Pop quiz, hot shot! What do you call a tabletop game without victory conditions? (Wait for all the smart alecs in the back of the room to shout, “A LARP!” and “my marriage!”) Those are all very entertaining answers, but the one I’m looking for is… a toy.
Toys are great. But without rules for victory, they aren’t games. They’re just… well, toys. And a finely-crafted victory condition can separate a good game from a great one.
Victory conditions must be clear.
Gain 20 victory points. Destroy your opponent’s 20 health. Empty your hand of cards. Be the first to get all your monkeys out of the flaming wreckage.
Some games require multiple victory conditions. Most don’t. If testing shows that you need to add a rule saying “You lose if you run out of cards” or “You win if your monkeys are the only ones unburned,” that’s fine — but start simple. The same thing goes for overly complicated victory conditions (“You win by have the most coconuts at the end of turn 7, or the largest ape at the beginning of the round, or by catching the Gold Snitch”). Only make it complicated if you have to — and even then, see if there’s something else you can simplify instead.
A path to victory must be obvious.
When I choose the Plumber at the beginning of the round, I get a victory point — and need 20 to win. If I attack with my creature and you can’t block, I inflict its damage — and need to inflict 20 to win. When I roll a die, that’s how many spaces I can move my monkey towards safety.
The trick is to make the path obvious, but easy for players to barricade. I can choose the Carpenter, who kills the Plumber. I can play a creature to block your attacker. I can move my monkey so you have no choice but to move yours into the oil slick back into the flames. A game should look simple to win, but not actually be that simple.
There must be multiple paths to victory.
This is different than having multiple victory conditions. I might have a dozen ways of getting victory points, but the single victory condition remains: get 20 to win. This also goes hand-in-hand with the obvious path to victory; the obvious path is usually not the most efficient one, but it’s the easiest to recognize and understand. It gets you into the game. Once you’re playing, you’ll see the other paths and understand how they might be better — but by that point, you’re actually playing the game, and haven’t been scared off by arcane rules of victory
And so on…
I didn’t think I had so much to say on the tiny little subject of victory conditions. Who knew? But have I said it all? Surely not! Jump into the comments and let me know your favorite victory conditions, or the ones that you hate, or any tips you have for their creation. And remember:
Don’t let your monkey go up in flames!
I have never been a fan of victory points. They are often fairly arbitrary and it is often hard to tell who is actually winning or when the game will be over. There is usually a tallying of points at the end and then you realize that some under-the-radar player actually won.
But the biggest reason why I hate victory points is that there is usually no correlation to the game reality. Why does my side win the war of the oompa loompas if my army is the first to get 50 points? It is too abstract and takes the player out of the game. Now tell me that I have 57 oompa loompas and you only have 12 left then I know that I am in an overwhelmingly good spot and I have a clear goal in mind to win the game, take out the rest of you oompa loompas or maybe by getting an oompa loompa across the chocolate river before you do or whatever. I think clear goals that make sense in the game’s story add a lot to the immersion of said game.
What say you, oh game god?
Oh, I hear ya, man. That’s a classic hallmark of a Euro-game right there: when you’re playing for abstract points by doing abstract things with abstract systems, it takes some extra mental gymnastics to see how you’re doing against your opponents.
I think it’s cool to have multiple, less-obvious paths to victory — but you’re right. Those paths should make just as much thematic sense as the obvious path. You can win by punching 10 little monkey or eating 1 big ape – sure, that makes sense. But if your alternative to monkey-punching is watering the camel… well, what kind of monkey violence game is this, anyway?
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