Asymmetry in Games

My two favorite games (and my favorite game genre) is all about asymmetry. Balance in asymmetry for me is a beautiful thing. After all, in life, very few things, very few situations are symmetrical.

I love how in Cosmic Encounter, each player has a different power that changes the game so much. The game could've been a perfectly symmetrical game, just take out all the race cards and it might still be a decent game about negotiation and all that. The powers just push it over the top. The games are always different, not just because of what you draw, but also because of what your opponents draw.

Which leads me to War of the Ring. Probably my 2nd favorite game now. I've played thrice and I can see how this might ultimately replace CE as my favorite game of all time. It's awesome. I find that the asymmetry of the game makes it even more awesome. Chess is perfectly symmetrical, and that's a good game too. But in War of the Ring, almost everything is different from each other. The starting setup, the cards, the play style, the characters, even the end goal is different.

It fascinates me when something can be so complex and still be balanced. People may not agree with me, but I think that given opponents of equal skill, WotR is a 50/50 game, if you play with the expansion.

Flip a coin, that's a 50/50 game. If you can add enough mechanics and theme and gameplay to turn something into a monster game that makes people feel like they're playing out the movie and still have it be 50/50 or at least even close it... That right there is a masterpiece.

Chess isn't actually perfectly symmetrical, but I hear what you're saying.

I'm surprised this didn't come up more in the latest Trashdome. Nexus Ops starts everyone with the same stuff and tries to balance the start player order, basically attempting to give as close to perfect symmetry as possible. TI3 has the element of different player powers as well as asymmetry in each turn with the role selections. Asymmetry is one of the defining elements of AT, IMO, as it adds to the story and encourages creative play. "Do what you can with what you have" sort of thing.

In some ways, it adds personalities to the game even if the players themselves don't have those personalities.

Risk: Star Wars Original Trilogy has asymmetrical victory conditions for the three factions, which makes for an interesting game as the 2 against 1 'ganging up' changes as factions get closer to their victory. Still Risk rules though so nothing different there apart from event cards have different actions for each faction.

War of the Ring is the best example, and Battlestar Galactica is also along those lines especially now that the cylons seem to have the edge. And Star Wars: The Queen's Gambit is along the same lines as Risk:SWOT in that the victory conditions are different while the gameplay is nearly the same for both factions.

Flip a coin, that's a 50/50 game. If you can add enough mechanics and theme and gameplay

Oh man, maybe I just have Dragon Dice on the brain, but what about a collectible coin flipping game!?!

metalface13 wrote:

Flip a coin, that's a 50/50 game. If you can add enough mechanics and theme and gameplay

Oh man, maybe I just have Dragon Dice on the brain, but what about a collectible coin flipping game!?!

Wow, suddenly I'm reminded of POG.

metalface13 wrote:

Oh man, maybe I just have Dragon Dice on the brain, but what about a collectible coin flipping game!?!

I'm going to insist that you change your avatar soon to some DD. hehe

Pogs and Disk Wars come to mind.

kookoobah wrote:

My two favorite games (and my favorite game genre) is all about asymmetry. Balance in asymmetry for me is a beautiful thing. After all, in life, very few things, very few situations are symmetrical.

I think this all ties in with the 'control' aspect that eurogamers have to have. The game must not have any random elements, or at least, those random elements should be less obvious. Dice are evil because they are obvious random elements, stuffing the elements in cards appears to be less random and controllable. Random elements take the control of the 'game' from the players, so therefore they should be ridiculed and shunned.

All players should be playing the same 'system'. Asymmetry tosses a wrench into this as each player may start with vastly different strengths and weaknesses. This might lead to *gasp* people playing the system a different way and striving for different goals. It becomes much more difficult for me, the europlayer, to calculate all the permuatations of such asymmetry, thus all players must have less fun than if they all started out with 20 sheep and 20 ore and in control of the same type of resource producing territories.

Variable player powers and asymmetry are my favorite aspects of games. That different people at the table are considering vastly different problems in the same game, for some reason, is awesome to me. I just really enjoy it. It's probably a big part of why I like wargames as they almost all have significant asymmetry because real life doesn't work symmetrically.

Mr MOTO wrote:

All players should be playing the same 'system'. Asymmetry tosses a wrench into this as each player may start with vastly different strengths and weaknesses. This might lead to *gasp* people playing the system a different way and striving for different goals. It becomes much more difficult for me, the europlayer, to calculate all the permuatations of such asymmetry, thus all players must have less fun than if they all started out with 20 sheep and 20 ore and in control of the same type of resource producing territories.

Is that why some of the highest ranked euros either directly or indirectly feature asymmetry? Agricola has occupation and improvement cards. Engine games like PR and RftG encourage players to develop their own independent strengths and weaknesses. Same for Princes of Florence and Through the Ages. Hell...even the initial settlement placement in Settlers of Catan starts players off with asymmetrical strengths and weaknesses which set them off towards very different paths for winning the game.

In other words, I can see why you are going for the popular and easy target...but I think the argument falls apart with very little scrutiny.

Pretty much all of my favourite games feature asymmetrical roles and goals, but people shouldn't pretend that symmetry is some lame aspect of lame games and the lame people who enjoy symmetry are especially lame for it. Some really fun games that a lot of ATers enjoy (Mall of Horror, Galaxy Trucker, and Warrior Knights (without expansion) all spring to mind) are about as symmetrical as any Euro you can think of.

On the main topic, I love asymmetrical games. If for no other reason than it provides built-in variability. This is true for two player asymmetrical games, of course...playing as the Trade Federation or as the dark armies of Mordor feels very different from playing as the Naboo Alliance or the Free People.

This variability explodes as you go past two options. Blue Moon, even without the deck construction, features 9 individual decks. That's far more than simply having 9 different ways to play because each deck, in addition to playing differently from every other deck, also needs to be played differently against every other deck. Just the nine decks gives you 72 unique match-ups to experience against your opponent.

This gets to the more abstract point of why variability is coveted...for me it's all about discovery. I am less of a fan of mastering a game than I am of discovering new things about a game. It's very cult-of-the-new, and I am guilty as charged.

-MMM

Octavian wrote:
In other words, I can see why you are going for the popular and easy target...but I think the argument falls apart with very little scrutiny.[/quote]

Actually, I don't think it falls apart at all. But I suppose I should be happy that it does for you.

I'll grant that a lot of euros feature zero asymmetry. Merely saying that it isn't an inherent feature of euros, and certainly not a preferred feature among euro players considering most of the top euro games do feature asymmetry.

Dig it!

Asymmetry - that's why Dune kicks so much ass.

Octavian wrote:
"Agricola has occupation and improvement cards. Engine games like PR and RftG encourage players to develop their own independent strengths and weaknesses. Same for Princes of Florence and Through the Ages. Hell...even the initial settlement placement in Settlers of Catan starts players off with asymmetrical strengths and weaknesses which set them off towards very different paths for winning the game"
Firstly, a caveat, it's been a long time since I've played PR, and for TtA I've only read the rules; but I remember both as having the same set ups for all players, correct me if I'm wrong.

How are these games asymmetrical? Everyone has the same set up. The argument that you have different occupation and improvement cards, or different starting worlds, is nonsensical. By that logic Bridge is asymmetrical. I believe that symmetry / asymmetry is exclusively defined by the set up rules. For example, Fortress America is asymmetrical but Shogun is symmetrical. You could say that Shogun has very different starting positions due to the luck of the card draw, but that's irrelevant because the card drawing process is the same for everyone.