You Need To Get Your Priorities Straight (Length)

So, of late I've gathered quite the pile of vintage DOAM games, I mean, not like Chapel or anything, but quite a few.

I love the old-school 1977 looks of them, I like the smell of must and "wisdom". I'll admit it, I think that the games 30 years ago were generally of a higher caliber than those of today. Call it nostalgia (although I never played many of these back in the day) or whatnot, but there's more game in a Dark World or Dungeonquest or Axis and Allies than in 99% of the gut-rot tripe issued forth by the publishers and Krapstarters of this current "era".

I always kind of thought to myself that it was a matter of taste or some such thing, but really, it's more than that. Our priorities have changed.

In this interconnected world where Facebook is literally sucking the productivity out of Western businesses as their employees comment about the latest Miley Cyrus wardrobe malfunction, people simply do not have any time to screw around anymore. And this is everything: That burger had better launch through the drive through window as if Roger Clemens had tossed it or your whole night is ruined. God forbid the fries are cold.

And while I was stroking my new Buck Rogers Battle for the 25th Century lovingly, I noticed that something was missing. Now, generally, if you notice something missing from your box, you're going to be a little pissed. And after I tell you what was missing, maybe you will be. But I smiled.

On the side of the box there is absolutely no reference as to HOW LONG this game will take to play. I perused the rules, and I didn't see any reference either, but I might have missed that, although it's beside the point.

Then I started looking at some of my other old-schoolery. Almost NONE have this piece of information that has become a crucial decision point for virtually every game on earth. And it explains a lot.

Quality doesn't matter as much anymore. All the cult of the new cares about, with their ultraconnected crackberries and constantly tweeting smartphones chirping away at the game table, is if they can squeeze just enough time into their already-overloaded lives to play the latest newshinyprecious.

Back in the day, if someone said they got a new blackberry, it would be in a pie. If someone said they wanted to get an IPad, there would be hushed giggles and references to menstruation. And back in the day, people didn't give a shit how long it took to play a game. Because it was an event.

Games today are throw-away experiences, barely memorable for a few weeks. Back in the day, it was an event of unparallelled importance, with the fate of an entire world being determined by the skill of the armchair generals and hanging in the balance.

Monopoly cannot exist today because people can't tolerate open-ended timeframes on games anymore. There's just not enough time in the week for a group of friends to sit down and beat the piss out of one another without knowing, up front, how long it will take. And that's a bit sad, to me.

Maybe we need to get our priorities straight. Maybe game night should be an event, rather than a simple exercise in "how do we get 4 people to sit in a room and not be bored for exactly X hours?"


That is all.

I have a friend of mine who insists that the best games start at 3 hours, and for the most part I agree with him. There's a lovely arc that happens when you play a long game. You aren't just playing some ol' game anymore, you're actually spending a lot of time with good friends. There's a weird intimacy that happens when we play a game. That sound strange, but it's there. You agree to spend a certain amount of time together, and you essentially agree to not be a douche to each other for a little while. Not only that, but you're personality comes through when you play games. It shows people who you are, and that's a vulnerable place to be. That's why we get so annoyed with people who "suck" at being fun. They are taking all the wrong parts seriously.

That's why long games can be so awesome. It allows you to go deeper into that "contract" with each other, and the results can be a more enjoyable session.

My biggest complaint about modern games is that just as things are going swimmingly, the game ends. In Agricola, it seems like as soon as feeding your family ceases to be an issue, the game is over. It seems like you spend the whole game building the infrastructure and you only get to see it in use for 1 or 2 turns. although for some games, I'm glad about that.

Last long game I played was a game of 2nd Fleet with my friend. It has been a couple years now and I hope that we can do it again at some point. He was the Soviets and pummeled my Fleet but I had the Carrier Group working its way up past Iceland...sadly a truce was signed. But I love the story arc of that.

That's kind of what I'm saying, about the "story". I mean, yeah, I like Agricola, but only because it's a truncated version of Farmville. But like Miko said, just when you're pretty happy with your awesome little farm, it's over. The story cut short. So, you play again.

But you play Twilight Imperium 2, it's an EVENT. You're planting your arse for 4-5 hours duking it out and determining the fate of an entire galaxy. You couldn't even LOCATE Miko's farm from orbit, because it's that insignificant.

And there's a story.

Shoot, that is my forte are DOAM and Civ games. Probably the only part of me that is F:AT. The issue I have with some of the older titles is sometimes they tend to drag on. More of a cyclical drag than because of content. Doing the same thing over and over again with not much gain. Which is why I LOATHE Risk. I need more mechanisms, more ways to destroy my opponents other than make a wall of stuff, then push stuff forward. There are some cool aspects in newer(and I use that term relatively) DOAM kind of games. Wars of the Roses, Olympos, Colonial, Manifest Destiny, Moongha, Imperial. All really cool DOAM/EURO hybrids that all bring really interesting things to the table.

So in answer to you question, I really don't care how LONG a game is, as long as it keeps those hours interesting.

mikoyan wrote: My biggest complaint about modern games is that just as things are going swimmingly, the game ends. In Agricola, it seems like as soon as feeding your family ceases to be an issue, the game is over. It seems like you spend the whole game building the infrastructure and you only get to see it in use for 1 or 2 turns. although for some games, I'm glad about that.

I agree. This is just a card game, but in Ascension, you spend all this time building your deck, and just when it gets running well, bam game over. I usually use 80 vp instead of the standard 60 for a 2p game. Keeps it going a little longer so more fun can be had playing all those combolicious cards.

As for time being a deciding factor, just last night I had a real inkling to play Arkham Horror (it has been nearly a full year since my last play), but no one wanted to pull it out because they knew we would be sitting there playing the same game for four hours. Oh well, maybe some day I will be able to play it again, or at least trade it for something that will hit the table more often.

A couple weeks ago I went to a game store and set up Dune with a friend of mine, hoping to snag a few extra players while we waited for a couple of friends to show up. Two different people came up and first asked what game it was (being a PnP copy, not exactly clear), and their immediate next question was, "How long will it take?" Knowing what they really meant, I said, "More than an hour." Both responses were basically along the lines of, "Oh, I can't handle a game that lasts more than a hour."

As I looked away in disgust, I said to my friend, "Most of my favorite games are several hours long." He nodded in agreement.

I'm kind of pissed I didn't notice a local store is holding a TI3 session (I've never played) until it was already full. It booked 8 hours for it. I was so excited too.

I've looked at long games the same way I look at long movies. Not EVERY movie should be long, but it's nice to know that we aren't always in a hurry.

Most of my favorite games take at least three hours to play. And I agree that a long game can be a more relaxing, enjoyable experience. Instead of constant pressure to hurry up and win and start the next short game, you can kick back and hang out. Downtime isn't a big problem when you are playing with real friends, because you can talk about anything while waiting on other players.

However, not every game should be a long game. There are some perfectly decent games that clock in around one hour to 90 minutes, and stretching them out longer would only make them less fun.

Shellhead wrote: However, not every game should be a long game. There are some perfectly decent games that clock in around one hour to 90 minutes, and stretching them out longer would only make them less fun.

My little brother, 15 years old, has never played "hobby" games before. Yesterday he spent the day out our place and he, my wife, and I played games all day. His favorite was Adventurers: Temple of Chac played twice, which each game took about an hour to 75 - 80 minutes. We also played Legend of Drizzt, which took the same amount of time as Chac once, also we played a game of Ascension. His favorite was Adventurers, and like I said, we got to play it twice.

mikoyan wrote: My biggest complaint about modern games is that just as things are going swimmingly, the game ends. In Agricola, it seems like as soon as feeding your family ceases to be an issue, the game is over. It seems like you spend the whole game building the infrastructure and you only get to see it in use for 1 or 2 turns. although for some games, I'm glad about that.

This is my one complaint about FFG's Starcraft [now, I've never played it with the expansion, so I don't know what that adds to it]. The half-dozen games I've played all felt like they ended a couple of turns too early. I think it's a very good game, and one I really dig, but it's a bit too...I dunno..."compact"? "taut"? to be truly great.

I really have no nostalgia for older games, I just started getting into non-mainstream games in the past few years. That being said, I have a few older games that I really love: Cosmic Encounter, Speed Circuit, The Fury of Dracula, and Imperium. All four are much more than the sum of their parts. Imperium has a long-ish rulebook, but the rules all seem very organic and it's easy to see how every rule in the book contributes to the narrative of the game.

Most of my games are new-ish games, few older than ten years really (although some are newer editions of older games). A lot of them are definitely not much more than the sum of their parts. My FFG titles, as much as I enjoy them, are chock-full of fiddly bits and odd rules exceptions that don't really contribute to the game's narrative. I have a bunch of DOAM games, as I happen to really like that style (even Risk!), but I can't remember any of my plays of any of them as well as I remember how my strategy fell apart in my last Axis and Allies game.

That being said, I also have quite a few newer games that I think are excellent games. They represent a lot of different methods of game style and design. While I agree with Pete's sentiment that nobody has time to screw around any more, I don't know that I'd go far enough to say that game design has been slipping. It has changed, but different doesn't necessarily mean bad. The "old" games I own I bought because there was a ton of information available and I knew they'd satisfy an itch. They're games that are well-regarded decades after they came out. For every great OOP game that makes it look like new games don't measure up there are likely hundreds of other old OOP games that were mostly crap, and I suspect in twenty years time people will still look back at games from 200x and wonder why games from 202x don't measure up.

A good example of a modern game that manages to do a lot with very little is Conquest of Paradise. You can explain the game in ten minutes and then you've got a few hours of lightweight civ building in the South Pacific ahead of you. It isn't as heavy as most civ games, but it doesn't need to be. With the Random Event add-on cards (PnP) I think it's an excellent example of how people are still finding ways to create games with an interesting narrative that don't require a 30-page rulebook, 5-page errata, and a coffin box of parts.

wadenels wrote: A good example of a modern game that manages to do a lot with very little is Conquest of Paradise. You can explain the game in ten minutes and then you've got a few hours of lightweight civ building in the South Pacific ahead of you. It isn't as heavy as most civ games, but it doesn't need to be. With the Random Event add-on cards (PnP) I think it's an excellent example of how people are still finding ways to create games with an interesting narrative that don't require a 30-page rulebook, 5-page errata, and a coffin box of parts.

On a completely different tangent, I need to get my own copy of that game. It's the only 4x game that really works for me. I don't get the space 4x games. Ancient pacific islanders in canoes not knowing what's on the next island makes sense. Games with civilizations that have the capacity for space travel but don't know what's on three planets over make no sense to me.

Back on topic. I only play hour long games at lunch or with the wife. Any other time, I expect to be immersed for a while. This has always been the case though. From playing rpgs to games workshop minis games, to wargames, etc. On game nights I've always wanted to get in deep.

I love long games. Diplomacy and Dune are two of my favorites ever. That said, with a baby, I now prefer long-ISH games, i.e. 3 hours, because pretty much my "free time" starts at 9 pm, and I know I'll have to wake up at 7:30 or so. I have no idea when I'm going to get a chance to play Civilization again

Jeff - I have a copy that I'd be willing to let go cheap. Hit me up via TM if you're interested.