Exercise 2.5: Conflict: Football and Poker
Exercise 2.5: Conflict
Compare and contrast the conflict in football to the conflict in poker. Describe how each game creates conflict for the players.
Having read the very hands on book, Game Design Workshop: Designing, Prototyping, and Playtesting Games I have decided not to write a critical analysis but instead attempt to answer exercise 2.5 that asks one to compare and contrast the conflict designed into poker and football. What follows is a section of that attempt.
Football is a time-based game. It is divided into 4 equal quarters of 15 minutes each. The non-televised version of poker has no definitive ending other than the player running out of resources, i.e. money. Poker games can add and lose players without missing a beat. In both games conflict is maintained through the procedures that reset game play on a predictable basis.
Football is a team oriented, multiplayer game that has at its core a simple goal (to cross a line with a ball) but structures this goal around some of the most complicated rules and as such is probably the most cerebral, strategic, athletic game played today. Football is often likened to chess, which is often compared to war, however, it is far more complicated than chess in that each piece (player) has a job to do that they may or may not succeed at. Every play in football involves at the minimum eleven direct conflicts between players and a maximum level of conflict that is exponential when one begins to ponder the variables involved in decision-making, execution and play calling. Poker is also a complicated game in the way it has developed over time, however, its goal is less singular. This is a game where 2 pair can win just as often as a full house or four of a kind. The real conflict in poker arises from the betting aspect of the game, which is singularly the responsibility of the player. This is where the ‘skill’ of play is to be found.
On a basic level football is a physical game involving physical obstacles and physical boundaries whereas poker sets boundaries that exist primarily as a function of the mind – they are conceptual. Both games use other players as the primary obstacles – impeding success. Both games rely on strategy that is in constant flux, what works today may not work tomorrow, unlike some games where the same strategies have worked for decades. This is a product of game design.
For the head coach and the quarterback, in football, ‘Reading Opponents’ tendencies and intentions is very similar to poker and done well can definitely provide an advantage. To ‘read opponents’ tendencies in poker could be considered the core play aspect of the game for experienced players. To play football successfully frequently relies on the ability of players to both communicate and read opponents intentions in sync with one another. This is an added level of complication that does not exist in poker. Poker does not share this characteristic of football that one might find in bridge for example.
Football rules are often enforced by 3rd party referees. Poker is often policed by the player’s themselves. As such the enforcement of the rules changes slightly from game to game in football, this is likely not the case in poker.
In football there can only be one winner. In poker two or more players could walk away with more money than they started with, in essence producing multiple winners.
Both games can involve mathematics to create advantage. In poker card counting may give a player a heads up. This poker strategy could be paralleled with the use of statistics involving all sorts of football game play variables.
This is an interesting exercise to help understand game play variables in a different way. I would recommend this exercise to anyone developing game play for their AR project. Pick two games you know well and start to break them down.
QUESTIONS
1. What role does player imagination have in designing a game? For example what functions of imagination are needed to play Go Fish vs World of Warcraft. Is there a difference and if so what might it be?
2. Is Will Wrights idea that rules create structure not the other way around always true of game design or is it mostly true of computer game design?
3. Are the successful games that have stood the test of time somehow organic to who we are? If so will any modern games stand this test?