Friday Night Shots – Thematically Weird Rules

Welcome back to the bar!

Apologies for being closed for so long, but we’ve had renovations going on.

We were trying to fix that jukebox that kept playing nothing but crappy music.

Along with maybe making this a more inviting place for people other than yourself to come, so maybe I might make a little money?

So come and have a seat at the bar and let me get you the beverage of your choice. It could be non-alcoholic, as we have plenty of that.

Of course, I’ve had a bunch, but when the bar is this empty, why not?

Yes, the renovations don’t seem to have helped with that part.

Let’s turn on the jukebox.

Ok! I guess we may have to have more renovations.

Anyway, what I wanted to talk about tonight is from a thread on Boardgame Geek called “Rules That Make No Thematic Sense.”

We’ve all come across some of those, even in otherwise great games.

But what are some of your favourites?

One of the ones mentioned in the thread, and after thinking about it, I totally get it, is in Twilight Struggle, when if a side causes nuclear war, even accidentally (because they forced the other player to play a card that brought Defcon to 1), they lose the game!

In the real world, of course, if nuclear war happens, we all lose.

But as Marc Lecours says in that thread, he tried designing a nuclear war game where if that actually happened, both sides lost. When somebody was inevitably losing the game, they worked to trigger a nuclear war so that neither side won the game.

In a game (most of the time, anyway), you want one side to win, so you have to have rules like this.

Personally, I think if you cause somebody to create a nuclear war through your own good play, they should lose the game, not you.

But I get why they do that.

Another person on the thread mentions Ark Nova and how the attack cards are anti-thematic. You’re trying to create this fantastic zoo. Why are you trying to make your opponents’ zoos worse by making it harder for them?

I get competition, but aren’t we all trying to save animals and educate the public?

There’s always Ticket to Ride, where you can complete your routes by the most convoluted chain of trains known to man?

Let’s go from Miami to St. Louis via New York and maybe even Toronto!

Or, looking at the only picture I have in my media library, going from Grand Junction to St. George via Cheyenne and Casper because somebody blocked your direct route.

Who would use that route? If I was a passenger and wanted to do that, why would I use that route?

It’s probably more expensive, even.

How about Great Western Trail (or its sequels) where you can only deliver to a city once?

I guess none of the people in those cities liked your stuff, so they’ll refuse any future deliveries?

How about your grapes aging in Viticulture.

You harvest a “1” grape and you could conceivably leave it on your board for 4-5 years until the game is over (not that you would, but you could) and it would still be viable.

In fact, it would be even better!

I know wine is supposed to age well, but grapes?

That’s the thing with these type of mechanisms and rules.

The games themselves are great!

Well, your mileage may vary on Viticulture (I have some friends that love it and some that hate it), all of these games are well-regarded generally.

Twilight Struggle was the number 1 game on BGG for a while!

The rules make sense as a game and make the game more playable, or at least they make sense within the them.

Twilight Struggle is definitely a cool game about the Cold War, and it has to have a way so that one player can win the game and not end it in a draw.

But thematically, they don’t necessarily make a lot of sense.

Those are some that I can think of (or were in the referenced thread).

What games do you play that have a rule or mechanism that doesn’t quite make sense based on the theme of the game?

Maybe something in Weimar?

(I don’t know, I’ve only watched playthroughs).

Let me know your thoughts on this.

And hopefully the new bar renovations will fix things again!