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Board game design/mechanic question: Why "hide" non-secret information?
This has been a question about board game design/mechanic that has been bugging me. From a game design perspective, why do some games make the player hide information from other players that is not unknown?
For example, in Catan, each player's resource hand is hidden. In Tigris and Euphrates, each player's color cubes are hidden. In many games, such as Peurto Rico and Small World, each player's victory points are hidden. The problem is that this information is not unknown to the other players. The exact amount of resources, victory points, etc that each players have is known with 100% certainty. The purpose of "hiding" this information seems to rely on the other players forgeting. However, in order to play such games optimally, it is advantageous to keep track of this "hidden" information. Thus, it seems to add an additional layer of skill to these games in the form of memorization which does not seem to be relevant to the context of these games.
Furthermore, you have games such as Dominant Species, Carcassone, Caylus, Ticket to Ride, etc in which the victory points are actually tracked on the board for all players to see. I do not see any explanation from a design perspective for why these games track such information and why the previously mentioned games decide to hide it from the players.
Is there a reason for this game mechanic in certain games or is it an arbitrary decision? Does this mechanic make it a better game or is it an unnecessary and irrelevant layer of "depth" to these games?
For example, in Catan, each player's resource hand is hidden. In Tigris and Euphrates, each player's color cubes are hidden. In many games, such as Peurto Rico and Small World, each player's victory points are hidden. The problem is that this information is not unknown to the other players. The exact amount of resources, victory points, etc that each players have is known with 100% certainty. The purpose of "hiding" this information seems to rely on the other players forgeting. However, in order to play such games optimally, it is advantageous to keep track of this "hidden" information. Thus, it seems to add an additional layer of skill to these games in the form of memorization which does not seem to be relevant to the context of these games.
Furthermore, you have games such as Dominant Species, Carcassone, Caylus, Ticket to Ride, etc in which the victory points are actually tracked on the board for all players to see. I do not see any explanation from a design perspective for why these games track such information and why the previously mentioned games decide to hide it from the players.
Is there a reason for this game mechanic in certain games or is it an arbitrary decision? Does this mechanic make it a better game or is it an unnecessary and irrelevant layer of "depth" to these games?
Comments
However, let's say that you cannot see your opponents pieces. Now you have to guess the most likely positions of their pawns, rooks, bishops, etc. It becomes significantly more challenging to play optimally. Board games hide certain information in order to exploit this mechanic to make the game more "fun" or hide an obviously optimal play mechanic.
All of iruul's examples are hidden information that is not hidden upon discovery. You have a right to know every resource card a player draws and every cube they acquire. There is literally no change in the fundamentals of the game in these cases by hiding this already extant information.
All this mechanic does is add an additional execution skill component to the game: one of memory. One must now keep track of known but not re-discoverable information, and players who are inattentive are punished.
If I'm playing El Grande to win, you can bet I know exactly how many caballeros every single player has in that castille. Sure, the castille is opaque, and I can't count them intra-game, but every action that places caballeros in there is public: it's just a matter of remembering.
It's largely a lame mechanic, and better games avoid it.
I could be wrong on this, but I believe that in the base set of Dominion you actually "know" exactly what the current victory point score of every player. There's not really any way for them to "hide" their current score from you. So if you are following along (or writing it down) you know whether or not taking any particular game-ending action wins or loses the game for you.
But in practice, most casual players care fuck-all about it. So one of the "skills" of the game is just keeping a running score of the other players victory cards (and really, every card in their deck). Where any particular card is in the draw pile, however, is not a known (supposing a sufficiently large deck, though you should technically always know what the last card in your draw pile is going to be if you've been paying attention).
However, I can see situations where this can lead to interesting play. If you're in a game that involves diplomacy or social skills, your ability to remember where someone is points-wise creates a new element of pressure in any deal-making. It adds a certain degree of uncertainty that can create interesting play.
I've been toying around with an idea for a storytelling RPG that makes heavy use of information obfuscation - the point is to reflect the nature of the oral tradition of storytelling. At one point, the information is revealed, but you have to remember every single thing that happens with that information in order to be able to use it.
Granted, I don't think something like that would make for a good German-style board game, because it's a futzy mechanic. It's good for establishing tension and atmosphere.
Most players won't try to memorize the exact score of every other player in these settings (because of the risk of aneurysm), but they will carefully observe who is doing what, and form educated opinions on how everyone at the table is doing. On their turn, each player will have to act while factoring in these hunches and educated guesses. When they wind up making a great move because of it, it gives them that rewarding feeling of being validated.
I also wonder if having the information permanently open would do anything to slow down these games? I'd be talking out my ass if I said I knew for sure way or the other, but this is absolutely something a game designer will factor in when tweaking these types of rules. Providing too much information and causing analysis paralysis can ruin a game. Would be interesting to think deeper about the different games you mentioned and how they operate on both sides of this issue.
Cheating is when you break the rules of a game. The rules of a board game are in the rule book. Every proper board game rulebook contains a list of equipment for the game. You may not bring or apply any equipment not listed there to help you in the game.
You can't bring a dictionary to a game of Scrabble. You can't bring a metal bat onto a major league baseball field. You can't bring a pen and paper to a game of T&E.
You may also not use equipment in a shady way. So if there is a score sheet, it is only used for keeping score, and not taking notes. Baseball bats are for hitting the ball, not the opposing players. Just because it is permitted equipment, you can still only use it as prescribed.
Granted, with online play, some of these rules can't be enforced. That's why I still prefer in-person board games, despite it being old fashioned and non-digital.
In T&E, I arrange my score cubes behind my screen to indicate what colors other players have many/few points in. The rules don't specify in any way how I must arrange my cubes, so I do so as I see fit. It's as much cheating as it is to play Monopoly with the dog upside-down.
Obviously, rolling a d20 to act randomly in a game without d20s is cheating. But what about shuffling the cards randomly behind my back in Citadels?
2. If the players disagree on a certain rule, then they're effectively playing different games. This has caught members of the crew in different games - "Wait, that's not how I understood that rule. I would've played totally differently had I known that!"
3. Asynchronous by design is a design choice. That's how the game is supposed to be played.
4. If a rule is ambiguous, the game is asterisked. You should berate the game manufacturer. But in that case, the players should come to consensus about how the rule is interpreted.
The difference is in the strength of the contest of skill. The vast majority of house rules make a game a worse contest, not better.
Is that bullshit?
With remixes and creativity being applied to things such as music and movies, I feel as though we enjoy the end results there in a different vein than their originals. For games, when they are remixed, we expect to enjoy them in the exact same way as any other game. We demand a refined competition. Yet when Joe Schmoe decides he wants to play game designer, he usually winds up putting money on free parking.
One of the more notable examples is Brenda Brathwaite's Train. Then again, this kind of work challenges traditional definitions of "game", in many other ways.
If in Caylus, the score was hidden and everyone's resources were hidden, would it be a better game? If your craft goods in Peurto Rico were hidden from players like in Catan would that make it better?
Isn't this requirement of memorization in such games, where memorization is not relevant to the skills being tested, the equivalent to unnecessary "fiddly bits" in video games?
If I'm playing a hard-core German board game, I don't want ambiguous rules. If I'm playing an improvisational storytelling-focused RPG, ambiguity can be great!
@Matt what did they change in Quorriors, I did some searching for FAQs but nothing glaring jumped out at me.