Conflict of something or nother

War!  Huh!  Good God Y’all!  What is it good for?

BOARD GAMES!  Say it again.

Conflict in board games: what is it and why do we care?  This topic came to me while thinking about the personalities of my gaming groups players.  Warren does not care for conflict at all, and Ryan will always take the military option.

Two drastic oversimplifications.  Because nearly EVERY game we play regularly has some form of conflict.  Several players are competing for resources, how could it be otherwise?  The fact is that all of these games would be boring without PvP competition.  The blandest game for player conflict is Race for the Galaxy; generally you are only concerned with your tableau.  But winning tactics always means you have to pay attention to your opponents, building high value items even when you don’t select that role is fairly important if you want to win RftG.

I believe a better way to put what Warren is trying to say is overt thwarting of your goals.  And I’m not talking about out bidding during an auction or claiming a resource quicker.   I’m talking about using a game mechanic specifically to destroy previous moves made.

Enter Ryan.  Ryan doesn’t always go for the military option, he just often does.  See, Ryan likes to win.  And if he can’t win he at least wants to have an active game.  So if he has the choice of being 3^rd in line for the economic build up victory or 1^st in line for the military win, he is going to go for military each and every time.

So what kinds of conflict in a game are desirable?

First, if the game is all about conflict.  If every move is an attack, there’s nothing personal and it’s just what the game is.   Usually the consequences are quite minor too (at least in games that get replayed).   So while losing a skirmish is a setback, it won’t wreck your game.  Most of the time.

Second, if the game has ways to mitigate the effects of said conflict.  I think the best example is Age of Discovery.  There is a military option, and it is usually employed, but not often does the guy instigating the shooting win.  Why not?  Because this game requires three steps for successful war, you need actions to get military assets, more actions to get them into place and even more to use them.   Along this path the war monger is competing with the damn hippy to get the soldiers in the first place, for berths on the boat to the New World, and finally for the spots to initiate a war.  So damage is easily limited.

What conflict is undesirable?

If the loser of a battle no longer has a chance to win, especially if he loses early, that conflict is lame.  I can’t think of a game we play now that satisfies this condition, maybe one of my 3 readers can enlighten me.  Since designer board games try very hard to avoid elimination style games, an early military loss really tends to have minimal effect.  Or so I think.