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Hobbyists beat professional designers in creating novel board games

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Re: Hobbyists beat professional designers in creating novel board games

#81

Post by mumblemumble »

60654 wrote: post #56

Gamedev here. Sigh. One, the measurement of novelty is bad: it's basically the measure of whether the game exhibits a novel mashup of mechanics according to the BoardGameGeek ontology of mechanics. This is a terrible definition of novelty, as it ignores all of the other aspects of game design, both in gameplay (interesting systems, challenges, loops) and non-game play (fiction, setting, presentation, etc). Who measur…

There's also a part of me that wonders if novelty is overrated. I'm less familiar with the history of board games, but, at least in video games, my impression is that many really clever ideas never really go anywhere, and, of the ones that do, the first game to incorporate a mechanic rarely ends up also being one of the ones that put it to the best use.

Re: Hobbyists beat professional designers in creating novel board games

#82

Post by grawprog »

60654 wrote: post #56

Gamedev here. Sigh. One, the measurement of novelty is bad: it's basically the measure of whether the game exhibits a novel mashup of mechanics according to the BoardGameGeek ontology of mechanics. This is a terrible definition of novelty, as it ignores all of the other aspects of game design, both in gameplay (interesting systems, challenges, loops) and non-game play (fiction, setting, presentation, etc). Who measur…

>And finally, the main problem is: sure, if you compare hobbyists (who make what they want for fun) with professionals (who are making a product that needs to sell more than a small handful of copies), of course you're going to find that hobbyists are more free to experiment with wild permutations of mechanics. But in doing so, they conflate personal ability with situational constraints. What about professional designers if they were able to work without commercial constraints, like hobbyists?

This last paragraph reminds me of the video game world and common arguments on indie games vs AAA/big studio games.

Indie games with their hit or miss experimentation, AAA games with their formulaic selling strategy.

But in the video game world there have been professionals who have stepped back into the indie world to make something lower budget and more experimental. Those end up being about as hit or miss as the 'actual', for lack of a better word, indie games.

So I guess my point is, I think the constraints themselves do play a part in hobbyist type games and a professional under the same constraints is likely to produce the same kind of thing.

Something experimental that may be awesomely fun or it could be kinda lame.

Re: Hobbyists beat professional designers in creating novel board games

#83

Post by tialaramex »

jonplackett wrote: post #7

This kind of thing has been shown in all sorts of creative endeavour. But it ignores consistency, which is the main mark of professionalism. Yeah, if you disregard all rules and norms sometimes you come up with something AMAZING that no-one following the rules could ever conceive of. But most of the the time it's just crap.

But I don't have to play most of the games produced this way. So I don't experience the crap. If you make six wildly different board games, five of which are utter trash, and one is genius, I never have to play the five trash games at all.

This is the same in a lot of creative fields. Novels, pop music, video games, movies. A handful of professional reviewers might see dozens at a time, but I see a couple based on their recommendations, and maybe I like half of what I see even though Sturgeon's revelation is correct.

Re: Hobbyists beat professional designers in creating novel board games

#84

Post by im3w1l »

One leg up hobbyists can have on professionals is hyper-local audience targetting.

At my alma mater there is a tradition of putting on shows. They are a mixture of situational comedy, singing, and basically anything entertaining you can do on a scene. Crucially, they are by the university, for the university, and about the university. They are some of the funniest things I've ever seen. And they achieve this by having an incredible amount of injokes and references, that just wouldn't work for a general audience.

So this would be my message to hobbyist board game makers: Make one aboout your university, company, town, or maybe about your other hobby. Tell your own story. Reference people and events that will be familiar.

Re: Hobbyists beat professional designers in creating novel board games

#85

Post by whatshisface »

mumblemumble wrote: post #81
60654 wrote: post #56

Gamedev here. Sigh. One, the measurement of novelty is bad: it's basically the measure of whether the game exhibits a novel mashup of mechanics according to the BoardGameGeek ontology of mechanics. This is a terrible definition of novelty, as it ignores all of the other aspects of game design, both in gameplay (interesting systems, challenges, loops) and non-game play (fiction, setting, presentation, etc). Who measur…

There's also a part of me that wonders if novelty is overrated. I'm less familiar with the history of board games, but, at least in video games, my impression is that many really clever ideas never really go anywhere, and, of the ones that do, the first game to incorporate a mechanic rarely ends up also being one of the ones that put it to the best use.

Your argument sounds something like, "Mining is overrated, the true source of our materials is smelting."

Re: Hobbyists beat professional designers in creating novel board games

#86

Post by tialaramex »

matthiaswh wrote: post #33
technics256 wrote: post #20

Does anyone have any board games they recommend for groups of 3-5? Something that isn't too terrible to learn, and lasts max an hour?

I would recommend going to Board Game Arena and finding a few games that seem interesting to you, then give them a try. Here's a filter roughly matching your criteria: https://boardgamearena.com/gamelist?section=all&playernumber... From the top options presented I can recommend Kingdom Builder - incredibly easy to learn strategy game with just enough depth to keep it interesting over multiple plays Love Letter - one…

We've been playing a fair amount of Kingdom Builder (whereas normally we'd play longer games of Terra Mystica or Through The Ages that would definitely not quality for this "under an hour" constraint)

I think with five players an hour is pushing it for Kingdom Builder, but of course this will vary if you've got players who are just generally faster at playing board games.

Note that the boxed Kingdom Builder game is actually four player, BGA is providing a five player expansion (because it's a web site, so the extra little wooden pieces don't cost anything) but if you are in the real world that's an issue for five.

I feel like Stone Age is a better introduction to worker placement than Puerto Rico but I wonder how often you'd really get a five player game in an hour. We generally take 90+ minutes for four players.

Re: Hobbyists beat professional designers in creating novel board games

#87

Post by mumblemumble »

whatshisface wrote: post #85
mumblemumble wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's also a part of me that wonders if novelty is overrated. I'm less familiar with the history of board games, but, at least in video games, my impression is that many really clever ideas never really go anywhere, and, of the ones that do, the first game to incorporate a mechanic rarely ends up also being one of the ones that put it to the best use.

Your argument sounds something like, "Mining is overrated, the true source of our materials is smelting."

It's more meant to be an, "Ideas are cheap, execution is everything," kind of sentiment.

Re: Hobbyists beat professional designers in creating novel board games

#88

Post by tines »

mumblemumble wrote: post #87
whatshisface wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your argument sounds something like, "Mining is overrated, the true source of our materials is smelting."

It's more meant to be an, "Ideas are cheap, execution is everything," kind of sentiment.

Strong disagree. Good ideas are rare, and nobody knows how to come up with them reliably. (For example, in the world of cinema, see how the writers of the subsequent Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and the people around them, had no idea what made the first one good.)

An idea without execution is still valuable, but execution without an idea is worthless.

Re: Hobbyists beat professional designers in creating novel board games

#89

Post by burmer »

60654 wrote: post #56

Gamedev here. Sigh. One, the measurement of novelty is bad: it's basically the measure of whether the game exhibits a novel mashup of mechanics according to the BoardGameGeek ontology of mechanics. This is a terrible definition of novelty, as it ignores all of the other aspects of game design, both in gameplay (interesting systems, challenges, loops) and non-game play (fiction, setting, presentation, etc). Who measur…

> What about professional designers if they were able to work without commercial constraints, like hobbyists? Exactly, they should look at indy developers like Nate Hayden, Hollandspiele and others who make niche games, but professionally.

Re: Hobbyists beat professional designers in creating novel board games

#90

Post by TeaDrunk »

tines wrote: post #88
mumblemumble wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's more meant to be an, "Ideas are cheap, execution is everything," kind of sentiment.

Strong disagree. Good ideas are rare, and nobody knows how to come up with them reliably. (For example, in the world of cinema, see how the writers of the subsequent Pirates of the Caribbean movies, and the people around them, had no idea what made the first one good.) An idea without execution is still valuable, but execution without an idea is worthless.

> An idea without execution is still valuable, but execution without an idea is worthless.

FIFA?

(Not trying to be snarky, but genuinely motioning to something I believe to be execution without novel ideas.)

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