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Welcome to Pick Up and Deliver the podcast where I pick up my audio recorder when

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I step off the train, and deliver an episode to you while I walk home.

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I'm Brendan Riley.

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Well, it's a lovely day here in suburban Chicago.

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I'm on my way home after having gone into campus for a meeting.

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The birds are chirping and I'm happy to be talking with you.

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Well, planning to talk about, I thought I would start with thinking a little bit about

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weird scoring conditions.

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What was it that made me think of this?

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Oh, so the other day I in my music shuffling, I was just listening to a variety of different

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tunes in my MP3 library.

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I happened across an old song from Moxy Fruvous, which is a Canadian mostly acapela

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band from the 90s and they had a song they performed in their live album called

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Lowest Highest Point.

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It was like a trivia quiz for the audience and they said which state has the lowest

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highest point and then they did a song, (singing) Lowest Highest Point, Lowest Highest Point, etc.

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And the idea was, it's just which state do you think it is?

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It got me thinking that it might be interesting to talk about interesting scoring conditions.

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One of my favorite things about playing a new board game is discovering that it has an

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interesting scoring condition, something counterintuitive, something weird, something that makes

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you think about the game in a different way.

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Most games have uninteresting scoring conditions - earn the most points being the most common

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one, have the most money being the second common one, which is basically earn the most points.

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I thought that it would be interesting to explore five different interesting win conditions

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and talk a little bit about why I find them interesting and go from there.

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So start with I do want to go to acknowledge:

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I did in a quick glance at the Pick Up and Deliver pages.

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I believe that I did do one previous show where I talk about an issue sort of related to

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this and that is there's an episode I did called Currency As Points where I was specifically

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talking about how I like when a game makes you think about spending your points to do things.

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Any game that uses money as the final score and you have to spend money to do stuff is already

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doing Currency As Points but there are some games where you just have to give up points in

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order to do things.

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One example that came to mind was Small World where you have to give up points in order to

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choose a different faction or a guy a project where if you want to take a bonus from one of your

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opponents doing it doing an advancement you have to spend points to do that and there's an interesting

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trade-off to think about like getting a bet getting a benefit in the game but giving up some of your

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scoring edge to do so and you know I like that trade-off. We're not talking about that today

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necessarily but I do want to mention it. I'll put a link in the show notes if you want to go

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back and review that episode. It was a long time ago but I thought I would talk about five different

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endgame conditions or win conditions that I think are pretty cool and always make me interested

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in again. The first one is the first one I want to talk about is sort of in its strongest mode

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in Cockroach Poker but appears in a number of other modes as well in a slightly less dramatic way

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and this is just one loser. Now in Cockroach Poker there is no winner of the game. If you haven't

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played that game it's a memory game where you're passing it on cards and telling each other the cards

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are this or that and if somebody incorrectly challenges those cards a certain number of times they

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lose the game. When they lose the game that's the game is over one person lost everybody else wins

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and can laugh at them but there are a number of other games where when one person loses enough

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that ends the game and then the winner is the person who has the most points or most money or whatever.

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The example that I'm thinking of lately is That's Not a Hat which if you've played Cockroach Poker

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and then you go play That's Not a Hat you're like oh this is an iteration on this idea. It's a fun one

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and I actually like That's Not a Hat better than Cockroach Poker but they're very similar games

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in a lot of ways but the idea of That's Not a Hat again when somebody loses enough to get a certain

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number of negative points then the game ends and the person the people, the person are people who have

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the fewest negative points win the game. I know that there are other games out there where the game ends

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when somebody loses and then we determine the winner. I can't think of any others off the top of my

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head but I know there are others so I would say that's an interesting win condition to me is like

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the game ends when somebody loses and then we determine a winner or not. All right the second one I

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wanted to point to is: I like end game conditions where it's points but the points come from making

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your own point choices. Now on some minor games the way this will work is something like in like

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Coimbra or Shipyard there will be condition end game scoring conditions that you're aiming for

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and if you achieve those then you get points. If you're playing Shipyard with the variant rule where

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all five instead of getting an individual scoring condition which is more traditional in terms of

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scoring instead there are five on the board and you can aim for one to resolve that feels interesting

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to me you are deciding on your own win condition. A more dramatic version of this is the card game

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Arboretum. Arboretum you're building a display of trees and you score the trees where you have the

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most trees in that number I believe if you have the most trees in a line of anyone else then you get

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to score that kind of tree you also have to have in your hand the highest value card of anyone else

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of that type of tree so like if you want to score an oak tree you have to have a line the biggest

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line of oak trees in your in your park then you also have to have the highest value oak tree in order

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to score those things you need both as I recall it's possible that you just score your line of oak trees

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if you have the highest number but I think you have to have both so there's an interesting element where

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you're trying to hold on to a really high number to screw your opponent out of scoring and that's

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really fun so if you haven't if you haven't tried Arboretum it's worth a try if you remember it is a

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ridiculously mean game so make your own scoring else I said Coimbra because in Coimbra there are a number

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of scoring conditions that you can activate by going around on the board and so you kind of get

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to decide which ones you want to try to score. All right next up I wanted to mention bottom

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loser/top loser and these are games that usually have some sort of win condition that's determined by

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points and so there's not anything really special about that except that you usually also have

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a secondary rule where if you are the bottom loser or the top winner then you don't win because

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you are the bottom loser or the top winner and there are a couple different games I can think of

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like that in High Society if you have spent the most money you lose the game even if you

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even if you have the most points so there's an element of you want to get the most points but you

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don't want to spend the most money because then you're poor and the whole thing of High Society is

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you're not supposed to be poor. Similarly in QE if you spend the most money in that game you also lose

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and then you win if you have the most points after the person who spent the most money is eliminated.

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So both of those games turn on the idea of their auction game so you're trying to decide how much

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to spend but if you spend too much then you lose the game even if you got the most points.

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And then there are games where there's a bottom loser as well sometimes it'll be the person with

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the fewest the lowest score in some secondary track is out the best example of this or my favorite

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example of this is taught in A Study in Emerald. A Study in Emerald is an excellent Martin Wallace

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area control game where players are in one of two teams and you don't know who's on your team

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or not except by their actions and maybe what they say and at the end of the game everyone reveals

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their team and then you look at the scoreboard and whichever player on the board has the lowest score

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everyone on their team is out of the game and then the winner is the person with the highest score

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who wasn't on the team with the person who had the lowest score it's a great and wild

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result that I just I really enjoy so that's bottom loser/top loser as in the side it also strikes me

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one one that I didn't mention that I do find a lot of fun our individual scoring

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individual win conditions where each player has their own thing they're trying to do and the game

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ends if one of them accomplishes it the best example I can think of for that is Nanty-Narking but of

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course ROOT also has that element now in ROOT you know what everybody's win condition is. In Nanty Narking

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you know what all the possible win conditions are but it's secret who has which one so a part of the

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game is trying to figure out who's going for what and not let anybody achieve any of the win

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conditions because they might be going for that one I'll call that an honorable mention no it's not

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one of my five all right so the last one is gonna go back to a mystery I started at the being the

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episode. Pay attention friends that's what's you that's what you call a narrative cohesion. it's going

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back to the idea of the lowest highest point, Now there are two games I want to point to that have

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interesting lowest highest point mechanisms the first is gonna be Tigris and Euphrates although

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this stands in for many Reiner Knizia games that do this and many other games that do the same thing

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which is there are a variety of scoring conditions or ways that you can score different things

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and at the end of the game you look at those categories in whichever category you've scored lowest in

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that's the category that is actually your score so in tigers and your friddies you want to have

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as many points as you can in a lot of things but as I recall the one you scored worst in is the one

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that you score similarly in the game Between Two Cities you have two cities and one of them will

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have one score and one have another whichever score is lower that is the score that you get to

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use as your score for the game so there's an interesting balance there where if your second city

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is the lower score for both you and your opponent then you have a tie and you have to see who do

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better on your better city but I really like that balance because the game forces you to try to

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keep them even, but I think the game if I'm going to point to one game that I think has the most

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interesting win conditions this is the game Lords of Xidit. Now Lords of Xidit is a weird game it is a

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programming game where you are arranging different adventurers and you're going around a map collecting

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different kinds of points and there are three different ways that you can collect points as I recall

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I don't remember the specifics of each one but there are three different ways you can collect

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points you can put points in the wizard towers you can earn points from saving cities and

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there's one other way that you can earn points and all but all three of these different point

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structures you earn different amounts of them from different things you do and you get some flexibility

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into like contributing them or whatever but your goal is to look at them in a variety of ways and the

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game lists has all three metrics in order and what makes the game really interesting is that when you

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get to the end of the game this is randomized which three is it is for second or third when you get

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to the end of the game we examine scoring condition one first whichever of the three forms and

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whomever has the worst score in that category is out of the running for winning the game

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they're out of the game then we go on to category two we look at category two whoever has the worst

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score of the remaining players in category two is out of running for winning the game then we go

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on to category three of the remaining players whoever has the best score wins the game so that one is

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really the lowest highest point what a fascinating score mechanism and boy does it bend your brain

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when you're trying to decide where to put your energy to the point that for some people it ends up

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being really hard to just figure out what you're supposed to be doing because it's so brain-vending

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but it's really fun and I sure enjoy it so loads of zidit coolest scoring mechanism that I can point

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to today so what games did I miss what games would you add what mechanisms would you add for cool

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scoring mechanisms to think about these could be games where you win not having the most points but

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I'd love to know what it is about specific sets of points that makes you think x y or z share your

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thoughts over on board game geek and guild three two six nine and or send me a message wombat929

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is my username there brendan@rattleboxgames.com is my email address I'd love to hear from you

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to know what are your thoughts on these specific elements. well thanks for joining me on my walk today

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so I hope you're next walk is as pleasant as mine was. Bye bye

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(upbeat music)

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(upbeat music)

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- Brought to you by Rattlebox Games

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(upbeat music)

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