Talk:Board game

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[edit] Miscellaneous

 It is requested that a photograph or photographs be included in this article to improve its quality.

Roof of temple at Kurna, Egypt, showing the oldest depictions of board games. (from Wikipedia:Requested_pictures) -Dr Haggis - Talk 18:52, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

We definitely need to come up with a better classification here, at some point. It's a good start, but games like Abalone and Die Siedler really defy any coarse classification. Perhaps nested classification pages, with games existing on multiple pages? I'm planning on adding entries for a few more games that we play regularly, most of rticle. The same could apply to any other specialist categorization. --Imran

My preference, therefore, is to do the best we can to avoid listing any game twice. No classification system will be perfect, but a unified system is much to be desired, even if there is more than one principle on which it _could_ be based.

Oh, and as to Risk, I forgot that it has evolved from being a pure elimination game as it was when I first learned it. But it still belongs in the elimination category, because players can be wiped out even when assignment cards are used, and then they may have nothing to do until the next game starts. I will modify the description to include possible elimination.

--Karl Juhnke

I have started up a page about classifying games in general; Maybe we can continue this discussion over there if need be. --Fritzlein 16:20 Aug 24, 2002 (PDT)

I removed this list from the article:

==European race games==
  • Game of the Goose
  • Tour of Europe
  • Round the World with Nellie Bly
  • Game of Japan
  • The Sun of Brunswick
  • Jeu du Grand-Homme
  • Circle of Knowledge
  • Peter Rabbit's Race Game

I don't think many people would consider "European Race Games" a genre unto itself. If anyone cares to, they could add some of these games to other lists, though they sound pretty obscure to me. —Frecklefoot 13:33 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)

That's because most of them are from the 18th/19th century, while this class of game isn't very common today, it was once very important and many of todays games companies (including Parker Brothers, Milton Bradley, and Chad Valley) started out by producing this kind of game. It was also these games that allowed for the first European board game companies to exist as companies in their own right (as opposed to being part of a lithograph/publishing company). Although many of them could be classified as chance games or in a generalized "race game" category, I think they are distinctive enough to qualify for their own category. --Imran 20:12 16 Jul 2003 (UTC)
I can see your point, Imran. The category is fairly distinctive, especially since the games are seldom played today. I earlier argued for the page to be grouped from a gamer's point of view, but a class of historical games may deserve its own heading, as the gamer would have no opinion. My only problem with the list being in the main board game article is a lack of articles behind it. If each game were backed by good information, as well as the heading having its own article, then I think it would be a fine format for the information, and the best place in Wikipedia for it to appear. --Fritzlein 22:14 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Perhaps a seperate article for the european race games would be more appropriate, as more can probably be said about these games as a genre than could be said about the individual games. --Imran 22:56 18 Jul 2003 (UTC)

We have a slight categorization problem here. Several of the games linked under word games and party games do not have a board. Apples to Apples, Taboo, Anagrams, and I think several other games are played with cards and other equipment not including a board.

I see several possible solutions:

  1. Do nothing, and let the board games article serve as a catch-all for all games that bear some resemblance to board games.
  2. Remove the games that are not board games. For example, under word games we include only word games which are board games too, but delete word games which aren't board games.
  3. Remove all party games and word games from this article, and simply leave a link to those other categories.

My personal preference is for the latter option. Let's not try to maintain two lists of word games, one on the word games page and one on the board games page. Instead let's put prominent links to those other pages, and maintain all the links to individual games over there.

Since I don't want to maintain lists in two places, I look for the more compelling category. In my mind, "word game" has a stronger hold over Scrabble than "board game".

It there are no objections, I will implement this proposal when I get around to it. --Fritzlein 20:22 26 Jul 2003 (UTC)

I don't know the game PARFUDREZ and I don't think it is a Classic two-player abstract strategy game

The only Google hits for PARFUDREZ are for Wikipedia and sites that copy Wikipedia content. I'll remove it. --Zundark 12:08, 6 May 2004 (UTC)
And yet it seems that an article entitled PARFUDREZ was deleted 18:55, 9 Jun 2004 as being a copyvio. How can this be? Incidentally I suspect [1] may be a cache of this article. -Blotwell 01:19, 13 Nov 2004 (UTC)

[edit] Luck in chess

The article states "Some games, such as chess, have no luck involved." This is only true in theory. Chess is a deterministic game, that is the desicion tree for all chess games can be (trivialy) constructed. However to represent the desicion tree more bits than atoms in the universe must be used. Therefore it is not practical to construct. Hence there must be luck involved in playing chess. Søren Olesen (2. nov 2005)

Not any more luck than me touching my nose with my index finger. It can't be proved that a bird won't swoop down between the two, or that I'll live long enough to complete the task. Using your definition, luck becomes a meaningless term. There is no 'luck' involved in playing chess as most boardgamers define the term. It's a random element of the game that has the potential to benefit some while hindering others, or only affecting a subset of the total player base. Chaos is a related but different term, often confused with luck. Chaos is the inability to predict the flow of the game. Chess might have chaos, but it certainly doesn't have what most people refer to as luck. I suppose all multiplayer games have a certain amout of chaos. Eric Mowrer (2 Nov 2005)
What is the difference between luck and random element ? Søren Olesen (3. nov 2005)
Søren, the "atoms in the universe" description helps visualize the complexity of chess for sure, but I don't think supports anything on the luck vs. strategy front. Why do you presume that a player needs to render a decision tree or any portion of it in their head in order (or elsewhere) to make a non-luck-based decision? A decision tree (if complete and followed without mistake) could lead to optimal play in chess. However, to act strategically does not require full knowledge of optimal actions. Or do you believe otherwise? --Ds13 17:16, 2 November 2005 (UTC)
Why do you presume that a player needs to render a decision tree or any portion of it in their head in order (or elsewhere) to make a non-luck-based decision? Because it is the only way to prove that the move was the optimal move. The definition from the article states One way of defining board games are between those based upon luck and strategy. I have showed that it is not possible to play optimally in chess, therefore there must be luck involved. Søren Olesen (3. nov 2005)
I disagree. Lack of optimal play does not mean lack of strategic play. Playing optimally can, sometimes, be proven mathematically and optimal play would appear to be the best strategy if the knowledge (and brainpower or CPU time) is available. Playing strategically means playing with a plan, and that plan need not be optimal. In complex games, warfare, business, etc. strategies can rarely be proven to be optimal or not yet the fact that one is following a plan, intending to achieve a goal, means they are playing strategically. --Ds13 16:29, 3 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Ordering of external links

This article is rather vulnerable to link spam. Anybody with board games to sell, or ads that they want readers to see, is tempted to put their own links in the external link-lists at the end of this article.

Just now an editor added a link to the front of the Play online section. There were about a dozen links there already. Why should the new link get to go first? It's true that we don't have a clear guideline for the order of the external links, but it seemed odd to put a new link in front of all the others. I suspected link spam, but I checked the link to make sure. It turned out I was wrong: the new link led to a modest Java chessboard with a couple of unobtrusive Google ads. Nothing horrid.

But still, my intuition is that proud page-owners should get in line. Put new links at the end, please. A link added at the front of a list is a warning sign of spam, and an editor could be forgiven for reverting it without checking. ACW 15:49, 3 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Strange sentence

The article contains the following sentence:

The rise of computers has also led to a relative decline in the most complicated board games, as they require less space, and are easier to set up and clear away.

I do not understand what it tries to say. Does the sentence mean that computer games have replaced complicated board games, since computer games require less space and are easier to set up and clear away? Or that computerized versions of complicated board games have replaced cardboard versions of complicated board games? Or that people prefer complicated board games to simple board games, since complicated games require less space and are easier to set up and clear away? (Well, at least go and chess are such complicated board games.) Or that computers have somehow affected people so that they want to have things that require more space and are more difficult to set up and clear away? (The last theory would at least explain the popularity of Microsoft products.)Punainen Nörtti 12:51, 18 June 2006 (UTC)

I assumed that it meant games like Dungeons and Dragons or large war simulations had declined in popularity since computer games can handle all the bookkeeping details of large simulations. I clarified the sentence like so:

The rise of computers has also led to a relative decline in the most complicated board games, as computers require less space, and the games don't have to be set up and cleared away.

Don Kirkby 20:52, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] "You Play It"

An anonymous editor added a link to the "Online Play" subsection of the "External Links" section. It feels like a borderline adlink to me. The referenced site seems fairly benign, but it's (free) registration-only, and I could not assess the content without registering. I didn't register.

Probably the link was inserted by people affiliated with the "You Play It" site. This isn't intrinsically bad, I hasten to emphasize, though I was a little put off by the repetition of some ad-like verbiage ("many famous games") from the site's splash page. Despite the phrase "many famous games", the splash page lists only about half a dozen, none of which I had heard of.

So, anyway, I toned down the adspeak a little, and fixed a punctuation error, and left the link in. What should happen next is that some intrepid neutral editor should register at "You Play It" and make sure that everything is on the up-and-up. I'm afraid I'm feeling rather extrepid tonight. ACW 02:38, 24 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Link spam

My apologies to the good people at azumos online, but it looked like a small site selling board games. It didn't appear to have any features that allow you to play or discuss board games.

What's the etiquette for removing something that looks like link spam? Justify it in the discussion page, or just nuke it and wait for it to come back if it's valid?

Don Kirkby 20:52, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] find purely luck based games such as Top Trumps quite boring

I don't quite comprehend how Top Trumps is purely luck. Anybody who has played the game knows that whilst the cards are dealt randomly you will have to use your 'skill' to choose the most appropriate attribute to compare against your opponent. Whilst there is luck on whether or not they have a better card than you, you do have an influence on the outcome of the game by your choices.

Don't particularly care either way whether this stays or not, but I would say a game such as snakes & ladders is a much better example of purely luck-based gaming (unless someone wants to suggest that one can throw a dice with degree of accuracy). ny156uk 19:21, 22 November 2006 (UTC)

Done. Good suggestion. —ptk✰fgs 23:54, 31 March 2007 (UTC)
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