[this article is not meant to offend anybody. Please, read it keeping that in mind. Read it… with tongue in cheek, as google translator suggest me]

I don’t use sleeves. I hate sleeves. I can’t believe that market for this product is growing and growing like crazy. Gamers, what’s wrong with you? Do you protect your table with some sort of plastic cloth? Do you put sleeving on your keyboard? Do you protect your chairs with stretch foil? Do you use shrink film on every item in your house?

So what’s going on with these slevees thing? Anyone?!

*

Yeah, I know, I am this thematic guy. I love old books, I love old furniture, I prefer pen over keyboard and pipe over cigarette. I visit every secondhand bookshop I can, I bring home items that have no use for me, but are old and look cool. I am the crazy one. I know.

I have the same with games. I prefer old games. I had so much fun when I discovered secondhand gameshops in Germany. Buying old copy of Tikal or Samurai was so much cooler than just purchasing online brand new box. I visit secondhand gameshops every Essen. Treasure shops! I have at home many these old boxes with faded colors, old fashioned wooden pieces and whole history behind.

Games from my collection slowly fade too. My copy of Citadels looks like it was lost in a rainy forest for few weeks. It is because we played the game more than 100 times. Without stupid sleeves. My copy of The AMEZing Labyrynth has adhesive tape all over the box and carcassonne meeples instead of original pawns because we were going with it for every holiday with our kids. My copy of Cash & Guns? Man, you should see that box. This is a mess!

And I love this mess. All those games with signs of spilled coffee and with signs of our kids having too much freedom with crayons and those boxes with my notes written inside, and replacement components in many games…

This is my history. This is something I want to stay with me. I want those games have reminder of all those great evenings I spent with them.

I don’t want to have my games kept like they are in lab environment, sleeved and clean. Blank.

*

But you sleeve your cards because you want them to be clean. Some of you are just this type of person who prefer things to be clean. I respect that.

But the rest? Do you all really need to sleeve every damn card in every damn box you have in your collection? Really?!

Do you really believe that after 30 games of Race for the Galaxy cards will begin to have some signs of use that will make it impossible to play? I tell you, I played RftG more than 100 games. Without sleeves. Nothing happened.

Do you really believe that after 50 games of 51st State cards will begin to have any signs that will help to recognize a card from back side? I tell you, I played 51st State more than 200 game. Without sleeves. Nothing happened.

And you know what? Here is the most important:

If you played one game more than 50 times… Let it be Citadels for instance. And if by any chance there is any sign o use that would ruin comfort of play for you, here is a deal.

Take your copy of Citadels and give it to charity. Let people in need have some fun in life.

Then buy new copy of Citadels.

And then send an email to Bruin Faidutti that says:

'Dear Bruno,

I had a great time playing your game. We played more than 50 games having 50 amazing evenings full of laughter and bluff. My copy is ruined and I am so happy for all those great gaming nights we had. I decided to give my old copy of Citadels to kids in school and I bought new copy of Citadels. I plan to play another 50 games. Thank you, sir.’

That way you will do a good deed for kids and charity.

That way Bruno will earn 6 USD from Royalties instead of only 3 USD.

And that way Ultra Pro will contact me and kick me in the ass for asking you to get rid of sleeves in your life.

What do you think? 🙂

That is question that I was asked on Twitter by RPG Edo this week. Answer is simple: it depends on the game. And it depends on the designer too. If we put in one line Stefan Feld, Ignacy Trzewiczek and Roberto Fraga and ask them this question, I bet that the answer would vary. Even if we put one guy, like me and ask this question, answer would vary too – there is not that much math behind Convoy but on the other hand there is hell of a math behind Pret-a-Porter.

So basically my answer would be something like: I don’t know, sir.

This answer sucks. So let me do what I can do best and share three short stories from my design history and math.

***

I could write plenty of funny articles about me designing Pret-a-Porter. One day I will. They would all gravitate around one simple subject – before I published PaP my reputation in Poland was more or less 'Polish Roberto Fraga’. Funny and crazy dude who plays all kinds of party games at every single convention he is at.

I do remember the very first time I brought Pret-a-Porter to convention for some testing. I asked my friends:

'Hey, I have economy strategy game to test. Would you help me?’

'Absolutely!’ Tycjan replied bursting in laugh. Ignacy and economy game prototype – this was hell of a joke!

Then I put a board on the table and began to explain rules. In a second Tycjan stopped laugh. And got this awkward impression on his face. You know, this kind of face that says: 'WTF?!’

Few years later he admitted that he was 200% sure I was going to show him my new party game prototype and I was only joking about economy and that for the whole test game he couldn’t believe what was actually happening. He couldn’t believe that I really designed economy game.

The truth is that foundations for Pret-a-Porter’s economy were built by my friend Rafal. I had the very first version of prototype prepared – everything ready to play, but without even a single number. No cost of cards, no cost of resources, no income, nothing. I knew exactly how the game should work, I knew flow of the game, I knew that these resources must be more expensive, these less, I knew everything. Everything, except the numbers.

So I asked  Rafal to help me with numbers. He lives in Gdansk, 800 km away. He took train and visited me. We played one game of Pret-a-Porter without numbers, just imitating final flow of the game, role playing it and then he sat and in a few hours wrote numbers on every single component I had. Next day he took train and got back to Gdansk. And I spent next 8 months with my most trusted testers balancing the game and polishing those numbers. But if it is not Rafal giving me a good start…

How much maths used for designing Pret-a-Porter? Much, sir!

Do designer of Pret-a-Porter is some kind of MathGod? Not at all, sir!

***

Last year we published Legacy. This is medium weight and very thematic eurogame with cute funny pictures on cards. As me tweeter feed says many of you already played the game (thank you!) and those who haven’t yet… Well, pick your copy today!

When you play Legacy you got immersed by theme and you might not even realize how much math is involved in this design. Let me show you just a glimpse. There different nationalities – certain number of cards for each. There are different occupations – certain number of each. There are two main values on cards – Income received and Prestige received and new Cards received. There are also special skills – each of them must be somehow considered in terms of its value. And from these different values we need to calculate final cost of each card. And since this is a card game about creating combinations of cards – all these values have to be considered not separately – character with Prestige 3 is worth 9 points of balancing, but considered in pattern of all cards in the game – character with Prestige 3 nationality French, occupation Artist is more valuable than character with Prestige 3 nationality British, occupation Diplomat…

This is math I can’t do.

This is math I hire people to do.

I covered this in my article. And my MathGuy in Portal Games covered it in this article and in this. If you want to see his magic tricks, read those articles. You will see a lot of things from behind the scene.

How much maths used for designing Legacy? Hell of, sir!

Did Ignacy have any idea how to keep balance in the game after introducing all changes he wanted to do in the game? Not at all, sir.

***

New expansion for 51st State (called Ruins) is in print. Ruins expansion has 40 cards. There are cards with super new skills and abilities, all those cards players can’t wait to have in hands. But among those super cool cards, there are also boring ones. Disappointing ones. Cards that are nearly the same like cards from the base game. Did Ignacy have no new ideas and put crap into box? Really? I had this funny discussion with one of the testers. He asked:

'Those cards that give Fuel or Gun, they suck. I have plenty of those in base game. Do I need to buy expansion to have more of this crap?’

'Yes, you have.’

'Couldn’t you design something with new abilities?’

'Yes, I could.’

'So?’

'I put them, because you need them.’

Here is a thing. Behind these all cool cards there is a math. Take 51st State and check how many Iron icons you have in Contract section. Take The New Era and do the same. Take 51st State ad check how many Fuel icons you have in Contract section. Take The New Era and do the same. And Gun, and Brick… And Spoil section. And Action section…

It all has to match. Because when you play the game, you need to have well calculated and balanced chance to draw a card that gives you Iron. Or Fuel. Or Brick…

So if you buy Ruins and you add those 40 cards to the base game, it means that chances to draw this crappy and boring card that says: ’You receive 1 Fuel’ are lower. That’s why I need to add copy of this crappy, but very important card into the expansion. Expansion will add new abilities, new powers, but will also try to not blow balance of the whole set of cards.

How much maths used for designing Ruins? Well, not that much, sir.

Did Ignacy have any problems with that? No. This time he managed to do it by himself. Yay!

I received a package. Sent from Brasil, it traveled some about 10 000 kilometers before it reached Poland. Quite a journey, huh? It was sent by a gamer who likes my games, who spent a couple of good evenings playing 51st State, Robinson or other my titles and decided that he will do me a surprise and send me a gift. Pure act of kindness.

Every time I experience such acts of kindness  I am left speechless. The time postman gave me package from Brasil. The time I received horseshoe for luck when I was in Lviv. The time I received cookies when I reached Indiana, day before Gen Con… I received t-shirts with cows, with Through the Ages card (me as a leader), I received beautiful traditional serviette…

And every single day, literally every single day I receive an email or geekmail from a gamer who just played one of my games, had fun and decided to tell me that and say thanks for a good time spent. Every single day I experience acts of kindness. Pure selfless kindness.

You gamer are hell of a people. I am happy I can work for you.

Here is a link to the short interview I give in Geneva, both in French and English version. I already miss Switzerland. What a great time it was!

Board games provide social experience. We play to meet people. To have fun, to tell jokes, to laugh. Sometimes we also play to win. But let’s face it. If the reason I am in this hobby is winning, I should quit. I don’t win that much. But I do have much fun, I do tell jokes, and I do laugh all the time.

Yesterday’s #boardgamehour was dedicated to banter. As Walt explained to me (since I didn’t know that English word before) banter is: „Table talk. Conversations with jokes.”

Man, playing games for me is all about banter. I am not playing games. I am bantering games!

One of the games that let’s you banter a lot is Michiel Hendricks ’Legacy: testament of duke de Crecy’ published by my Portal Games. At the beginning it looks like boring and dry euro about marriges in XVIII century. Not fun at all. But if you start play, you will discover that author designed cards in an extremely smart way and with a help of publisher (that would be me!) who added cute artwork we have one of the most funny euro games out there!

In the game you choose Friends cards and put them into play as a husbands and wives of your children (and grand children and so on). You choose who deserves to join your family. In a second you are grabbed with a theme. And your fellow players begin to banter…

You’ve just put into play David, the shoe maker. Your family looses Prestige and all players will make laugh of your daughter who had to marry such a dude. Is she pregnant already? they ask. Are you happy with your son-n-law? How’s his family? Do they fancy art? Yeah…

You put into play Constant, the king’s relative… Your family earns a lot of money and Prestige, but… Yeah, bantering again. This man is infertile! You gave up grandchildren just to earn Constant money?! Do you love your daughter? You made her marry such a pig?!

We can go on. Just imagine the moment when you put into play Friedrich, the blackmailer. You can see what’s going to happen, right? You can hear all those nasty jokes about your poor daughter thrown into arms of Prussian beast! But on the other hand, if your son will marry Margareth, hot Prussian physician, that’s other story. You gain Prestige, you have hot lady in your family and now you can look at fellow players with pride in your eyes…

*

The trick Michiel introduced in Legacy is so damn simple. No fluff on the cards. Just name, name of the card which at the same time acts as a fluff. Look at those cards:

Sarah, the revolutionary. And that’s it. We see here hot Merida-look-like girl who looses 1 VPoint if you have another US character in the game, because she is a revolutionist! What a lady! I want her!

Elena, the art collector. She get’s 3 cards when you put her into play since she knows many people. Again, I have to say! What a lady!

What about Michael, the ambitious officer? We all want to have such a person in our family! Young and ambitious! This is a good husband for your daughter!

And so on, and so on.

Each card has funny title. Each card makes you comment. Each single card makes people banter. Say jokes and laugh. This is conscious choice that Michiel did. He removed fluff from cards. He changed names of the cards into funny fluff itself. And he succeed. We added funny pictures and here it comes – amazing social experience. Pure fun. Jokes and laugh.

*

I do like to read reviews of Legacy, because each reviewer points out this aspect of the game – jokes and bantering, all the time.

Little Metal Dog wrote: As the game progresses and this immense tableau starts to spread out before you, passers by are drawn in almost magnetically, wondering what on earth is going on and why you appear to be building some sort of pyramid while you rant about needing more money to give your great-grandchild the mansion they so desperately require. All the while your opponents are mocking your decision to marry off the youngest heir to the Gardener’s daughter but you did it anyway because love must prevail and it’s the only card you had at your disposal that worked…

Space Biff wrote: Like when you marry your highborn grandson to Arianne the Courtesan because it doesn’t require an action (scandal!) and you really need her plush dowry so you can afford a banquet for your daughter. Then Arianne gives birth and dies thanks to a complication. Thank goodness! What a stroke of luck! Now you can marry your grandson to Isabella the Castilian Princess, a much worthier pairing, and one that will bring a whole set of new friends into the fold.

Drive Through…just listen to Joel Eddy in his „Your Horrifying Comical Testament” video at 18:04 min:

photo credit: zenobia_joy via photopin cc