Luck, Limits, or the Limits of Luck?

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I type too slow, Zzzzz said it allready...
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I think the main distraction from 'the feeling of luck' is 'the feeling of choice'.

If you can make (interesting!) choices with the random elements that a game gives you, you will get a feeling of control. Certainly so if you see that your choices have an effect on the game.
The choices you can make in scabble (= which words you can come up with and where you can put them on the board) seem to have more inpact than the choices you can make when you land on a certain square in monopoly.

In 'settlers', the resources you get are random, but some tiles have a higher probability to produce resources than others. So while being random, you know that certain building spots will probably produce more. Furthermore, in 'settlers', there ar several ways to score points:
- building vilages and cities
- building the longest road
- development cards (straight away point-cards, or having most knights)
So depending on the resources you get, you can choose how best to spend them to get more points.

In short: If the choices you can make are interesting enough, you don't have that random-feeling so much.

Note: The more influence your choices have, the less random the game will be (probably). Settlers is a good example of a game that counterbalances the random-factor with the choice-factor. They are both there, but players still have some degree of control over the game, and can pursue different strategies.

Cheese!

There are many forms of luck in games. One of the primary descriptors of luck is whether it is prescriptive or postscriptive. (Yeah, I'm torturing the language. Sorry.) Does the random element occur before or after the primary decision which the luck element controls or influences? I generally avoid games with postscriptive luck (eg no dice-based action resolution). And while yes, Settlers of Catan has a larger luck element than I like, it is at least prescriptive.

As far as the sources of luck in games, I prefer the uncertainty and excitement of human decisions. How and what will they decide? How do their evaluations of game values vary from mine? How can I determine and use that disparity to my advantage? These are highly interesting subjects.

This is quite insightful, and a very good point. It brings up another issue in my mind - many of the people who decry luck in games like Monopoly and Settlers have absolutely no problem with Carcassonne, which like Scrabble is a 'draw a tile, play a tile' game. Only in Carcassonne, you only get the one tile - no planning ahead, no clever strategy, you just draw a tile and then place it on the board, restricted by having to match the edges.

There's a little more to Carcassonne in that you place dudes on the tiles for scoring purposes, but the game is governed in large part by what tiles you draw. This should send people into fits, judging by their reaction to other luck-based games.... but lo, Carcassonne is hailed as an excellent game that everyone likes and that seems to warrant 40 expansions.

Actually, while Settlers was leaps and bounds better than Sorry and Monopoly, which is why people liked it so much, it is now often regarded smugly as 'not good enough anymore' by the likes of people over at BoardGameGeek becasue of the luck involved. People try to minimize the luck by using a Deck of Dice rather than actually rolling dice, which is supposed to represent the bell curve more closely so you don't get games where 11 comes up frequently and 8 not at all.

- Seth

Wow. Striking gold with your first thread. Good one! Welcome to the forums.

I'd like to say that luck is only a bad thing when its application is taken out of the hands of the players. I suppose this would be called prescriptive, based on the post above, but I'd just like to elaborate a bit.

Not only is the invocation of luck an important factor of how "in control" the players feel, but also the degree to which they can influence the results. Many people use the term "dice fest" as derogatory, meaning any game in which many dice are rolled. Wargames often have this label applied to them.

But the trueth of it is that the more applications of luck, the less wild the results tend to be, and the stronger the propability effects are, meaning players can foreseen the results more accurately. Also, players can group units or otherwise impact the actual spread and bias of the rolls, almost ensuring their victory or loss based on preparation. The random factor merely presents the possability of an upset, and a careful tactician can take even this unlikely event into account, guarding against it in a second layer of preparation.

In short, the presence of a random factor can often be used as a tool to be wielded to win the game.

The higher the "absolute luck" factor is, that is, the less the players can manipulate probability in their favor, the more skewed the game is away from absolute skill. For kid's games, this is not a bad thing, allowing them to play on an even field with peers and parents alike.

As far as Settlers goes, I think labelling this a "luck driven" game is highly suspect. One thing that heightens the feel of luck in the game is that most people don't fully understand the rules (4:1 trades for anything, for example), and so don't use the options they have, and are more at the mercy of poor rolls. Also, foresight in the setup and opening stages can pay off later, but this planning can be pretty complex, and many players aren't fully aware of the changing needs of the game. Again, they are more at the mercy of luck.

I think that Settlers feels luck-heavy because there isn't enough dice-rolling going on to smooth out the expected bell curve, and it is influenced quite a bit by the relative complexity of trying to predict future events. So I guess what I'm saying is that a little luck can be far more disruptive than a lot.

While it's true that the tiles start face down, and you reveal them when you explore... and that is based on luck a bit, you CAN use the Satellite Scanner a lot before you start exploring, thereby limiting or eliminating all luck. You can also just follow other people when they explore. In that case the only luck involved is where the random outlay of tiles happened to end up...

But better in most cases to actually explore in my game, as when you turn the tiles face up, you get to orient it how you'd like. Also, you know that the green tiles are 'safe' from random harmful effects, while yellow ones are more dangerous, and red ones are very dangerous. So you can hedge your bets there as well.

So what I'm getting at is this. If you can control the chaotic elements then it ceases to feel like luck, which is basically the jist of this thread. The more control you have, the less it feels like luck.

Though in principal I hate to agree with clearclaw on anything, I think he had a very good point in this thread when he said that when the randomness happens before the player's choice, such that you know the outcome of the random thing before you make your choice, is better than making the choice and then having the random occurance come into play afterwards - potentially counteracting your action.

- Seth

The relevant definitions here are Perfect Information Games, Certain Information Games and Compleat Information Games.

- Perfect information: http://www.gametheory.net/dictionary/PerfectInformation.html

- Compleat & Certain information: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complete_information

As happens there are a great many games that fit these defintions (in fact many, almost most, of the games I play fit these definitions). Examples: Bridges of Shangri-La, Intrige, 18XX (we've been playing 1824, 1830, 1856, 1869, and 1870 lately), Throught the Desert, In the Shadow of the Emperor, Blokus, Rumis, Clippers, Torres, Punct (and the rest of the Gipf series), Stephenson's Rocket, Billabong, Roads&Boats, Twixt, Antike, Gemblo etc. There are no luck, chance or otherwise random effects in these games at all once past the initial game setup/seating order.

It generally is for me. I generally prefer games with little to no luck/random/chance elements, but then to me the interesting parts of games aren't the risk mitigation and tactical adaption, but rather the human questions.

Ok I might be really really picky or dumb with my following comment but I just have to share it.

Is there luck involved in all games because of WHO your opponents are and HOW your opponents play the game?

For example, if your opponent has multiple opinons to play as an action and chooses one action that better positions a future action for you, are you not lucky that your opponent choose that action?

Huh?

Very very good points clearclaw. No additional comments from me on my Huh post... lol

But while reading you good response I thought of one other idea. You talked about player analysis, which made me think of Analysis Paralysis (AP).

Do games that contain high levels of luck reduce the amount of AP?

Do games that have low (or no) luck mechanics increase the amount of AP?

Or do Luck and AP have nothing in common?

Obviously it is possible to have AP and high Luck in a game, but to me that might show signs of a potentially bad game design.

I agree Analysis Paralysis does arise for your stated reasons, but I feel that it assumes a player has control over their moves. What if the moves/actions available to a player use luck based mechanics (rolling dice). If that is the case I still feel that there is a reduction in potential AP since there is less for a player to analyze. For instances, I feel this is the case in games like Chutes & Ladders (Snakes & Ladders).

And herein lies the logical extension of the arguement - if you assume everyone is rational and can accurately predict each other's moves, then maybe there's no luck involved.
This reminds me of an episode of 'Futurama' in which two robots play chess. Without one move ever being made, one says "checkmate in 274 turns." "Damn, I lost again!" says the other robot...

I think knowing one's playing style helps to predict certain actions an opponent is likely to make.
You generalise a player's playing style into: 'play on the save side', 'risk-taking' or 'offensive player', 'defensive player'.

Cheese!

One of my all-time favorite games is Poker. Specifically the craze of No Limit Hold 'Em and Pot Limit Omaha. To the superior player, there is a very high level of skill involved (reading players, bluffing, calculating odds, etc) but there is *always* an element of luck involved. No hand is considered the 'losing' hand until all cards are dealt (except for < 1% of hands that will be dead on the 3rd or 4th card dealt).

Skilled players, however, will often get involved in hands that are statistically in their favor and thus, will win more often.

Luck vs Skill comes down to this:

Over a long enough period of time, all players will have the same amount of 'luck' just like how if you flip a coin a million times heads will likely appear ~50% of the time. Skilled players, however, will find ways to skew the odds in their favor...

Games that allow for players to manipulate their luck and partially control their destiny are far superior to those that give every player the same odds every time.

EDIT:

Even in Monopoly, skilled players can try to skew odds and situations in their favor. For example: If a player is within 6,7 or 8 squares of a collection of properties I control, I might be tempted to funnel a bunch of cash into building houses and hotels on those properties. Odds are that he will land on one of them and I will get paid off.

I think the first thing to recognise about AP is that it is a feature of players, not of games. AP occurs when a player is takes longer to make a game decision than another player considers reasonable. In the general form it occurs when a player takes longer to make a game decision than a (presumed) majority of other player's in te game consider reasonable. As such it is entirely a question of subjective evaluation and viewpoint, not of the game in question.

Note: I'm going to carefully ignore the hypocrisy of the slow player with no patience for other player's moves. Instead I'll assume equivalence in both a player's personal style and their patience with other player's approaches.

They can. They an also increase AP. It depends on the players. Consider a game which has an element which is randomly determined and has significant effect on the game:

a) PlayerA figures that the range of impacts of the element is too large given its variance and so doesn't bother. He guess, he relies on hunches, he ignores the lower probability aspects, he really only considers a portion of the game analytically -- the rest is too random to support his desired types of analysis. This player plays quickly.

b) PlayerB recognises the random element and its variance and laboriously plots out all the ramifications and then makes the decision that he think offers the best risk/reward return. He is meticulous. This player plays slowly.

Mixing the two sorts of players in the same game is not a recipe for success. but keep like with like and they'll both be quite happy, like pigs in mud in fact, as they play their games in the manner they prefer. In both cases the game hasn't changed, only the players have. Which camp you and your local players fall into for various games is another question.

Similarly, it can. Or not.

I don't think they're strongly related.

Remember that AP is only a problem if the players consider it a problem, and in fact doesn't even exist unless the players think it does. Would a 150 minute game of Blokus be a sign of AP? Only if the players thought it did (and in the real world case I'm citing, they didn't).

I've recently taken a liking to the game Bus. Bus is a cute little perfect and certain information Pickup&Deliver game. Neat game. Some play groups consider it a 45 minute almost-a-filler and other groups consider it a 150-180 minute meaty analysis game. Both groups are playing by identical rules. Which of them are right? They're both right. It is a 45 minute fast light game for those that play it that way, and it is quite enjoyable that way as well. It is also a very nicely meaty 3 hour game for those that want to play it that way, and it is very enjoyable that way as well...

I think from the perspective of this forum the question is: Which player demographic do you want in your audience?

Luck brings drama to the table. And drama is an aspect i find very fun. Obviously, i like my games to be passionate and action oriented.

I find that low luck games move the drama toward the mid-game. There usually comes a point in the game in which there's a great muscular struggle, a crescendo of plans and positionings which will then be played out variously well over the end-game. It is often during this time that the final victor is actually determined, even if still unknown then. While the fight is going on it is about opportunities and the attempt to relegate to the players to desired roles, and it is a very involving and dramatic fight. "Ahh," we then nod to ourselves in retrospect, the game done, "Yeah, the core happened way back when, there, that's when it was all decided. If only I'd recognised that you were/had/whatever... Blast you!"

JeffK,

I agree with what your saying but not the terms you used.

I would replace your definition of Luck by Chaos and your definition of Chance by Luck.

Chance is the concept of the risk. I have 50% chance of making it. But I think it can also be used as Luck...

my 2 cents

I agree with what your saying but not the terms you used.

I would replace your definition of Luck by Chaos and your definition of Chance by Luck.

Chance is the concept of the risk. I have 50% chance of making it. But I think it can also be used as Luck...

my 2 cents

Chaos is a term appropriate for certain aspects of gaming - usually when trying to predict several moves ahead in a complex game. Chaos refers to situation when a non-random system is so complex that trying to predict an outcome, even poorly, is well beyond the scope of feasability. It would easily apply to the start of a chess game (or, even better, a game of go). It would not apply to a situation in which your opponent missed a single pivotal move. That isn't chaos since it's possible to engineer that situation knowing your opponent's blind spots. You're basically crossing your fingers and hoping that you read the situation and your opponent correctly, or that he doesn't have an uncharacteristic burst of insight. Perhaps "luck" isn't the best term, but "chaos" doesn't cover it. I actually can't think a word that truly sums this concept up, though I'm sure there's one out there.

Chance and risk are definitely not the same. It's definitely possible to have risk in non-random perfect information games, such as chess. Risk is about how much you stand to lose if your plan does not pan out as you hope/thought; i.e. how much you're "putting on the line". It could fail due to poor di rolls or failing to see a counter-move that's open to your opponent or simply because you failed to follow through adequately. Perhaps "randomness" is a better term than "chance".

Regardless of the words used, my point was that there's unpredictability that results from randomness (such as dice) and unpredictability that results from your opponent's decisions. Using the same term, such as "luck", for both isn't helpful since they are fundamentally different and result in vastly different gaming experiences.

Jeff K.