Board Games Are About Storytelling
Games are all about winning, right? When you go to play to Monopoly or Catan, success is measured by your personal success in the game. So when you enter a game, you’re naturally trying to think of the best strategy: the one that will let you win.
If we follow that line of reasoning, then entering each game you should be looking to dominate. To completely control and succeed in the game from the very beginning.
But does that make a good board game session? Think back to the last time you were playing a game and someone was dominating. Was it fun? Was that a good feeling? Even if it was you who was dominating, did you enjoy not having any challengers? Did you enjoy the rest of the players not having a good time? I’m willing to bet that wasn’t the case.
The best games I played, the ones I bring up with friends and talk about weeks, months, even years later, are the ones that were soooo very close. The ones that came down to the last turn, the last ditch effort, where everything depended on one last die roll or draw of a card. It doesn’t matter as much whether I won or lost, it was more the tension and drama of a close match.
The game of Betrayal at the House on the Hill that came down to a single roll of dice. That game of Catan where three people were all one turn away from winning. The Pandemic session where a last minute epidemic turns victory to defeat.
Sports follow this trend. No one reminisces about Super Bowl XLVIII where the Seahawks demolished the Broncos, but my brother will still pull up the last few seconds of the 2015 Michigan-Michigan State football game to this day even though his team, the Spartans, were so close to defeat.
Or the 2008 Wimbledon Men’s Singles Final between Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer, a 4 hour 48 minute epic widely regarded as the greatest match in tennis history. Going to five sets with multiple championship points, the match was near as close as a match could get.
Why do we like the close games? The ones where we didn’t know whether we were going to win? Where we pull out every trick in the book and it still goes down to the wire?
Because these situations create stories with tension and drama, and we humans like stories. We look for them in everything we do and watch. Sure, we like winning as well but with a board game you are normally a spectator as well as a competitor and a spectator wants to see a close game.
We love the times when victory is snatched from the jaws of defeat, because the tension is high. We love the story of the underdog, the unexpected victory against all odds. We do like winning and the power fantasy it can provide, but the more meaningful game sessions are the ones that tell a good story. The ones that push your skills to the limit and force creativity. The ones were the ending is anything but obvious.
Game’s themselves can favor creating good stories and exciting finishes through their design.
For instance, the lord cards in Lords of Waterdeep provide a point bonus at the end of the game known only to each player. This means that you can never be exactly certain who is going to win until the game is over and points are to be tallied. They easily could have made it open knowledge to each player, but the uncertainty this mechanic causes increases tension and provides situations where unexpected victories can happen.
Of course the opposite is true as well and some games seem uninterested in creating tension in the ending.
Compare Lords of Waterdeep to Risk or Monopoly, where the pivotal actions and events happen in the beginning and middle of the game. By the last 10% of either game it’s obvious who is going to win. Short of incredible luck on the dice, there is little tension in the final stretches.
Of course storytelling elements can be added by the players as opposed or in addition to those added by the game designers. This is something that Dungeon/Game Masters, those who run pen and paper RPGs, are constantly doing in their games to create better experiences. They are not in an adversarial position with their players, but rather a cooperative one. They are all trying to create an interesting story. Maybe that means a character dies, or loses something important. Maybe that means you ignore some rules in the handbook, or purposely make it so a character is no longer as overpowered.
And of course RPGs are just one example of games where storytelling is explicitly valued as much (if not more than) victory. Games like Fiasco, Once Upon a Time, and The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen focus wholeheartedly on the players telling stories cooperatively, even if they’re not exactly on the same side.
You may ask “What makes a gaming session a good story?” Well, dear reader, the most obvious (and often effective) option is the one we have already touched upon: having a tension-filled ending. Endings like when everything is falling apart in Arkham Horror but if you can just close this one portal you can win or where a final vote in Werewolf determines the entire game. Even just knowing that the points are going to be close in Ticket to Ride creates tension in the ending. An uncertain ending provides drama and tension, the hallmarks of a good story.
Another good tactic is having setbacks throughout the game that keep you on your toes and don’t let you get into a comfortable routine. This can be as simple as someone taking a route you wanted in Ticket to Ride so you have to take a detour and readjust your cards accordingly. In good books and movies, one thing you notice is that nothing ever ends up going to the protagonist’s plan. A plan working without a hitch is boring to watch and, similarly, is unlikely to make your gaming session one for the memory banks. That is, unless your plan is truly ridiculous and risky, leading us neatly into:
Interesting characters (aka players). Someone doing something unexpected or simply different can provide a lot to the storytelling end as well. A cousin of mine would give people property in Monopoly for free in exchange for a percentage of future profits on that property. My brother’s friend once got trapped in Catan where he couldn’t expand on the board beyond his two starting positions, but still ended up just one turn away from victory. When people do the unexpected or use completely new strategies what was a normal game becomes something worth talking about.
Now I am not saying that you shouldn’t strive for victory in games. They are, after all, designed with your goal of victory in mind and going against that can often cause major issues. What I am saying is that you should be willing to experiment in the name of creating a compelling story or even some other goal besides victory. I once started playing in local Magic: the Gathering tournaments and events with the goal of not necessarily winning but rather being the most fun opponent the person across from me would face. I was still trying to compete but I would also be cracking jokes and never took anything that happened in the game too seriously. It radically changed my mood and demeanor during events and spread more joy to my opponents as well.
You, of course, cannot completely control the elements that make a memorable board game session but you can definitely let yourself be more open to those elements when they arrive. So when you’re sitting down to play a board game ask yourself what you can do to make it a good story. What combination of players will make it the most competitive, what risks can you take to make it a little more interesting?
What would make this game worth talking about a week from now?
