Board and card games are at a bit of a disadvantage in the gaming world. The first thing you’re expected to do when approaching a new game is to read the spoiler–you know, the rules manual. After you read the spoiler, you’re expected to play the game for 30 or 45 or however many minutes, and then do that same thing again the next time it hits the table.

With this model, boredom is the default. That’s right: unless you actively take steps to confront and overcome the naturally boring tabletop model, your game will fall flat.

Luckily, board games have been around for a while. We’ve gotten pretty good at managing predictability. Let’s crack open the toolbox and see what we can put to work on this problem.

1) Variance

Let’s describe Pie Face, a kids game for 2-4 players. First off, you place a pie (or a pile of whipped cream) onto a specialized device. Then, one at a time, you turn a crank on that device, which will sometimes trigger it and cause the pie to be slung at the player’s face. You just keep doing that until you decide to do something else.

Deleting one word out of that paragraph would make Pie Face a miserable experience. That word is sometimes. Without that, you might as well just skip the device and deliver the pie straight to your own face. Sometimes is the difference between a friendly game of Russian Roulette and a tragic game of “let’s all die together right now.”

In game design, variance describes the use of artificial randomization to determine a result. This can apply to a well-shuffled deck of cards, the roll of the dice, or the questionable triggering mechanism on the Pie Face slinger. While it’s never difficult to find players that bemoan the presence of variance in tabletop games, it is an extremely useful tool to help us manage predictability. In fact, many gamers enjoy the serendipity of games whose resolution relies more heavily on variance.

How to Use Variance Responsibly

Let’s talk Risk for a moment. You’re attacking Siam, because one of your opponents is the cheap schmuck that wants to fort up in Australia. You have ten soldiers, and your opponent has six, so this is a done deal…right? However, the name of the game is Risk and not Certainty. You can’t actually know how this battle will turn out, because that will come down to the dice.

Variance is an effective tool for distorting predictability. This means that the player’s analysis of the game is less reliable as it extends outward into the random elements.

To understand how best to employ variance, I recommend thinking of it as salt. It is a vital seasoning, very important, but you don’t want to overdo it. Too much, and you compromise the underlying flavor of the dish. Too little, and you risk the meal being quite bland. Add it to the wrong dishes, and you’re not doing a service to anybody. Season your game to taste.

Variance can be adjusted across two axes, the first of which is risk/reward. Risk and reward are quite simple–determine the ante and the payout. It’s up to you and your playtesting process to find the right mathematical and conceptual balance here, but there’s one important thing to remember: when dealing with mechanisms resolved through variance, make sure that both the risk and reward are tastefully incremental, or that the challenge is optional. High stakes can be great fun, but they’re most effective when players choose to precipitate that challenge. If seeking a resolution through variance is unavoidable, and the stakes are high, then it is likely your players will feel dissatisfied with your game’s fairness.

The second axis in variance is transparency. Will the player have access to statistical information? If so, is that statistical information easily calculable on the fly? This stuff matters, believe it or not. Imagine you’re drawing from a stack of one hundred different cards–there’s no way of telling what’s going to happen (and this is one of the reasons that Magic: the Gathering’s “Commander” format is so popular). Meanwhile, the roll of a single die comes with an understandable probability table. Opaque variance preserves surprise and tension; transparent variance becomes a virtual part of the decision matrix, lending real depth through an added strategic dimension. Knowing when to use what, and how much, will take you far.

2) Player Interaction

Now let’s think about one of my favorite examples–Chess. There’s no hidden information, and zero variance in a game of Chess. However, it is highly interactive. Two masters could face off in a hundred matches, and no two matches would be the same.

Chess is a limited example. Interaction is a very deep topic, which can’t entirely be addressed in this article. However, in the context of managing a game’s predictability, player interaction is the impact of one players actions on other players’ decisions, often through alteration of the game state.

In short, someone has to decide which cup to put the iocaine powder into based on what they think their opponent will choose. Then, the opponent has to choose which cup to drink from based on their evaluation of the situation. To extend the metaphor, however, the opponent may also have other options, like punching the first player out out, or starting a land war in Asia.

How to use Player Interaction Responsibly (when it comes to managing predictability)

Going back to the Risk example, you’re back to attacking Siam with 10 soldiers against the defender’s 6. However…should you attack? It would require investing your fresh troops, and it may leave you defenseless on other fronts. Maybe the red player attacks your vulnerable armies in Brazil, and you stand to lose more than you would gain? Perhaps you would better benefit from an alliance?

Correctly layering platforms of player interaction will convert predictability directly into depth. A previously dull mechanism could have its context entirely changed when it causes players to interact. Even a binary choice now must take into consideration an entire algorithm, from each player’s point of view–and there’s no guaranteeing that the algorithm you’re considering is the same one that they’re considering.

As much as the community decries certain games for being “multiplayer solitaire,” nearly every single game has some level of interaction. Yes, even Splendor. Again, much of player interaction is another topic entirely, but the takeaway here is that it’s up to you to ensure your players’ power to impact one another’s options and decisions falls within comfortable parameters for everyone.

If players have too little power to interact, then your game may suffer from a lack of engagement and even possibly a lack of depth. In Splendor, for example, players’ routes of interaction are limited. Often times, it is possible to see another player’s route to victory two to three turns ahead of time and be able to do absolutely nothing about it. Your best course of action may just to keep doing what you’ve been doing alone in your little corner. Needless to say, this can be frustrating.

On the other hand, if players have too much power through interaction, then you risk creating feelings of helplessness. We’ve all had those experiences before. Someone else does something in the game that hoses us, at times not even to their own great benefit, and we can do nothing about it. It’s like in Settlers of Catan, when you place your first village, and then you get sandwiched right off the bat. You actually made a correct choice, but ended up at a fairly significant disadvantage. This is just a faint example, but if you can imagine that feeling, then you’ll have an idea of what to watch out for.

3) Compartmentalization of Information

In Star Wars: Imperial Assault, players control rebel characters, unified behind the objective. They explore the scenario, beat up the bad guys, do the stuff, and then move on to the next scenario. If you think about it, that model seems…well, kind of lame, right? You open the box and you already know everything that’s in there. There’s not much exploration if you can just read the cards you had to pull out of the pile during setup.

This is where compartmentalization of information comes in. (One and only) one player actually controls the Empire, and they are responsible for preserving the element of surprise for players. Guided by a lengthy campaign manual, they titrate the narrative and events as prescribed, and they are the only one that has full access to the antagonists’ information. Now, players have no idea what can happen. When you correctly and completely compartmentalize information, you create an actual explorable game space where your players will be excited to see the possibilities.

We see this in other places as well, as anyone that’s played Dungeons and Dragons can tell you. On a (much) smaller scale, what about Headbanz, where you have a card with a single word strapped to your head so you can’t see it, and everyone else is trying to answer your questions to help you guess it? Or Alchemists, where a companion app randomizes and hides information, and you have to conduct experiments in gameplay to discover and deduce that information? What about legacy games?

How to Use Compartmentalization of Information Responsibly

This one’s tough, but I’ve been saying it for years: compartmentalization of information will figure prominently in the future of the board game industry. In fact, it’s already started, and there’s rumblings on the horizon of more things to come.

To utilize this tool, you must extend your game’s experience and material outside of what’s in the visible rules and components–a science that is still being developed in the board game scene. This comes with a series of unique challenges that we’re just now starting to tackle.

Compartmentalization isn’t right for every game, obviously. You should first make sure that your game has content that’s worth compartmentalizing. If your game’s foundation can’t support the intrinsic value of discovery and exploration, then you may want to stick to a traditional model. Also, if you plan on designing a legacy-style game, then you’ll want to understand exactly what you’re getting yourself into.

Beyond that, the best I can offer are methods by which games have already achieved compartmentalization:

Printed Narrative – Can offer evolving context for a changing cinematic feel. Useful for campaign settings (i.e. Mice and Mystics) or storytelling games (i.e. Tales of the Arabian Nights). Finite experience can limit exploration to a set number of sessions.

“The Advent Calendar“ – Can offer additional components to change the experience and mechanisms from game to game. Likely the standard model for Legacy games (i.e. Pandemic: Legacy) going into the near future. Adds considerable production footprint to your game.

Designated Storyteller – Offers adaptable evolving game experience for players. Seen at different levels, from the opponent plus “bearer of bad news” (i.e. Descent: Second Edition) to a true crafter of narrative (i.e. Dungeons and Dragons). Greater power in the storyteller’s hands means a greater responsibility to provide a meaningful experience, which may not always be possible.

“Decksploration” – Wherein a sealed deck of cards (or other ordered sequence of components) is revealed as players explore an episodic game. Offers a finite frontier of discovery, typically exactly for one game (i.e. T.I.M.E. Stories) However, this frontier is quite limited–powerful cinematics are practically a prerequisite for retaining game value.

Hidden Consequences – When a player is faced with a choice–typically heavily thematic in context–but is not privy to the knowledge of the consequences. Offers tension and an extremely versatile platform for immersion (i.e. Dead of Winter). It’s possible that such elements should be treated like variance–not too prominent or with too high risks or rewards.

And, finally, the dreaded app. My prediction now is that companion app integration will soon be the gold standard for compartmentalization of information in bigger-budget releases–and we will have sandbox-style fully explorable and immersive board games as early as 2017 that combine multiple compartmentalization methods.

Even though gamers have expressed utter outrage at the use of an app, they’ve already started to come around. Where poor Golem Arcana was thrown right into the trash compactor, titles like XCOM have gone on to be rather well-received. In fact, you can even listen to respected designer Ignacy Trzewiczek discuss exactly why he’s implementing an app into his upcoming game, First Martians: Adventures on the Red Planet. If I had to place a bet on the 2016 game of the year in May, First Martians would be it.

It’s a good time to be a board gamer.

Design Exercise

Take a look at your shelf and pick out any game.

How is variance present in that game? Where could you add more?

How is player interaction present in that game? Where could you add more?

Consider ways that compartmentalizing narrative information could make the game more immersive.