Favorite or Best?
On the value of the Top 10 list.
Last week on Reddit’s boardgaming page, Codenames—a game maybe 6 months old—overtook Twilight Struggle for the number one spot. I think many of you would agree with me when I say that that’s total insanity. There’s a slim, slim chance that Codenames is anywhere near as good as TS (as of this writing, that error has corrected itself and TS is back on top by a razor-thin margin).
There’s a vocabulary problem inherent to the notion of the Top 10 list—it can’t figure out what it means when it purports to be listing the best games. I would like to propose that the best games might not be the games we like the most, and our favorite games might not be that good. Take the BGG Top 100 for example. That list represents the weighted aggregate ratings of all users’ collections. But there’s a pretty glaring issue: a rating of 9, according to BGG’s suggestion, is supposed to simultaneously represent that I consider something to be an “Excellent game” AND that “I always want to play it.” But those aren’t the same thing at all. Look, I think Archipelago is an amazing game. I am impressed by it at every scale, and my knowledge of the development of eurogame mechanics over the past 15 years only makes me appreciate it more. But I certainly don’t always want to play it. In fact, most of the time I’d rather play a dice chucker with wonky rules but lots of player conflict that will wrap up in an hour and a half.
It turns out that T.S. Eliot, of all people, wrote an essay titled “What is Minor Poetry?” that weighs in on this very issue. In the essay, he sets out to explore the difference between a Great Poet (Shakespeare, Milton) and a “minor” one (O'Shaughnessy, Campion). He never actually manages to define those terms, but his discussion makes a powerful observation, which has really shaped how I approach all of the arts and media I consume. He writes: “I should be inclined to doubt the genuineness of the love of poetry of any reader who did not have one or more of these personal affections for the work of some poet of no great historical importance: […] This poet may not be very important, you should say defiantly, but his work is good for me.” In other words, to have any real credibility as a poetry lover, Eliot says that you have to like some poems because they agree with your personal taste, critical reception be damned.
You may disagree with his viewpoint, but by arguing this way, Eliot creates a useful distinction between Good in a critical sense and Good in a personal sense. In other words, there is—or should be—some disagreement between a list of the best poems and a list of my favorite poems.
I think it would be worthwhile for those of us in the boardgaming hobby to adopt and adhere to this distinction. So many people in our community are quick to shit on Munchkin for not being very good—and by most critical standards, it isn’t—but they also can’t seem to allow for the idea that someone might like it anyway. That might be an extreme example, but I see these sorts of discussions on TOS all the time. Everyone is quick to defend their favorite games from all critical remarks, as if someone else not liking Wiz-War or calling Caverna derivative means no on else is allowed to like them either. Likewise, much as I might bemoan the hype over yet another “simple and elegant worker-placement” euro hitting the shelves, my distaste for that genre doesn’t determine whether they are good or bad. Here too Eliot has some wise words: “It is hard to ask the two questions, ‘Is this good, whether I like it or not?’ and ‘Do I like this?’ at the same time: and I often find that the best test is when some phrase, or image, or line out of a new poem, recurs to my mind afterwards unsummoned.” With so many new games coming out, maybe it’s a fool’s errand for us to even bother to try talk about whether they are good or bad. Only time, along with both critical and popular support, can make that determination. Wouldn't we all be better off just worrying about whether or not we will want to play them more than once? I think most of us on this site are of that mindset, but is there no way to spread the view within the hobby at large?
I’ve been toying with writing this post for a few months, especially after seeing the how the Dice Tower People's Choice Top 100 included barely anything more than 5 years old. But what pushed me over the edge was Mad Dog’s F:AT Hall of Fame thread. It’s seems like some of us posted a list including just our favorites (the route I took), while others included some games that they thought deserved it regardless of where they might fall in a Personal Top 20. I think it would be a really cool exercise for us to come up with two different lists based on the good-vs-favorite distinction. What is our community’s collective opinion on what the Best games are? How different would that list look from our cumulative list of Favorites?
Note: T.S. Eliot, 1946. “What is Minor Poetry?” The Sewanee Review 54: 1–18. Available on JSTOR.
In movies, my "favourite" movie of all time is Aliens. However I think the 'best' movie might be Boyhood. I always feel like I'm betraying Aliens when someone asks me what I think the best movie ever is.
If I had contributed to Mad Dog's list, I would have tried to make a 'best' list and not my favourites
@Chapel, the BGG obsession with filler games is well known. How else can 7 WONDERS make to the top?
If I'm making an all time favorite movie list, then Big Trouble in Little China comes in at numero Uno. If I'm making a best movie of all time list, Big Trouble in Little China is gonna fall further down....prob off the list. It's an awesome movie, but I'm able to recognize that there are movies that are technically better than it.
This is sort of off topic but sort of related...but I hate how consumer report-y and metacritic driven people have become. I have friends that when I tell them about a beer I like will go on Beer Advocate and poo poo it because it's not the highest rated beer on there. They literally haven't even TASTED it and they're like "it's only rated a 3.4 out of 5 on Beer Advocate!" Um, SO WHAT?
People will use these arbitrary ratings in place of their own actual opinions. Same thing with videogames, books, movies, boardgames, music etc... I can't stand it. If something LOOKS cool and interesting then GO see it, buy it, experience it. Don't let some other person's opinion sway you against it. Figure out for yourself if it's worth it. Now I understand people don't want to waste money and that's fine. I'm saying only do this with stuff you're VERY interested in.
It's infuriating how people will spout off these ratings as gospel and expect me to be impressed. I'd rather make up my own mind.
BTW, the movie The Squid and the Whale is something I think you'd like. It sort of gets into this. The son is brutal at doing it.
Girl: I really like that book.
Son: it's a lessor work.
I've found myself laughing or telling a story about games I don't even like, because the players made the experience fun. I even own a couple games I never suggest but I can't honestly remember having a bad time playing. The result is a lot of the games I do like probably aren't good, but they deliver a social experience that is worth having....the best test is when some phrase, or image, or line out of a new poem, recurs to my mind afterwards unsummoned
Sadly, it is very common. And no, I don't have any idea how to answer that, either, it's just confusing and weird.Legomancer wrote: I was once talking about a band with someone and said, "Their best album is [a] but my favorite is ." and they reacted with, "That doesn't make any sense." I had no idea how to even proceed at that point.
Egg Shen wrote: People will use these arbitrary ratings in place of their own actual opinions. Same thing with videogames, books, movies, boardgames, music etc... I can't stand it. If something LOOKS cool and interesting then GO see it, buy it, experience it. Don't let some other person's opinion sway you against it. Figure out for yourself if it's worth it. Now I understand people don't want to waste money and that's fine. I'm saying only do this with stuff you're VERY interested in.
It's infuriating how people will spout off these ratings as gospel and expect me to be impressed. I'd rather make up my own mind.
This hits at the heart of what rankles me about the very endeavor of making a rating system that lets you pit 3 month-old games against Tigris and Euphrates. Just because everyone is losing their shit over the most recent kickstarter doesn't mean you'll still be playing it in a year (Dead of Winter, I'm looking at you). By allowing the "Top 10" to include the soup of the day, we can't ever get a good sense of what the true classics are.
I realize that I'm writing into an echo chamber among the members of this forum, but every time I go look at Reddit or the BGG forums it's like I can't believe I'm even talking about the same games, let alone the same hobby.
Bullshit of course. In fact, I've invested more time playing board games than researching political policy. My purchase history has had a greater impact on the gaming scene, then my voting record has had on the political climate. I shouldn't be annoyed that Obama won a second term, I should be annoyed that people still like TI3.
I guess that I just don't identify as a gamer. Now walk into any game store/convention and see if you can figure out why that is.
To get back on topic, if a list of "best" games were to be compiled, I would suggest extracting out a number of the more obvious titles into a "Games of the Ages" category. Nobody wants to read a list filled with the likes of Risk, Diplomacy, Axis and Allies, Chess, and so forth.
Meanwhile when we take "the favourites" approach we can put on pedestal traits we value the best. It can be anything from "game about cavemen", through "game with pretty pictures" or "confrontational" up to "game in which evil is rightly deafeated just like God intended".
This however doesn't make our choices purely subjective. While we may claim that the all the best games have to include cavemen it is not likely that we will gain much support for our claim. When I say that i choose my favourite games instead of the ones that are widely considered the best it means that I put my personal values before the other ones thus making some statement reflecting on personal beliefs but also knowledge and experience.
Just some incohent babbling on my behalf.
jeb wrote:
@Chapel, the BGG obsession with filler games is well known. How else can 7 WONDERS make to the top?
Definitely, now so more than ever. The rankings used to be a lot more meaty several years ago. It has evolved quite a bit over the years, not to my tastes. I blame Vasal.
Black Barney wrote: For instance, the movie Pixels, we all know that's trash. We don't have to see it.
Sure we do. If not we're just depending on the tastemakers to tell us what we like. There's a difference between "I've heard it's bad" and "it's bad." The minute you start using the latter when you have no personal experience on the subject you throw your credibility away. "Didn't see it" is a much better response.
I'm due to watch Pixels with the family on Friday night by the way. They loved it when they saw it in the theater.
S.
It seems like best is just the collective favorite of critics.
So what's the best Final Fantasy game? 7 is a lot of people's favorite, but I thought it sucked because the characters felt too similar and the plot was boring after the first 5 hours. If people make a list of the top 100 games in some magazine, I imagine that 7 is the most likely to be in that list. My favorite was 4, but I think the consensus is... that 6 is the best? I liked Chrono Trigger and Xenogears better than any of them. I don't think I could sit through Xenogears now though.
For me, that's like Pixels. I look at the ingredients of that movie and see a few shots of the finished product and it's a "nope" for me.
When I say "that's trash" about something subjective like a movie, it should be obvious that I mean "that's trash to me" since no one can speak objectively about something art or what is personal taste.
I would hate for common sense to leave normal conversation to the point that you have to pull 'safeties" like that in your normal speech. Political correctness is bad enough, but this would be just way too much.
Hope you enjoy Pixels. I bet you won't.
I think the key to the best/favorite conundrum is to simply remember that if someone says anything on the internet about anything, tack on "in my opinion". It's not like any of us are spouting objective "truths", especially about such a subjective field of interest. It's not easy with anything, but especially on entertainment stuff. For example: My wife loves Jerry Springer's and Steve Wilkos' shows. I cannot stand them; I think they are horrible, exploitative shows. She thinks they're some of the best, I think they're definitely some of the worst.
Who's right? If you base it off of Nielsen ratings (which, incidentally, are better than BGG ratings in many ways) or "overall entertainment value", then she is closer to right than I am. I have to admit, seeing two trailer trash sisters pull off each others' wigs is certainly entertaining. If you base them off of cultural value or quality of show design, however, they are both horribly derivative, have no artistic value, and add nothing to culture other than displaying stupidity. So, I'd be right.
Thus, there is no "Objective Best", and cannot really be, because the beauty and utility of anything is wholly subjective.
sagrilarus wrote:
Black Barney wrote: For instance, the movie Pixels, we all know that's trash. We don't have to see it.
Sure we do. If not we're just depending on the tastemakers to tell us what we like. There's a difference between "I've heard it's bad" and "it's bad." The minute you start using the latter when you have no personal experience on the subject you throw your credibility away. "Didn't see it" is a much better response.
I'm due to watch Pixels with the family on Friday night by the way. They loved it when they saw it in the theater.
S.
"Don't drink that milk, it's gone bad."
"SCREW YOU, YOU DON'T DECIDE MY TASTE!" *drinks milk*
"I told you it was bad!"
"I ONLY DRANK ONE SIP! I CAN'T REALLY FORM AN OPINION UNTIL I DRINK THE ENTIRE THING!"
Black Barney wrote: For me, that's like Pixels. I look at the ingredients of that movie and see a few shots of the finished product and it's a "nope" for me.
That's a whole different statement from "we all know that's trash."
Looking forward to an update on what you think of that movie.
I was thinking recently about how much this hobby has grown lately. When you're a bunch of krusty old gamers like we are, it's easy to miss that board gaming has exploded over the last few years. That's probably why Essen buzz seems to be revolving around lighter games. The percentage of new gamers is way higher than it's been for a long time.