Friday Night Shots – Player Aids

Welcome to another end-of-week social gathering where it’s just you and me!

I’d say I’m enough to make it social. Wouldn’t you?

Well, anyway, hop on a seat at the bar and let’s chat!

I do have to say first, though, that you are running up quite the bar tab here.

Are you going to pay it tonight?

You do have a week still…

I kid!!!

For you, everything’s free.

But only you. Don’t tell anybody else.

Let me turn the music down because it’s kind of echoing in the emptiness.

I apologize for whoever the heck remade that upbeat Beatles song into a dirge.

I will have to fire the jukebox guy.

What shall we talk about today?

How about player aids in games!

Are they necessary? Unnecessary? A murderable offense if they’re not included?

This was sparked by listening to a Tom Vassel Plea to Publishers video from a month ago (I listen to them on DTV Audio podcasts so I just now heard it).

One of the things he mentions is how most (if not all) games should have player aids in them.

In this day and age where games have a ton of iconography, or games have longer, more complicated turns, or a lot of endgame scoring, what have you, player aids become even more important.

And I agree!

Hence this post.

Some games desperately need a player aid for everything that’s in the game.

And some of those games are so complicated that they need multiple ones, and they provide them!

Which can make sorting through them a bit difficult, but hey. At least the information is available.

I wish I could remember the game that had something like 6 different player aid cards that you had to sort through, because I would highlight it here if I could.

Though in that case, maybe make bigger aids so you can put more information on each page and not have 6 cards?

Anyway, wargames always have fantastic player aids, though some games do leave a little off.

They’re almost necessary in wargames because you need things like Combat Results tables, terrain effects charts, maybe nationality-specific rules or abilities (like the charts in Combat Commander).

If your game has a bunch of iconography, you desperately need a player aid.

Having it on the back of the rulebook doesn’t help! Much, anyway.

It just makes the rulebook suffer wear and tear as it is being passed around all of the time.

I don’t care if eventually the icons will become intuitive. If you haven’t played a game for a while, you’re going to forget that intuition. And every game will be played for the first time by somebody.

Yes, I have to call out of my favourite publisher on this one.

The Garphill games I own, none of them come with this kind of player aid.

There are definitely some clever and innovative ways to do a player aid as far as sequence of play and stuff like that goes, though.

Scholars of the South Tigris puts all of this on the back of your starting resources card that you choose, flipping it over after getting them and putting it on your player board (you can see part of it here).

It’s actually used in the game, as it gives you a Rest action!

That is wonderful.

However, all of the North Sea, West Kingdom, and South Tigris games have a ton of icons.

A ton of cards that use those icons.

And there is no player aid for them.

It’s on the back of the rulebook!

There’s a reason that there are many files on Boardgame Geek with explanations of what each townsperson, building, or whatever in a game do and what their icons mean.

They do become intuitive after a while.

If you play the games a lot.

It also doesn’t help that the Kickstarter promos don’t really have much (if any) explanation for their icons. Sometimes they are a mix of icons because they cover one or more expansions as well as the base game.

Which can make it really hard.

Another game that I really like but for some strange reason doesn’t have any player aids whatsoever is Empire’s End from Brotherwise Games.

There is a bunch of iconography on the disaster/innovation cards and yes, it’s all explained in the rulebook.

But only in the rulebook. Not even on the back page! It’s on the back couple of pages inside (at least it does have a glossary of them rather than making you search through the rulebook).

What do these symbols mean on the bottom?

I guess my rulebook is going to get a lot of thumbing wear while I find out.

Again, it becomes intuitive, but not in your first couple of games and if you haven’t played for a while.

It’s not as egregious as Garphill games, but still…

On the back of the rulebook is a really wonderful Quick Start Guide and phase by phase breakdown of what happens, along with page references for where to find out more.

But why can’t that be on a player aid as well so that everybody can have one?

On the other hand, Fantastic Factories from Metafactory Games is amazing!

It doesn’t even have that much iconography, but it’s clearly laid out and also you get how a turn works and how the game ends as well.

All on a little card!

Kudos to them for making that.

Maybe that’s why it’s one of Tom’s favourite games?

There are other great examples on both sides of the spectrum, but these are just the ones that jumped out at me as I turned my chair to look at my game shelves.

Cardinal rule as far as I’m concerned?

If your game has a bunch of icons in it, you need a player aid.

It’s a must.

Doesn’t mean I won’t enjoy your games if you don’t have one (how many Garphill games were in my Top 50 again?).

But it does mean that I’m going to be annoyed.

Oh, one final thing I almost forgot.

If you’re going to be good enough to actually include a player aid, let me give you a hint so that you don’t just get half a point for effort.

MAKE SURE YOU HAVE ENOUGH PLAYER AIDS FOR ALL PLAYERS!

Sorry, had to shout that one.

If you’re a 4-5 player game, don’t just include two player aids.

Yes, kudos to you for including a player aid instead of making people thumb through the rulebook.

But a few retracted kudos to you for only including two.

I’m looking at you, Terraforming Mars: the Dice Game.

Anyway, those are my thoughts on player aids in games.

What about you?

Let me know in the comments.

Tonight’s post brought to you by Baileys Irish Cream, the number 1481, and the letter T.