Responding to Things We Think About Games -- Gaming Expectations: Playing Optimally

Last week, Cinerati featured the first in a series of responses to the book Things We Think About Games. In the post, I discussed how the interaction between a game's narrative and its mechanics might affect the player's experience. In particular, I praised Robotron 2084 and criticized the Dawn of War real time strategy game. Both games are highly enjoyable, but when Dawn of War is played in Campaign mode the ending leaves the player feeling less than satisfied with their achievements.

But specifically narrative expectations aren't the only kinds of expectation players can have when approaching a particular game. Some gamers look at the game system itself as a kind of puzzle to be solved. Many games, particularly war games and games like chess, tic-tac-toe, and checkers, have a finite number of "good moves." In fact, some games can be "solved." There is a perfect way to play checkers and chess -- thankfully the "solutions" to these games are so monumentally complex that there are currently no players who play these games "perfectly." One of the lessons of tic-tac-toe is that solving a game can make future play less fun than "imperfect" play. For these players, the examination of the system itself is a wonderful experience -- one that I will touch upon more fully in a later post -- but their mindset, that games are puzzles to be "solved," can be a useful one to those who are more competitive in their gaming habits.

Which brings us to the passage in Things We Think About Games that I'd like to talk about today:

STATEMENT 060
If doing well matters to you, learn the optimal methods for the games you like.

I'll be honest, I'm not one of those people for whom doing well at a game matters. I blame Candyland for this, but for me the most important thing is that everyone is enjoying themselves. One can only submit themselves to the whims of fate, unalterable fate, as manifest in Candyland so many times before they begin to care less about winning than most game players. But I also happen to be one of those people who likes to break game systems into their respective parts and put them back together, so I do tend to play "more" optimally than someone who doesn't care at all. I just have a different motivation for finding the optimal methods for the games I like. This also means that I don't mind being totally "owned" by an opponent at Blood Bowl, as long as I can see why I was getting so easily destroyed.

But for those who do care whether or not they do well, which might be different than winning, the analytical tools that those who treat games like puzzles use are one of the first places a player should look to find out what the optimal methods of playing a particular game are.

Take for example this brief analysis of die probabilities over at the Giant Battling Robots blog. Take a moment to read Kit's article and come back to this page. We'll still be here, I promise.

The post is expressly about how modifications (bonuses and penalties) to a bell shaped probability curve have disproportionate effects on the player depending on where along the bell curve a particular target number is. That is to say that a penalty punishes the player more, with regard to a positive outcome, the closer to the middle of the distribution the initial target number was. A -1 penalty when the target number needed for success is 11 or greater, on 2 ten-sided die added together, is about 10%. The -1 penalty effectively changes the target number from 11 to 12. Whereas the same -1 penalty on a target number of 19 is only a 2% penalty.

This means that any player participating in a game that uses die rolls that have bell shaped probability distributions -- games like Feng Shui, Dream Park, and Battletech (notice I am counting "opposed" d6 rolls as the same as a 2d6 roll as they are the same for probabilistic purposes) -- one should examine what significance the individual penalty or bonus will have when making a decision. The human mind typically inducts all +1 or -1 modifiers to be the same, but this isn't the case when the die rolls have a bell shaped distribution. This means you might take a risk you might otherwise ignore if it only has a moderate affect on your probability of success. You need to know when +1 means +10% and when -1 means -2%. This lets you take more rational risks, ones that are more optimal.

Kit uses this analysis to come up with a quick equation that can be used "on the fly" to determine whether you should take a particular action. All you need to know is your initial target number, your opponent's initial target number, and how much your action will affect each of these. This is a powerful tool that can be used in a number of games and will help the player play more efficiently.

One doesn't need to be a mathematician or statistician to utilize these tools either. Thankfully, there are plenty of mathematicians and statisticians who are willing to write their discoveries regarding a particular method, and put it in layman's terms. Perhaps Kit will follow up his article with one including specific examples of how his quick equation is used. Besides this, the massive number of Chess and Poker books available at bookstores is testimony to the fact that there are those willing to share optimal play. Likely because they like to play with others who care about playing well as much as they do. Take some time to find these resources, if only to find out more about how a game works.

There are many games, Dream Park I'm looking at you, that could have benefited a great deal if they told the players a little bit about the mathematics behind their opposed roll systems. Many a GM running Feng Shui has misinterpreted the significance of adding as little as 3 points to a villain's skill/statistic. It can change the dynamic from a fun night gaming, to one where the villain is impossible to defeat. In role playing games, GMing optimally, means understanding how changes in one part of the game affect the probabilities of success. In Candyland, playing optimally means not minding that the results are predetermined the moment the cards are shuffled -- though you don't know the result -- unless you shuffle the full deck after each move in order to intentionally create a Markov-chain.

Hulu Recommendation Friday: Angel and the Badman

John Wayne didn't receive formal accolades for his acting ability until his 1970 performance as Marshall Reuben J. "Rooster" Cogburn. It is often argued that the reason the Oscar, and Golden Globe, was awarded is due to the fact that in playing "against type" John Wayne finally proved that he was a capable actor. Those who make this argument often point to the John Wayne film, The Shootist, as another example of how the "usually cardboard" Wayne was able to bring another powerful performance to screen.

Those who believe that John Wayne only came into "deep" acting later in his career are wearing some fairly narrow blinders and have to ignore a long list of worthy performances.

Wayne's performance in The Quiet Man is simultaneously vulnerable and powerful, passionate and reserved, melancholy and puckish. The film is a joy to watch for a wide variety of reason, but John Wayne's wonderful performance is one of those reasons.

In The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, a movie where Wayne simultaneously plays the stereotype and breaks it wide open, Wayne's performance uses the audience's knowledge of his past films to good effect. Audiences were used to seeing the tough Wayne who met challenges head on, kills the bad guy, is fawned upon by the community, and who often ended up with the girl -- a perfect example of this character is Wayne's performance in Rio Bravo or Stagecoach. But Tom Donophon, Wayne's character in Valance, only accomplishes two of these line items. Donophon does that most remarkable of things. He gives credit, and all the rewards due to the individual to whom credit is given, to another man -- a man he believes to be better than himself. The film is a perfect argument against Machiavellian style politics, and a presentation of true heroic virtue. Donophon refuses to take any credit for a heroic deed, even though it means he must live without the woman he loves. He does this because the community needs him to do it. Wayne's performance is powerful in this film, and his heartbreak is palpable.

There are several other examples in Wayne's career of great performances, The Searchers and Red River also immediately jump to mind, but one of those performances that is often overlooked is Angel and the Badman a film in which we see glimpses of the actor's potential to break free from the cardboard hero in a screenplay were the audience, like in the later Valance, can see that there is more to the Western than good guy kills bad guy.



In Angel and the Badman, we see Wayne without the scaffolding of Howard Hawks or John Ford. This time, Wayne is directed by James Edward Grant who is better known for his screenplays than his directing, and who no one would argue was an auteur. The film is a vehicle for Wayne as "John Wayne," but it ends up being much more than that.

The film's story is a simple one. Quirt Evans is a man of the West. He largely lives outside the law, taking what he wants, and living life to its hedonistic fullest. Quirt isn't a purely evil man, but he is an amoral one and his flexible morality has come into conflict with another outlaw named Laredo Stevens.

So far, the names and character types are almost caricatures from a bad dime novel. Quirt? Laredo? These aren't names of characters one expects in a film of substance. That's typically true, but Grant -- who also wrote the screenplay -- is about to take our expectations of a cardboard tale and throw it for a loop.

As might be expected, Quirt gets injured in a rundown with Laredo. Quirt's injuries are not small and he ends up demanding to be cared for by a family of Quakers named Worth. Penelope Worth (Gail Russell) -- again with those obvious names -- takes a high interest in Quirt and the two eventually develop an emotional attachment. In the end, Quirt must choose between love and violence, between living a moral life or defending those he has come to love by murdering the villain Laredo.

This would all be typical stuff, and the audience can see which way the wind is taking Wayne by the color of his hat in a given scene as it alternates between black and white, except that Grant is making a more sophisticated argument than one might initially expect -- and Wayne is able to portray the moral complexity of the character required to advance that argument. Grant doesn't merely give us a tale where pacifism equals moral virtue and violent action equals moral vice. The film is as complex as High Noon in the way it balances legitimate authority and pacifism.

The Worth family, while happy, is suffering due to their religious practices and it is only Quirt who can convince their neighbor to give them the water they need to thrive. It is the threat of implied violence that accompanies Quirt that initially changes the mind of their Scrooge like neighbor to share water with the Worth family. The neighbor shares because he is scared that Quirt will kill him if he doesn't comply. What makes the scene powerful is that Quirt went to the neighbor unarmed, and with good intentions, and that the bond of neighborly friendship is cemented by the kindness of the Worth family. There is another scene where the threat of Quirt using violence saves the lives of the family.

Grant's argument in the film seems to be that violence, and the threat of violence, isn't in itself evil, but that the application of violence is only moral when done through proper authority. There are some great parallels between this film and the earlier mentioned High Noon, of particular interest is a comparison of the endings of the two films, and both films require subtle performances from underrated actors. Wayne's portrayal of Quirt begins as you might expect a Wayne performance to play out, but as it continues and Quirt transforms from Badman to Man it is Wayne's performance that makes it work. One can see glimpses of the performances Wayne would later bring to the screen, and one also gets to see how a writer can use the clichéd tropes of a genre and manipulate them into a more complex tale than one usually expects.

Unless You're Dressing Up, Don't Talk Like a Pirate Tomorrow. Try Playing Like One Instead

Last year, I began advocating that people should celebrate "Play Like a Pirate Day" rather than participate in "Talk Like a Pirate Day." My contention was that one of the most irritating things you can hear your co-workers say is, "Aaaargh, Avast, Ye Mateys" a couple times an hour in some half-hearted participation in a day of international live action role playing. Even worse are the inconsistent uses of "Yar!" I think what makes it most irritating is the fact that these small offering of participation are lackadaisical at best.

I would rather my co-worker show up dressed in full "Age of Sail" apparel, blunderbuss and cutlass in hand, and charge into the office while staying in character as much as is possible for the day.

That might be fun, in the "employees showing up to work in costumes on Halloween" kind of way. You know... like when a person comes to work in their full blown Optimus Prime costume -- one where they can actually "transform" from robot to big rig -- you are truly impressed with your co-workers commitment. On the other hand, when your other co-worker shows up with only a pair of "cat ears" on and a mild scowl on their face, it's annoying.

Most participation in International Talk Like a Pirate Day is of the cat ear type, and not the Optimus Prime type. That's why I still believe that it is time for the phenomenon to die. That doesn't mean that we should no longer have a day "celebrating" piracy and the outlaw attitude, or as the founder of Talk Like A Pirate Day called it "Piratitude." Pirates are still awesome (though not as awesome as Transforming Robot Pirate Ninja Dinosaur Mutant Demon Hunters), it's just talking like a pirate that is lame. I think gamers, and geeks of all kinds, should lay claim the holiday and re-cast it as "International Play Like A Pirate Day." That way the costume role players can "play pirate" and other people can play pirate themed games, read pirate themed novels, or watch pirate themed films.

As I wrote last year, "from now on September 19th will be a day when families and friends get together and enjoy some form of Piratical Recreation. Such recreation can include celebrating by talking like pirates, certainly role play (in the traditional sense) is play. Our celebration is inclusive, not exclusive. But families and friends will no longer be limited to listening to the 'yars' and 'aaarghs' of everyone around them. Some might choose more formal ludographic participation -- that's game play."

Here is a list of recommended activities for this year's festivities -- thankfully the Day doesn't fall on a Weekday this year:

1) Play a pirate themed roleplaying game. In particular, we recommend Pinnacle Entertainment Group's excellent PIRATES OF THE SPANISH MAIN. This is highly recommended for those who want to talk like a pirate. It encourages such behavior in an appropriate venue. Besides, by role playing (in the game sense) participants can act far more Piratical than is allowed under modern mores and laws.

If you want a more heroic bent with mystical aspects, you can always play Pinnacle's 50 Fathoms instead.

2)If you own a copy -- and not many do -- play an exciting session of the classic Broadsides and Boarding Parties

If you don't own a copy of Broadsides, try one of these two excellent pirate games from GMT Games.

3) Blackbeard: The Golden Age of Piracy. The game is a redesign of Avalon Hill's classic game of the same name. The new version is suitable for 1 to 5 players and has less "down time" for players who aren't in their current turn.

4) Winds of Plunder is a quick and fun game that is more in the style of the "Eurogame" than Blackbeard or Broadsides.

5) You can play the previously reviewed Sword and Skull.

6) Lastly, we recommend watching one of your favorite pirate films. We've included some of our favorites in the carousel below.

Or your can sing "For I am a Pirate King!"

"Classic Hollywood Versions" of Gen X Classic Films

Stefan Blitz, of the excellent Forces of Geek blog, posted a couple of youtube videos yesterday. The videos were mash ups of classic Hollywood films cut into "fantasy" trailers for films like Raiders of the Lost Ark and Forrest Gump. In the fantasy versions, the starring role of Indiana Jones is played by Charlton Heston and Forrest Gump is portrayed by Jimmy Stewart. The concept alone is inspired, but what makes the clips work is Ivan Guerrero's dedication to detail. His use of scenes from Harvey and Mr. Smith Goes to Washington as key moments in the life of Forrest Gump is brilliant, particularly the scene from Harvey which captures the "feel" of Forrest Gump to a T.

It doesn't matter if you are familiar with the works Ivan Guerrero uses in his Raiders clip, as he also tends to release a "clip by clip" comparison with notations describing the scene he selected, where it is from, and why. I don't know exactly were this falls within the copyright wars raging around the world now, but I will say this. This is exactly the kind of content that those who are reasonable on the copyleft are trying to protect. It also happens to be something that I think, especially with the "annotated" versions, could become a poster child for what could be considered fair use. At no time is Ivan trying to profit from, or dilute the value of, another IP, instead he is trying to share a love for Classic film and classic Gen-X films.

Here is the Raiders of the Lost Ark trailer.



Here's the Raider's trailer with annotations.

Magic Potions for Sale: Jones Soda is Offering "Dungeons and Dragons Spellcasting Soda"

For many this will be old news, as it has already worked its way around the geekernet Wil Wheaton and Felicia Day have already tweeted about it), but I think it is still pretty cool news. I first read the story on the excellent Nerdvana blog on the East Valley Tribune website. I have no idea why an eastern Phoenix newspaper is the home to this excellent blog, but maybe it has something to do with Flying Buffaloes.

To make a long story short, Jones Soda is offering a new limited edition 6-pack of sodas under the brand name Dungeons and Dragons Spellcasting Soda.



Each pack comes with six Dungeons and Dragons themed flavors, though not all the names are exactly "spellcasting" related. The flavors are:

Dwarven Draught

Healing Potion -- the one diet beverage

Sneak Attack

Bigby's Crushing Thirst Destroyer

Eldritch Blast

Illithid Brain Juice

The names of the flavors is pretty hit or miss. I could have done without "Sneak Attack" or "Eldritch Blast," but that is more than made up for by the 1st edition referencing "Bigby's Crushing Thirst Destroyer." Given that Bigby was famous for his hand/fist related spells, it is a little bizarre imagining drinking this soda being the equivalent of swallowing a liquid fist -- but that's beside the point.

I'll be ordering a couple of packs today and hoping that "Illithid Brain Juice" is a cool as it sounds.

Responding to Things We Think About Games -- Gaming Expectations: Heroic Endings or Doomed to Failure (Case Study One: Robotron 2084)

In 2008, game designers Will Hindmarch and Jeff Tidball released a very useful book entitled Things we Think About Games. The book contains 101 statements by the authors, with a couple of additional statements by guest gamers/designers. Some of the comments are common sense, some are blunt, and all are thought provoking. Things We Think About Games is a book that belongs on every gamer's bookshelf, and Will and Jeff's website belongs on every gamers rss feed.

At the San Diego Comic Con this year, I asked Jeff Tidball if he would allow me to write a series of posts featuring the statements from the book. Each blog post would be a gamer reacting to one of the statements in the book, and eventually I'd like to address all the statements made by the various game designers. I will also continually belabor the fact that Will and Jeff asked Wil Wheaton, and not me, to write the introduction to the book. While this is a common mistake, it is one that I will point out at every opportunity. Yes, Wheaton is more famous (and is in Secret of Nimh which I recommended as last week's Hulu recommendation), but I am less likely to use expletives.

This being a blog, and not a Thesis or Dissertation, I will address the statements in no particular order, but I do hope to address them all. Today's blog topic is inspired by the 101st entry in the book.

STATEMENT 101
Know Why You Play Games.

The statement is simple enough, and is a gamer's version of Oracle of Delphi's famous dictum Gnōthi sauton or "Know Thyself." It is a statement seems to have an underlying claim that some ludophile Socrates might adhere to, "the unexamined gaming experience isn't worth playing." That may, in one way, be the whole point of Hindmarch's and Tidball's book, but this quote provides a nice starting point for any discussion regarding games and spurs one on to think philosophically about the subject.

It was this thought that was lurking around my subconscious when I read an article at Gamasutra about Robotron 2084. The article is an historical article about the game and its legacy with regard to game play. A good amount of time is spent discussing the games innovative use of a two joystick system, an innovation that couldn't be accurately emulated in a "home experience" for many years. It makes for interesting reading, but there was one quote which mixed with STATEMENT 101 to inspire me to think about why I play games. The quote was a simple one, "The player is tasked with the grim, desperate, and ultimately futile task of saving the last family of Humanoids (emphasis added)."



Ultimately futile -- the words echoed in the back of my mind.

Why would I want to play a game that I cannot, no matter how skilled I get at it, "win?"

What particularly bothered me about this statement is that it pointed to a contradiction in my game playing habits. I have been a fan of Robotron 2084 for decades and have played it uncountable times. In that time my skill level has migrated, from poor to excellent to poor to average, depending on how often I have played the game during a given time period. I am not always in the mood for Robotron, but I never find the game -- as it was designed -- to be a bad game. As big a fan as I am of this particular futile effort, I was seriously disappointed by the end of Dawn Of War. After many hours of game play, and total victory over the forces of Chaos, I watched as all my hard work evaporated in a "1970s Satan has eaten your soul Bad ending" as my Space Marine Captain unwittingly released a new demon into the universe.

The futility of all my hard work playing Dawn of War was made clear to me during the final animated narrative sequence. Lucien Soulban's scripted ending undid everything I had struggled for in playing the game -- and it seriously aggravated me. I was all the more aggravated because an author/game designer I respect was the one who dropped the "futility bomb" on my head.

Why was I experiencing such a strong emotion that was, on its face, a contradictory sentiment to my thorough enjoyment of the equally futile Robotron 2084? To answer this, it was helpful to contemplate statement 101.

Why do I play games?

I play different games for a variety of reasons, but one reason that keeps me coming back is "story." I like the way that games, of all kinds, tell stories. It's one of the reasons I am a "good loser." I don't mind losing to someone who is better than me at Chess, all I want is my learning experience to be a good story. Candyland, with its pre-determined gameplay, taught me the importance of story in play and de-emphasized "winning." Both Robotron 2084 and Dawn of War contain story elements. Robotron's appear to be "weak" at first, but they are deeply embedded in gameplay -- if simple narratively. Both games contain narratives where the actions of the player, in the end, result in failure -- so there must be some element of the game and how it interacts with story that allows me to enjoy one in its entirety while feeling dissatisfied with the ending of the other.

Aha! It isn't the futile ending that is disappointing. It is the fact that the futile ending was not a part of game play -- it was a forced narrative tacked on to the end of the game. When the player inevitably loses in Robotron it is because the game has finally become too hard to finish, the game has literally beaten you. When you "lose" at the end of Dawn of War, it occurs after you have achieved "final victory." The contradiction lies in the interaction between the mechanics and the story -- a contradiction made even stronger by the underlying expectations of Real Time Strategy games. The underlying expectation of an RTS is that you can win, any advantage in supply or troops the computer opponent has is usually made up by an imperfect AI -- necessarily imperfect as a perfect AI would likely win all the time and lessen the fun.

Would I have felt differently if I had actually lost the final scenario of Dawn of War rather than have a scripted 70s ending? Not if the game had followed standard RTS genre conventions, the player "must" have a chance to win in the conventional. If the game progressed in a manner similar to other RTS games, each level getting slightly more difficult but winnable, with a final impossible level, the game would have likely been as unsatisfactory. This dissatisfaction would likely have been accentuated by the interstitial narrative clips.

On the other hand, if the game lacked interstitial clips and the narrative left only to game play I would probably have accepted an unwinnable level. At least possibly, especially if I knew going in that the game eventually becomes unwinnable as each level becomes more difficult than the last. But that isn't the central conceit of an RTS campaign, the central conceit of an RTS campaign is that the player is unlocking a heroic narrative. In this case, each victory leads to a new chapter in the hero's tale. A hero can hit a low point, like the one at the end of Dawn of War, but that ought not be the end of the story. In this case, it is. There is no sequel to the narrative, though there are many sequels to the game. My Blood Angels forever stand defeated in their victory, where my mutant defender of humanity just ends up dead after finally facing overwhelming odds.

I think it would be interesting for someone to design an RTS where each level becomes more difficult than the last, with no end in sight. Then the story changes from how my victory was taken from me, to how far I was able to get and who is able to get to the farthest level. I think I might prefer traditional RTS games -- with victorious endings -- to that "futile" RTS, but given my love of Robotron 2084 I'd probably like that killer RTS more than the end of Dawn of War because the ending would be driven by the mechanics of the game.

I don't mind losing when it's a part of the rules, but I hate losing when I won fair and square.

One Who Walked Alone: Solomon Kane Preview

If you were to take a random sample of Americans and ask them to name a hero created by Robert E Howard, arguably the creator of the Sword and Sorcery genre, their most likely answer would be Conan the Barbarian. For the past forty years, since Lin Carter and L. Sprague De Camp resurrected the hero for mass consumption, Howard's man of gigantic mirth and gigantic melancholies has appeared in a wide variety of media for public consumption. People have encountered Conan, or some approximation, in film, video games, comic books, television shows, and numerous pastiches written by more recent authors. Never mind the fact that the Conan of popular culture bears only passing resemblance to Howard's barbarian, the character has become a deeply ingrained part of the American Mythos.

From time to time some devoted soul, will attempt to resurrect another of Howard's heroes in the hopes that they too will become a part of the American psyche.

A little over a decade ago we saw the release of Kull the Conquerer starring Kevin Sorbo. Kull was a proto-Conan and the first published Conan stories is a re-writing of a Kull tale. The film meandered between the swashbuckling stylings of a Harryhausen Sinbad film and the camp of the Batman television series, and in doing so failed to capture the character or any real audience.

There have also been attempts to bring Howard's dour and deadly Puritan, Solomon Kane. In the 70s, Marvel Comics released a number of Solomon Kane comics, recently Dark Horse has done the same. In fact, Dark Horse is publishing the reprint trades of the Marvel books. In the 90s, Baen Books released a collection of Howard's Solomon Kane stories with and introduction by Ramsey Campbell. Campbell also used the Bael edition as an opportunity to "collaborate" with Howard in a manner similar to de Camp and the Conan tales. Del Rey released a beautiful edition of the Solomon Kane tales, with wonderful artwork by Gary Gianni, in 2004 -- an edition still in print -- that collects all of the original tales with a few exclusive story fragments. The Del Rey edition is Kane as Howard wrote him. Solomon Kane has even been the subject of the excellent The Savage Worlds of Solomon Kane role playing game by Pinnacle Entertainment.

Kane is among my favorite Sword and Sorcery heroes. His combination of a forthright pursuit of justice and his unforgiving personality makes for an interesting take on the "religiously motivated" hero. Howard describes him as, "a strange blending of Puritan and Cavalier, with a touch of the ancient philosopher, and more than a touch of the pagan...A hunger in his soul drove him on an on, an urge to right all wrongs, protect all weaker things...Wayward and restless as the wind, he was consistent in only one respect -- he was true to his ideals of justice and right. Such was Solomon Kane." Like so many of Howard's heroes, Kane was -- like Howard himself -- One Who Waled Alone.

Kane's star is certainly rising in the popular psyche, but how great a place the Puritan will hold will greatly depend on the upcoming film starring James Purefoy as the title character. If the preview is any indication, the character of the film will not be Howard's character "made flesh," but Purefoy's Kane might just be Howard's character in spirit.

Solomon Kane at IGN.com