I can't remember if this has come up at all, so apologies if it's been discussed already, but I'm interested in generating a discussion to consider the issue of scoring systems in games. I'm thinking primarily of "victory-point" based games like Carcassonne, Puerto Rico, New England, El Grande, etc, and less so about "race games" like Settlers of Catan.
In each of these games, a player gains "victory points" through various mechanisms. Sometimes, this is incremental and immediate, as in the case of Puerto Rico -- ship 3 Corn, get 3 VPs. Sometimes, it's configurational, such as Carcassonne or El Grande. Within these, there are the "semi-immediate" payout schedules of Carcassonne -- every time a feature is "completed", players with meeples on it get points -- vs. the periodic payout schedule of El Grande or Web of Power, where VPs are collected at fixed points during the game.
What all of these share is that your actions are supposed to translate into rewards either during or at the end of the game. But, do they actually do so in a measurable way?
I believe that the following factors, in any game, will have some sort of impact on a player's outcome in the game:
Active control A player's score is directly influenced by an action he has taken.
Example: In Puerto Rico, a player buys a Hospice, giving him 2 VPs at the game end, plus whatever benefits he'll derive from the Hospice during the game.
Passive control A player's score is indirectly influenced by an action he has taken.
Example: I think that very few games have this in a big way. In fact, the only great example that's coming to mind is my own "Disciples", with an example being that a player moves Jesus into the town that he's in, and then in the next turn another player has Jesus perform a Deed, thus netting the original player a Gospel token -- by moving Jesus, he set himself up for scoring opportunities. (Any other examples?)
Luck Something random occurs, which gives the player scoring opportunities
Example In Carcassonne, you get exactly the tile you need to complete a valuable city late in the game.
Interaction The actions of other players contribute to your score; typically related to common scarcity of resources or positions.
Example In Puerto Rico, another player takes the last available Hacienda; In Carcassonne, a player places a tile in a way that helps or hinders you.
Note that these categories aren't really meant to be fully distinct -- indeed, some blend into each other. What I'm trying to move beyond is the common simplification of a game being composed of X% "strategy" and (100-X)% "luck". I think that "luck" is more appropriately understood as a combination of events that are truly "lucky" (a good die roll or card pull) and events that are independent of the individual player's control, but have occured because of the actions of other players.
Furthermore, there may be more categories, or better ways to express the categories I've listed; anyone care to take a stab?
What I'm interested in is in how you measure player performance. I think it starts with identifying that these different influences exist, and quantifying (roughly) how much each has on one's score. That is not the same as quantifying the contribution that each influence has to one's point total. But looking at a couple of popular games, I might go with the following ratings...
Carcassonne:
Active Control: 45%
Passive Control: 5% (placing a Meeple reduces the number I hold and may affect my ability to place future meeples)
Luck: 25%
Interaction: 35%
Puerto Rico:
Active Control: 55%
Passive control: 5%
Luck: 10%
Interaction: 30%
+/- 10% on any of these values...
Obviously, the broader question I'm getting at is, how do you know whether someone played well? Given in PR the 60% of the influence that they directly or indirectly had on their own scoring, how do you identify whether player X played a "better" game than player Y? What makes the scoring system an accurate measurement of this?
I think the way people may commonly do this is to watch over a lot of games, with the idea being that the "better" players will win more. Of course, this sort of becomes circular since you're assuming that the game rewards "good" play such that a "good" player will win more, but we can set that aside for simplicity right now.
How do you know whether players are playing the game or whether the game is playing them? Are there concrete ways?
-Jeff
Interesting subject and one I have been thinking about a lot as well. I think that what you desribe as "passive control" is really a blend of the other three types of control. I would summarize it as follows:
Fair enough; I think there's a subtle difference that makes "passive control" slightly distinct, but it's not a point of major importance.
This tells me that if a game's scoring system rewards interaction, then I will do well by playing interactively. That's great for the game player, but I'm speaking from the perspective of the designer -- how do you design a system that does reward interaction, or active control, or luck? Or, more pertinently, how do you identify whether the scoring system you've created actually rewards what you want it to reward? How do you make the connection between "this is worth X points" and "the player who made the best decisions will amass the most points"?
What I'm trying to figure out is whether there's a way of taking a game and figuring out in what proportion the above influences exist in the game. How do you say, for example, with a game like New England or Puerto Rico, which feature myriad scoring opportunities throughout the game, whether the scores at the end of the game are reflective of "good play", other than to assume that "good play will result in a high score"? What does "good play" look like?
Not sure if I've actually succeeded in making my question less vague, or more...
-Jeff