by Mr Skeletor
MScrivner wrote:
sigmazero13 wrote:
MrMT wrote:
I wish someone would come up with a more streamlined and accessible ruleset that could breathe new life into this game.
Dumbing down the game may make it more accessible to more casual gamers, but it would kill the appeal for many people as well. There are other games that may suit that type of gamer more.
THIS. 1000 TIMES FOREVER THIS.
And can we talk about this trend of simplifying and dumbing down in general across the hobby?
I realize that it's a business and one of the forces of capitalism is a kind of product dilution whereby essential elements of design are watered down to appeal to a lowest common denominator - thereby increasing the pool of potential customers and increasing profits.
But is what will make game companies more money necessarily what's best for games and game fans?
And really, I know I am not alone when I say I could not give a flying fuck about "gamevangelism" or simplifying games to make them more accessible.
To me this is about the kind of opponents I like. In my experience, gamers who prefer "accessible" games are just no fun to sit across from, and so the more we design games toward a lowest-common-denominator accessibility, the more of those types of gamers are the ones at game nights.
Give me the cut-throat Runewars assholes! The bitch Cylons who cackle with evilgasms when they reveal themselves to the group! The grognardy Amerithrashing High Frontiersmen, the Soul-Lannisters! Give me players who can read a 40 page rulebook without flinching! Give me the opponents who aren't afraid of a little extra chrome, who aren't afraid of a little complexity! Who aren't afraid of a game lasting longer than thirty fucking minutes before their cubicle engineer hemorrhoids start acting up! Give me the COIN players, the chit-clippers, the the Napoleonic monsters! Give me snarling Frank Laterra's and Kuhrusty's, the philosopher Sgosaric's, the mad Hivegods, the vicious and unapologetic Michael Barnes' and the critical and uncompromising Clearclaws' (yes, even that Funmurderer is preferable to the Soccer Dads who swoon over cheap, shallow, accessible trash like Ticket to Barf and Kingdom Barfer!) You can tell the measure of a man by whether or not his eyes glaze over or glimmer when you pull out your Fantasy Flight coffin box game, and who demand you sit through his latest 18xx purchase because of some nuanced subtlety in the game calculus you will need a TI-86 to even grok. You can tell the measure of a man by the fact that he doesn't demand his games be "simple" or "easy" or "quick." Give me that man (or woman, really, since this is beyond gender) who would rather navigate complexity, and plummet into the depths of a difficult, arcane, nuanced, challenging game than snivel about "complexity" or "unfairness." Give me that man and I will call him brother, friend, compatriot, ally. And then I will smile and slit his throat on the battlefield for more VP!
The US has just found its next president!