This is really interesting. Thinking out loud, is there an argument to state social interaction as part of the rules? Or at least state their effects up front?
If the issue with kingmaking comes to some degree from it not being in the mechanics of the game but, more from the players playing. If it was stated in the rules that social interaction was an embedded part of the gameplay, could it help set expectations?
Would that be enough to prompt a player looking for fun in their mastery of the mechanics to think of social interaction as part of said mechanics, giving them another tool to play with, rather than against?
Although I only mentioned it in passing, in Cole's GDC talk he discusses how consent is a critical component when using kingmaking. Players need to know what they are getting into, what to expect, and consent to that type of gameplay... whether that is done in the rulebook (as you suggest) or as part of the rules explanation (as suggested below).
Expecting a game that is purely victory points and low interaction, only to find yourself in a game about alliances, backstabbing, coups, and kingmaking can lead to some rather poor experiences indeed!
I think that's a really good call. I typically act as the rules explainer for my various board game groups and making sure people understand the underlying, or emergent game states that aren't specifically described in the rule seems like a good step to add to my rules explanation. I, personally, have shifted over the past couple years from hating kingmaking and other associated problems, to really enjoying the emergent narratives those game states can produce. It definitely helps to know that those are possibilities going into a game though.
Another excellent write up. Root has been my #1 game for years, but I've got friends who I can't get to play it anymore. Cole is probably also my favorite game designer to follow and read thoughts of.
I know people can really take the kingmaking thing hard and as a big negative. I feel like the variance of the factions of Root keeps it worth playing every time to see what will happen.
Thanks for the excellent article, I actually got hooked because I was too naive to think I could write a novel and call it Kingmaker Nowadays lol, so the cover image was a “Noohhhhh, oh well”
I dunno, it really sounds like Wehrle's defense is "Well *I've* never had a problem with it, so it must be all of you getting it wrong." I've damn near stopped playing 3 player competitive games because of the inevitable kingmaking issue.
Kingmaking can certainly make for a terrible play experience! It is potentially even worse in games that are very victory point focused vs. story focused. I wouldn't want to play those games either! :)
I'd encourage you to watch Cole's GDC talk in full if you have the time. Particularly the historical assumptions at the beginning. His case seems to be less "kingmaking is always OK" and more "in a certain kind of story-focused game, kingmaking can let you do interesting things."
There are definitely a lot of things that can make an experience with kingmaking negative for someone (game group, player expectations and/or behavior, the surrounding play experience, games that are more a desperate and/or naked slog for points, genre mismatch [like a fairly noninteractive, efficiency puzzle type of game suddenly throwing in a strongly interactive narrative element like kingmaking], etc.).
But Cole's point is nowhere near "kingmaking is never a problem." He's saying that when it seems to be a problem (or when people swear it off completely), it is often a result of a mismatch of expectations that is largely downstream of specific ideological conditioning. He grounds this in cultural and historical observations of how we've been trained to think a game is (a fair competition of matched player skill rather than an engine for experiences and stories) and how kingmaking interferes with that, all to encourage a reassessment of our reactions to kingmaking, why we feel about it the way we do and what kind of designs it actually fits well in as a productive tool for emergent narrative.
I found his discussion of the history (which I didn't even attempt to cover in the article) to be really interesting! As you said, it made me reassess my reactions to kingmaking and my assumptions of who should "win" a game. Definitely thought provoking!
Indeed, the effects of the ideologies of empire and colonialism are always more far-reaching than we anticipate. To more or less regurgitate some of Cole's points, it's quite revealing that there's a relatively straight line from the 1800s mindset of games as tools for teaching a particular Victorian morality (around the same time as UK public school was formalized as a means of aiding the empire and the East India Company by raising governors, writers, and statesman specifically for that task) to modern conceptions of fairness in games and competition (including the endless metaphors for and from capitalism that we are inundated with now as ethical teaching and de facto life advice, seen as necessary for survival).
That continuity isn't a coincidence; it's an emergent effect of our societies being so structured by imperialism and capitalism.
This is really interesting. Thinking out loud, is there an argument to state social interaction as part of the rules? Or at least state their effects up front?
If the issue with kingmaking comes to some degree from it not being in the mechanics of the game but, more from the players playing. If it was stated in the rules that social interaction was an embedded part of the gameplay, could it help set expectations?
Would that be enough to prompt a player looking for fun in their mastery of the mechanics to think of social interaction as part of said mechanics, giving them another tool to play with, rather than against?
Although I only mentioned it in passing, in Cole's GDC talk he discusses how consent is a critical component when using kingmaking. Players need to know what they are getting into, what to expect, and consent to that type of gameplay... whether that is done in the rulebook (as you suggest) or as part of the rules explanation (as suggested below).
Expecting a game that is purely victory points and low interaction, only to find yourself in a game about alliances, backstabbing, coups, and kingmaking can lead to some rather poor experiences indeed!
I think that's a really good call. I typically act as the rules explainer for my various board game groups and making sure people understand the underlying, or emergent game states that aren't specifically described in the rule seems like a good step to add to my rules explanation. I, personally, have shifted over the past couple years from hating kingmaking and other associated problems, to really enjoying the emergent narratives those game states can produce. It definitely helps to know that those are possibilities going into a game though.
Another excellent write up. Root has been my #1 game for years, but I've got friends who I can't get to play it anymore. Cole is probably also my favorite game designer to follow and read thoughts of.
I know people can really take the kingmaking thing hard and as a big negative. I feel like the variance of the factions of Root keeps it worth playing every time to see what will happen.
Thank you! Root (especially with expansions) seems to have endless replayability!
Thanks for the excellent article, I actually got hooked because I was too naive to think I could write a novel and call it Kingmaker Nowadays lol, so the cover image was a “Noohhhhh, oh well”
Thank you! Good luck with the writing!
I dunno, it really sounds like Wehrle's defense is "Well *I've* never had a problem with it, so it must be all of you getting it wrong." I've damn near stopped playing 3 player competitive games because of the inevitable kingmaking issue.
Kingmaking can certainly make for a terrible play experience! It is potentially even worse in games that are very victory point focused vs. story focused. I wouldn't want to play those games either! :)
I'd encourage you to watch Cole's GDC talk in full if you have the time. Particularly the historical assumptions at the beginning. His case seems to be less "kingmaking is always OK" and more "in a certain kind of story-focused game, kingmaking can let you do interesting things."
There are definitely a lot of things that can make an experience with kingmaking negative for someone (game group, player expectations and/or behavior, the surrounding play experience, games that are more a desperate and/or naked slog for points, genre mismatch [like a fairly noninteractive, efficiency puzzle type of game suddenly throwing in a strongly interactive narrative element like kingmaking], etc.).
But Cole's point is nowhere near "kingmaking is never a problem." He's saying that when it seems to be a problem (or when people swear it off completely), it is often a result of a mismatch of expectations that is largely downstream of specific ideological conditioning. He grounds this in cultural and historical observations of how we've been trained to think a game is (a fair competition of matched player skill rather than an engine for experiences and stories) and how kingmaking interferes with that, all to encourage a reassessment of our reactions to kingmaking, why we feel about it the way we do and what kind of designs it actually fits well in as a productive tool for emergent narrative.
I found his discussion of the history (which I didn't even attempt to cover in the article) to be really interesting! As you said, it made me reassess my reactions to kingmaking and my assumptions of who should "win" a game. Definitely thought provoking!
Indeed, the effects of the ideologies of empire and colonialism are always more far-reaching than we anticipate. To more or less regurgitate some of Cole's points, it's quite revealing that there's a relatively straight line from the 1800s mindset of games as tools for teaching a particular Victorian morality (around the same time as UK public school was formalized as a means of aiding the empire and the East India Company by raising governors, writers, and statesman specifically for that task) to modern conceptions of fairness in games and competition (including the endless metaphors for and from capitalism that we are inundated with now as ethical teaching and de facto life advice, seen as necessary for survival).
That continuity isn't a coincidence; it's an emergent effect of our societies being so structured by imperialism and capitalism.