Against Fairness

Fairness is over-rated (in games).

Looking at my recent convention gaming, I played some games that can be considered “fair,” but by time (and choice) I mostly played wildly unfair games.

I suppose I should define “fair.” Off hand, I can think of multiple types of fairness, and there are sliding scales in each:

Symmetry (Fairness of Abilities) — Are the actions a player can take the same for all players? For worker placement, some abilities may be blocked, but that’s a function of turn order (which can be manipulated) and some spaces may have pre-requisites. A totally fair game would be simultaneous actions; you could argue that Chess is unfair because White has the first move advantage, but it is otherwise symmetric.

Randomness (Fairness of Resolution) — If two players take the same action but dice/cards/etc dictate that player one gets a reward and player two gets a punishment, that is obviously unfair (but may of course be realistic) I’m not going to propose how to define that, but I think we can apply Jacobellis v. Ohio (“I know it when I see it”)

Fog of War (Fairness of Knowledge) — Perhaps one player knows quite a bit more about the world. (Fury of Dracula, for example. Dracula knows where he is, players have to figure it out). In many games the fog of war is symmetric, and players may pay for the information or not, but even in those games you can pay for it on a turn where not knowing is harmless (which again goes back to randomness).

(I’m sure there are more, but this is a tirade against fairness, not a dictionary).

“Not all fair games are boring, but all boring games are fair.” Hyperbole, to be sure, but a stereotypes exists for a reason. Unfair games may be unpleasant, infuriating, or atrocious, but they won’t be boring. And there are limits to unfairness beyond which we don’t tolerate them, but in general we love an underdog story. And how can we have that story without an underdog?

The Red Sox coming back in 2004 ALCS. Jimmy Connors run in the US Open in 1991. These are great stories. Hell, the Jordan Bull’s had one of the most stacked teams in history. Rooting for them was like rooting for Standard Oil to drown baby ducks in a thick black sludge, and we did it.

There are limits, of course. We wouldn’t want to see the Bulls trouncing a middle school team (uh … The 1992 US Basketball team means I’m not so sure). The underdog has to walk up and say “I’m your huckleberry.”

In Magic Realm you can spend 20 seconds failing four search rolls in a roll trying to find a treasure, then wait an hour to try again. In my game last week I aced the search roll on the first try and pulled two treasures from a three treasure stack on the next two rolls. (The odds of this were under a quarter of a percent, not quite one in a thousand but nice). Did I win? No. Did I remember that? Yes.

There is an article by Magic Realm designer Richard Hamblen somewhere (probably an old General) where he discusses some of the differences between boardgames, books and RPGs. If an RPG, a player gets the combination of the Sword of Awesomeness plus the Armor of Invulnerability then proceeds to murder all opposition (including the other players) it’s unfair and unfun, because the Game Master could just be playing favorites. It’s bad storytelling.

But — if anyone could (in theory) stumble upon them; but it was legal but almost impossible to get both … then the one time it happens it will also be unfair, but also a story for the ages.

I played lots of games last week. Mostly games I liked. I’d play Dice Realms again, but I can’t really tell you what happened in my four games. I can tell several stories from my one game of Magic Realm. It’s a slow game, and complicated, and ridiculously unfair.

All of us are just stories, in the end.

The same with the games we play.

Make them memorable.