In a couple recent articles on the League of Game Makers Seth Jaffe has made the point that “the designer should strive to ensure that a player cannot make a choice or series of choices that will lead them to a state where they’re not really playing anymore.” I agree whole-heartedly with Seth and encourage you to read his articles (“YOU’RE PLAYING WRONG!” – GOOD PLAY EXPERIENCE AND THE DESIGNER’S RESPONSIBILITY and “HEY, LOSER!” KEEPING PLAYERS ENGAGED, EVEN WHEN THEY’RE BEHIND). I have tried to cover similar ground in my article, Eliminating Player Elimination. Just as Seth has published a follow-up article to make his point clear (there were some who misinterpreted his intent), I’ll also add a few words more from an angle closer to Seth’s perspective (though, it is from my perspective also which some have described as other-worldly).

Recently on another game design blog there was a debate about whether a designer should accommodate poor player decisions in the game design. Although it was not the topic of the original article, the discussion veered into new territory (as they often do). I pointed to my article Eliminating Player Elimination where one of my points is that the designer takes on a higher challenge and risk by keeping players in the game (rather than eliminating them) because those players need to be engaged in the game to the end. The idea that the designer is responsible for prompting this engagement was challenged by one of the commenters and, in particular, my light-hearted description of behaviors that bored losers will exhibit was criticized with the following. (Paraphrasing…)

Board Game Hour is a little difficult to describe within my limited categories for resources. It is a weekly meet-up on Twitter to discuss board games and board game design. The meet-up is hosted on Nurph and moderated by the Minister of Board Games himself, Nate Brett. The “Hour” of interest is every Monday at: 7pm GMT (which I mention first since the Minister is in the UK). This translates to 2pm EST, 1pm CST, 12pm MST (which works great for me so I can join on my lunch hour), and 11am PST. Note: The time gets a little wonky at the time changes since the UK observes Daylight Savings Time differently than the US.

The League of GameMakers is a growing group of designer/writers across the spectrum of game design. The authors are authentic and active in the comments and their articles interesting. There is a good dialog about game design concepts and some very helpful information on this site.

Expansions come in many varieties and those variations can be described in various ways. While researching my article on Hobby Game Trends 2000-2014, I had to decide whether or not to include expansions in my data. This decision caused me to consider the question, “What is an expansion?” One categorization criterion is what the expansion does to the original game – how it expands the game. Keeping in tune with game descriptions, I’ve categorized expansions into 4 X categories.