Purpose of a Board

This is probably the most common use of a board. An example would be Risk in which the board shows that some countries are next to other countries.

I would not say relative position but it is more an absolute position.

Cards can show relative position quite easily. In Magic when you attack you tap the monster card. The defending player then pushes the monster cards that the are using for defence forwards. this shows the relative position of the defending cards to the non defending cards. The taped attacking cards shows the relative postion of the attacking cards to the non-attacking cards.

Where as a board can show the absoulte position of a piece (like in chess) by using a grid.

Ahh, OK. I see it now (I think it was just my brain being dense :D).

Boards tend to be static (that is they don't change between games). One can devise methods that do allow this, but they more resemble combinging tiles on boards (settlers of catan travel version - it is a plastic board with indentations for the tiles).

Tiles allow the design of the play field to be changed with each playing of the game (or even during the game), like with carcassonne.

If cards are used to make a play field they can be thought of just as thin, rectangular tiles.

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What about games like table top battless, like Warhammer? Would you count the table top as a game board or as something different?

Ultimately, I want my games to have no fluff. I considered removing the board from my current game and tinkered around with tiles or cards, but found out that the board was the only way to go. I just want to define why it is that some games are better suited for boards than others.

Thanks for your response!

I agree that some boards are not necessary in order to enjoy the game. However, you could extend your conclusion (paying $30 for a deck of cards) to simply state, "Would you spend $20 for a book of Trivia?"
The point of Trivial Pursuit is to package the enjoyment of trivia with the social interaction of gameplay. I think the TP board and components achieve that goal very well.
Having said that, in our family, after we've played a game like TP several times, we've identified the most enjoyable aspect of the game for us, which is throwing the questions out there and shouting out answers. As this does not require the board, we don't use it.
I recommend that you design your games with the board and let the gamers decide how central it is to the game.

Here is a flip-side to the centrality of the board: how many of you have created games using the RISK board? Whether the theme was along the lines of the original RISK, or something completely different (I designed a gem mining game for the kids), you can see that the universal nature of the board lends itself to such constructions.

Mitch

Now this is interesting, in that what they've done is to take the next logical step beyond the Trivial Pursuit "non-board" by crossing the game with Go-Moku (or any similar five-in-a-row game.) I'm not entirely convinced that this in itself adds anything revelatory to the genre (hell, you could replace the Go-Moku board with a Snakes-and-Ladders board and you'd have something of the same effect!) but some of the creative extensions that have arisen from the combination (especially using the pawn as an extension of the potential win line) are clearly notable.

To return to an early observation for a moment though: when does a tile become a board? I wouldn't have called what are used in Robo-Rally tiles, even though you can choose to use multiples of them to create a larger playing area.