One of my favorite boards games, Junta!, is essentially dedicated to traitors and fucking everyone else over. However, the best part is that you are never assigned that role or forced to play the traitor. You only betray someone when it is within your best interest to do so (and if you think you can sway enough of your fellow players to rebel against the government with you). You lie, cheat, steal, and do whatever you can to win.
I haven't played Junta! but I've heard good things. Verrater, Meuterer, and Dune are also games that have a traitor mechanic down pat, even if they are flawed in other ways.
Actually, now that I think about it, I think I figured out the problem with the way traitors work in games like BSG and Shadows over Camelot (SoC).
In those games, the traitor has to do some good and some bad to conceal themselves. If they are revealed, they're basically fucked because the good players can get rid of them almost immediately. Thus, it is in their best interest to do slight harm while also doing good for as long as possible. They basically get one big fuck you, and then they're done.
In mafia, the mafia act good during the day, but they get to fuck everyone over at night, every night. As long as they are still in the game, they are fucking often and hard, but secretly. Right from the beginning the good players are doing everything they can to find and remove the traitor(s) because every turn the traitor stays in the game, they get fucked big time.
Think about how this would change SoC. As the game is now, the best the traitor can do without giving themselves away is to be slightly less helpful than they could normally be. The good players are on the lookout for the traitor, but it's not urgent. The traitor can't really do anything super bad, and their one big super bad move is pretty much inevitable. Then after that move you eliminate them, and that's it. However, if the traitor were secretly unleashing huge disasters every round, suddenly finding the traitor becomes the priority. Odds of killing non-traitors out of desperation increases greatly. The fun of being the traitor increases greatly. It's just kinda awesome all around.
Man. Next time the crew's together, let's play full on Mafia. Not the wuss version where the mafia can decide who to murder at night: the real one where they have to reach consensus DURING THE DAY.
That makes it an actual game, rather than being completely arbitrary.
Has someone made a griefing board game? The only game that is full on dedicated to greifing other players is the Space Station 13 video game.
It's impossible to make a game about griefing. Griefing is when you find alternate utility in a game. For example, instead of trying to win at this game of Counter-Strike, I'm just going to team kill every round! If you made a game where the object of the game was to team kill, then rescuing the hostages would be griefing!
It's impossible to make a game about griefing. Griefing is when you find alternate utility in a game. For example, instead of trying to win at this game of Counter-Strike, I'm just going to team kill every round! If you made a game where the object of the game was to team kill, then rescuing the hostages would be griefing!
I would say, based on what I've seen, that Dune is a griefing game.
Just because you like to grief in those games doesn't make them griefing games, which, as I explained, is impossible.
I was going off the Pete example, since a game that is heavily a FUCK the other player type game is the closest to griefing you are going to get. I wasn't saying it was griefing I'm just saying it was a FUCK you game which is what Dune is. Fuck you Scott.
I was going off the Pete example, since a game that is heavily a FUCK the other player type game is the closest to griefing you are going to get. I wasn't saying it was griefing I'm just saying it was a FUCK you game which is what Dune is. Fuck you Scott.
Your mom and I played the fuck you game, every day.
since a game that is heavily a FUCK the other player type game is the closest to griefing you are going to get. I wasn't saying it was griefing I'm just saying it was a FUCK you game which is what Dune is. Fuck you Scott.
Ahh, but one must be precise, no? Griefing is seeking alternate utility in a manner which adversely affects the decision matrix of other players.
Ahh, but one must be precise, no? Griefing is seeking alternate utility in a manner which adversely affects the decision matrix of other players.
Please direct your pedantic argument elsewhere. I was just making a comment that I like Fuck you games like Illuminati, Dune and CE. They provide the closest thrill similar to griefing you can probably get in a board-game.
Fuck you Rym. (just had to throw that in since I have a theme going)
Griefing is seeking alternate utility in a manner which adversely affects the decision matrix of other players.
Must it be alternate utility necessarily? You can grief someone in WoW, for example, using just the mechanics in the game the way they were intended. You can spawn camp in CS and a lot of other FPS's, and grief individual players. That's not really an alternate utility; it's just being extremely dickish in your use of the rules.
That's not really an alternate utility; it's just being extremely dickish in your use of the rules.
If the rules allow it, and doing it is actually advantageous to the doer in the context of the game's general utility, then it's not really griefing, but instead simply smart, if cheap, play.
You can spawn camp in CS
Actually, in default CS, you can't. There's no respawning, and you must leave spawn to achieve your utility objective before the timer runs out. Singling out another player on the other team and killing them before others is also altered utility, as there is no contextual reward for doing so. It just happens to align more closely with the base utility. Hindering a player on your own team expresses a direct interest in utility counter to the rest of the game, and is griefing.
Being a dick and being a griefer overlap, but not completely.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you get a monetary reward for killing other players? There's also a scoreboard; while that's a minor reward, it's still a contextual reward.
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you get a monetary reward for killing other players?
Any enemy player. But if you choose to, say, attack one particular enemy over another, if the other were a more optimal move, you've either made a mistake or, if your motivation was meta-derived (e.g., you hate that guy), you have sought alternate utility, albeit parallel to the consensus utility, likely enough so that it isn't a big deal.
To be sure, one can seek alternate utility and yet not be griefing. Practically, griefing is common when a game's primary consensus utility is not as enjoyable as some alternate utility for particular players, the pursuit of which is damaging to the decision matrix of the game. If it's more fun for me, who is sucking at CS, to flash/shoot/slice my teammates than to pursue my objective, I have no reason not to.
Anyone played Mao? Now that's a good game to play if you want to lose friends. It's also a game that is pretty much all about griefing.
As in Zedong? Is this a communist-rise-to-power game? That would be fun.
Kinda.
There are stories told about Mao, that soldiers would arrive in a village, round up people who had broken a new law, and shoot them dead. The villagers would protest that they didn't know a new law had been passed.
Mao is a card game with a similar concept. When you start playing, nobody is told the rules. If you break a rule, you are punished. One objective of the game is to introduce new rules, although you don't explain them, only punish those who break the new rules.
I've probably given away too much with the above line, for anyone playing the first time. I played many times, for hours at a time, and I've seen some games last continuously for two days, with people joining and leaving as they felt like it. Then I played with my brother, sister, sister in law and some other family friends. Losing friends over board games might be "good riddance" in some cases, but not when they are members of your family!
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Actually, now that I think about it, I think I figured out the problem with the way traitors work in games like BSG and Shadows over Camelot (SoC).
In those games, the traitor has to do some good and some bad to conceal themselves. If they are revealed, they're basically fucked because the good players can get rid of them almost immediately. Thus, it is in their best interest to do slight harm while also doing good for as long as possible. They basically get one big fuck you, and then they're done.
In mafia, the mafia act good during the day, but they get to fuck everyone over at night, every night. As long as they are still in the game, they are fucking often and hard, but secretly. Right from the beginning the good players are doing everything they can to find and remove the traitor(s) because every turn the traitor stays in the game, they get fucked big time.
Think about how this would change SoC. As the game is now, the best the traitor can do without giving themselves away is to be slightly less helpful than they could normally be. The good players are on the lookout for the traitor, but it's not urgent. The traitor can't really do anything super bad, and their one big super bad move is pretty much inevitable. Then after that move you eliminate them, and that's it. However, if the traitor were secretly unleashing huge disasters every round, suddenly finding the traitor becomes the priority. Odds of killing non-traitors out of desperation increases greatly. The fun of being the traitor increases greatly. It's just kinda awesome all around.
That makes it an actual game, rather than being completely arbitrary.
Fuck you Rym. (just had to throw that in since I have a theme going)
Being a dick and being a griefer overlap, but not completely.
To be sure, one can seek alternate utility and yet not be griefing. Practically, griefing is common when a game's primary consensus utility is not as enjoyable as some alternate utility for particular players, the pursuit of which is damaging to the decision matrix of the game. If it's more fun for me, who is sucking at CS, to flash/shoot/slice my teammates than to pursue my objective, I have no reason not to.
There are stories told about Mao, that soldiers would arrive in a village, round up people who had broken a new law, and shoot them dead. The villagers would protest that they didn't know a new law had been passed.
Mao is a card game with a similar concept. When you start playing, nobody is told the rules. If you break a rule, you are punished. One objective of the game is to introduce new rules, although you don't explain them, only punish those who break the new rules.
I've probably given away too much with the above line, for anyone playing the first time. I played many times, for hours at a time, and I've seen some games last continuously for two days, with people joining and leaving as they felt like it. Then I played with my brother, sister, sister in law and some other family friends. Losing friends over board games might be "good riddance" in some cases, but not when they are members of your family!