups. However, I doubt it is controversial to say that physical interaction decreases social distance between individuals. 

The social distance in video games is like when the two actors feel free to scream from opposite sides of a room. Video games do leverage microphones and text chat and character emotes to decrease the perceived social distance as much as possible. However, even when playing in the same space, the attention budget of video games serves to increase social distance. Video games have screens and audio and controls that take attention away from the other players. 

Clearly, the social distance of a board game is typically very close. Players are in the same physical space. But board games can also leverage close social distance. Negotiation, bluffing, and trading are common board game mechanisms. Social pressure is commonly found in board games, both thru formal mechanisms and also informal player dynamics. It’s just plain easier to pressure someone to trade with you when you are in the same room.

The most unique aspect of games as whole is that everyone playing can be a component in the game. Different types of games require different aspects from players. Sports require whole body physicality. Video games frequently require quick reflexes. Tabletop games leverage, among other things, the social aspect of our nature.

I feel like we often talk about player psychology as something to be designed around. But I think we need to see players’ brains as a design resource. We can intentionally incorporate play dynamics once we understand what they are. But we cannot stop simply with how mechanisms affect players on an individual basis. We need to consider how players affect each other. Incorporating social dynamics is yet another way we can think beyond mechanisms. 

For more ways of thinking beyond mechanisms, you can visit my blog at shipp board games dot blog spot dot com or catch future episodes of thinking beyond mechanisms on ludology.

TBM: Ep 21 EXTRAS

I'm not sure that I clearly explained that anti-intellectuals 1) like rigid rules/literal thinking as a defining trait, 2) are (potentially) attracted to entertainment with rigid rules and that requires literal thinking, and 3) could be influenced/tricked into different modes of thought through playing games. Look, I'm just going to say it: we use stealth learning on kids; the design of our everyday world shapes how we think; and there is no reason we can't be intentional in hoping to influence our audience toward empathy. 

Heck, just by getting people to log off and socialize irl, we are helping make our corners of the world a better place. Look at all the studies around families that eat dinner around a dinner table and extrapolate that to play games together. If you weren't aware, board game design is a noble profession. 

I am fairly constantly focused on the development of board game design writ large. I just keep comparing 1980's video games to today's video games and then looking at 1990's board games and thinking that we have further we can go. Not to say we haven't made a lot of progress, but I feel like a lot of the development happens in the big content heavy campaign games. And I'm out here pushing for the small games to not just catch up but potentially be the leaders in development around story, emotion, metaphor, and innovation in general. (Why not? Small games are certainly faster to develop if nothing else.)

I feel like the end of this episode is the thesis statement for this series: We should be intentional in crafting experiences. And that requires thinking beyond mechanisms to what those mechanisms can mean and express. And maybe, just maybe, we can help make the world a better place in the process.

TBM: Ep 21 script

In an attempt to transition out of hiatus, I will be posting the scripts of my Thinking Beyond Mechanisms segment. I don't plan to edit them, so there may be some differences between the audio and written versions. Take the audio as the correct version.

Anti-Intellectualism

Welcome to Thinking Beyond Mechanisms, an in depth look at the other aspects of game design, the segment that looks at some of the theory of board game design that goes beyond what typically gets covered when we learn how to design games. My name is Sarah Shipp and today I want to talk about how board games could provide an off ramp for anti-intellectualism.

Anti-intellectualism is what it sounds like and typically leads to disdain for art, history, and science. Anti-intellectuals tend to claim to be pragmatic while exhibiting a high degree of literal thinking. 

I got to thinking about anti-intellectualism while sitting at a stop light contemplating my GPS. My GPS is set to not always give street names. Instead, it will say things like “take the second left” or “turn right at the stop sign.” The issue with this is that I have to take my GPS very literally. Its system counts every street, even tiny ones I might miss while driving. So if I hear “take the third right” I instantly go on alert so that I am counting correctly. 

This is very similar to the literal thinking required to read rulebooks. Rulebooks eschew excess language, so words like ‘may’ do a lot of heavy lifting. “Players may draw a card” is a very different rule from “players draw a card.” So, in a sense board games train players to think literally. 

However, board games also exist as metaphors. Mechanics can represent real world systems, allowing players to glimpse the complexity and interconnectedness of a system. In addition, games can provide moments of strong emotion. Board games already do all these things, but I believe if we continue to be intentional about the experiences we craft then games could have an impact on anti-intellectualism. 

In spite of questioning the legitimacy of art, anti-intellectuals still consume all types of art. In the past decade or so, there have been various studies about the consumption of art and emotional intelligence. For example, attending live theatre seems to have a positive impact on empathy. Tabletop RPGs seem to have a similar benefit. 

I think where board games may have a unique capability is in the scope of mental engagement players can be exposed to. The literal thinking requirement and in person socialization are approachable aspects of gaming that have a broad appeal, including to people who disdain artistic metaphors. 

Surface level metaphors are an easy buy-in point to move beyond strictly literal thinking. You are not literally building a city or running a farm when you play a game; the mechanics function as metaphor. Most designers are pretty comfortable with this level of metaphor. 

Where I think we need to develop is with expression of more abstract metaphors and emotions, particularly emotions that arise from abstract metaphors. Let me explain. In Deadly Dowagers, rules restrictions act as a metaphor for Victorian society’s repression of women. Now, you could argue that that level of metaphor is lost on players and there are times you would be right. However, when paired with emotion metaphor can be especially powerful. 

Players encounter the restrictions in Deadly Dowagers as a subversion of expectations. The round does not end with an income phase, in spite of players building a tableau that appears like it will provide income. Instead, players are told they must wait for their husband’s death before they can receive a payout from investments. 

This core restriction in the game- not receiving immediate benefit from your effort- is frustrating to players. This frustration is contextualized as a symptom of a sexist system. And then, because games are supposed to be fun, the players are allowed to upend the system as a form  of catharsis. 

Of course, other games exist that offer similar levels of metaphor and emotion. Games by Cole Werhle and Amabel Holland spring to mind. But if games are to help combat the literal thinking of anti-intellectualism, we need this attention to game experience for all types and complexities of game. One of the things I am most proud of about Deadly Dowagers is that the game can play in under an hour but still offers the depth of experience that it does. 

I don’t think we need to approach all of game design as a way to make socio-political statements. That is not the point I am trying to make. Rather, every game could stand to be more intentional about the experience it provides with an eye towards metaphor and artistic expression. Stretching what gamers expect from games when it comes to meaning and emotion is the goal. By creating richer experiences, we get players to engage with with different modes of thinking, almost like a workout for your psyche. 

And to be clear, video games are already doing this. And, at least on an anecdotal level, it works to broaden horizons of the player. But video games do not have the same literal, social, critical, metaphorical, and emotional thinking structures that board games have. Or they kind of do, but they are easier to ignore because of the pretty, flashing pixels. I’ll be revisiting the differences between board games and video games in a future episode. 

I cannot guarantee that board games can impactfully address anti-intellectualism. However, much like cleaning up air pollution regardless of the impact on climate change is a good idea, stretching what types of experiences games provide is a net positive. 

We should be intentional in crafting experiences. And that requires thinking beyond mechanisms to what those mechanisms can mean and express. And maybe, just maybe, we can help make the world a better place in the process. 

For more ways of thinking beyond mechanisms, you can visit my blog at shipp board games dot blog spot dot com or catch future episodes of thinking beyond mechanisms on ludology.

TBM: Ep 20 EXTRAS

This episode came from my frustration at Geoff posting about feedback loops right after I finished recording the episode on AP. Hence the two similar topics back to back. 

A lot of this episode is anecdotal: how I feel when learning lots of rules, teaching games to my parents, but also reporting on how I see other people talk about and measure complexity. As it is, I don't have much to add. Except to say that the people who believe any given level of complexity is inherently superior to other types of games are gatekeeping around the concept of a "good" game. Emergent complexity is great and all, but I believe we need all types of games for all types of audiences. The exception I make here is that some levels of complexity are better packaged in certain ways. If Magic was originally released amount of complexity it has acquired over time, it would not be nearly as popular. High rules complexity in particular benefits from the expansion model of game release. 

TBM: Ep 20 script

In an attempt to transition out of hiatus, I will be posting the scripts of my Thinking Beyond Mechanisms segment. I don't plan to edit them, so there may be some differences between the audio and written versions. Take the audio as the correct version.

Mental Load

Welcome to Thinking Beyond Mechanisms, an in depth look at the other aspects of game design, the segment that looks at some of the theory of board game design that goes beyond what typically gets covered when we learn how to design games. My name is Sarah Shipp and today I want to talk about mental load. 

Every time I attend a board game event, be it a game night or a convention, the same thing happens. I can learn around four games in a day before my brain just starts to feel tired. Any games I play after that need to be games I already know or are the type of silly game that doesn’t really requiring learning or thought. 

For me, and I suspect for most people, mental load is accumulative across games. I can learn more games in a day if they are all silly and simple, fewer games if they are more complex. A really good game teacher can also help reduce the mental load of learning a game. 

Mental load is what it sounds like, the pressure we put on our brains when doing tasks, especially when we are juggling a number of bits of information. In board games, mental load comes from learning and parsing rules, strategizing, and calculating any math in the game. I discussed in the last episode ways to reduce mental load in rules parsing. A very good rulebook and clear graphic design can further help reduce mental load, as can reducing the amount of visible math. Reducing rules exceptions and special cases also will reduce mental load. 

In other words, good game design packaged in a well produced game will produce less of a mental load than a similar game that is sloppily made. However, board games will always require an irreducible amount of mental load. Indeed, the challenge of learning and mastering a game system is what draws many people to board games. 

So, instead of trying to eliminate mental load, let’s look at ways to measure it so that you can fit  your game’s complexity to the tolerance level of your target audience. First, for our purposes we will assume that in a well designed and produced game that most of the mental load comes from a game’s complexity. 

When discussing complexity, it is important to touch on the difference between rules complexity and strategic complexity. Rules complexity refers to having to learn lots of rules which are usually interconnected with lots of if-then statements. Strategic complexity involves emergent game states that can arise even from simple rulesets. Basically, a pair of novices will struggle to sit down and teach themselves an 18XX game, but would be able to play a game of Go even if they missed the strategic nuance. 

Because games with simple rules but strategic complexity can still be played by new players, I am less concerned with the impact of strategic complexity on mental load. Based on my experience, strategic complexity can be ignored by players who don’t wish to engage with it. Granted, those players will lose to more experienced players and may not enjoy themselves, but you cannot force players to engage with strategy. 

On the other side of things, rules complexity is a gate that must be passed through in order to play a game. But measuring rules complexity is tricky. 

There are a number of ways to approximately measure the rules complexity of a game. One popular method is to look at the page count of the rule book or even the word count. As a designer, you would probably benefit from listing out all the rules in your game both to see how many there are and also to make player aids. 

You may prefer to simply list all the steps in a turn, which is also a good way to approach player aids, especially early in the design process. Number of steps in a turn or round is my preferred way of gauging complexity, but I don’t design very heavy or asymmetric games. 

Another approach would be to list the number of mechanisms in the game and note how many are interlocking mechanisms. Players can chunk rules together if they have knowledge of mechanisms already, which will reduce mental load. However, the way those mechanisms interact with each other will be unique to your game. 

Geoff Engelstein recently wrote about his theory that good gateway games all have a similar structure. The structure he outlines shows that complexity comes from feedback loops within a game. Whenever a player has to choose between getting points now or investing to get more points in the future, the complexity of the game increases noticeably. I really like his diagrams, so take a look at the link in the show notes. 

You can argue, rightly, that feedback loops are about strategic complexity. However, playing games with my parents has shown me that feedback loops are also a source of rules complexity. Each turn, I have to explain what their options are, which is the rules complexity portion. Then they invariably ask “which is better?” That’s them bouncing off of strategic complexity. Sometimes I’ll walk them through example strategies but mostly I tell them “it depends”. 

This view of complexity as movement toward or away from immediate reward explains how some games can have lots of rules but still be fairly simple. Games like Red dragon Inn are easy to teach but if you include all of the rules on the cards actually have a ton of rules. However, players don’t need to have an awareness of those rules until they are face up on the table. Players don’t have to weigh strategy because there isn’t really room for strategic thinking. 

So, which is better? Simple games with deep strategy? Complex rules that require mastery in their own right? Silly games with low mental load? It depends. But mostly, a well designed and produced game will have the right amount of mental load for your target audience. 

For more ways of thinking beyond mechanisms, you can visit my blog at shipp board games dot blog spot dot com or catch future episodes of thinking beyond mechanisms on ludology.

TBM: Ep 19 EXTRAS

I'm not a fan of dismissing player behavior as "that's a player problem," because design shapes behavior. If we create the right conditions for AP, of course players will have it. Examining what is driving player behavior is an important step when playtesting. Usually, some form of loss aversion is at play. 

I'm going to keep pounding this drum: good rules design and graphic design lower the difficulty (and perceived complexity level) of your game. The more work you do for players the less they have to do. I love BGG forums, but they really shouldn't be needed to learn how to play. Look at Root. Easing players' way into the game did not dumb it down. What it did was make the game more welcoming to a wider audience than your average COIN game. Friendly art, parsable graphics, rule guides. It only helps. Confusion is not the good kind of complexity. 

Feast for Odin is the counterpoint to reducing action options. But FFO is very parsable, so it makes up for having a lot going on. If you have a LOT going on, you have to do MORE to make your game accessible. 

There is a difference between "I don't know what to do because I don't understand which actions are good" and "I don't know what to do because I need to math out every action before I take my turn." Admittedly, I care more about helping the confused people than solving the overly competitive people. Because better visual design and more clarity in rules helps all players. Solving my game for that one guy only helps groups who play with him. 

I really, really struggle with mathy games. I don't want my dislike of math-forward games to color my points that in-turn computation contributes to AP and math often detracts from theme. On the other hand, math heavy games are an important sub genre that should continue to be designed. This is a case of knowing the pitfalls and making choices accordingly. 

Between the extremes of "you can't design for player behavior" and "any instance of a certain behavior is evidence of bad design" lies the truth: design influences behaviors and player behaviors inform design. But designers don't need to throw out the baby with the bath water due to rare instances of a given behavior. We influence player behavior; we cannot control it. 

TBM: Ep 19 script

In an attempt to transition out of hiatus, I will be posting the scripts of my Thinking Beyond Mechanisms segment. I don't plan to edit them, so there may be some differences between the audio and written versions. Take the audio as the correct version.

AP

Welcome to Thinking Beyond Mechanisms, an in depth look at the other aspects of game design, the segment that looks at some of the theory of board game design that goes beyond what typically gets covered when we learn how to design games. My name is Sarah Shipp and today I want to talk about analysis paralysis.

Analysis paralysis or AP is a term used to describe lengthy player turns during which the player spends the majority of the time agonizing over which choices to make. Analysis paralysis is a player behavior but like all player behaviors it can be mitigated with intentional design choices. 

First, let’s look at a turn so that we know what levers we can adjust. At the start of a turn players must first parse the game state. This includes taking in the graphic information as well as which rules apply to the actions available to the player. Once the player has determined the available actions, they will then proceed to analyze how those actions will impact their chances of winning. This often involves a certain amount of mental math to ensure maximum return on investment. Once the best choice is found, the player then takes the turn. 

Analysis paralysis is often associated with heavy economic strategy games. However, I find that many lighter games, such as pick and pass drafting games also tend to see AP in players. The key to AP showing up seems to be tied primarily the number of options a player has to parse when making a choice. 

There are two primary levers for designers to pull to speed up player decisions. One is information parsing and the other is computation. I have long held the belief that most games can have their perceived difficulty reduced by better graphic design and player aids. Making the available options to players clear and easily parsed leads to quicker rules instruction, smoother gameplay, and ideally shorter turns. This is one area where mass market games are probably better on average than hobby games. Rules confusion is simply not tolerated in mass market games. For hobby games, the goal should be to always present vital or easily forgotten information in the most accessible way possible. 

In addition to clear graphic design and player aids, there are other ways to help improve how long it takes players to parse a turn. Breaking up actions into different phases allows players to consider more limited options within a framework that dictates what sorts of choices they can make at any given point. If certain options regularly trip players up, these can be separated out from other actions in a turn to spotlight the tricky choices. For example, many games have separate build phases or combat phases. The implementation of phases is like asking a child a series of yes or no questions rather than asking them one open ended question. You still get the same results but you get there faster. 

Another approach is to reduce the overall number of action options in a turn. This will probably result in reducing the number of actions, but in order to speed up turns the reduction needs to be with the number of options. Roll and write games that include dice drafting are a good example of of both limiting options and incorporating phases. You have a limited number of options displayed on the dice from which to choose. Once you have finished drafting, all players can spend time agonizing how to use their actions simultaneously, thus displacing the analysis paralysis to a more efficient phase of gameplay. If analysis paralysis is unavoidable, simultaneous gameplay is a great option. 

For the other major lever, we have to look at turn computation. The more transparent end game scoring is, the more players will be prone to math-ing out their turns. I’m not particularly a fan of hidden scoring conditions, although that is one viable option to consider. I am more inclined toward hiding numeric value and having win conditions that are not point based. Race style win conditions have an easier time hiding a game’s inherent math than victory point games. Even a mixture of the two can often obfuscate the math enough to reduce AP. For instance, racing to unlock various goal posts can act as a subsystem in a point salad game. 

This is not to say that you are better off avoiding math-forward designs. While I think that you should be circumspect about the amount of math the game requires players to perform, I also think that controlling when players make choices is a more universal approach. 

Lastly, designers work in the arena of player tendencies. We cannot control player behavior. We can only mitigate the frequency of certain behaviors. When playtesting, focus on players that fit your game’s target audience because different audiences will display different tendencies. More casual gamers might struggle more with an analysis paralysis based on decision fatigue whereas heavy gamers will exhibit a more computational paralysis. 

Analysis paralysis is perhaps better thought of as a symptom that could have a number of causes, only one of which is potentially poor social skills on the player’s part. For the rest, designers have a varied toolbox to promote better pacing of gameplay. 

For more ways of thinking beyond mechanisms, you can visit my blog at shipp board games dot blog spot dot com or catch future episodes of thinking beyond mechanisms on ludology.

TBM: Ep 18 EXTRAS

Pro-tip: if you are wondering when the best deal is on Building Blocks or other CRC press books, it's Black Friday. 

The differences in what mechanisms and structures are tolerable in co-op vs. competitive games is as fascinating as it is frustrating. 

I probably should have mentioned the episodes of TBM about gates (8 and 9) when I mentioned chapter breaks. Not quite the same thing but in the same category. 

Honestly, I'm pretty behind on new board game releases so I don't know how much innovation in events we've seen recently. It feels like the general opinions of five years ago still stand, but I could be wrong.

I increasingly view game design as obstacle design. Possibly more on that in a future episode?

TBM: Ep 18 script

In an attempt to transition out of hiatus, I will be posting the scripts of my Thinking Beyond Mechanisms segment. I don't plan to edit them, so there may be some differences between the audio and written versions. Take the audio as the correct version.

Events

Welcome to Thinking Beyond Mechanisms, an in depth look at the other aspects of game design, the segment that looks at some of the theory of board game design that goes beyond what typically gets covered when we learn how to design games. My name is Sarah Shipp and today I want to talk about in-game events. 

Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design defines events as: actions [which] occur outside the control of players that cause an immediate effect, change the state of the game, or impact subsequent actions. 

While events are a mechanism, they are fairly unique in that a significant reason for their continued use in board games is to add theme to gameplay. The other primary reason is to add variety via the randomness of when certain events will occur. 

Event decks have been criticized for introducing too much randomness or being overused when a more elegant mechanic would make a game more interesting. Fundamentally, events take the focus off of player actions when they occur. Events have remained more popular in co-op or solo games, where the game intruding on the players’ strategies is more common and less disrupting to the expected flow. 

However, as more attention is paid to game arcs and narrative structure in games, events are perhaps due a carefully curated renaissance. Events inject thematic moments into a game by offering a window into the wider world beyond player actions via one-off mechanisms and flavor text. By aligning events to certain moments in a game arc, the events could serve as chapter breaks, reminders of the thematic stakes, or offer semi-random plot twists. 

The simplest method is to think of events as chapter breaks. If every time a season ends in a farming game an event card comes out, then those events should be used to thematically drive the passage time and change of seasons. 

In games that have a sense of urgency to the theme, events can remind players that time is running out and success is not assured. Games with a historical theme already use event decks and similar mechanisms in this way. However, we don’t have to rely on history to build tension via event decks. For instance, a horror game might have a deck of increasingly dangerous ghostly encounters.

If a game uses events as chapter breaks, the next natural step is to introduce rule changes or new obstacles in the form of plot twists. Goals and obstacles are fundamental to both game design and storytelling. It stands to reason then that adding new obstacles mid-game is an ideal moment to add a new plot point. I don’t recommend starting here when designing event decks, however. While I think events have interesting plot possibilities, putting major plot points into a random or semi-random deck is also potentially a recipe for a confused story arc. 

There are a number of considerations to make before adding events to a game. If your goal is to increase theme and variety while maintaining the player’s sense of strategic control over their actions, I have a few suggestions. First, consider events that add obstacles rather than penalties. Penalties remove something that players already have whereas obstacles add something to be overcome. A penalty in a zombie fighting game would remove a players food stash but an obstacle would add more zombies to an area or degrade a neutral safe house. 

The second thing to consider when using events for full thematic effect is if events can be organized in a graduated deck. The siege deck in Siege of Runedar is a simplistic example, in that the deck has five levels that incrementally increase the number of enemy attacks over the course of the game. For fewer events that are still semi-random, pulling a single card from each tier and keeping it facedown until the event occurs is an option. 

Lastly, I would consider events that have a global effect on players. Oftentimes, the perceived unfairness of an event deck arises from when only some players are targeted by an event. Moving away from penalty-based to obstacle-based events helps with this, but events that change the effectiveness of actions can also add challenge without feeling unfair. 

Much like take that mechanics or roll-and-move, events can easily be used poorly. However, that doesn’t mean we should disregard the mechanism entirely. We may just need to rethink how we use it.  

For more ways of thinking beyond mechanisms, you can visit my blog at shipp board games dot blog spot dot com or catch future episodes of thinking beyond mechanisms on ludology.

TBM: Ep 17 EXTRAS

There are many types of hooks, but I think thematic hooks are important to pay attention to, if only because it is so easy to go overboard when talking about a game's setting while also never really saying anything exciting. 

I hope we have all moved past the idea that "boring" themes don't sell. 

Life Lesson: Raising emotional stakes is great for creative projects; lowering emotional stakes is good for conflict resolution. Some things are not worth getting upset over. 

The idea of adding conflict to a theme sounds problematic in the era of cozy and "conflict-free" games. But I stand by my belief that games require goals and obstacles definitionally (feel free to argue with me about this though), and OBSTACLES ARE CONFLICT. Conflict =/= violence. Conflict is when something stands in the way of a goal. 

If you want to know how not to increase conflict, read about TV shows that jump the shark. 

Re: adding urgency. Board games have defined limits on play sessions, typically. So that short window into the world of the game almost always benefits from a reason why players are taking action now (in the theme) as opposed to earlier or later. Urgency does not need to mean the world is doomed, it can mean some simple event kicked off the reasons for gameplay. 

I missed this in the episode, but I'm really talking about reframing the theme you have to strengthen the hook. So, you don't necessarily need to change anything in the game, so much as express some of the "why's" more clearly and using language that will drive player investment by creating a sense of drama.