In a recent episode of his podcast Boardgames To Go, called “Where are all the Kids?”, Mark Johnson aired a discussion that he had with David Gullett back in April. I participated in a thread over at BGG about this, but wanted to clear my head about this issue a little bit over here as well…
So, this week the winners for the inagural Board Game Podcast
Awards were released. I thought I’d run through the nominees
and winners and give my impressions of the games themselves as well
as my opinion on how well the respected panel did in making their
choices…
The point of this blog, however, is to talk a little bit about one
particular comment from that podcast. In the culmination of this
discussion, Paul Tevis said, “As a game player… you are responsible
for the fun of everyone at the table… Everyone is responsible for
everyone else’s fun…”
As I’ve gotten more and more into the boardgaming hobby, one treasure trove of information and entertainment that I’ve found are the many podcasts floating around out there in the aether of cyberspace. These are some of my favorites, which I’ll give you my own little take on…
What exactly do I mean when I refer to luck and chaos in games? The distinction I tend to draw comes from where the “randomness” originates in the game:
Luck – randomness deriving from some game component itself, such as rolling dice, dealing cards, or blindly pulling tiles.
Chaos – randomness caused by the actions of other players that may or may not be predictable.