CARDBOARD MANIFESTO
Down with victory point tracks!
Idon’t like board games with victory points. It’s not that I won’t play them – I will, and I’ll probably even enjoy them (if you were hoping this wasn’t a minor, petty complaint then I’m sorry to dash those illusions so early). But all the same, I’d prefer to have a different experience, one without a score tracker tick-tick-ticking up every turn.
When victory points are involved, there are a few problems that always crop up. Firstly, they’re a very blatant visual indicator of who’s winning, and worse, of who is losing by miles. While it can be helpful to see which player is ahead, as you can then throw everything in your bag of tricks at them, nothing sucks the fun out of a board game like watching yourself fall further and further behind. And while it’s usually pretty obvious if you’re losing, even without victory points, there’s something about knowing that you’re ‘exactly 10’ behind the next player that makes that feeling significantly worse.
The main way designers try to get around this is by making you count points at the end. But this is also no good – it turns what should be a climactic moment into a total snoozefest. Particularly since, as mentioned, you’ll most likely have some idea of how well you did already, so you’re often just waiting to find out how much you didn’t win by. This is when mobile phones come out and attention spans start to drift.
However, the main problem for me is more closely tied to theme than to gameplay. What exactly are victory points? They’re typically the ultimate goal of any board game they feature in. But they’re vague, amorphous, impossible to imagine and therefore disconnected from the fiction of the game.
To be fair, I can see how this makes them a useful design shortcut. Victory points are versatile. They can be anything. If you want to balance multiple different paths to success, converting them into a single abstract score makes good practical sense. After all, in a board game about ruling a medieval kingdom, how should you decide who’s on top? Is it the player who’s built the most cities? The one who’s fed the most peasants? Should it be the one with the most sparkly, jewelencrusted crown?
To this I say: “yes!” I say: “pick one!” Because, to my mind, it’s not really important if a game is realistic about how it measures success. It’s more vital to have a thematic goal that can be pictured during play, whether that’s wiping out a disease, taking the most territory, or collecting the largest vegetables.
What’s more, a decisive goal that ends the game and crowns a winner is almost always more exciting than tallying victory points. It’s more memorable to win through a checkmate moment, by achieving something tangible or reaching a certain position first, than by scoring the most points in a predetermined number of turns.
In games that eschew victory points, it often feels like the players are part of a race or a battle, whereas points produce a sense of striving for efficiency. That may be exactly the intended effect in a Eurogame themed around commerce, but in games with more action-packed narratives, it’s less than ideal.
I realise we can’t totally do away with victory points. They allow for intricate games involving multiple resources and side objectives, while bypassing a balancing nightmare. But I do suspect they’re used more often than they need to be, simply because they’re an easy option and we’re so used to them.
I’d like to see more designers try to come up with alternative and innovative end goals for their games. At the end of the day, this would mean more varied and interesting board games for us to enjoy – now wouldn’t that be the sweetest victory of all?
The main problem for me is more closely tied to theme than to gameplay. What exactly are victory points?