Rules Discussion: Set Collection

Set Collection is a category recognized on Board Game Geek that refers to the game mechanic of collecting sets of something to make something happen. This is not a new mechanic by any stretch of the imagination because classic card games like Gin Rummy and Poker involve collecting pairs, threes-of-a-kind, and straights (i.e. three or more cards in numeric order), but it's a mechanic that seems to get a fresh facelift with each new game released. For example, when Settlers of Catan was published in 1996, I'm sure that collecting sets of cards (i.e. resources) to build cities and gather development cards was not new, but the look and feel of the game was certainly novel. When Ticket to Ride was released in 2004, it stoked heightened interest in board gaming with its gorgeous artwork, top-notch production values, and easy-to-learn, tough-to-dominate gameplay; yet, at the heart of the game is a simple set collection dynamic in which you collect cards of like color to connect cities. Set collection is a core mechanic of many games, whether they are venerable classics or upstart new releases.

What makes set collection feel new with each game is not the mechanic itself as much as what you have to collect. For those aforementioned card games, a "set" is defined by cards of like or sequential value, and, in Poker, one set is often valued over other sets. In Settlers of Catan, what defines a set is what you intend to build; in Ticket to Ride, a set is determined by the color and length of the route connecting two desired cities. As more games are released with a set collection mechanic, gathering the requirements for fulfilling the sets is different, which makes it a time-honored mechanic that rarely fails...

Or does it? Set collection is often subject to the randomness of the deal or the flop, as well as the interference of the other player. Though the latter is a welcome attribute of many games, the former is an annoyance that can stymy even the best-laid plans. What happens if you don't draw that sixth orange card to complete a connection? What about those times in which you don't get the roll necessary to collect that last ore card? Either case is heartbreaking or irritating, though wild cards and other in-game items can help mitigate randomness at the cost of game speed, such as when you take one Locomotive card in Ticket to Ride instead of taking two cards, thus slowing down your acquisition of train cards. In any case, set collection can represent the most fun and grating aspects of gaming, sometimes simultaneously.

As a mechanic, I enjoy collecting sets, but it's not a mechanic that compels me to buy games. To be honest, I didn't buy Ticket to Ride because of the set collection mechanic; I bought it because the gameplay was easy to grasp, it was beautiful to behold, and it is as cutthroat or friendly as you and your opponents want it to be. Nonetheless, many of the more accessible games employ this mechanic. If it works, why fix it?

Rules Discussion: Multi-use Cards

Multi-use cards in games are fascinating to me because they challenge our preconceived notions of resource and hand management. To explain, multi-use cards are cards that serve more than one purpose in a game. For example, Twilight Struggle employs cards as events that are favorable to a player, events that happen despite the active player's wishes, or for influence points; as a result, a player has to weigh the consequences of playing an opponent's event just to use the influence points, or ponder whether playing a favorable event card for the event or for points is best. Many of GMT's card-driven strategy games work on this premise of using your or your opponent's events.

Another example I've experienced recently is Oh My Goods, in which cards serve as either resources, processing buildings, or as raw materials and/or goods if played face-down on a building. This dynamic introduces many uncertainties into the game, such as which resources/buildings are face-down as goods on a building (which affects the distribution of certain resources and/or buildings in the deck), or how many resources of a certain type are left in the draw pile, or what the heck does your opponent really have, even if you can see the discard pile and there's only one or two cards left in the draw pile...

A third example is a guilty pleasure game: Monopoly Deal. In this game, almost every card can be played for its primary purpose as a property or event card, or played as money to be pooled in your personal bank. By playing properties as money, they permanently become money cards and are thus removed from circulation, which in turn affects the distribution of certain property colors in the deck.

I'm sure that there are other examples of this dynamic in gaming, but multi-use cards complicate the finite nature of in-game resources and introduces some uncomfortable uncertainty into any game. No longer are cards just played straight; you have to consider that you are, say, reducing the number of a particular resource in a game, or you have to absorb the negative effect of playing an opponent's card to take advantage of a card's other purpose. Anything that monkeys with card or resource distribution in a game appeals to me, so when I find a game that features multi-use cards, my eyes widen. Sometimes, I like a bit of the unknown in a game.

Rules Discussion: Player-to-player Trading

One of the finest, most laudable aspects of any board game is the positive social dynamic that is engendered during gameplay. There's the regular chit-chat small talk, the "catching up" with occasional friends, and even the heartfelt sharing of burdens with family. Through the social dynamic of board games, we sharpen our abilities to read facial cues and semiotics, detect deeper pragmatic aspects conveyed through intonation and body language, and we even treat each other better in person than in online games, during which people can declare the most awful lies about other people in forums and chats. Yet another benefit of the positive social dynamic of face-to-face interaction in board games is player-to-player trading, through which we learn how to negotiate to achieve a mutually beneficial result -- a useful skill for children and adults.

As far as I know, player-to-player trading is not unusual in gaming. Outside of the mainstream rules, trading is allowed in Monopoly, in which people can broker deals for property, money, and/or free passes. Pit is another classic trading game in which players frantically trade commodities until one player, unbeknownst to the others, collect a complete set of a commodity. One game that I own from a favorite designer of mine is Bohnanza, by Uwe Rosenberg. In that game, players trade beans, but the difficulty lies in the requirement to plant beans each turn; if you have two fields of beans already, players have to choose which field to sacrifice to plant beans that they cannot off-load. Better than these games, however, (or at least, more highly regarded) is Settlers of Catan, in which a player's fortunes rise and fall depending partly on how well they can acquire necessary resources from others without trading away too much. In all of these games, the ability to negotiate with other players is indispensible, often leveling the playing field by giving those who are normally not board gamers a tool they can use. I have participated in numerous gaming sessions in which casual gamers or self-described non-gamers have done quite well because they were adept at talking people into giving up something useful.

Player-to-player trading in a game, quite deliberately, adds a much needed social element to many games, such as Settlers of Catan and even Monopoly, and several more (such as Chinatown, which I have yet to play, but I have watched Shut Up & Sit Down's review of it) -- that element being face-to-face interaction and negotiation with other people. Many Euro games lack this element, mostly because it is a built-in constraint for players to have to deal with the resources they have on hand instead of escaping tight squeezes by trading away that unwanted wood for some clay. However, games like Agricola and Stone Age would certainly be loosened up if player-to-player trading could be performed because food, which is essential in both games, could be acquired from a player who has a lot of it. In turn, the other player would benefit from more of a necessary building material, enabling him or her to, say, build a four-segment fence to enclose two cattle or to buy that development card. For games that openly feature trading, player-to-player trading opens up any game not only socially, but tactically, allowing players to escape nigh-impossible situations by acquiring a crucial item from a neighbor.

In my opinion, trading is one of those game-learned abilities that helps anybody beyond the confines of a game; I can imagine that children that grow up with trading games would be skilled negotiators in the future because they practiced at the family dinner table. This is also why I favor board games over video games because you are forced to bargain face-to-face with other people, which has greater application in daily life than negotiating with a screen.