Re: Don't bash games that eliminate players....

In message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Richard 
Hutnik <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes
> I know that games have been knocked as inferior that eliminate players
> from the game.  I guess the feeling is that it means that people have
> nothing to do.  Well, in some cases, it is beneficial to eliminate
> players.  If a player has NO chance of winning, the best thing to do
> is to eliminate them.

Apart from the "nothing else to do", which depends a lot on your social
setting, just considering the last sentence above I think there are two
other issues: is winning everything? (back to the usual "is there a 
second
place? is it better than last place?" questions) and is there an
unacceptable amount of kingmaking which players who can't win can
(or even must) indulge in?

Note I'm not asking these questions wanting answers. The first has no
objective answer (except occasionally) and the second depends on the
game (and the players). I just think your (one's) answers to them affect
the absoluteness of your last sentence.

> Look at it this way.  You want to keep people into the game and
> interested.  The main way to do this is to give people a chance to
> win.  If you don't use elimination (knock out players who don't have a
> chance to win), you are faced with several choices to prevent people
> from going through hell.  Some of these:
> - Make the game short enough where not being able to win doesn't
> matter.  This is the typical German game approach.
> - Make it so that the leader is always able to be taken down.  Done
> wrong, this results in a game that will never end.
> - Have the game close until the closing moments.  While this can work,
> it also can lead to a "basketball game" type game, where you spend
> hours doing a lot of stuff that has little impact on who would win,
> because the game is decided in the ending anyhow.
> - Allow for a game to let someone win at any time, no matter the
> position they are in.  This can lead to an excessive amount of luck,
> and not rewarding good play.  Done right, however, this can lead to
> interesting play.  Such a game doesn't really reward long-term
> strategizing.
> - Keep as much information as possible, so that a player isn't sure if
> they are winning or not for certain.  This can work well, but also
> have limits.  People who are good trackers of hidden info have a
> definite advantage.

Good list. I'd add play in circumstances (due to personal preference
or tournament structure, or a game played many times competing
against group records) where play is meaningful even if you can't win.
OK, this usually isn't specific to the game (except some multiple
independent round games which behave like mini-tournaments).

As I think your list also indicates, game design matters. Some just
manage to avoid this being a perceived problem (I mean other than
just having even bigger ones) whilst some fail. Of course as another
thread shows, there isn't universal agreement on which games are
which.

Incidentally how do you (or others) rate PR? I don't see this much
commented on as a problem with the game, but actually it's quite
easy to play badly enough to do this to yourself. Is it that doing
it to yourself is not viewed as a problem, but having others, or
luck, do it to you is? (I don't have a problem here, I just wondered.)

> Or, you can just eliminate players from the game until there is one
> player left.  This general works well.  Weak players get knocked off
> quickly, or the strongest player in the game can also slip up.

As I tried to indicate, I think it's social, not game factors, which 
define
whether this does work well. I'd agree in purist game terms it often
will be a good (or even the best) solution.

Some random scenarios: a free format convention where groups
form, reform and so on as games finish (or people get knocked out),
a structured tournament where there is only the one game, in rounds
with nothing else to do, an evening in the pub with four friends
playing one or more sequential games, a weekend with the same
group of friends at one of their homes, miles from anywhere where
the reason for the get together is to play games.

> Comments are welcome.

Hope these were.

--
Christopher Dearlove