{"id":245,"date":"2020-03-10T00:05:26","date_gmt":"2020-03-10T00:05:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.phantomknightgames.com\/news\/?p=245"},"modified":"2020-06-09T09:10:20","modified_gmt":"2020-06-09T09:10:20","slug":"nonsense-potential","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.phantomknightgames.com\/news\/nonsense-potential\/","title":{"rendered":"Nonsense Potential"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Anyone who\u2019s played tabletop games for any amount of time has encountered one of the most delightful feelings in the hobby: Laughing, putting your head in your hands, and saying, \u201cthis game is ridiculous<\/em>\u201d. Having a game careen into the territory of the absurd is amazing and is one of the most common features that make me want to replay (or buy) a game. So as designers, how can we make ridiculous games more often? Can we intentionally create a, to mince a swear, clown fiesta with some regularity?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

To help reach this goal, I would like to introduce a term called nonsense potential<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What Is Nonsense?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In game terms, I have most frequently seen \u201cnonsense\u201d used in Magic<\/em>, usually referring to decks or cards that win in slow, elaborate, usually ineffective ways. Thinking about the use here, and thinking about the standalone games I\u2019ve played that have generated similar feelings, my best definition of nonsense is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When a game enters a highly unusual, unexpected, or funny state.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

So nonsense potential is the ability of a game, on average, to generate these game states.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Just by having a vague definition of what nonsense is, our goal changes from an impossible task to capture an indescribable state of mind to something that\u2019s difficult but can be achieved. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Getting Up To No\u00a0Good<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s many ways to increase a game\u2019s nonsense potential.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Being able to use components in unexpected ways is an important generator of nonsense. Of the numerous impress-the-judge games I\u2019ve played,\u00a0Stinker<\/em>has the highest nonsense potential because it allows you to use its provided letter tiles however you like. You can misspell words; flip an E tile 90 degrees to become an M; even, if the group allows you, use multiple letters. Here\u2019s a spectacular example:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The question was “where do babies come from?”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Stinker<\/em>also awards more points to people who use more tiles, meaning it encourages players to be less conservative and try to find weird ways to use them. Nonsense being at least a semi-viable strategy, or arising from people trying to play the game to win, is also important because it doesn\u2019t draw competitive players in multiple directions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Coming from a different angle, strategies that strongly deviate from the rest of the game can generate NP. Most of the time, in Trains<\/em>, you want to link your rail system to as many high-value cities as possible, with the rest of the board mostly serving as an obstacle. However, Trains: Rising Sun <\/em>features the Mining Train, which generates money for every mountain space you\u2019re on. Suddenly, three players are playing a normal game of Trains<\/em>and the fourth has covered the mountainside with cubes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Randomness, of course, helps create nonsense, but has to be a specific type. It\u2019s okay if there aren\u2019t a lot of random components in a game, but those components that do exist need to have a huge variety of outcomes. It\u2019s the difference between random draw in Azul <\/em>creating stations with different colors of tiles and the event deck in Arkham Horror<\/em>sometimes being a cult encounter and other times containing a beleaguered librarian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Example Time, Baby<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don\u2019t want to use a very strong scale for nonsense potential (NP) because this is related to humor in games and explaining humor kills it. But having a vague sense of which games really succeed in this way is useful when monitoring your own games, so I\u2019m sorting games into low-NP, medium-NP, and high-NP.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Low-NP games keep strategy within a confined range, with not much room for unusual game states. Terraforming Mars<\/em>has a wide variety of available strategies, but because every card and action contributes to the overall game plan of either terraforming Mars or generating VP, things can\u2019t get particularly weird.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Medium-NP games have a core game state that actual play often resembles in some distorted way. Castles of Mad King Ludwig<\/em>never strays away from \u201cpurchase the room that gives you the most value and price gouge your opponents just enough,\u201d but situations arise fairly often where one person keeps building corridors endlessly or creates a single long chain of rooms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

High-NP games frequently end up in game states where everyone\u2019s confused how it got there in the first place. While not the best High-NP game, Fluxx<\/em>is probably the purest example, with the endgame frequently devolving into players drawing 7 cards, discarding 3, and stealing the winning Keeper from their neighbor\u2019s hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Impactful Nonsense<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Impact<\/strong>is a broad term that covers a lot of different components of a successful game, but you could say it applies to anything that makes a game memorable and exciting. Obviously, the higher a game\u2019s nonsense potential, the more memorable the game will be.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is most visible over multiple plays of a game. The highest-impact games are not only ones where you remember the game, but each individual play of the game stands out as unique to you. This is most common with games where the players or scenarios differ each game, but that\u2019s not a 1:1 link; Pandemic<\/em>has different player roles but doesn\u2019t have a huge amount of nonsense potential. Additionally, having too much variety can actually be detrimental: The high-NP Tournament at Camelot<\/em>has dozens of Godsend cards, but because 6 or 7 of them can be in play at a time, it makes all of them less memorable. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Having story-based elements can be very useful in this respect: Tales of the Arabian Nights<\/em>\u2019 mix-and-match Arabian Nights story elements make it a high-NP, high-impact game. When pitching this game, I regularly tell people about a single game where a player was exiled to Europe, met an angry djinn who broke his arms and legs, and crawled back to Baghdad\u2026and won<\/em>. This is partially a great story because there are lots of things that can happen in TOTAN <\/em>that create these situations, but because they\u2019re also couched in a narrative beyond \u201cKevin had his speed reduced to 1 but was able to gain enough Destiny Points at the end of the game.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

All of my favorite games have a very high nonsense potential, and I think it\u2019s one of the best things a game can have. More than just offering an intellectual challenge (though that\u2019s important too), games should be personalizable and generate conversation, even after the box is put away. NP is one of the best ways to achieve this. Despite it making the game sometimes look strange or even untested, the benefits of nonsense vastly outweighs the benefits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Anyone who\u2019s played tabletop games for any amount of time has encountered one of the most delightful feelings in the hobby: Laughing, putting your head in your hands, and saying, \u201cthis game is ridiculous\u201d. Having a game careen into the territory of the absurd is amazing and is one of the most common features that make me want to replay (or buy) a game. So as designers, how can we make ridiculous games more often? Can we intentionally create a, to mince a swear, clown fiesta with some regularity? To help reach this goal, I would like to introduce a term called nonsense potential. What Is Nonsense? In game terms, I have most frequently seen \u201cnonsense\u201d used in Magic, usually referring to decks or cards that win in slow, elaborate, usually ineffective ways. Thinking about the use here, and thinking about the standalone games I\u2019ve played that have generated similar feelings, my best definition of nonsense is: When a game enters a highly unusual, unexpected, or funny state. So nonsense potential is the ability of a game, on average, to generate these game states. Just by having a vague definition of what nonsense is, our goal changes from an impossible task to capture an indescribable state of mind to something that\u2019s difficult but can be achieved.  Getting Up To No\u00a0Good There\u2019s many ways to increase a game\u2019s nonsense potential. Being able to use components in unexpected ways is an important generator of nonsense. Of the numerous impress-the-judge games I\u2019ve played,\u00a0Stinkerhas the highest nonsense potential because it allows you to use its provided letter tiles however you like. You can misspell words; flip an E tile 90 degrees to become an M; even, if the group allows you, use multiple letters. Here\u2019s a spectacular example: Stinkeralso awards more points to people who use more tiles, meaning it encourages players to be less conservative and try to find weird ways to use them. Nonsense being at least a semi-viable strategy, or arising from people trying to play the game to win, is also important because it doesn\u2019t draw competitive players in multiple directions. Coming from a different angle, strategies that strongly deviate from the rest of the game can generate NP. Most of the time, in Trains, you want to link your rail system to as many high-value cities as possible, with the rest of the board mostly serving as an obstacle. However, Trains: Rising Sun features the Mining Train, which generates money for every mountain space you\u2019re on. Suddenly, three players are playing a normal game of Trainsand the fourth has covered the mountainside with cubes.  Randomness, of course, helps create nonsense, but has to be a specific type. It\u2019s okay if there aren\u2019t a lot of random components in a game, but those components that do exist need to have a huge variety of outcomes. It\u2019s the difference between random draw in Azul creating stations with different colors of tiles and the event deck in Arkham Horrorsometimes being a cult encounter and other times containing a beleaguered librarian. Example Time, Baby I don\u2019t want to use a very strong scale for nonsense potential (NP) because this is related to humor in games and explaining humor kills it. But having a vague sense of which games really succeed in this way is useful when monitoring your own games, so I\u2019m sorting games into low-NP, medium-NP, and high-NP. Low-NP games keep strategy within a confined range, with not much room for unusual game states. Terraforming Marshas a wide variety of available strategies, but because every card and action contributes to the overall game plan of either terraforming Mars or generating VP, things can\u2019t get particularly weird. Medium-NP games have a core game state that actual play often resembles in some distorted way. Castles of Mad King Ludwignever strays away from \u201cpurchase the room that gives you the most value and price gouge your opponents just enough,\u201d but situations arise fairly often where one person keeps building corridors endlessly or creates a single long chain of rooms. High-NP games frequently end up in game states where everyone\u2019s confused how it got there in the first place. While not the best High-NP game, Fluxxis probably the purest example, with the endgame frequently devolving into players drawing 7 cards, discarding 3, and stealing the winning Keeper from their neighbor\u2019s hand. Impactful Nonsense Impactis a broad term that covers a lot of different components of a successful game, but you could say it applies to anything that makes a game memorable and exciting. Obviously, the higher a game\u2019s nonsense potential, the more memorable the game will be. This is most visible over multiple plays of a game. The highest-impact games are not only ones where you remember the game, but each individual play of the game stands out as unique to you. This is most common with games where the players or scenarios differ each game, but that\u2019s not a 1:1 link; Pandemichas different player roles but doesn\u2019t have a huge amount of nonsense potential. Additionally, having too much variety can actually be detrimental: The high-NP Tournament at Camelothas dozens of Godsend cards, but because 6 or 7 of them can be in play at a time, it makes all of them less memorable.   Having story-based elements can be very useful in this respect: Tales of the Arabian Nights\u2019 mix-and-match Arabian Nights story elements make it a high-NP, high-impact game. When pitching this game, I regularly tell people about a single game where a player was exiled to Europe, met an angry djinn who broke his arms and legs, and crawled back to Baghdad\u2026and won. This is partially a great story because there are lots of things that can happen in TOTAN that create these situations, but because they\u2019re also couched in a narrative beyond \u201cKevin had his speed reduced to 1 but was able to gain enough Destiny Points at the end of the game.\u201d Conclusion All of my favorite games have a very high nonsense potential, and I think it\u2019s one of the best things a game can have. More than just offering an intellectual challenge (though that\u2019s important too), games should be personalizable and generate conversation, even after the box is put away. NP is one of the best ways to achieve this. Despite it making the game sometimes look strange or even untested, the benefits of nonsense vastly outweighs the benefits.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[26,3,27],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.phantomknightgames.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.phantomknightgames.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.phantomknightgames.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.phantomknightgames.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.phantomknightgames.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=245"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.phantomknightgames.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":249,"href":"http:\/\/www.phantomknightgames.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/245\/revisions\/249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.phantomknightgames.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=245"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.phantomknightgames.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=245"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.phantomknightgames.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=245"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}