Board Games

There's lots of different types and styles of board games. Their representation of an actual life situation can range from having no inherent theme, such as Checkers, to having a specific theme and narrative, such as Cluedo. Rules range from the simple, such as in Tic-tac-toe, to ones which report a game universe in great detail, such as in Dungeons & Dragons, although most of these are Role-playing games and the board is secondary to the game, serving to visualize the scenario. The length of time it takes to learn to play or master a game can vary greatly from game to game. Learning time does not necessarily correlate with the amount or complexity of rules; some games, such as chess and Go, have simple rules that can still lead to complex scenarios.

A board game is a game in which counters or pieces are placed, removed, or moved on a premarked surface or "board" according to a set of rules. Games may be based on pure strategy, chance or a mix of the one and usually have a objective which a player aims to accomplish. Early board games represented a battle between one armies and most current board games are still based on beating opposing players in terms of counters, winning position or accrual of points (often expressed as in-game money).

Board games have been played in most cultures and societies throughout history; some even pre-date literacy skill development in the earliest civilizations. A few important historical sites, artifacts and documents exist which shed light on early board games.

One way to categorize board games is to distinguish those based primarily upon luck from those that involve significant strategy. Some games, such as chess, depend entirely on player skill. Children's games, on the other hand, tend to be very luck-based, with games such as Candy Land and Snakes and ladders having no decisions to be made. Most board games involve both luck and strategy. A player may be hampered by a few poor rolls of the dice in Risk or Monopoly, but over many games a player with a superior strategy will win more often. While some purists consider luck to not be a desirable component of a game, others counter that elements of luck can make for far more diverse and multi-faceted strategies as concepts such as expected value and risk management must be considered.

The third important factor in a game is diplomacy, or players making deals with each other. A game of solitaire, for obvious reasons, has no player interaction. Two player games usually do not have diplomacy (cooperative games being the exception). Thus, this generally applies only to games played with three or more people. An important facet of The Settlers of Catan, for example, is convincing people to trade with you rather than with other players. In Risk, one example of diplomacy's effectiveness is when two or more players team up against others. Easy diplomacy consists of convincing other players that someone else is winning and should therefore be teamed up against. Difficult diplomacy (such as in the aptly named game Diplomacy) consists of making elaborate plans together, with possibility of betrayal.

Luck is introduced to a game by a number of methods. The most popular is using dice, generally six-sided. These can determine everything from how many steps a player moves their token, as in Monopoly, to how their forces fare in battle, such as in Risk, or which resources a player gains, such as in The Settlers of Catan. Other games such as Sorry! use a deck of special cards that, when shuffled, create randomness. Scrabble does something similar with randomly picked letters. Other games use spinners, timers of random length, or other sources of randomness. Trivia games have a great deal of randomness based on the questions a person gets. German-style board games are notable for often having rather less of a luck factor than many North American board games.

Wiki entries on Board Games

Created: March 7, 2011