Why Mojang’s “Scrolls” Can Not Possibly Be Good

This article is addressed, largely, to those readers who are exclusively videogame-players, and haven’t entered the world of designer boardgames.  There really are two worlds, and each has their own understandings and knowledge and biases, a surprisingly small amount of which are shared among the two.

For instance, in the boardgame world, it’s pretty well-understood that Monopoly is a god-awful game (it’s ranked #8,009 / 8,025 currently on Boardgamegeek, which is basically the board-game Mecca).  You’ve probably noticed though, that with videogamers (and non-gamers), actually, the consensus on Monopoly is pretty mixed.  I’ve heard a bunch of people say they “love” Monopoly, despite the fact that there really isn’t anything there for an adult to love.

I’ve never heard a board-gamer say they “love” Monopoly.  The strongest defenses I’ve heard board-gamers give for Monopoly were things like “naw, it’s not *that* bad” or “it’s better than Candyland” or “the original version of it is actually pretty good” (which is silly, because that’s a different game).

Of course, it doesn’t matter how many people like or dislike something – but I think that people do have to be invited to question things, and if they’ve never met someone who feels a certain way about something, it can be difficult for them to wander down that path.  It’s even more difficult when all you’ve heard about “X” is that “X is awesome”, to come to any conclusion other than “X is awesome”.

 

Scrolls

So back to Scrolls.  Firstly, the gameplay itself looks pretty interesting – more interesting than 99% of any new videogames coming out I’ve seen.  Looks one part Heroes of Might & Magic, one part… well, Might & Magic: Clash of Heroes.  Both of which I like… ish.

Honestly though, gameplay wise, this could be better than either of those.  There appears to be some system where you’re trying to attack the other player’s stones, which seems really interesting and could have a lot of emergent complexity.  I would absolutely LOVE to get a nice tactical online multiplayer game, with a healthy playerbase.  Like a turn-based Starcraft, or something – that’d just be fantastic.

So… why can’t Scrolls be good?  Because it’s a collectible card game (or CCG).

 

CCGs

CCGs are one of those “game-guillotines” that a game system cannot recover from.  This is one of those things that board-gamers know, and video-gamers don’t.  I should temper that statement, and say that within boardgamers, there are basically two groups:

1.  People who hate CCGs

2.  People who play Magic: The Gathering

There is some overlap between the two, but by and large, the only people defending CCGs are Magic players, most of whom have been playing the game since they were really too young to know any better.  Magic is easily one of the most popular non-digital games of the past 20 years, so videogamers all at least have had contact with it.  They all either have played it, or have a friend who has played it.

So my point is, videogamers have not really come into contact with the larger group of boardgame players who know that Magic, like Monopoly although not nearly to the same extent, is a bad game.

 

What’s so bad about CCGs?

I won’t even get into the horribly immoral and manipulative practice of selling people cards randomly.  Obviously, that’s just spitting in the customer’s face, and anyone doing this has my contempt.  Doing this to people in a competitive game environment is simply unforgivable.

I don’t know that Scrolls will work that way, for certain.  However, it is “collectible”, and I can’t really imagine a good “way of collecting”.  It’s either going to be random-finds (unfair) or be based on grinding enough (horrible), or be based on whoever paid the most to the developer (unforgivable).  If there’s some other way, please let me know.

But even if there *is* some other way, we still have a situation where different players are coming to a competitive game with more or less powerful tools.  To use a chess analogy, you might be coming at me with 10 pawns, 1 rook, 1 bishop and 4 queens, while I have the default kit.  Is this balanced?  I honestly have no idea, but almost certainly not.  Balance isn’t something anyone can just throw together, and it certainly shouldn’t be left to two competing players.

CCGs are super-asymmetrical games wherein balance is left to the players, in a situation where people have different access to different stuff.  I think this is fundamentally un-balanceable, and I think anyone who disagrees with me probably doesn’t know what balance really is or how hard it is to actually achieve.

Finally, a word about elegance.  For every game, there is a point where the amount of content is “optimal”.  In videogames, we tend to think that this point doesn’t exist;  more is always better (until we eventually reach the point where, without really understanding why, we just find ourselves uninterested).  In reality, there is an optimal point, and it’s usually a point most videogamers (or Magic players) would find tiny.

Each of these has a unique paragraph of special rules on it. Now that’s what I call elegance.

Anyway, whatever that optimal point is in a system, it isn’t “more all of the time”, as is pretty much required for a “collectible” card game to stay alive.

 

I wish Mojang the Best…

I really do wish Mojang the best, and I hope sincerely that they prove me wrong.  What really sucks, is that they’re locked-into the CCG thing, I’m pretty sure.  Right on the page the FIRST thing they say is:

“Scrolls is Mojang’s next game that aims to take the genre of Collectible Card Games to a whole new level.”

Sad-face.  This leaves them very little wiggle-room if they ever realize what a terrible idea this is.

By the way, I am not saying that Scrolls will not be a popular game.  It probably will, but this says really nothing at all about its game design quality.  It will be popular just because it’s from “the Minecraft guys”, and really for no other reason.

So, good luck, Mojang, but I really think you beheaded this game before it ever had a chance.  Maybe they’ll include some non-CCG classic-mode, or something, because the game mechanisms themselves seem pretty cool.  Otherwise, we still have to wait for our turn-based Starcraft.

Posted on 06/25/2012 by keithburgun. This entry was posted in Culture, Game Design and tagged , , , . Bookmark the permalink.
  • http://www.gamesofapoint.com Scott

    Actually, I’d be interested in hearing a detailed take on CCGs. I know you won’t make too many people happy with it, but I’d love to hear the negatives (and possibly a positive or two) from someone not afraid of hurting feelings.

    • http://www.dinofarmgames.com keithburgun

      I’m not a super-expert in CCGs; I’d need to get someone who is to help me and make sure I didn’t make any incorrect statements about stuff like competitive MTG or whatever. However, this really *is* an article about CCGs. I guess it could be more detailed, but basically I would just go more in depth on the things said here. CCGs are unfair. CCGs are impossible to balance, CCGs are noisy.

  • http://pldevelopment.blogspot.com yarlesp

    It is weird how wide the gap is between board and computer games, I’ve been thinking for a while that if I’m going to bother designing anything I have to start forcing myself to show up to the weekly saturday morning play-in at the local boardgame shop.

    I feel like I have to do this especially when I read someone like costikyan ( http://www.costik.com/spisins.html ) off-handedly dismiss all computer strategy games as ‘intellectualy void.’ even if he’s wrong it seems like a perspective worth exploring.

    • http://www.dinofarmgames.com keithburgun

      Costikyan is great. At least, he used to be. Now I see him playing Farmville type games on FB… don’t know what that’s about.

  • http://blown-to-bits.blogspot.com Kdansky

    You will get flamed so hard for this… Not only are you attacking CCGs, but also the holy cow that is Mojang. I do like the Living Cardgame format that Fantasy Flight Games uses: They release a fixed set of cards (about 12$ for the full set I think?) once a month instead of randomly shuffled packs with arbitrary rarity of some cards, purely to make more money off of the players. There is very little unfairness involved, yet the decks are always changing because new cards get introduced. It’s also interesting that the rate of introduction (monthly instead of three-months like MTG) means that often some clever tricks are not figured out until much later.

    • http://www.dinofarmgames.com keithburgun

      While LCGs are better since you at least know what you’re getting, LCGs are basically CCGs in disguise. At least, Dominion is. It is design by quantity, not quality. It is reliant on inherent complexity, not emergent complexity. It is a system of consumption, not exploration. In short, both are bad design.

      • http://blown-to-bits.blogspot.com Kdansky

        Yes and no. It’s a system of consumption, and I play it because I want exactly that from time to time. There is fun to be had in mastering a fixed set of rules, but there is also fun to be had in playing a game where the rules change slightly every time. You’re essentially improvising all the time, and your strategies are voided very quickly, forcing you to come up with new ones. I can’t concede that this is bad game design, it’s just a very different objective and comes with its own advantages and pitfalls. Meta-game is also an important aspect of LCGs, and some people (like me) like that part.
        There is no axiom that says consumption must be bad design.

        • http://www.dinofarmgames.com keithburgun

          Actually you’re a bit confused on something. Your whole paragraph basically seems to be saying “but I sometimes *like* X and Y, and therefore those things are not bad game design”.

          As you know, I have a pretty specific definition for “game”, and thus, “game design”. Something can absolutely be an example of TERRIBLE game design and yet still be something “fun” or that “you enjoy”.

  • Lavaflyer

    Sorry this really doesn’t have anything to do with the topic, but Keith I happened to notice on your kickstarter that you created an Auro song. I’m new to the app store world and my app is just about done-it just needs a catchy theme song. I don’t know much about music and I’ve been hunting around for some kind of program to make some good (at least decent-I’m not a composer) video game music. So my question is how did you make that song (what program?) or did you record actual live audio or just how? Thanks!

    • http://www.dinofarmgames.com keithburgun

      We generally make all of our music in Sibelius and DAW programs like Cubase or Logic.

      Side note: Why not just use some free classical music? Maybe Brahms Hungarian Dances, those would be great.

  • Alex

    Hey, Keith, have you heard about the DayZ mod for ARMA II yet? The goal is to stay alive as long as you can while fighting off zombies, starvation, thirst, temperature, other people, and whoever stays alive the longest gets 1st place in the leaderboards. It’s the coolest thing I’ve seen in years, and, correct me if I’m wrong, it’s actually a game! Seems like something that is both real-time, easy to get into/hard to master, has permadeath, and has tons of emergent complexity.

    Here’s a link: http://venturebeat.com/2012/06/03/same-sh-different-dayz-how-a-zombie-mod-took-the-pc-world-by-storm/

    I’m curious to see what your thoughts are on this.

    • http://www.dinofarmgames.com keithburgun

      Sounds pretty cool! I’ll look into it, thanks Alex!

  • arbitrary value

    I think computerized CCGs can be done well. Look at the original Guild Wars: there are hundreds of skills available and you pick eight to use on your character. That’s a lot like deck-building, IMO. However, acquiring skills is not a random process and neither does it involve much grinding. Most skills can be purchased from a vendor for a reasonable amount of in-game gold, and those skills that cannot be purchased directly are acquired by defeating specific AI enemies; defeating an enemy always gives you the chance to acquire his skills.

  • Ksempac

    Although I’m not fond of CCG myself and so I share some of your opinions, I thought your article was too vague with lot of broad sentences and not much analysis….Then I saw your comment : “LCGs are basically CCGs in disguise. At least, Dominion is.”
    Then I understood what was happening : I’m sorry to say, but on this subject, you obviously have no idea what you’re talking about.

    Hint : Dominion is not a LCG.

    First, a side note about LCG. I do agree that LCG are similar to CCG. The only difference between them is that the frequency and content of booster packs are fixed AND you can’t add more than 3 copies of the same card. This mean it’s a CCG where you know that if you spend X$/year you’re guaranteed to have no handicap with others players. That balances things somewhat.

    Now, back to Dominion. Dominion has nothing to do with LCG or CCG. CCG is based on the fact that you comes at the table with a deck and then play with that deck. Dominion uses a completely different concept (which by the way was introduced by Dominion and then copied by others games)

    In Dominion, you’re not building a deck before the start of the game…Everyone gets the same deck at the beginning (8 gold, and 3 victory points) and in the middle of the table there is a COMMON pool of cards, made from several stacks of cards (treasury, points, and action cards). Everyone gets to play with that and nothing else.

    So players start by using their gold to “purchase” cards from the common pool which allow them to build their deck during the game, rather than before as with CCG. You’re building a deck DURING the play, from a COMMON pool of cards. You pick cards, you play them, which allows you to pick even more cards, and once your deck is good enough, you can pick victory points cards and if you gets more points than the others you win.

    You’re also not swamped by the number of expansions to learn, because for a specific game, you’re always using only 10 types of action cards, and nothing more. The expansions are only here to allow you to mix and match action cards (which change what you can do, the flow, the speed, and the interactions between players during the game)

    I could play with a beginner with 1 action card from each expansion, and I wouldn’t have any advantage because we’re using the same cards, and the game revolves around finding the combo between the cards available rather than going to a store and buying the “ultimate card that kill them all” or getting from your bag “the ultimate deck of killing everything in one turn”.

    Finally when Mr Vaccarino released the first game, he said he already had content for 6 expansions, and he was able to release 2 in a years because he planned all this long in advance and not simply as an afterthought because the base game was a success.

    That’s why Dominion is #11 on BGG. You have the right to dislike it, but you do not have the right to dismiss it without knowing what you’re talking about.

    Finally, regarding CCG, I tend to dislike them so I won’t talk about them as much. Still, I do know your article is too one-sided/dismiss them too easily because I do have some friends who play MTG at a competitive level.
    Many tournaments are played with draft rules. That means everyone get to open random boosters before playing, draft from that, and then they will have to play the game with the deck they created through this process. So once again, skill is involved rather than money.
    Good competitive players also tends to win money rather than lose it, because they win cards and booster during tournaments and then resell them.

    • http://www.dinofarmgames.com keithburgun

      I have played, seriously, over 1,000 games of Dominion, so all of that typing you did to explain the rules to me was a complete waste of time.

      The question, with Dominion, is “how many cards was the ideal amount for the game to have”? I have played ALL of the currently available expansions and I can tell you that some cards simply suck (especially some of the Alchemy and Hinterlands cards) or step on the toes of other cards.

      And didn’t they also just announce ANOTHER expansion with like 500 cards or some crazy BS? I know what an LCG is, and I know Dominion doesn’t *consider itself* one, but I stand by my call that it is one.

      >Still, I do know your article is too one-sided/dismiss them too easily because I do have some friends who play MTG at a competitive level.

      Haha, yep that proves it.

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  • http://www.bitflipgames.com David

    Dude, you are so, 100% wrong. You could not be more wrong. Here, I’ve written a whole article about all the reasons why you are wrong. http://bitflipgames.com/2012/06/28/626/

    • http://www.dinofarmgames.com keithburgun

      100%? Damn, I am convinced that I must be wrong since you have listed such a ridiculously high percentage :). I’ll reply on your blog.

  • Jason

    Keith, ever play the older DOS game M.A.X.? It was very much a turn based Starcraft type game.

    A nice feature was that everyone had the same units, but before a match both players had a set number of points they could kick into their units to upgrade them, which combined with the maps layouts made for some fun decision making before the start. Maps with lots of mountains you think maybe upgrade your air force, but of course your opponent might pump up his Anti-Air, so you might want to leave some points to boost your fast attack vehicle to streak in and take out the AA before your planes come in, and so on.

    Damage was also fixed. Units always dealt out the same damage with their attack, depending on the defenders armor, with every time. No “dice rolling”.

    Sorry this was off topic, but your mention of a turn based RTS (huh?) brought back memories of how much fun MAX was, and that we haven’t seen much like it since.

    • http://www.dinofarmgames.com keithburgun

      Interesting. I haven’t heard of it. I’ll have to look it up. Thanks!

      The unfortunate thing is that that kind of game would be really great multiplayer, with the kind of metagame features (like ladders, tournaments, matchmaking etc) that Starcraft has. Maybe someday Dinofarm can fill this void!

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  • Redcap

    The post is well thought out and definetly will be true for some, however, it does make a lot of false assumptions. It says most people on boardgamegeek wouldn’t say magic is a good game, and the truth of the matter is that most board game geeks praise magic as one of the landmark games of our day and age. I design board games and have talked to several other designers who get ideas for their games based off of magic because they like it.

    Also the random aspect is what made magic cards appeal to me. Every pack was guaranteed to content a set number of rare, uncommon, and common cards, but what those cards where was a mystery. The simple fact that I had good cards that where different from my opponent made it feel like I won or lost based off of my skill in organizing my deck. The whole auction house helps get rid of randomness too, but I actually don’t like that aspect because then I can get exactly what I want and not have to make tough decisions.

    I have learned a lot on the past several months about marketplaces. Just because someone thinks there isn’t a market because the product doesn’t interest them doesn’t mean there isn’t a market. For example, if everyone was like me free to play would be dead before it started. So in short I think scrolls if done well will appeal too much more then the article thinks.

    On a last note, the biggest flaw with magic isn’t it is a random cog, it is that every two years your cards become illegal to use I tournament or combetatitive play because they want money. Magic then releases the exact same cards with different images that you have to rebut in order to play competitively. In large this is what people on boardgamegeek lament as the short falls of magic.

  • Bucky

    “It’s either going to be random-finds (unfair) or be based on grinding enough (horrible), or be based on whoever paid the most to the developer (unforgivable). If there’s some other way, please let me know.”

    Uh, politics? Trading or borrowing cards is a time-honored tradition, and the game could easily be designed so that anyone can quickly acquire any card at some metagame-level cost like guild membership.

    —–

    The genre fundamentals just require that the players have different sets of cards to work with. It doesn’t matter how players are assigned card pools. In a limited setting – players enter a tournament instance and can only use cards acquired within that instance until they leave – a designer has enough control to achieve approximate balance without subverting the CCG fundamentals.