“What Game Are You Playing?” or: The Importance of Clarifying the Objectives and Rules of a Game Before Beginning Play

When two or more people get together and play a game, they sometimes end up having different beliefs about which game they are playing. This is unfortunate. It is also avoidable.

I will illustrate all of this with reference to a game of Diplomacy I played last night with six friends at Exosphere.

The stated rules of Diplomacy are arguably ambiguous in that they do not define how much better winning is than drawing. Nor do they define whether a two-person draw is better than a three-person draw (and if so, how much better), whether a three-person draw is better than a four-person draw, etc.

I assumed that the proper interpretation of this ambiguity is that players should always try to win, rather than draw, so long as there is still some chance that they can win. It seemed to me that the possibility of a draw was included in the rules merely to provide a less unsatisfying ending than “let’s just stop playing” to a long game in which players take many turns without making progress on the board and lose interest in playing. I see it as being very similar to the draw-by-repetition rule in chess.

I did not think to clarify the objective prior to the start of the game (well actually I did, but then I forgot about it when it came time to mention it — I only remembered to ask whether eavesdropping is allowed), which was silly of me given that I had just finished another game of Diplomacy (an Exosphere version) which was ruined to a degree by the fact that not all of the players had the same understanding of the objectives and thus were not actually playing the same game as each other for some time.

As a result of not clearing up everyone’s understanding of the rules before the game, it was not until late mid-game (when one of my opponents made what seemed like a very irrational series of moves) that I realized that my opponent might not be playing the same game as me. “What game are you playing, Italy?” I thought to myself, upon realizing that my opponent was probably not trying to win according to my understanding of winning.

This is not a question one should hope to find oneself asking mid-game. Ideally, before starting a game, players should ask, “What game should we play?” or “What game are we going to play?” or “What version of the game are we going to play?” and then come to an agreement on a set of rules and objectives.

By agreeing beforehand, players avoid the unpleasant surprise of learning partway through a game that the rules are different than they thought (“Argh, are you serious? If I had known that was the rule I would have done that a long time ago! That changes everything!”) or that the objectives are different (“You’re trying to get a draw with three people? So all you care about is wiping me out, not wiping me out while maintaining a strong position that will enable you to fight the two other remaining players? Why are you trying to do that? That’s not the goal.” Or: “If that was the goal I was trying to achieve then I would have been playing very differently. Where’s the fun in defeating me if I’m acting randomly? It’s like checkmating someone who didn’t know that they had to avoid being checkmated.”)

Lastly on this topic, I know from experience that another important reason to make sure that everyone understands the rules and objectives of a game before beginning is that a lot of people who play games with mistaken (or merely different) understandings of the rules or objectives are very bad at identifying that their wrong rules (or different rules) are bad rules (and thus most likely not the right rules).

For example, on many occasions upon finishing a game, I discover that a player that I evaluated as playing poorly played poorly at least in part due to having a mistaken understanding of the rules. When they explain what they thought the rules were, I frequently point out something like, “If that was the rule, X would have happened and that would have been dumb, so obviously that wasn’t the correct rule.” If the player with the mistaken understanding had realized this, they could have spoken up earlier and we could have corrected their understanding, meaning they wouldn’t have had to waste their time and possibly our time playing the game according to an incorrect set of rules or objectives.

Sometimes people also do not realize that the rules (as they understand them) have the implication that continuing to play the game is a pointless activity. This is what happened in the Diplomacy game last night.

I thought I was playing a game with six other players in which the goal for each player was to win if possible (or if seemingly-possible), otherwise draw. Since the outcome of this game was uncertain (France and England had similar odds and Italy and Turkey were not completely out of the running), it made sense for me to keep playing on.

However, three other players apparently believed they were playing a different game, one in which the goal (at least for the three of them) was to be a part of a three-person draw. I am baffled by the fact that these three very bright people continued to play on for so long despite the fact that the result of the game they thought they were playing was quite obvious. Clearly the three of them could guarantee my elimination from the game and force a three-person draw no matter what resistance I tried to offer. So why didn’t they just say, “Will, you lost; resign already”? (Note that sometimes I refrain from saying an equivalent statement to beginners in chess who continue to play on in clearly-losing positions due to the fact that it might not be clear to them that they have definitely lost. But obviously (I strongly hope) it was clear to the three other remaining players that I could see that they could eliminate me if they cooperated in pursuit of that goal.) So I am at a loss for why they kept playing.

The English player recently told me “There are few things that sadden me more than wasted talent.” I agree that this wasted potential is quite sad. However, I fail to see how having a group of talented young people take the time to continue to write down orders and move pieces around on a board when the result of the game they are playing is clear is anything but a waste of talent.

I perceived rational people behaving irrationally. What did I miss?