Theme is also often a hot button topic because it is given as the defining feature given that splits Ameritrash from Euro-Style games; and in board gaming terms that the equivalent of the Hatfield-Mcoy feud.
I find it vanishingly unlikely that anybody reading this is not aware of the difference – but I had fun writing this bit about the difference between them so I’m going god damn well use it.
Ameritrash fan: “Textile Merchant – Norfolk edition is dull and dry. All we do is shuffle cubes around; this game could be anything the theme is just tacked on. While I’m at it - why am I not allowed to burn down your warehouses! We should be playing Cowboys Raid R’lyeh! Look at how cool the figures that represent your character are.”
Euro-Style: “Oh god no – that game is unbalanced and involves no skill. The game basically comes down to who ever draws the most Baked Bean cards because there 2.7% more efficient than any other card and 7.5% more efficient than the average card. Also you keep destroying everything I play – so I can never plan my turn. It’s stupid!”
Ameritrash fan: “You mean its fun– that thing your allergic to.”
*Sound of a table flipping*
It’s a fair point - some games do seem to be a mechanic with a theme lightly brushed on at the end by some naming of resources and the art of the graphic designer . A friend of mine recently looked up from a game of fresco – in which he was notionally painting a renaissance ceiling but was actually doing pre-planned worker placement over a series of unconnected mini-games and said something along the lines of “Game designers are strange people - did they ever really think ‘this is a good representation of the life of a jobbing 16th century Italian artist.” or words to that effect…..
Of course some games don't have any theme - there purely abstract games which is fine. It's just when it says it's about Pirates and it's really about optimal worker placement and forward planning - that's when people start coughing politely.
But for all that theme is often seen as the battleground – nobody thinks theme is a bad thing. Nobody ever finished a game and said ‘I enjoyed that game – but honestly the game play was just a little bit to connected to the mechanics for me’.
It’s not even a question of priority (which is more important mechanics or theme) because I don’t think there is anybody who thinks theme alone makes for a good game.
Theme is actually like salt – for some people a meal without salt is a bland and pointless waste but other people consider it great in its place but don’t think it’s needed in every meal. This analogy might breakdown for you around the concept of ‘to much salt’ but I’m not sure such a thing exists – just look at Canarian Potatoes.
Yes that is salt there encrusted with, yes I've eaten them, yes there amazing - with a chilli and garlic dip.
As I’ve said – I think defining theme is tricky – but something that is often considered an important part of theme is ‘fidelity’ or ‘truthfulness’.
A lot of the time this means historical accuracy which is what the English language game designers of the 70’s and 80’s prized about all else and that leads to Campaign in North Africa *shudder*. This abomination has a play time 60,000 minutes (that’s not a typo) and rumour has it that one player per a side should just handle the supply trucks while Italian troops use more water on a Tuesday because that is when they eat pasta. No – I’ve never played and never will.
But it’s not just historical accuracy – because Eclipse has oodles of theme – and since it’s about conquering the universe in giant space ship is not accurate to anything. Then what I think people mean is that it provides fidelity in decision making – when playing the game you make the decisions you would get to make in that situation.
A cube shuffling game about the roman invasion might well have you take an action that moves red cubes from one box to another – where as a themed game will have you move the II, IX, XIV and XX legions from France to the Southern coast. I’d say one of those has fidelity – while the other does not.
Seems reasonable enough – but I think fidelity can take a hike.
I don’t want fidelity – I want my games to invoke feelings and stimulate my imagination. So when playing that game about invading Britain I want to feel like the person invading England – maybe make little stompy noises under my breath as my men march around crushing trouser wearing savages that’s what’s important to me – that’s what I really mean when I talk about ‘theme’.
But wanting the games I play to be evocative changes things because theme and fidelity are external factors and as such they are subject to review. Whereas evocation is by its very nature is internal. If you want to claim that Textile Merchant Norfolk invokes in you the feeling of being a 16th century textile merchant then can I say you’re wrong? I might say it does nothing for me, I might say your just plain odd, but saying your wrong seems a bit awkward.
Equally wanting feelings allows freedom from game mechanics in a way that theme and fidelity don’t. Because you can be making any sort of decision provided it comes with that feeling in you. Bidding mechanic that invokes being a general – sure! Territory control mechanics that make you feel like a merchant – bring it on! Set collection that makes you feel like a terrified child hiding from the boogyman –it’s all good?
Don’t get me wrong – it’s easier to invoke feelings of being a civil war general with a map, units, and rules about just how unreliable royalist cavalry is (go on – admit it – you thought I meant the other civil war) then it is using some weird movement programing mechanic but I don’t think it’s impossible.
One of my favourite games is battle line– a lovely little two player game – allegedly all about the battles of Alexander and Darius. I say allegedly because if ever a theme is paper thin then it’s this. That’s really clear when you realise that it’s a reskinned version of a game called schotten-totten which was themed around comedy clansmen beating each other up around boundary stones.
http://www.boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/760/battle-line
Despite that it still invokes in me a very strong feeling of being an ancient general. The act of playing a card from my hand and then drawing – somehow – in this game makes me feel like I’m ordering groups of men around while trying to pull them formations in pursuit of my plan while hoping my own plan comes through. The battle front shifting and changing until one of us claims victory either by sudden push or slow grind. I should say in complete honesty that it does not in any way really make me feel like either Alexander or Darius…..
So brothers and sisters in board games give up questions of theme, forget the struggle between Ameritrash and Euro-style and ask a simple question.
Does this game invoke the appropriate emotions for me?
And if it does – then go for it and fuck what they think.
“I shall not today attempt further to define the kinds of material I understand to be embraced within that shorthand description ["hard-core pornography"], and perhaps I could never succeed in intelligibly doing so. But I know it when I see it, and the motion picture involved in this case is not that.” Apparently one of the most famous phrase in the history of the Supreme Court - thttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/I_know_it_when_I_see_it
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