Theory: Include “How to Start” In Your Rules (and a Lines of Questioning Update)

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I’ve done a thorough revision of Lines of Questioning’s rules based on current feedback. (you can find the new version here). The full changelog is below, but there’s one I feel is especially important: the rules now explicitly state how to start the game. Few “modern” board games (or whatever term one wants to use) do that, but I think it’s important. Saying “here’s what to do to kick things off” really helps people who have less experience with board games as a whole.

I learned this the hard way years ago, when some friends and I were just getting into board games and decided to try Shadows Over Camelot. Shadows’ rulebook does what many games do: it explains the steps one takes during a turn, and assumes it will be clear that to start playing one just launches into those steps.

For my friends and I, that assumption did not hold true.

Let me set the stage for you. In the room are two law students (both of whom are now lawyers), a Ph.D. student (now a scientist), and an engineer. All of these people have at least a passing acquaintance with board and role-playing games. Every single page of the rulebook has been read out loud. The engineer says “OK . . . how do we start?”

There’s a pause.

Rulebook pages flip.

A cricket starts chirping.

In retrospect, this was completely hilarious. A cricket chirped during an uncomfortable silence! It was a perfect sitcom moment, in real life! The whole thing was worth it, just as a story!

However, from a rulebook design perspective this was a disaster. After thoroughly perusing the rules, the players didn’t know how to start playing. Shadows Over Camelot almost went back in the box without so much as being tried. (Which would have been a shame–my friends and I went on to have many hours of fun with the game.)

Among the skills board gamers learn is reading board game rulebooks. We gain the ability to take rules and translate them into what the game looks like during play. In the process, we learn to make certain leaps: if the game proceeds in turns, and every turn begins with X, we should start the game by doing X.

New board gamers don’t have that rule-processing skill. Help them out by spending a line or two explaining how to start playing. They’ll appreciate it, and their positive experiences will come back to you in repeat customers and positive reviews.

– – –

Other changes:

– The numbered tiles have been removed; they added some complexity without a concomitant improvement in gameplay. With that change, the goal is now to proceed around the board clockwise, building a stack of tiles four-high (with an answer tile on top) in each of the four corners in sequence.

– The rules were changed to clarify that when an answer tile is played on top of the last tile in the line of questioning, that does not cause an answer tile to be added to the question hand.

– Being unable to play a tile when you need to do so is now a loss condition (this fixes a bug with the Something to Hide variant, in which it was possible to need to start a new line of answers but be unable to do so).

– Many rules have been rewritten and reorganized to make the game easier to learn.

Lines of Questioning: Adding Difficulty

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The more I play Lines of Questioning, the easier it gets. That’s a good thing–but like so many good things, it means more work. 😉

I’m pleased to find Lines of Questioning getting easier because it suggests that the game’s decisions are meaningful. If they weren’t–if all paths were equally good, and the player’s in-game choices were largely irrelevant–one would expect win rates to be constant over time. A win rate that improves with experience indicates that players can influence their chances of victory by learning to make better decisions, which necessarily means that those decisions matter.

However, the fact that skill is rewarded is a two-edged sword. It also means that the game could become less enjoyable over the long term, as players attain greater levels of mastery and the challenge wanes. This is where the work comes in: it’s necessary to provide ways for players to crank up the difficulty.

Fortunately, there’s no need to start with a blank slate. Lines of Quesioning’s fundamental design rule is that the game should evoke the experience of a lawyer questioning a witness. That rule doesn’t need to be treated solely as a constraint; it can also be a source of inspiration. If the game should be more difficult, and needs to capture an experience, what’s a more difficult version of that experience? What are some situations where it’s harder to get necessary information from a witness?

– the witness lacks some key information

– the witness lacks some key information–and doesn’t want to admit it

– the witness is consciously hiding something

– the witness is wrong about something, and the lawyer must demonstrate that, preferably getting the witness to agree

– the witness wants to say something, and is inclined to blurt it out even if it’s not germane to the questions being asked

– the witness is being offensive to the judge and/or jury

– the witness gives lengthy answers that obscure the point

– the witness gives lengthy answers that unnecessarily give opposing counsel material to work with

– the witness responds to an important question by invoking the Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination

– the judge is in a hurry

– the jury is distracted

That’s a good list to start from. It includes a number of situations that both make the lawyer’s job more difficult and are interesting to deal with; since “difficult” and “interesting” are exactly what Lines of Questioning needs, they have a lot of promise. I’m especially gripped by the notion of simulating a witness with something to hide, or who’s lying and has to be brought around to the truth; both situations are challenging and fascinating in the courtroom, and–if properly implemented–could bring those same traits to Lines of Questioning’s play.

Proper implementation is, of course, the tricky part. I’m going to try this first:

Something to Hide (a variant for players seeking a greater challenge)

Randomly choose one of the corner spaces. Answer tiles cannot be played in that space unless they are played directly on top of a question tile. If the witness must play in that space (e.g., because the witness’ line of answers cannot continue), the witness instead plays on the next unclaimed corner.

My thinking about this rule goes like this: Testing has shown that hemming in a corner with answer tiles and then ending the line of answers is a powerful strategy. It causes the line of answers to restart in a corner, have nowhere to go, and restart again in the same place the next turn, building up toward claiming the corner. This rule makes that approach much more difficult, since the line of answers will now “escape” the corner.

In addition, the rule has thematic appeal. Requiring that the tiles come out in layers, question-answer-question-answer, suggests that the witness will only talk about his or her dark secret after the lawyer asks directly about it, and won’t expound further on the point until the lawyer asks a follow-up question.

Of course, testing may reveal that this isn’t the change we want. There’s only one way to find out!

As always, I hope you’ll join me in trying this change. You can find the print-and-play version of Lines of Questioning, with the base rules and everything you need to play, here:

Lines of Questioning – 10-14-14

Cutting everything out takes less than half an hour, and the game plays in 15 minutes.

Lines of Questioning: FAQ Updates

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I don’t know if a picture is really worth a thousand words–as a lawyer, I’m kind of partial to words–but I can’t deny that sometimes a diagram is called for. Explaining Lines of Questioning’s movement rules is one of those times, so I’ve added a bunch of diagrams to the FAQ posted below.

Behind the scenes I’ve been hammering away at a web implementation of the game. Currently it’s just a web-based version of the real-life experience, all placeholder graphics and built-in GUI buttons, but it’s playable. I’ll keep at it, and hope to have . . . let’s call it an alpha release . . . before too long.

Lines of Questioning: FAQ

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I thought it would be useful to share the answers to some questions that have come up while playtesting Lines of Questioning:

Q. Some tiles have two entrances and two exits/arrows. Do I need to go “straight” from the entrance to the arrow across from it?

A. Nope! It’s OK to turn and place the next tile using the other arrow.

When there are multiple exits, you only have to use one . . .
When there are multiple exits, you only have to use one . . .
. . . and you can change directions rather than following your previous path
. . . and you can change directions rather than following your previous path

Q. Regarding the tiles with two entrances: do they need to have arrows pointing to both exits in order to place them?

A. No; choose one to use to keep the line going, and ignore the other.

Tile 3 is legal; it is not necessary for both entrances to be used
Tile 3 is legal; it is not necessary for both entrances to be used

Q. Can I keep a line going by “bouncing” off the edge of the board with a diagonal arrow?

A. Yes! It’s perfectly OK, and often tactically useful, to do this. In fact, it can be required for the witness’ tiles; sometimes this will be a way to keep the witness’ line going.

Tile 2 is a valid way to continue the line from tile 1
Tile 2 is a valid way to continue the line from tile 1

Q. The difference between how the lawyer’s tiles and the witness’ tiles are placed is kind of confusing.

A. For both, you have to keep the line going if you currently can. When putting down a tile from the lawyer’s hand in Step 1, it is OK to choose a tile that will make it impossible to keep the line going next turn. When putting down a tile from the witness’ hand in Step 3, you must–if possible–choose a tile that currently leads to at least one space where the witness will be able to play next turn. If none of the tiles in the witness hand will do that, you can choose any of the tiles in the witness hand to play.

These diagrams show some common (and not-so-common) situations, and how they work:

10-24-14 - Lines of Questioning - Choice of Tiles 1If this is the lawyer’s hand, you could play A or C. A will end the line of questioning by running into the edge of the board, but that’s fine.

If this is the witness’ hand, you must play C. The diagonal exit makes it possible for the witness to continue into space 3. You would have to play C even if you did not already have a tile like B that could continue the line; it is enough that C leads to a space where the line could theoretically continue.

10-24-14 - Lines of Questioning - Choice of Tiles 2The lawyer in this example is almost stuck–but has one of the witness’ answer tiles in her hand. Since answer tiles can play over question tiles, you must continue the lawyer’s line of questioning by playing the answer tile (D) in space 1. You must do this even though it will necessarily end the line of questioning.

10-24-14 - Lines of Questioning - Choice of Tiles 3None of the tiles in the witness’ hand can be used to extend the line into space 3 such that the witness will have somewhere to play the following turn. You still have to continue the witness’ line of answers into space 3, but can choose which tile to play.

On the next turn–assuming no answer tile is played that makes continuing the witness’ line possible–start a new line for the witness in the corner with the number tile you are currently working to claim. (Yes, it’s legal to choose tile A so as to guarantee that it will not be possible to continue the witness’ line. Shifting the lines around the board is part of the fun!)

Theory: Using Dice as a Design Tool

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As players, we sometimes feel like we’re at the mercy of the dice–but as designers, dice work for us. They make what’s going on under a game’s hood explicit, and in doing so enable us to see and work with the often-obscure probabilities underlying the game experience. When used correctly, dice can let us tune a player’s experience to the Goldilocks standard: not too little of anything, not too much, just right.

The great merit of dice is that they give the designer direct access to the player’s chance of succeeding in doing something. A bullet has pretty good odds of harming a soldier, but only a very small chance of disabling a tank. Bullets fired by a modern rifle are more effective at both of those things than a weapon from the Napoleonic era. Using dice, a designer can reach into a game and set those percentages: if history demonstrates that the odds of a bullet stopping a tank are a little less than 3%, requiring players to roll a 12 on two dice will model historical events accurately. If playtesting then demonstrates that bullets need to stop a tank about 15% of the time or else tanks are too strong, requiring a roll of 7 solves the problem.

Managing the odds of success in this fashion does more than just let designers model armor penetration; it provides a way to establish the feel of a game. When something is more likely to happen, players will naturally trend toward strategies that favor doing it. Conversely, actions that are unlikely to work will be a minor part of the overall experience.

Take Warmachine as an example. In Warmachine attacks are made by rolling two dice, adding an attack stat, and trying to equal or exceed the target’s defense. An average Warmachine soldier has a ranged attack skill of 5, and a defense of 12. Thus, on average dice the soldier will hit her target (ranged attack skill 5 + roll of 7 = defense of 12).

Since the average roll is a hit, Warmachine skews toward offensive play. Players are aggressive because they know attacking is likely to be rewarded. The game as a whole ends up feeling very active; attacks are frequent, models are steadly removed from the table, and the game constantly progresses.

Yet, making aggression good on average wasn’t enough for Warmachine’s designers. They added a mechanism by which players could roll three dice to hit instead of two. With three dice even bad rolls are enough to make contact, which lends the game even more energy; attacking isn’t just favored, it’s much better than hanging back.

Of course, too much offense would be a problem–Goldilocks’ lesson is just as applicable here as it was to heat in soup–and the precision with which dice odds can be manipulated enables Warmachine’s designers to add just the right amount of defense back in. The (arguably) best defensive spell in the game adds 2 to a soldier’s defense. That’s enough to warrant going to the trouble of getting that third die, but not so much as to make hitting impossible.

Imagine what Warmachine would be like if the average defense was 13. Now players generally need an 8 to hit–or, looking at it conversely, the average roll misses. With the best defensive spell defenses push up to 15, which can only be hit with any reliability when using the third die. It’s hard to envision that game being a high-energy affair. More likely it would mimic trench warfare, with players waiting to attack until they had a dominant position.

Going beyond the overall feel of the game, dice can also be used for subtler applications. The average defense is 12, but Warmachine’s important leader figures often have defenses in the 15-16 range. As a result, they’re hard to hit. Players are thus incentivized to push their leaders forward and get them involved in the action, which focuses attention on these thematically important pieces. The designers have used dice math to support the narrative of the game.

Subtler still. Not every soldier can add that third die. The ones that can have a much better chance of hitting a defense of 15 or 16. Hence, the soldiers who can “boost” their to-hit rolls are well-suited to knocking out enemy leaders, while those who can’t are usually sent against line troops or relatively immobile heavy targets. By setting where soldiers’ attacks fall on the probability curve, Warmachine’s designers establish their tactical functions.

Subtler still. Rolling a handful of dice is fun. People tend to like picking up and throwing more of them; it’s exciting to see if a big pile of dice will spike to a huge total, or collapse stupendously. By giving the ability to “boost” to thematically important soldiers, the designers link those soldiers with the excitement of the big pile of dice. That encourages people to play them, further reinforcing the game’s narrative and intended theme.

With all of that said, Warmachine’s approach to dice isn’t appropriate to all games. A game about World War I trench warfare probably should favor defense over offense! The take-away point is that dice, correctly implemented with an understanding of the probabilities involved, enable designers to build and modify games with substantial precision.

It’s often hard to judge exactly what effect an element of a game’s design will have. The beauty of dice is that the effect is right there to see: the probability of success is now X. Rather than fearing the randomness of dice, use the macro-level predictability they offer to shape the game they’re in.

Theory & Strategy: Average Dice

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The number one way to improve your results in dice-based games is to understand how dice work. In particular, it’s important to understand the concept of average dice. Used correctly, it will bend results in your favor. Understood incorrectly, it will trick you into sub-optimal play and frustrating, seemingly incomprehensible defeats.

When people say they will succeed “on average dice” they mean that the most common result, and any result that’s better, will be enough. Without getting into all the math (there’s a good primer here), 7 is the most common result when rolling two dice. Thus, if all you need is a 7, you will usually succeed. The most common result, and all the numbers above the most common result, will work for you.

Once you know what the average result is, you can evaluate your options in dice-driven games much more effectively. If you need an above-average result to succeed, you will probably fail. You can’t rely on something working if you need an 8, and if you need an 11 it’s a true long shot. By contrast, if a less-than-average total is enough the odds are strongly in your favor. They become all the more so as the required total gets lower; it’s easy to roll 5 or more, and you’ll get a 3 or more almost every time.

I play a lot of dice-based wargames, and the difference an understanding of average dice makes in people’s win record is astonishing. They can objectively determine what is likely to work, rather than being seduced by the promise of what might work. Nothing leads to winning like consistently getting positive results from each move, and applying the concept of average dice generates those results.

With all of that said, it’s important to remember that average dice are not guaranteed dice. An average roll is called “average” because half of the remaining possible results are lower. It is likely that you will succeed when all you need is the average, but there is still a substantial chance of failure.

This is especially important to remember when your plan involves multiple rolls. I often hear people say things like “I only need six average rolls.” The odds of rolling the most common result or better six times straight are not very good! It is much more likely that some of those rolls will fall short. Your strategy needs to be able to hang together when that happens.

Misunderstanding the likelihood of an average roll is especially devastating when high results can’t make up for low ones. For example, take to-hit rolls. In most games, whether the player hits the target is binary: either the roll was enough or it wasn’t. An excellent first roll can’t make up for a bad second roll; the first is a hit and the second is a miss, no matter how high the first one was. The excess from the first roll can’t be applied to make up the amount the second is lacking.

When high rolls can make up for low ones, things might even out such that needing “six average rolls” is less of a problem. (Even then you’ve got a good chance of ending up below average; it’s still a problem, just less of one.) When they can’t, however, relying on six average rolls in a row is a critical mistake. Hitting six times in a row, when you need average rolls each time, isn’t an average result. It’s a very unusual one, and you would need to be very lucky to pull it off.

Dice don’t hate you, but math doesn’t pity you, either. Strategies that demand better-than-usual rolls, or even multiple average rolls in sequence, generally don’t work out. Minimizing the number of rolls you have to make, and the results you have to get, will maximize your chance of winning.

Lines of Questioning: Behind the Rules

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Although Lines of Questioning looks like an abstract, it was inspired in many respects by my experiences in and around the courtroom. Both in overall structure and specific rules, it seeks to put players in a lawyer’s shoes, bringing out the excitement–and the challenge–of examining a witness. In particular, Lines of Questioning asks players to confront a key courtroom dynamic: the attorney’s limited control over the witness’ answers.

(Before going on, I just want to offer a reminder that nothing here is legal advice. I’m going to talk about some legal principles based on my own experience, but that experience does not extend across, and is not applicable to, all jurisdictions and issues. If you have a question about how the law impacts your own life, absolutely do not rely on what you see here! Contact an attorney who can help you directly; the disclaimer page has more about how to get started.)

When a lawyer questions a witness, she generally has a set of goals. These might be facts for the witness to admit (“yes, I took a bag of money in a dark alley”), opinions for the witness to give (“the probability of that happening is less than 10%”), or just statements for the witness to make (“anteaters are weird”). Each of these goals is a brick the lawyer plans on using to build toward the desired outcome in the case.

The difficulty is that the witness is not a puppet. Witnesses have their own goals. They might want to hide embarrassing facts, or at least be uncomfortable addressing certain issues in public. On the flip side, they may want to help–and be willing to depart both from the questions asked and the rules of evidence to make sure the jury hears what the witness thinks they really need to know.

More subtly, witnesses may shade their answers, trying not to lie but also not telling the entirely unbiased truth. Even a witness who considers herself an honest person knows that she has been called by a side, and the psychological urge to help that side can be difficult to resist. One of my law school professors, a litigator of great accomplishment, opined that “every witness lies;” in his view, the adversarial nature of court proceedings almost compelled witnesses to adopt a fighting-for-my-side mindset, and to answer questions accordingly.

Even a completely honest witness can present challenges. Fading memories may undermine witnesses’ recollection of vital facts. Attempts to recount stressful or frightening situations are made more difficult by the emotion of the moment. (Studies have shown that, contrary to popular belief, scary situations are not “etched into” memory; we tend instead to focus very specifically on the danger, and our unconscious minds manufacture other details later based on what we think must have happened.). Sometimes witnesses just misspeak, get confused, don’t understand a question, or otherwise throw up roadblocks even though they are making a good-faith effort.

I chose Lines of Questioning’s play-both-sides structure because I feel that it captures the interplay between attorney and witness. Skillful questioning gives some control over what the witness says (represented by allowing the player to choose the witness’ tiles), but can only get responses that the witness is willing and able to give (represented by the limited choice of tiles available at any particular time). Just as would be true in the courtroom, LoQ’s players set goals and attempt to direct the the witness, but have to be ready to work with what the witness gives them.

Currently the available “question” tiles are also limited. This is a departure from Trust Me, which made all question pieces available for thematic reasons; if the player is the lawyer, why shouldn’t she be able to ask any question at any time? I went in this direction for two reasons:

1. It led to better gameplay. Trust Me devolved into an exercise in finding the optimal choice. By having only a limited range of options, and being uncertain about what options will be available in the future, it is enormously less likely that there will be an identifiable strictly-best move in Lines of Questioning. The choice of what to play now involves a complex weighing of competing factors–the desired length of a line of questions (or answers), how the tile moves the line relative to one’s objective, whether a placement will run the answer tiles out more quickly, and more–all in a constantly-changing environment. It’s extremely difficult–perhaps impossible–to sort that out so as to be able to say that one option is clearly better than the others, and so the decisions are enormously more interesting.

2. It’s not strictly true that a lawyer can ask any question at any time. From a rules-of-evidence perspective, some questions are disallowed except under specific circumstances. From a strategic perspective, jumping from topic to topic will quickly frustrate the jury. Limiting the available question tiles seemed like a good way to represent these contextual restrictions on what question a lawyer can ask next.

So far I’ve been satisfied with Lines of Questioning’s overall structure. It both plays well and feels right. The mechanics and theme reinforce each other, and the experience is stronger as a result.

Of course, that structure needs to include an end point–and legal realities impacted Lines of Questioning in that area as well. Victory, in the game as in the courtroom, requires the lawyer to meet her goals by building up to and getting key statements. The vertical aspect of LoQ’s play was directly influenced by the “building up” metaphor, with the lawyer getting more information about a topic until finally the key fact is revealed or the critical statement made.

Sometimes the attorney never gets there, however, and LoQ needed to include the possibility of defeat. A lawyer in the courtroom might fall short because because the witness doesn’t have important information, or because the witness is avoiding questions and otherwise being recalcitrant. The judge might simply decide that the amount of time being spent is not commensurate with what the witness has to offer, and tell the attorney to wrap it up. These possibilities are reflected by having the player lose when tiles run out; if the witness tiles are exhausted she has nothing more to say, and if the lawyer tiles are depleted the questioning has taken too long and the judge instructs her to move on.

LoQ’s strangest rule–drawing witness answer tiles into the question tile hand–also got a lot of thematic input. A product of both gameplay and thematic requirements, this rule solved two problems in a single blow and has turned into something pretty neat.

From a gameplay perspective, LoQ benefits from giving the player more control over the course of the game. It lends a good narrative flow; the player starts out weak but with lots of time, and ends up strong but needing to hurry. As I worked on the game I was looking for ways to ramp the player’s capabilities up as the game went on.

From a thematic point of view, I wanted to capture the push and pull between lawyers and reluctant witnesses. When witnesses evade questions, they deny lawyers the information they’re asking for. However, they risk giving lawyers power; a lawyer who needs help getting straight answers can appeal to the judge for assistance, and the judge can require the witness to respond accurately and concisely. Ironically, then, evasive witnesses can end up admitting more than they would have if they had just been frank, since lawyers may end up asking them pointed questions with the judge’s backing. This dynamic is interesting and in some respects counter-intuitive, and I very much wanted to represent it if I could.

Putting answer tiles in the “lawyer hand” addressed both needs. Giving the player-as-lawyer the ability to use answer tiles builds up the player’s control by making it easier to direct the line of questioning, to play over existing tiles, and ultimately to claim the objectives. Having the player gain those tiles only when the witness tiles are being placed far away–conceptually, when the witness is off-topic–enabled this mechanic to represent a lawyer’s ability to get a damaging admission out of an evasive witness.

Admittedly, not every rule in LoQ is driven by theme. There’s no thematic reason why hands are three tiles, or why the board is four squares on a side–those are driven strictly by gameplay needs. Still, I’ve tried to pack the game with the feeling of the courtroom, even in its small details. (Don’t get me started on the back-and-forth I’ve had with myself over whether it’s more or less thematic for question tiles to be removed when a line of questioning ends. 😉 ) If you get a chance, give it a try and let me know what you think. An updated PDF is below.

Lines of Questioning – 10-14-14

Lines of Questioning

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As promised in last week’s comments, here’s a print-and-play version of Trust Me’s successor, Lines of Questioning:

Lines of Questioning – 10-13-14

Lines of Questioning is a solo board game that tries to capture the experience of questioning a witness in the courtroom. You know what you need the witness to say, and you have some control over what the witness talks about . . . but witnesses aren’t puppets. They have their own views and agendas, and you’ll need to work with what the witness gives you in order to win.

Over the Next Dune taught me that big print-and-play files are off-putting, so Lines of Questioning is very lean. The file linked above has both the rules and the stuff to cut out. The game ‘s components just barely extend onto four pages, and you can have the whole game ready to go in 15 minutes or less.

Many aspects of Line of Questioning were informed by my own experiences in and around the courtroom. On Wednesday I’ll talk a little bit about how I imported legal rules–and legal realities–into the game.

Theory: Concession-Proofing Your Game

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Although concessions are inevitable, we don’t have to throw up our hands and accept that some percentage of matches will be ruined. Games can be designed so that both the number of concessions and their impact are minimized. Below are some thoughts on how those objectives might be accomplished.

It’s important to recognize that not every technique I suggest here will fit every game. Sometimes page limits mean a legal brief can’t address every opposing argument; sometimes a game can’t include an elegant solution to the problem of concessions. My goal is not to say that all games must implement mechanisms that make them sturdy against players conceding, but simply to encourage designers to think about the issue and to offer some ideas on the topic to prove that it can–at least sometimes–be addressed.

First, we need to put aside some strategies that definitely won’t work:

Making the game shorter (or longer): Game length has no bearing on whether players concede. People surrender in six-minute games of Hearthstone and in weeks-long games of online Diplomacy. There is no “right” length that will prevent concessions.

Indeed, in my experience there’s no game length that even discourages them. If a player wants to concede, the game’s length can always be used as a justification–no matter what that length is. Players looking to get out of short games can take the view that the opponent(s) didn’t have time to get invested; those trying to escape a long game may feel that the investment they’re being asked to make is unreasonable.

Increasing (or decreasing) the number of players: I’ve seen people quit two-player games, seven-player games, and everything in between. Adding players does not necessarily create moral pressure to stay in the game. If anything, it can decrease the perceived need to keep playing–“there’s a lot going on, the game will still be interesting even if I leave.”

While those strategies don’t work, there are some that can. They can be broadly split into two groups: ways to make concessions less frequent, and ways to make them less impactful when they happen.

Making concessions less frequent:

Include one or more comeback mechanisms: Done right, comeback mechanisms discourage concessions by making players feel like the game is still meaningful. They know that if they make good decisions, they can position themselves for an upset victory. Hence, the game stays interesting and the players stay engaged.

Done wrong, of course, comeback mechanisms make the game feel meaningless from the outset. Be careful not to go too far by making the mechanism too strong. Concessions may be harmful to a game, but the game being just plain terrible is a lot worse.

Obscure the score: If it’s hard to tell who’s winning, players are less likely to feel themselves irrevocably behind and concede. The extreme form of this is games where scores are completely hidden during play, like Small World and Puerto Rico. (To be fair, the scores in these games can usually be determined by keeping running totals–but I’ve never seen anyone bother.) Lack of precise information allows players who think they’re losing to hope that they can close the gap.

It’s also possible to obscure just part of the score. Most often, in my experience, this is done with secret objectives that players reveal at the end of the game. The point swing that results when one player achieves her goal and another doesn’t can allow for come-from-behind wins, the promise of which helps keep everyone involved.

The most extreme form of this is something like Killer Bunnies, where the game’s result is always decided by a final roll of the dice. I’m not sure I would recommend that approach, but it certainly makes it harder to predict the winner!

Give players more capability over time: Even if a player is losing now, he or she might hang around if new powers/better stats/more items/etc. will help turn the tide. League of Legends matches against an all-attack damage team can be brutal . . . until your entire team buys Thornmail, and starts reflecting all that damage back at the opponents. Knowing that team-wide Thornmail is coming makes the heavily-slanted early game more bearable.

This approach is tricky to implement, because if the losers are getting new stuff the leader probably does as well. New capabilities only offer hope to those who have fallen behind if they’re numerically superior to what the leader gets (in which case they’re a comeback mechanism, with all the challenges those entail) or they allow one to progress along a totally different axis from what the leader is doing. Giving both leader and loser a sword doesn’t help, but if the leader gets a sword and the loser gets extra points for holding key scenario locations the loser is apt to be tempted by the possibilities.

End the game at the climactic move: If a game is going to be unwinnable for one player after X condition obtains, stop the game at that point. Forcing players to go through a denouement will be frustrating and will likely produce concessions. Warmachine and Hordes are good examples to follow here: those games are essentially over from a tactical perspective once one player loses his or her leader, so defeating the enemy leader is a victory condition that ends the game on the spot.

Note that this doesn’t mean ending the game unpredictably, or prematurely. “Climactic” includes elements of buildup and drama; there should be time enough for both. The goal with this approach is simply to avoid dragging out the endgame to the point where there’s no game left.

Establish objectives other than winning: This goes back to the idea that “building” games can be satisfying even if one loses. I’ve never seen anyone concede a game of Agricola, even though the game can be long and it would be possible to do so with a minimum of disruption; creating one’s farm is reason enough to keep going. MMOs do a lot of this, too, with professions to improve in, things to collect, and stories to experience even if one can’t beat the raid bosses.

Make each match part of a larger whole: Drawing on the car-racing example from last time, players are more likely to keep going if finishing the game is worth points in an overall competition. There’s a limit to this, of course–players might simply concede the entire event! Nevertheless, the possibility of making up a poor performance today with a better one tomorrow is a strong incentive to keep going and minimize the amount of scrabbling back to be done.

Reducing the impact of concessions:

Make the players independent: It’s not hard to keep Race for the Galaxy going after a concession , because the players don’t (generally) interact directly. The loss of a player takes some cards out of the game, and might occasionally result in a phase not being chosen when it otherwise would have, but that’s about it. Everyone remaining can still play a perfectly good RtFG match.

Unfortunately, it’s easy to take this idea too far. Games that can edit a player out cleanly often fall into the trap of “multiplayer solitaire,” with opponents who are so irrelevant that one may as well not have had them in the first place. Use with caution!

Replace departed players: Substitutions are common in professional sports, and their example suggests that this is a fertile area for tabletop and video games as well. We have seen a little of this in video games, with AIs taking over for disconnected players in online games, and tabletop games may also be able to sub in an AI–or another person–for a player who has to leave. Rather than just leaving the conceded position in Race for the Galaxy alone, why not have the solo-play “bot” from the first expansion take over?

Keep the conceded position in play: There are many games which handle player concessions by removing all of his or her stuff from the game. That can be rough in multiplayer games where preying on a weaker player is a valid way to maintain a lead–or to catch up. If the game involves taking things from other players, try to keep the conceded player’s territories/artifacts/etc. available for the remaining players to grab. If this can be combined with a replacement AI that makes realistic efforts to defend those things, so much the better!

Change the objective: This is the flip-side of creating alternative goals for those who are losing: give the winner who’s now without an opponent something else to aim for. John Doe leaving might deny Jane Doe the full satisfaction of beating him, but the frustration will be lessened if she can still compete for the high score or unlock an achievement.

Offer goals along the way: If all of the game’s satisfaction comes in one big lump with the win, anything that seems to cheapen the win will be a major problem. If, however, there are points of satisfaction before that a concession won’t be so bad. This ties back to the question of how to make losing fun; although the positions are reversed–we’re now talking about the winner–the fundamental issue of “keeping a player engaged without the satisfaction of a big win” is related.

Again, I don’t propose that some or all of these need to be in every game. Nor do I mean to say that this is a comprehensive list of ways to deal with concessions. Rather, I hope that these ideas inspire others to take up conceding as a design issue in their own games, and that the approaches here are useful starting points in that process.