When I do solo gaming, the ones where it is just victory points feels very hollow. I like goals for such games. Just beating my last score doesn't get me coming back. A nice mix of achieving a goal and also having a victory point score is Nemo's War, which has a goal, but then dictates to you how well you did based on your score when you read a passage from an Epilogue book.
Thanks for mentioning Star Wars Rebellion's asymmetric victory conditions (VC) in today's video. FF's Star Wars Rebellion's victory conditions were derived from LucasArt's SW Rebellion computer game which Scott Witte and I co-designed. The boardgame's VC is the same for the Empire, but the Rebel Alliance (RA) VC differ from the computer game. In the computer game, the Rebel Alliance must invade and conquer Coruscant, the Empire's capitol, not just run out the clock as in the boardgame. Bringing to the the design a long background in wargaming. I felt that there would be too much going on during the game for VPs to capture the spirit of the saga or to have a truly satisfying end for the players. The Empire's find and destroy the RA base condition came directly from the first movie. The capture/destory condition for the Empire to win was intended to bring a crescendo and, hopefully, a great final moment to the game. The desire to have a similar feeling of great satisfaction for the RA victory in the computer game (and the associated win video) was a natural counterpart and was inspired by the Soviet Union's capture of Berlin, ending fascism.
Thanks for sharing that! Interestingly the unlicensed 1979 space rebellion game Freedom in the Galaxy has the reverse - the Rebellion has to take a certain amount of territory by the end of the game or the Empire wins.
Inis is one of the most underrated games without victory points. It's one of those games that feels wide open to different approaches no matter how many times you play it.
@@Skippan I feel like many people don't like it, because it seems a bit too esoteric at first. I've played it with many people and no one seems to share my enthusiasm about it.
The two games that come to mind for me are Raptor and Santorini. Both are essentially semi-thematic abstracts where you aim to be the first to reach a certain objective. I find both to have a lot of replayability because of the asymmetry in abilities and goals without ever having to keep track of points.
I love games with alternative win conditions. Root is one of my favourites. Also Mtg also has some awesome alternative wincon cards, like having a certain amount of life or counters on a card etc.
Same when it comes to The Lord of the Ice Garden. You win either when you have 50 points or you achieve your personal goal. You can tell it's very Chaos influenced but at the same time there's no randomness at all and it's much more "thinky", cold calculations and stuff. It's an excellent game.
Great video again Jamey! A few other games came to mind during your review of categories. War of the Ring is a great asymmetric game (similar to Star Wars Rebellion) but I think it is probably a little longer than your usual preferred game length. Also, King of Tokyo came to mind as a hybrid game that has VPs/last man standing as the two win conditions.
Oracle Of Delphi. That's a good pick and deliver, racing game. Everyone has the same tasks. First to complete all wins. The board changes each time you play so you won't get bored with the same tasks.
I agree. I'm a big Oracle of Delphi fan and I think Pick Up and Deliver should have been a category here. Jamey should play OoD. Feld really challenged himself with this design as he is probably known the most for 'point salads' and there are no victory points here. It is one of Feld's best designs.
Lords of Hellas has some interesting win conditions. It can be control of 2 lands, 5 regions with temples or holding a completed monument 3 turns after its completion. You can even go off and fight monsters; kill 3 and you win. We often find players are working to different goals but have to keep an eye on what others are doing.
The previous video in this series had a lot of really good games, but this list is full of games I simply find ingenious. I guess this pretty much tells which side of the 'debate' I am on.
It’s always an huge turn off when you sit down such an interesting game with background, with interesting mechanic, and then it all goes to “ everything gives abstract points and who gets the most wins “. Every action becomes incredibly dull and based on making points. My exception is for example Chaos in the Old World, as it does have victory point, but the real victory race is the wheels, and so you focus on trying to get your wheel which is IMMENSELY thematic.
Karuba!!! Oh thank goodness!! Someone else that recognizes this game! I adore Karuba! I have two copies mashed together to play up to eight players, and I've had a blast running huge tables of the game many times now.
Yay for downforce, blokus, red dragon inn! Really liked my first game of scythe last week. Cryptid does rely on every player properly paying attention to their clue (we had a player botch hers which threw the game completely off) Good video
Hi Jamey, Have you played Escape Plan? I’d argue that falls into a hybrid category. The winner is the player with the most money (points), but only if you can escape the city. If not, you effectively score zero. And the longer you leave it to escape, the harder it becomes. So there’s a great tension between getting more points and risking complete loss. Players can find themselves with the most points, but either be too far away from the city exit, or not have enough cash to bribe their way out (something that increases when other players do it before you).
Way late to this video, but Dune is a great game that doesn't use victory points. It would fit into the same category you put Inis into, because the main victory condition is controlling a certain number of strongholds at the end of a round. There are a few faction specific victory conditions as well, none of which use victory points.
Jamie - Props to you. Thx for another thought provoking topic. I’m reflecting on your point abt Soccer/Football and being the first to score and I agree It would have a profound impact on the game and its strategies. That said, I can think of a handful of short-term time driven games (escape curse of temple, omega protocol...) , but I can’t recall a long-term time-bound game (escape games??). For example if an app kept time in the background of an episode of a campaign, I’d be interested to learn abt the effect it would have on gameplay. What if Scythe has an hour time limit as a boundary instead of other goals? What if Viticulture had an app to govern an hour of gameplay instead of a race to a victory point barrier? You could still ensure a equal number of turns. I admit I think having to track time for all players to track/maintain has multiple detrimental effects, but allowing an app to take on the role in the background would be a thought provoking experience. Again, appreciated your willingness to agitate and stir the conversation. Wishing u well on this extended holiday weekend.
About your soccer example, the sudden death condition was an actual rule in overtime during the World Cup until 2006. It was called the “Golden Goal” rule, and I think fans agreed it made the game too luck-prone. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_goal?wprov=sfti1
Machi Koro jumped to mind as you were talking. It is a race to be the first to build all of your cities features, but it takes a while to build all of them and you can build them in any order if you can afford them. Unfortunately this doesn't always make for a tense finish as most of the games I have played result in one player sorta running away with the game about mid way through. In order to keep this post constructive, 3 of my favorites not mentioned, King of Tokyo - hybrid between victory points or last player standing Betrayal at House on the Hill - asymmetrical win conditions and one that you don't learn about until part way through. Yinsh - abstract game, first to 5 rings wins, but loosing rings off the mat makes it harder to win! I also love the idea of victory points being money or something that you can spend so you have to calculate if it is worth investing the money to get something that could potentially get you more. Wingspans' eggs and Patchworks buttons jump to mind.
I actually really love games with a racing element to them. Keyforge, Kemet, Cosmic Encounter, and Near and Far come to mind as games that involve some sort of race element (the first to do X triggers game end/wins). I mostly enjoy because of the pressure it puts on other players. Such a cool dynamic!
hi jamey... i was thinking of riders of the north sea... use victory points and its a race indeed, but i love how, you can go at your own pace and almost individualy towards your goal... but!... but, at some points you feel this sense of urgence in wich you have to decide what to do... it has 3 end game triggers but like scythe not necessarily the one who triggers wins... this in adittion of not knowing the real actual score adds so much adrenaline...
Your comment at the end about sports changing to have a "first to achieve the goal" made me think of how some of them use that in the event of a draw following the time limit of the game. That then made me think of a mechanic or structure for a game where you have to commit some number of turns (as a fixed requirement) before you can attempt the win condition - which hopefully would lend itself to establishing that same tension that occurs in golden goal overtime.
True, but some sports have moved away from the golden goal (for what I think are good reasons). Most forms of soccer no longer use it, college football doesn't use it, and one of the NFL's greatest criticisms is that they still use it (creating a circumstance where in overtime, one team may not even get the ball due to a coin flip).
I'm a big fan of Summit. Seeing if you can make it back down that mountain is always a thrill especially playing competitive mode. Toss in a Yeti and look out!
Thanks for another great video, Jamey! Maybe you could have included Rajas of the Ganges as a race example, it is a lovely game! Regarding Scott's video, I think he was just saying he personally expects more from the story when playing a Board Game and he feels VP detract from that, the main problem I have with his talk is saying VP "always" suck, which is definitely not true.
Two games come to mind in the "hybrid approach" category. King of Tokyo lets players win through either a race to 20 points or by being the last one standing. I like how these victory conditions interact; you can't really heal and attack and gain points all at once. You need to pick one. The other game I think fits is Secret Hitler. If you think of the policies as victory points, then the game is a simple point race. But the two teams also have their own victory condition. I remember reading a blog post about the game's design that mentioned how often each team won, by each victory condition. I think the policy track was the least common way for games to end, making it sort of like a "victory points as backup a la 7 wonders duel" thing.
Clank! Is a great race game/vp hybrid. It's fun trying different strategies of getting out quick so other people can't get many victory points or staying in as long as possible going for the high scoring tokens.
Great points Jamey. I agree that, when well used, VPs are great to explore more complex experiences into the games (as in games like the sheriff of Nottingham and Wingspan, where the VP is relevant as win condition but is so subtle into the gameplay). I believe that the main concern is when the VPs become so evident that distract from the game experience, and we can see a lot of this in some recent games. They turn into an inevitable point race, even when the end-game condition is separate, you can feel that they lose all the experience and become only a math problem. Some games are like that and great (quacks) because they capitalize that experience, but it can be hurtful if not well integrated. One question regarding the topic came to my mind, we made an experiment playing Viticulture with money as win condition (VPs still being the Game-end condition) and was very interesting. What are your thoughts about this change as the game Designer?
That's a great point about how seamlessly VP are integrated into the gameplay so it's not a pure math puzzle. As for changes to my games, I welcome people to experiment and try house rules that make them happy. :)
How do you consider "most money at the end" games? I generally think of these as just VP games with cash = VP. But they lack the stereotyipcal Euro curve of maximise income then maximise conversion of income into VP. They are in this sense a bit narrower though there is plenty of scope for breadth elsewhere. Power Grid is another game without VP, there is just one measure of success, and it also has the end game trigger =/= win condition. 2 sided games be they teams on one or both sides are obviously better suited to this than multiplayer ones as you don't need to split losers. One of the special cases of asymmetry is for one side to achieve something before time runs out while the other side just has to last it out. This is pretty common in any number of wargames.
I would put them in the category of victory point games, though I like the thematic twist that the thing you're accounting for is money--it's less abstract than victory points (and also more intuitive to spend during the game than victory points, which leads to some interesting decisions).
Keeping my promise to play the devil's advocate (and in an attempt to try and stay balanced in my opinions) I'm going to take the other side and say how these games would be better with victory points, considering the pros under which VPs are usually used: 1) T.I.M.E Stories. Bob has always been kind of a jerk so why not have him score you at the end of every mission? There he stands with his checklist. Did not find that particular item? Lose points. Failed to save that person? Lose 5 points. He IS a stickler for procedure after all... Many competitive games that have coop or solo mode insufficiently tacked onto as an option often use 'best score' to gauge how well you've done. 2) Scotland Yard. I can see a VP track around London where the detectives get points for how close they are to Mr(s) X while (s)he gets points for stealing objects or passing secret messages along the way. So, in the end it could happen that Mr(s) X wins on points scored even if caught. 3) Stratego. This game could be greatly enhanced by earning VPs, namely each time a player takes an opposing piece. Soldier? 1 VP. Sergeant? 4 VP. General? 12 VP. Tapping a bomb? -7 VP. Capturing the flag would generate perhaps 25 VPs making it still the main reason to go after it. 4) Red Dragon Inn. Last man standing games could benefit from VP tracks counting down. How interesting would it be to see your character start healthy at VP 50, only to see their points (and life) dwindling with every hit they take. You might even introduce a 'Second Wind' catchup mechanism where you get a small boost in VPs when you sink below 5 or 10. 5) Civilization/Inis, and other win-condition games could maintain those victory conditions but add the stipulation that you need to have a certain amount of VPs before 'activating' them. 6) Rex/Vast/SW Rebellion, and other personal win-condition games could use the same mechanism listed under 5, but could also introduce a bidding/drafting mechanism (like Above and Below) where you have to buy the win condition first to make it personal in the first place. 7) Can't Stop/The Quest for El Dorado. Racing games could gather points (like Downforce) but also lose points, depending on how fast/slow you are going, compared to the other players. Maybe VPs are Endurance Points (theming it up a bit) and you can actually spend some of those points to push yourself higher/further as a temporary boost, giving VPs a double use. 8) A Fake Artist Goes to New York. Social deduction games can shift from the dualistic right/wrong judgment to a more nuanced one with VPs. Maybe you're not sure who the traitor is so you give them 1 VP instead of 3. If you're 100% sure they're on your side, you give them 5 VP, knowing this will help 'the good guys' score go up. With A Fake Artist Goes to New York you could turn this into an art auction, where players bid VPs (or money) for the art. 9) Blokus. One could count down VPs, or put VPs on the field that you can win by covering them with a tile and if you don't end up with all your tiles on the field you get a penalty. Balance VPs against those penalties to see if you still end up in the positive. 10) Cryptid. Deduction games succeed or fail on how well you can guess the answer with the clues provided. Maybe you can head straight for that goal, or spend resources/time solving side quests that earn you VPs with which you can buy a clue. This gives players choices in gameplay: do I head for the main objective or do I flank it by investing in VPs that gain me better clues down the road? Instead of going into existing hybrids, I want to approach two types of games that could be hybrids and were not discussed yet: A) Dungeoncrawls. This very popular genre has two sub categories: scenario-driven and tactical combat dungeoncrawls. The former could benefit by earning XP (experience points) for encountering certain narrative pieces or completing missions within a campaign. Many of these already use XP or gold, but imagine a track where you can quit a dungeon if you reached enough XP rather than reaching the scenario goal. Likewise, tactical combat can earn XP, but maybe also finding objects, pushing further into tiles and making awe inspiring combos in combat earn you XP. Whomever has the most XP 'wins' the game, making it more competitive as well and giving a new spin to a genre of games dominated by coop gameplay and black and white win-or-die conditions. B) Exploration/Adventure games. Imagine 7th Continent, the Lost Expedition, Mansions of Madness or Charterstone with VPs. You win them by the progress you make, even if you don't reach the 'end condition' by which you win. Now, what if you can carry those VPs over to your next game, so you have a head start? Gives Campaign games a whole new (and less loaded) spin, right? All you do, is you jot down the VPs you got out of your last game, which you get to spend on boons for the next game, making it a little easier to get going. For an extra challenge, you might want to wipe the slate clean upon a traditional victory, or even penalize the players if not all victory conditions are met, making the next game a tad harder. Anyway, those are my thoughts on how Victory Points could aid non-VP games and although I don't think VPs suck, I do think that they need to make thematic sense and used more creatively than most games do right now, because if I wanted to add up numbers at the end of a long game night, I would have become a bookie, not a graphic designer and storyteller.
More like they are hollow or completely miss the point. Time is about playing theough the story. Scotland yard could completely be ruined by an idiot going “I don’t think we are getting Mister X, let’s rack up the points.” And stop collaborating with others. IMHO having VP in your game is a negative point, ESPECIALLY when some games have so much story and background and then the game is “ get more point than everyone else “. Some time you see a so interesting theme and faction, a story you love so much, and then they are bad because “ it’s all about points” and you have to play something completely out of character to do that.
@@CrowMercury I hear what you're saying. I only made the comment because I wanted to play 'Devil's Advocate' after taking the opposite standpoint when Jamey did his previous vlog '10 Games I Love With Victory Points'. I think GG KIss was alluding to that and I also think it's good to keep a balanced and open mind when designing games. But yeah, for the record, I gravitate towards not liking Victory Points cuz I think they're lazy design.
I prefer pretty much ANY victory condition to the Kramer-Leiste=Victory Points. 307 to 286 after 3 hours, what's that even supposed to mean .. Great examples given. Cant't wait till Jamey one day comes up with a great asymmetric game ;-)
@@JJ_TheGreat Different ruleset, or different win conditions like Vast or Rebellion or Cry Havoc or Root. Or 1 vs all like Fury of Dracula. Jamey mentions these I think. Matter of Definition, I personally don't count different factions or starting/special powers already as asymmetric.
Another great Star Wars asymmetric game with no victory points is Star Wars Queen's Gambit. The Naboo/Gungans/Jedi are trying to destroy the Trade Federation droids and control the throne room before the Trade Federation destroys all but 2 Naboo units in the palace. It's a great game that combines 3D multi-level terrain, wargames, and a sort of craps like dice rolling starfighter movement. It has three separate battlefields that you can't afford to neglect. You have to devote attention to all three or risk giving your opponent a big advantage. The problem is you can only play a small number of cards each turn to take actions, limiting you in which battlefield you can devote your attention each turn. There is lots of tension in it with so many things happening in each battlefield, any of which can grant you a big advantage if you are able to defeat your enemy there. You can never really be sure if you are going to win.
One problem with a race, to avoid victory points, is that it can be very dispiriting to be behind the leader. A race generally makes it very obvious who the leader is. With victory points, if you don't have a VP track that is kept up to date, you can obfuscate who is in the lead, to keep everyone engaged. I had wondered for a while why Carpe Diem used cards for VP, as they are very fiddly and seem a lot harder to manage than a VP track. I suspect, though, Feld may have been experimenting with making VP private information. A stack of cards can be difficult to judge, especially when they are all different denominations. This leads to a fascinating scenario where you have really crunchy scoring where you can deny another player a big score, by taking a lesser score for yourself, but you have no idea of the exact standings, so you can't fully calculate if it's a worthwhile trade.
"I don't want to mention Hanamikoji again" - Well, you botched that, didn't you? ;) It's ok, because it is a good game. Interesting list! My personal favourite game without victory points might be one of my favourite games overall: The Quest for El Dorado
We are considering winning by points as, game ends and then count up. With that in mind... Regarding your soccer analogy; plenty of sports have players win by reaching 'X' sets by scoring points each set. Volleyball, Boules, Tennis. The victory condition is tied to the end-game. First to establish a 5-goal lead would be an exciting alternate win condition for football, I can only find records of teams coming back from 4 goals down.
After watching your first video on this topic, I went and watched the talk that was the inspiration for it. I was really curious what that speaker thought about sports because most non-racing sports have victory points, even if we just call them points. Fundamentally you kick so well, you throw so well, you choose your plays so well and this all maths out into some final score, not unlike the point-salads the speaker really disliked. Sports are so popular in part because of the drama and tension in the games, and I really didn't understand how that speaker couldn't see that in those types of board games. I personally like combat sports and I think part of the reason is there's some sort of point system if you make it to the end of rounds, but there's always the threat of a knockout/submission/pin that can end the match. Regardless of what the score is, the competitor that's behind has a chance and it doesn't feel like artificial catch up. For a similar reason, 7 Wonders Dual was a favorite once I started getting more into board games.
In faster head-to-head games, like Magic: The Gathering, I also enjoy using the best-of-x style to determine the victor. It's not quite victory points since you're winning by fulfilling certain conditions each game you play, but I like that the variability of some of these games is mitigated by playing multiple games per opponent and seeing who does better over a series of them. I wonder if there are any games that use the tennis-style scoring method of trying to reach a certain point threshold and win by 2 as well. I don't think it quite fits into victory points because it feels more like a race. I think the scoring method is one reason why I liked tennis as a sport most as a kid. Or maybe it's the non-contact sport I played that felt most like Magic to me, which was then (and still now) one of my favorite games.
TH-cam comments have been being weird for me all week, so appologies if this posts more than once or gains weird formatting between paragraphs. Twilight Struggle is one of my favourite hybrids. Automatic victory for the other player causing a nuclear war, having control of Europe during a Europe scoring, and if at any point you're at 20 points (the points are a tug of war, so if you're at 10 points I'm also at -10 points). Failing that, all continents score once more, and the winner is the player who's side of the line the point marker is. (With a card that grants a bunch of points to the opponent and ends the game without this final scoring phase as well). Wir Sind Das Volk! has some interesting assymetric goals in a head to head game based on the historic period, with one of them being that the East Germany player only needing to survive until after it fell in the real world to win, meaning that East Germany is a little easier to play for newer players, because they don't need to figure out how to manipulate this economic system that players have levers to manipulate but don't have direct control over in order to successfully attack their opponent at the same time as getting used to the economic system. Another hybrid approach I've seen in some solo games, where there are victory points, but victory points are used to assess automatic defeats or give a penalty/bonus, rather than being the goal of the game, with the win/loss criteria being something else. I think Navajo Wars uses this approach. As for first to score in sports - First to score wins was used in some international competitions in football during extra time - The 'golden goal' rule. Because everyone agreed that penalties were no way of resolving a game but were the tiebreak that extra time went to if things were still tied after it. ...It lead to more defensive playstyles, leading to an increase in penalty shootouts, and was also miserable to watch to boot with both sides 'parking the bus' because the consequence of the other side scoring was too great to risk, and was retired in favour of 'silver goal' (team who's ahead at the end of the first half of extra time wins then - I forget if that's still used or not)
Can add Heroes of Land, Air, and Sea to the combined category. It has 4 endgame triggers, but the winner is determined by points. Adds tension so nicely the obvious gamey nature doesnt detract. Doesnt seem the presenter really has a problem with points, but how its integrated into the narrative. Maybe I'm wrong.
I know it's a super simple game, but in Machi Koro the goal is to build all your buildings first. Personally, I love victory point games. It would very much limit the scope of games if there were only games without vps. My thoughts anyway.
I seen that you touched on race games.. Yesterday i played Um reifenbreite for the first time and was blown away how good the game was (also taking into account that game is originally from 1979).. You should give it a try.. I mean its roll and move but you can still win with horrible rolls... It uses a point system though... On topic: my fav game without VP is CPT Sonar... i would mention Love letter, Modern Art, Avalon, Menara... Ect
Doesn’t lords of Hellas also count in some of these categories. I guess the hunt mechanic and maybe the monuments can count as vc but the game doesn’t rely on vc but just playing the 4 objs
You got A Fake Artist Goes to New York wrong, it does use victory points. You just win the round. Either the clue giver and the fake artist get a point or the rest of the players get a point. You play to a set number of points to determine who the winner is.
I generally dislike race games. Not necessarily racing theme games. But the “first to x wins”. It just feels anticlimactic to have nothing to show really. Either you win or don’t. At least with VP, you can more tangibly see and feel how close things were. I don’t get that as much from race games. If it’s just a race triggers the end of the game, it’s not nearly as bad.
Your comments about real world sports being about "victory points" not a race to the finish make me think of boxing. Technically, it is about just trying to score more hits than your opponent, but it still has that alternate win condition of just knocking your opponent out.
Not every abstract game! You might be surprised by how many have points (whether or not people use those rules). Blokus, for example, is a fantastic abstract game that has a points calculation at the end. So does Patchwork. And Sagrada. And Azul. And so on.
When I do solo gaming, the ones where it is just victory points feels very hollow. I like goals for such games. Just beating my last score doesn't get me coming back. A nice mix of achieving a goal and also having a victory point score is Nemo's War, which has a goal, but then dictates to you how well you did based on your score when you read a passage from an Epilogue book.
Thanks for mentioning Star Wars Rebellion's asymmetric victory conditions (VC) in today's video. FF's Star Wars Rebellion's victory conditions were derived from LucasArt's SW Rebellion computer game which Scott Witte and I co-designed. The boardgame's VC is the same for the Empire, but the Rebel Alliance (RA) VC differ from the computer game. In the computer game, the Rebel Alliance must invade and conquer Coruscant, the Empire's capitol, not just run out the clock as in the boardgame. Bringing to the the design a long background in wargaming. I felt that there would be too much going on during the game for VPs to capture the spirit of the saga or to have a truly satisfying end for the players. The Empire's find and destroy the RA base condition came directly from the first movie. The capture/destory condition for the Empire to win was intended to bring a crescendo and, hopefully, a great final moment to the game. The desire to have a similar feeling of great satisfaction for the RA victory in the computer game (and the associated win video) was a natural counterpart and was inspired by the Soviet Union's capture of Berlin, ending fascism.
Thanks for sharing that! Interestingly the unlicensed 1979 space rebellion game Freedom in the Galaxy has the reverse - the Rebellion has to take a certain amount of territory by the end of the game or the Empire wins.
Inis is one of the most underrated games without victory points. It's one of those games that feels wide open to different approaches no matter how many times you play it.
Its an uncommon game, but it is definitely well regarded
@@Skippan I feel like many people don't like it, because it seems a bit too esoteric at first. I've played it with many people and no one seems to share my enthusiasm about it.
The two games that come to mind for me are Raptor and Santorini. Both are essentially semi-thematic abstracts where you aim to be the first to reach a certain objective. I find both to have a lot of replayability because of the asymmetry in abilities and goals without ever having to keep track of points.
I love games with alternative win conditions. Root is one of my favourites. Also Mtg also has some awesome alternative wincon cards, like having a certain amount of life or counters on a card etc.
Another great hybrid example is Chaos in the Old World. Race to a dial advancement win OR a victory point win.
Same when it comes to The Lord of the Ice Garden. You win either when you have 50 points or you achieve your personal goal. You can tell it's very Chaos influenced but at the same time there's no randomness at all and it's much more "thinky", cold calculations and stuff. It's an excellent game.
Great video again Jamey! A few other games came to mind during your review of categories. War of the Ring is a great asymmetric game (similar to Star Wars Rebellion) but I think it is probably a little longer than your usual preferred game length. Also, King of Tokyo came to mind as a hybrid game that has VPs/last man standing as the two win conditions.
Oracle Of Delphi. That's a good pick and deliver, racing game. Everyone has the same tasks. First to complete all wins. The board changes each time you play so you won't get bored with the same tasks.
I agree. I'm a big Oracle of Delphi fan and I think Pick Up and Deliver should have been a category here. Jamey should play OoD. Feld really challenged himself with this design as he is probably known the most for 'point salads' and there are no victory points here. It is one of Feld's best designs.
Lords of Hellas has some interesting win conditions. It can be control of 2 lands, 5 regions with temples or holding a completed monument 3 turns after its completion. You can even go off and fight monsters; kill 3 and you win. We often find players are working to different goals but have to keep an eye on what others are doing.
The previous video in this series had a lot of really good games, but this list is full of games I simply find ingenious. I guess this pretty much tells which side of the 'debate' I am on.
It’s always an huge turn off when you sit down such an interesting game with background, with interesting mechanic, and then it all goes to “ everything gives abstract points and who gets the most wins “. Every action becomes incredibly dull and based on making points.
My exception is for example Chaos in the Old World, as it does have victory point, but the real victory race is the wheels, and so you focus on trying to get your wheel which is IMMENSELY thematic.
My favorites in this type of games are Cyclades Titans and Raptor. Both are so good.
Karuba!!! Oh thank goodness!! Someone else that recognizes this game! I adore Karuba! I have two copies mashed together to play up to eight players, and I've had a blast running huge tables of the game many times now.
Nothing turns me off of a game more than seeing a big track of numbers around the edge of a board.
This is a constructive conversation, Travis. What are 3 games you enjoy that use victory points?
Yay for downforce, blokus, red dragon inn!
Really liked my first game of scythe last week.
Cryptid does rely on every player properly paying attention to their clue (we had a player botch hers which threw the game completely off)
Good video
Hi Jamey,
Have you played Escape Plan? I’d argue that falls into a hybrid category. The winner is the player with the most money (points), but only if you can escape the city. If not, you effectively score zero.
And the longer you leave it to escape, the harder it becomes. So there’s a great tension between getting more points and risking complete loss. Players can find themselves with the most points, but either be too far away from the city exit, or not have enough cash to bribe their way out (something that increases when other players do it before you).
That's a neat thematic twist! I haven't played Escape Plan.
Way late to this video, but Dune is a great game that doesn't use victory points. It would fit into the same category you put Inis into, because the main victory condition is controlling a certain number of strongholds at the end of a round. There are a few faction specific victory conditions as well, none of which use victory points.
Jamie - Props to you. Thx for another thought provoking topic. I’m reflecting on your point abt Soccer/Football and being the first to score and I agree It would have a profound impact on the game and its strategies. That said, I can think of a handful of short-term time driven games (escape curse of temple, omega protocol...) , but I can’t recall a long-term time-bound game (escape games??). For example if an app kept time in the background of an episode of a campaign, I’d be interested to learn abt the effect it would have on gameplay. What if Scythe has an hour time limit as a boundary instead of other goals? What if Viticulture had an app to govern an hour of gameplay instead of a race to a victory point barrier? You could still ensure a equal number of turns. I admit I think having to track time for all players to track/maintain has multiple detrimental effects, but allowing an app to take on the role in the background would be a thought provoking experience. Again, appreciated your willingness to agitate and stir the conversation. Wishing u well on this extended holiday weekend.
About your soccer example, the sudden death condition was an actual rule in overtime during the World Cup until 2006. It was called the “Golden Goal” rule, and I think fans agreed it made the game too luck-prone.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Golden_goal?wprov=sfti1
Machi Koro jumped to mind as you were talking. It is a race to be the first to build all of your cities features, but it takes a while to build all of them and you can build them in any order if you can afford them. Unfortunately this doesn't always make for a tense finish as most of the games I have played result in one player sorta running away with the game about mid way through. In order to keep this post constructive, 3 of my favorites not mentioned,
King of Tokyo - hybrid between victory points or last player standing
Betrayal at House on the Hill - asymmetrical win conditions and one that you don't learn about until part way through.
Yinsh - abstract game, first to 5 rings wins, but loosing rings off the mat makes it harder to win!
I also love the idea of victory points being money or something that you can spend so you have to calculate if it is worth investing the money to get something that could potentially get you more. Wingspans' eggs and Patchworks buttons jump to mind.
I actually really love games with a racing element to them. Keyforge, Kemet, Cosmic Encounter, and Near and Far come to mind as games that involve some sort of race element (the first to do X triggers game end/wins). I mostly enjoy because of the pressure it puts on other players. Such a cool dynamic!
hi jamey... i was thinking of riders of the north sea... use victory points and its a race indeed, but i love how, you can go at your own pace and almost individualy towards your goal... but!... but, at some points you feel this sense of urgence in wich you have to decide what to do... it has 3 end game triggers but like scythe not necessarily the one who triggers wins... this in adittion of not knowing the real actual score adds so much adrenaline...
Your comment at the end about sports changing to have a "first to achieve the goal" made me think of how some of them use that in the event of a draw following the time limit of the game. That then made me think of a mechanic or structure for a game where you have to commit some number of turns (as a fixed requirement) before you can attempt the win condition - which hopefully would lend itself to establishing that same tension that occurs in golden goal overtime.
True, but some sports have moved away from the golden goal (for what I think are good reasons). Most forms of soccer no longer use it, college football doesn't use it, and one of the NFL's greatest criticisms is that they still use it (creating a circumstance where in overtime, one team may not even get the ball due to a coin flip).
I'm a big fan of Summit. Seeing if you can make it back down that mountain is always a thrill especially playing competitive mode. Toss in a Yeti and look out!
Thanks for another great video, Jamey! Maybe you could have included Rajas of the Ganges as a race example, it is a lovely game! Regarding Scott's video, I think he was just saying he personally expects more from the story when playing a Board Game and he feels VP detract from that, the main problem I have with his talk is saying VP "always" suck, which is definitely not true.
That's true, I do love Rajas of the Ganges, though I consider it a victory point game, as the game is all about accumulating fame and money.
@@jameystegmaier Fair point! Maybe a VP race then! haha
Two games come to mind in the "hybrid approach" category. King of Tokyo lets players win through either a race to 20 points or by being the last one standing. I like how these victory conditions interact; you can't really heal and attack and gain points all at once. You need to pick one.
The other game I think fits is Secret Hitler. If you think of the policies as victory points, then the game is a simple point race. But the two teams also have their own victory condition. I remember reading a blog post about the game's design that mentioned how often each team won, by each victory condition. I think the policy track was the least common way for games to end, making it sort of like a "victory points as backup a la 7 wonders duel" thing.
Those are great examples! I meant to mention King of Tokyo, but it slipped my mind. :)
Clank! Is a great race game/vp hybrid. It's fun trying different strategies of getting out quick so other people can't get many victory points or staying in as long as possible going for the high scoring tokens.
Oh yes, I can't believe I forgot Clank as a great hybrid game. I love Clank. :)
Great points Jamey. I agree that, when well used, VPs are great to explore more complex experiences into the games (as in games like the sheriff of Nottingham and Wingspan, where the VP is relevant as win condition but is so subtle into the gameplay). I believe that the main concern is when the VPs become so evident that distract from the game experience, and we can see a lot of this in some recent games. They turn into an inevitable point race, even when the end-game condition is separate, you can feel that they lose all the experience and become only a math problem. Some games are like that and great (quacks) because they capitalize that experience, but it can be hurtful if not well integrated.
One question regarding the topic came to my mind, we made an experiment playing Viticulture with money as win condition (VPs still being the Game-end condition) and was very interesting. What are your thoughts about this change as the game Designer?
That's a great point about how seamlessly VP are integrated into the gameplay so it's not a pure math puzzle.
As for changes to my games, I welcome people to experiment and try house rules that make them happy. :)
How do you consider "most money at the end" games? I generally think of these as just VP games with cash = VP. But they lack the stereotyipcal Euro curve of maximise income then maximise conversion of income into VP. They are in this sense a bit narrower though there is plenty of scope for breadth elsewhere.
Power Grid is another game without VP, there is just one measure of success, and it also has the end game trigger =/= win condition.
2 sided games be they teams on one or both sides are obviously better suited to this than multiplayer ones as you don't need to split losers.
One of the special cases of asymmetry is for one side to achieve something before time runs out while the other side just has to last it out. This is pretty common in any number of wargames.
I would put them in the category of victory point games, though I like the thematic twist that the thing you're accounting for is money--it's less abstract than victory points (and also more intuitive to spend during the game than victory points, which leads to some interesting decisions).
Keeping my promise to play the devil's advocate (and in an attempt to try and stay balanced in my opinions) I'm going to take the other side and say how these games would be better with victory points, considering the pros under which VPs are usually used:
1) T.I.M.E Stories. Bob has always been kind of a jerk so why not have him score you at the end of every mission? There he stands with his checklist. Did not find that particular item? Lose points. Failed to save that person? Lose 5 points. He IS a stickler for procedure after all... Many competitive games that have coop or solo mode insufficiently tacked onto as an option often use 'best score' to gauge how well you've done.
2) Scotland Yard. I can see a VP track around London where the detectives get points for how close they are to Mr(s) X while (s)he gets points for stealing objects or passing secret messages along the way. So, in the end it could happen that Mr(s) X wins on points scored even if caught.
3) Stratego. This game could be greatly enhanced by earning VPs, namely each time a player takes an opposing piece. Soldier? 1 VP. Sergeant? 4 VP. General? 12 VP. Tapping a bomb? -7 VP. Capturing the flag would generate perhaps 25 VPs making it still the main reason to go after it.
4) Red Dragon Inn. Last man standing games could benefit from VP tracks counting down. How interesting would it be to see your character start healthy at VP 50, only to see their points (and life) dwindling with every hit they take. You might even introduce a 'Second Wind' catchup mechanism where you get a small boost in VPs when you sink below 5 or 10.
5) Civilization/Inis, and other win-condition games could maintain those victory conditions but add the stipulation that you need to have a certain amount of VPs before 'activating' them.
6) Rex/Vast/SW Rebellion, and other personal win-condition games could use the same mechanism listed under 5, but could also introduce a bidding/drafting mechanism (like Above and Below) where you have to buy the win condition first to make it personal in the first place.
7) Can't Stop/The Quest for El Dorado. Racing games could gather points (like Downforce) but also lose points, depending on how fast/slow you are going, compared to the other players. Maybe VPs are Endurance Points (theming it up a bit) and you can actually spend some of those points to push yourself higher/further as a temporary boost, giving VPs a double use.
8) A Fake Artist Goes to New York. Social deduction games can shift from the dualistic right/wrong judgment to a more nuanced one with VPs. Maybe you're not sure who the traitor is so you give them 1 VP instead of 3. If you're 100% sure they're on your side, you give them 5 VP, knowing this will help 'the good guys' score go up. With A Fake Artist Goes to New York you could turn this into an art auction, where players bid VPs (or money) for the art.
9) Blokus. One could count down VPs, or put VPs on the field that you can win by covering them with a tile and if you don't end up with all your tiles on the field you get a penalty. Balance VPs against those penalties to see if you still end up in the positive.
10) Cryptid. Deduction games succeed or fail on how well you can guess the answer with the clues provided. Maybe you can head straight for that goal, or spend resources/time solving side quests that earn you VPs with which you can buy a clue. This gives players choices in gameplay: do I head for the main objective or do I flank it by investing in VPs that gain me better clues down the road?
Instead of going into existing hybrids, I want to approach two types of games that could be hybrids and were not discussed yet:
A) Dungeoncrawls. This very popular genre has two sub categories: scenario-driven and tactical combat dungeoncrawls. The former could benefit by earning XP (experience points) for encountering certain narrative pieces or completing missions within a campaign. Many of these already use XP or gold, but imagine a track where you can quit a dungeon if you reached enough XP rather than reaching the scenario goal. Likewise, tactical combat can earn XP, but maybe also finding objects, pushing further into tiles and making awe inspiring combos in combat earn you XP. Whomever has the most XP 'wins' the game, making it more competitive as well and giving a new spin to a genre of games dominated by coop gameplay and black and white win-or-die conditions.
B) Exploration/Adventure games. Imagine 7th Continent, the Lost Expedition, Mansions of Madness or Charterstone with VPs. You win them by the progress you make, even if you don't reach the 'end condition' by which you win. Now, what if you can carry those VPs over to your next game, so you have a head start? Gives Campaign games a whole new (and less loaded) spin, right? All you do, is you jot down the VPs you got out of your last game, which you get to spend on boons for the next game, making it a little easier to get going. For an extra challenge, you might want to wipe the slate clean upon a traditional victory, or even penalize the players if not all victory conditions are met, making the next game a tad harder.
Anyway, those are my thoughts on how Victory Points could aid non-VP games and although I don't think VPs suck, I do think that they need to make thematic sense and used more creatively than most games do right now, because if I wanted to add up numbers at the end of a long game night, I would have become a bookie, not a graphic designer and storyteller.
No offense (and I understand why you made this post), but I think several of these ideas would make the mentioned games worse, not better.
@@kissgg666 Oh, I bet ^_^ But, care to clarify (roughly) how?
More like they are hollow or completely miss the point. Time is about playing theough the story. Scotland yard could completely be ruined by an idiot going “I don’t think we are getting Mister X, let’s rack up the points.” And stop collaborating with others.
IMHO having VP in your game is a negative point, ESPECIALLY when some games have so much story and background and then the game is “ get more point than everyone else “. Some time you see a so interesting theme and faction, a story you love so much, and then they are bad because “ it’s all about points” and you have to play something completely out of character to do that.
@@CrowMercury I hear what you're saying. I only made the comment because I wanted to play 'Devil's Advocate' after taking the opposite standpoint when Jamey did his previous vlog '10 Games I Love With Victory Points'. I think GG KIss was alluding to that and I also think it's good to keep a balanced and open mind when designing games. But yeah, for the record, I gravitate towards not liking Victory Points cuz I think they're lazy design.
I prefer pretty much ANY victory condition to the Kramer-Leiste=Victory Points. 307 to 286 after 3 hours, what's that even supposed to mean .. Great examples given. Cant't wait till Jamey one day comes up with a great asymmetric game ;-)
J.J. The Great not asymmetric. I only own the metal coins , dont tell Jamey.
@@JJ_TheGreat Different ruleset, or different win conditions like Vast or Rebellion or Cry Havoc or Root. Or 1 vs all like Fury of Dracula. Jamey mentions these I think. Matter of Definition, I personally don't count different factions or starting/special powers already as asymmetric.
Another great Star Wars asymmetric game with no victory points is Star Wars Queen's Gambit. The Naboo/Gungans/Jedi are trying to destroy the Trade Federation droids and control the throne room before the Trade Federation destroys all but 2 Naboo units in the palace. It's a great game that combines 3D multi-level terrain, wargames, and a sort of craps like dice rolling starfighter movement. It has three separate battlefields that you can't afford to neglect. You have to devote attention to all three or risk giving your opponent a big advantage. The problem is you can only play a small number of cards each turn to take actions, limiting you in which battlefield you can devote your attention each turn. There is lots of tension in it with so many things happening in each battlefield, any of which can grant you a big advantage if you are able to defeat your enemy there. You can never really be sure if you are going to win.
One problem with a race, to avoid victory points, is that it can be very dispiriting to be behind the leader. A race generally makes it very obvious who the leader is. With victory points, if you don't have a VP track that is kept up to date, you can obfuscate who is in the lead, to keep everyone engaged.
I had wondered for a while why Carpe Diem used cards for VP, as they are very fiddly and seem a lot harder to manage than a VP track. I suspect, though, Feld may have been experimenting with making VP private information. A stack of cards can be difficult to judge, especially when they are all different denominations. This leads to a fascinating scenario where you have really crunchy scoring where you can deny another player a big score, by taking a lesser score for yourself, but you have no idea of the exact standings, so you can't fully calculate if it's a worthwhile trade.
"I don't want to mention Hanamikoji again" - Well, you botched that, didn't you? ;) It's ok, because it is a good game.
Interesting list! My personal favourite game without victory points might be one of my favourite games overall: The Quest for El Dorado
We are considering winning by points as, game ends and then count up. With that in mind...
Regarding your soccer analogy; plenty of sports have players win by reaching 'X' sets by scoring points each set. Volleyball, Boules, Tennis. The victory condition is tied to the end-game.
First to establish a 5-goal lead would be an exciting alternate win condition for football, I can only find records of teams coming back from 4 goals down.
fantastic video.. but spent the entire video staring at the Tidy Cats kitty litter lost in thought.
After watching your first video on this topic, I went and watched the talk that was the inspiration for it. I was really curious what that speaker thought about sports because most non-racing sports have victory points, even if we just call them points. Fundamentally you kick so well, you throw so well, you choose your plays so well and this all maths out into some final score, not unlike the point-salads the speaker really disliked. Sports are so popular in part because of the drama and tension in the games, and I really didn't understand how that speaker couldn't see that in those types of board games.
I personally like combat sports and I think part of the reason is there's some sort of point system if you make it to the end of rounds, but there's always the threat of a knockout/submission/pin that can end the match. Regardless of what the score is, the competitor that's behind has a chance and it doesn't feel like artificial catch up. For a similar reason, 7 Wonders Dual was a favorite once I started getting more into board games.
In faster head-to-head games, like Magic: The Gathering, I also enjoy using the best-of-x style to determine the victor. It's not quite victory points since you're winning by fulfilling certain conditions each game you play, but I like that the variability of some of these games is mitigated by playing multiple games per opponent and seeing who does better over a series of them.
I wonder if there are any games that use the tennis-style scoring method of trying to reach a certain point threshold and win by 2 as well. I don't think it quite fits into victory points because it feels more like a race. I think the scoring method is one reason why I liked tennis as a sport most as a kid. Or maybe it's the non-contact sport I played that felt most like Magic to me, which was then (and still now) one of my favorite games.
TH-cam comments have been being weird for me all week, so appologies if this posts more than once or gains weird formatting between paragraphs.
Twilight Struggle is one of my favourite hybrids. Automatic victory for the other player causing a nuclear war, having control of Europe during a Europe scoring, and if at any point you're at 20 points (the points are a tug of war, so if you're at 10 points I'm also at -10 points). Failing that, all continents score once more, and the winner is the player who's side of the line the point marker is. (With a card that grants a bunch of points to the opponent and ends the game without this final scoring phase as well).
Wir Sind Das Volk! has some interesting assymetric goals in a head to head game based on the historic period, with one of them being that the East Germany player only needing to survive until after it fell in the real world to win, meaning that East Germany is a little easier to play for newer players, because they don't need to figure out how to manipulate this economic system that players have levers to manipulate but don't have direct control over in order to successfully attack their opponent at the same time as getting used to the economic system.
Another hybrid approach I've seen in some solo games, where there are victory points, but victory points are used to assess automatic defeats or give a penalty/bonus, rather than being the goal of the game, with the win/loss criteria being something else. I think Navajo Wars uses this approach.
As for first to score in sports - First to score wins was used in some international competitions in football during extra time - The 'golden goal' rule. Because everyone agreed that penalties were no way of resolving a game but were the tiebreak that extra time went to if things were still tied after it.
...It lead to more defensive playstyles, leading to an increase in penalty shootouts, and was also miserable to watch to boot with both sides 'parking the bus' because the consequence of the other side scoring was too great to risk, and was retired in favour of 'silver goal' (team who's ahead at the end of the first half of extra time wins then - I forget if that's still used or not)
Twilight Struggle: one of the best games ever designed. And one of the reasons is exactly its hybrid nature.
Can add Heroes of Land, Air, and Sea to the combined category. It has 4 endgame triggers, but the winner is determined by points. Adds tension so nicely the obvious gamey nature doesnt detract. Doesnt seem the presenter really has a problem with points, but how its integrated into the narrative. Maybe I'm wrong.
I know it's a super simple game, but in Machi Koro the goal is to build all your buildings first. Personally, I love victory point games. It would very much limit the scope of games if there were only games without vps. My thoughts anyway.
I seen that you touched on race games.. Yesterday i played Um reifenbreite for the first time and was blown away how good the game was (also taking into account that game is originally from 1979).. You should give it a try.. I mean its roll and move but you can still win with horrible rolls... It uses a point system though...
On topic: my fav game without VP is CPT Sonar... i would mention Love letter, Modern Art, Avalon, Menara... Ect
Thanks for the recommendation! I'll have to try that.
Great list!
Cosmic Encounter is another great win condition game.
Doesn’t lords of Hellas also count in some of these categories. I guess the hunt mechanic and maybe the monuments can count as vc but the game doesn’t rely on vc but just playing the 4 objs
If you like Stratego, play Lord of the Rings: Confrontation
That would be easier if it was more available in the States. :( Bit too pricey last I checked.
I've heard a few people mention that--I need to try it!
Jamey Stegmaier Seriously it is a treat! Wish I knew you wanted to try it; I would have brought it to Geekway!!
You got A Fake Artist Goes to New York wrong, it does use victory points. You just win the round. Either the clue giver and the fake artist get a point or the rest of the players get a point. You play to a set number of points to determine who the winner is.
Thanks! I should have put that in the category of "games with points...but we don't play that way." Like Telestrations. :)
cyclades and Lewis&Clark should also be noticed ;)
I would add Lewis and Clark to the list, and Archipelago (to the merger list)
It's great that you are so bipartisan on victory points...While designing my own game I am deciding still whether or not to include victory points.
I love your use of Stratego!
I generally dislike race games. Not necessarily racing theme games. But the “first to x wins”. It just feels anticlimactic to have nothing to show really. Either you win or don’t. At least with VP, you can more tangibly see and feel how close things were. I don’t get that as much from race games. If it’s just a race triggers the end of the game, it’s not nearly as bad.
Your comments about real world sports being about "victory points" not a race to the finish make me think of boxing. Technically, it is about just trying to score more hits than your opponent, but it still has that alternate win condition of just knocking your opponent out.
That's a great point, Landon! I like having "shoot the moon" options like that in games.
Also, every abstract strategy game ever.
Not every abstract game! You might be surprised by how many have points (whether or not people use those rules). Blokus, for example, is a fantastic abstract game that has a points calculation at the end. So does Patchwork. And Sagrada. And Azul. And so on.
@@jameystegmaier oops
Favorite Player Elimination=Exploding Kittens! Ever played?
Absolutely! :)
Deception - Murder in Hong Kong (social deduction)