GAMES
In my free time, I enjoy playing and thinking about games of all kinds.
Games are everywhere. Videogames are quickly becoming one of the primary forms of entertainment for younger generations. Tabletop games have exploded in popularity over the last two decades. The stories that games are now capable of telling have become so sophisticated that they are being adapted into film and television. What is more, games can sometimes tell those stories better.
Games do not (yet) figure into my research. But my love of games often informs the activities I use in the classroom. I also often use videogames to exemplify philosophical concepts in popular media. I hope to make a post soon about how to draw on videogames in philosophical pedagogy (similar to the existing blog post by Ivo Pezlar ) . But for recent philosophical research on games and how they work through the medium of agency, I highly recommend following C. Thi Nguyen.
The aim of this page, however, is more personal. In what follows, I offer some recommendations for newcomers to tabletop gaming. I say 'tabletop' and not ‘board’ games because many of the items I address are not easily integrated into the latter bucket. Some of them have little-to-no physical components. They only require that the participants place themselves under a shared set of rules. I’ve organized the list by ascending difficulty. So I begin with games that require very little overhead (both materially and cognitively) to get started with.
Pen-and-Paper Games (Fish Bowl, Telephone Pictionary)
My favorite aspect of tabletop gaming is how it can draw us into new (and often hilarious) forms of social interaction. One game that excels at this is a folk game called Fish Bowl. It has some mass market versions (Monikers and Times Up: Title Recall), but all you need to play is some paper and pencils. The rules can be found online and you can teach the game in under 3 minutes.
You can think of Fish Bowl as enhanced charades. Clue-givers take turns trying to get their teammates to guess a hidden prompt. But what makes Fish Bowl so excellent is that it is a game in which you are making meaning together. You play short rounds of charades over and over again with a small set of prompts. The prompts stay the same through the rounds, but in each new round, there are greater constraints on how clues may be expressed. By the end, players will have constructed a strange system of reference peculiar to this small set of prompts. The effect is gut-busting laughter.
Another game of this sort is Telephone Pictionary. The rules can be found online. In a sense, this game is the inverse of Fish Bowl. You are not building up a microcosm of shared meaning, but watching it fall apart. It is no less laughter inducing.
Mausritter
Tabletop role-playing games can also be played with just pen-and-paper. The most famous example is Dungeons and Dragons. But Mausritter is far more approachable. The rules are available online for free. You need dice to play, but you can always roll virtual dice on Google.
TTRPGs can be thought of as collaborative storytelling games. They are played almost entirely through a conversation. One player (the GM) describes the fictional world. Each other player describes the actions of their individual character. The conversation continues until descriptions conflict. Dice are rolled to resolve the conflict and the conversation continues.
You might be thinking: how do you win a game like that? TTRPGs are often games without clear 'win' or 'fail' states. The basic aim is to tell an interesting story. This also makes turn-by-turn deliberation in TTRPGs different than the kind you find in other sorts of games, e.g., chess. In a TTRPG, your choice of action might be motivated by considerations about (for example) your character's beliefs and principles. Interesting stuff!
Games like this often require commitment and can be tricky to organize. For something even more low-stakes, consider alternatives like Lady Blackbird or Honey Heist. These are both free and are designed to be played in one sitting.
The Crew
You might be familiar with trick-taking games like Bridge or Hearts. If not, here is a rough rundown: a 52 card deck of playing cards is dealt to the players. Each round, players submit one card into a shared pool called 'the trick.' Whoever played the highest value card each round ‘takes' that 'trick.’ This is done for multiple rounds. Depending on the specific game, you might win by taking the most tricks or the least.
The Crew is a trick-taking game. What makes it special is that it is also a cooperative game. Every round, the game sets some task for the players; e.g., Amy must ‘take’ the queen of hearts before Barbara ‘takes’ the ace of spades. Sounds simple, right? What makes this a challenge is that the players are not allowed to explicitly communicate about the cards in their hand. So they must find creative ways to express themselves through how they play their cards. It is at once a brain-burning puzzle and a social experience.
Hanabi is an earlier game similar to The Crew. Hanabi might be a pinch easier to learn and teach. In my book, however, The Crew trumps it.
Cosmic Encounter
Cosmic Encounter might be my favorite board game. It is older, having been originally published in 1977. But once you play it, it is easy to understand why Cosmic Encounter has been reprinted time and again. It is ‘the prisoner's dilemma’-the game, with a screwball sci-fi theme hearkening to Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and Doctor Who.
The game tasks players with spreading their 'spaceships' onto a certain number of other players’ 'planets'. What makes it thrilling is the freedom it offers to the players in how they carry out this task. You can bluster your way to victory or you can negotiate with your peers. You can win alone or in a team that emergently formed during play. What is more, the game creates asymmetries in the bargaining positions of the players, by giving each a unique way to radically break the rules.
If you like bluffing and negotiation, it is hard not to recommend this one. Still, players who find direct confrontation off-putting ought to avoid it. It is best to play with close friends and especially those who do not mind a bit of shouting and chaos.
More of this segment is coming soon!