Episode 127 AP Table Talk: Follow
AP Table Talk: Follow
Episode Summary
In this episode of AP Table Talk, Brian and Dave Eng discuss the concept of the follow mechanic in board games. They begin by relating the concept to platformer games and how follow mechanics let players perform or adjust actions chosen by others. They review games like Tiny Towns and Puerto Rico, recalling their experiences with these games. They also cover Tiny Epic Galaxies and Glass Road, highlighting how follow mechanics affect gameplay and strategy. They both debate the balance and fairness of follow mechanics, examining their impact on game length and player experience, and consider whether making them mandatory or optional is more effective.
Brian Eng:
Hello and welcome to AP Table Talk, a podcast where we explore board games and what makes them interesting to us. I'm your host, Brian. Joining me as always, my co-host, my cousin, the real life Mario of education, Dr. Dave Eng.
Dave Eng:
Hey, hey.
Brian Eng:
How's it going?
Dave Eng:
It's a me, Dave! Oh, we're back, Bri. We're talking about more board game mechanics.
Brian Eng:
That's right. Well, talking about, not that we talk about video games too much, I just started my kids back onto some video games. They're not great at it because they haven't played a lot, so it's painful to watch. They were playing some Mario, and I've never seen kids die so many times in that first Goomba.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, you know what? I think that learning how to play a platformer was a rite of passage for us, right?
Brian Eng:
Yeah, exactly.
Dave Eng:
Level one, one, world one, one.
Brian Eng:
Yep. They were having fun, so I think that didn't encourage them to try harder, so I just had to leave the room. I couldn't watch them die to that Goomba over and over.
Dave Eng:
They can't watch you fail so many times.
Brian Eng:
Yeah. All right, so today's episode, we are talking about the follow mechanic, right? Okay. We'll start off with our kind of defining that.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, yeah. Normally, Bri, you go first, you provide your personal definition, and I'll jump in and provide the one-off BGG.
Brian Eng:
Okay. What do we mean by the follow mechanic in terms of board games? Well, when I think of the follow mechanic, I think of games where there is some type of action selection mechanic. Once the current player determines that action, the other players have the opportunity to "follow" the action. By that, I mean get a chance to perform the same action, or sometimes a variant of that action.
I think the most common thing is that the current player gets a more powerful version of the action, whereas everyone following gets a lesser powerful version of that action.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, thanks, Brian. I think that I'm going to talk a little bit about that later, because I felt like that was a critical aspect of me trying to define what this mechanic is. If we were going off the description from Board Game Geek, it says, "For the follow mechanic, one player selects an action, other players may perform that action or a modified version of it," so to your point, Brian, "This is closely related to the mechanic's action drafting and role selection, and is often implemented alongside those systems." I think that we will see some examples of that in this episode.
Brian Eng:
Definitely, I can definitely think of action drafting. I'm trying to think of role selection, but I guess when we get there, we can discuss it some more. All right, so we will move on to our examples, and you want to explain our role for initiative?
Dave Eng:
Yeah. If you are listening to AP Table Talk for the very first time, what Brian and I like to do is we both have D20s right now, and we're both going to roll them simultaneously. Wherever rolls the highest is going to take initiative and lead this part of the discussion. Brian, I'm ready to roll when you are.
Brian Eng:
Okay, I'm rolling.
Dave Eng:
Three, two, one, roll.
Brian Eng:
Got a five.
Dave Eng:
I had a two.
Brian Eng:
Okay.
Dave Eng:
You go, Bri.
Brian Eng:
Okay. We're going to start off with the biggest or "most noteworthy?"
Dave Eng:
Yep, yep.
Brian Eng:
Okay. I did something a little different in this one, because I'm suspecting, similar to previous episodes, that we may have a game that is very obvious for both of us in some categories. I do have honorable mentions in my categories. I would say to me, the most noteworthy follow mechanic game would be Puerto Rico. I think that it might, I tried to look into it, but I think it might be the pioneer for the follow mechanic. I'm not sure if I'm correct about that.
Dave Eng:
I don't know if it was the pioneer, but it's definitely one of the biggest ones. One of the most noteworthy.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, I think it's definitely one that at least made the mechanic popular. In Puerto Rico, you are, well, actually, you clued me into the actual theme, but they've re-themed it since then, I guess, what would you call it? Colonizers?
Dave Eng:
Yeah, yeah. There's a really good video that does the tutorial for Puerto Rico by Knights of the Round Table, I think is the name of the YouTube channel, where he just says that at the very beginning, like, "You're picking up these brown tokens."
Brian Eng:
Yeah.
Dave Eng:
These brown tokens are called colonists. They're not colonists, not colonists.
Brian Eng:
We won't get too much into the politics I guess, but more or less, you're colonizing land, you're creating your settlements and picking buildings, and it has, you know what I realize, I mostly am familiar with the two-player variant, where you have seven roll selections or action selections, and I think that changes depending on the player count. Anyways, you take turns, in a round, you take turns picking an action, and the person who picks the action gets, again, a more powerful version or a bonus, and then everyone can follow that.
Then until that round is complete, that action cannot be selected again. That's kind of the gimmick of Puerto Rico. Again, I picked that. I think it was one of the earliest, at least, big games, especially that got popular. I still think it still has a good following. I think that's one of those evergreen type games.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, yeah.
Brian Eng:
Yeah. Puerto Rico was my biggest game choice.
Dave Eng:
Your number one, most notably the biggest? Nice. I anticipated this, Bri, because I was like, "We're definitely going to say Puerto Rico."
Brian Eng:
Yeah, exactly.
Dave Eng:
I'm trying to determine.
Brian Eng:
Okay, I do have another one, but I'm going to let you go first, and then I'll give my honorable mention.
Dave Eng:
Okay. Okay. My number one most noteworthy biggest is actually, I'm going to say Tiny Towns. Have you ever played Tiny Towns?
Brian Eng:
Oh, okay. Yeah. I have played Tiny Towns. I've played it on BGA.
Dave Eng:
Oh, and even know they had Tiny Towns on BGA.
Brian Eng:
I think I did.
Dave Eng:
All right. Well, I'm going to have to go back and play that. Anyway, I like it because it was a big hit with my gaming group. I did not really think about this game as having a follow mechanic, but if you're talking about having a mandatory follow action, then that's what Tiny Towns is. If you've never played it before, Tiny Towns, it's a setup grid, and then there's different colored cubes. Then you, when it's your turn, you announce a colored cube, and they're like represent wood or clay or stone.
Then everyone takes one color, one cube of that color, and then you get to place it anywhere on your board. Then if you can make an outline of a building, you make that building, and those different buildings score you points and stuff. I always call it the bingo mechanic, basically, because you announce something, everyone's got to follow that, and then you may bingo being able to make a building or something.
Brian Eng:
Maybe I'm getting the game confused with a different one. Now, this isn't sounding familiar to me.
Dave Eng:
Oh, okay. You have not played Tiny Towns before?
Brian Eng:
No.
Dave Eng:
Okay. Well, why I think it's most noteworthy is that it appeals to a pretty large audience. It has those anthropomorphized animals again, who are the characters, plays a large crowd, one to six players. It actually has grid coverage in it. If you've listened to other AP Table Talk podcasts before, we covered grid coverage, it's one of our earlier episodes. I like it because it's fun, it's easy engaging.
Part of the reason I think that the follow mechanic is really important for engagement is that there's no downtime, basically. When someone announces the color brick or cube, everyone's got to take it, and you got to put it on your board somewhere. The only bad part is that where you can use the follow mechanics strategically here is if you ever get to a point where your board is completely filled with cubes and you cannot make a building, then you're just eliminated from the game. There's player elimination in Tiny Towns, but...
Brian Eng:
Interesting. Okay.
Dave Eng:
I like the mechanics of it.
Brian Eng:
... High stakes. Yeah, it's kind of high stakes, but I don't know, I've never played. How long is the game, about?
Dave Eng:
Oh, I think it really depends on player count. If you do full six, it's going to be at least an hour, I feel.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, see...
Dave Eng:
It could be less.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, see, I don't mind player elimination, but I prefer it in a shorter game. Like player elimination in COUP, for example, where it's like, what, at most, 15 minutes, that would be a long game of COUP.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, yeah.
Brian Eng:
Player elimination is not a big deal.
Dave Eng:
Well, for this, I think you'd like it, Bri, because you have a lot of agency in where you place the cube. You know what patterns make a building. You're like, "If I place this here, this is the only building I can make. I got to be strategic about it."
Brian Eng:
Gotcha, so you're already committed. Yeah. Yeah, it sounds interesting, actually. I'll have to look into that one.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, it's a good one.
Brian Eng:
I wrote it down on my... I think the beginning, since we began recording this podcast, my want to play list has just grown and grown and grown.
Dave Eng:
Ballooned, right?
Brian Eng:
Yeah.
Dave Eng:
You had an honorable mention, Bri? For the most notable?
Brian Eng:
Again, I did anticipate that Puerto Rico was going to show up here. My honorable mention, which I actually haven't played, but I put it in as my honorable mention because it's big enough that I know about it, and it's talked about a lot, even though my understanding is it's really hard to get a copy, because it's generally out of print, and that is Glory to Rome. Are you familiar with that?
Dave Eng:
I am familiar with it, and someone in our group has it, and I didn't know it was out of print, so now I got to play it.
Brian Eng:
I think they don't do big print runs. I think it's one where people really pay on the secondary market to get a copy. Maybe I'll let you talk about it then, because you're probably more familiar with it than I am.
Dave Eng:
Well, I've never played, that's the thing. Some guy in our group has it, but I haven't played it yet.
Brian Eng:
Yeah. Again, it's similar. I think you're choosing roles that each person can follow. It does use one of our favorite mechanisms, the multi-use cards. I think you're actually playing from a deck different rolls, and that's how you can choose your rolls. The cards themselves tuck into different sides of the board to become structures in how you get the bonuses on the roll. You can make your, I don't remember the names of the actions, but let's say there's a build action.
As you use that action and you build onto a certain part of your board, it makes that action stronger for you. It's a little different in that your bonuses become asymmetrical, I guess.
Dave Eng:
Oh, I see.
Brian Eng:
You can decide which actions become more powerful for you. That's my understanding, having never played the game and just hearing about it a bunch. That's kind of why I put it here, just because I've heard about it so many times. It comes up a lot in when I watch videos and stuff like that, and just talking to other people.
I think that was a big fan favorite, but I can't say that it's bigger than Puerto Rico, because if it was, it wouldn't be out of print all the time.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, unless that's their business model, being out of print, getting on the secondary market.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, that was my honorable mention biggest game.
Dave Eng:
Okay. Should we onto number two now?
Brian Eng:
Sure. The first game that we played, do you want me to continue, or did you want to go on this one?
Dave Eng:
Well, how about since you just went with your honorable mention, I'll start off on number two.
Brian Eng:
Sure, go ahead.
Dave Eng:
For number two, we're talking about our first follow game. This is why I put it here. I put Puerto Rico, because Puerto Rico was the very first game with a follow mechanic we ever played. Instead of rehashing what Puerto Rico is, because Brian, you talked about it before, instead, what I did was I went through my old journal and I read the article, my entry from when we played Puerto Rico.
Brian Eng:
Ah, okay.
Dave Eng:
It was PAX East Boston.
Brian Eng:
Yes, I was going to say, I remember when we played, I was going to ask, is that the first time you played it?
Dave Eng:
It is, it is, yeah.
Brian Eng:
I dreaded that game.
Dave Eng:
You did.
Brian Eng:
You know why?
Dave Eng:
I do know why, and I'm going to go through my bullet points right here.
Brian Eng:
Go ahead.
Dave Eng:
We played at PAX East in Boston, April, 2014, so over 10 years ago now. It didn't make sense to me at the time, because Puerto Rico was a game that you had played a lot with Violet, but this was the original print, and I think that you were playing with the two player variant, which I was not familiar with.
Then we were going to sit down and play it, and then two other dudes were just walking around, and like, "Hey, are you going to play Puerto Rico? Can we play?" Then you with your Canadian sensibilities, you were like, "I'm never going to say no," but you also hated when other people come down and play with us. I remember you being super annoyed.
Brian Eng:
This was one of my, I think it was either my first or second PAX.
Dave Eng:
I think it was your first PAX, actually.
Brian Eng:
It might have been my first. That was one of the things, it's like, okay, so for the audience who doesn't know me, I am a social anti-social person.
Dave Eng:
You're like, "Let's play these board games together, but without other people."
Brian Eng:
I would need to be shoehorned into, yeah, I do things that should be done with as a social activity by myself. I played WOW solo for years. Sorry, go on. Not to interrupt you.
Dave Eng:
No, that was my Puerto Rico memory.
Brian Eng:
Okay, yes.
Dave Eng:
We sat down and you're like, "We're going to play Puerto Rico. This is a game that me and Violet have played a bunch of times." I was like, "Okay, I'm game. I have no idea what's going on." You explained me the rules, and I'm just getting in the board games for the first time. I'm like, "All right, you pick something, then we all get to do it apparently, and then I get to do it, but then that action has become available? I'm still not following you, but I'm going to try to play as best I can."
Then those two other guys sat down, or they wanted to play, and I was like, "I don't know. Brian, you're teaching me this game. You make the decision." You're like, "Well, I'm not going to say no because that would cause conflict. I'm just going to say yes, but grit my teeth the whole time."
Brian Eng:
I didn't have enough PAX experience under my belt, so I felt like I couldn't say no. The whole spirit of the event... and again, it was fine, and part of it being fine was that I won that game. It was okay.
Dave Eng:
Handily too, from what I remember. That was my first. What about you, Bri?
Brian Eng:
Yes. In researching and trying to remember what my first was, I knew Puerto Rico was a contender. I think it was my first as well. I went ahead and picked a different one as my first, because I knew I was going to talk about Puerto Rico already, but I do think Puerto Rico was my first. The next closest, I believe, was Tiny Epic Kingdoms.
Dave Eng:
Oh, yeah, yeah, I'd say so.
Brian Eng:
I'm pretty sure I played Puerto Rico first, but Tiny Epic Kingdoms was early. Actually, I was trying to remember if I played Tiny Epic Galaxies before I played Tiny Epic Kingdoms, but I think I played Kingdoms first, both of which are follow games. I would say Tiny Epic Kingdoms, though, is an example of one where you do use the follow mechanic.
However, I believe everyone just gets the same action. I don't think there's anything special about the action if you're the one who chooses it, if I remember it correctly. It's been a while since I played it, but...
Dave Eng:
I did spend some time writing some notes about both of those games, but Tiny Epic Kingdoms, I am blanking on, because-
Brian Eng:
I'm pretty sure that you-
Dave Eng:
We played it so long ago. Yeah.
Brian Eng:
I'm pretty sure that you just get the same action. The advantage is that you're forcing the opponent to use it at an inopportune time.
Dave Eng:
Oh, yeah.
Brian Eng:
Now, you don't have to use it. I think you can collect resources if you don't want to use the action. If I remember correctly, which I'm 99% sure that everyone gets the same action. Then Tiny Epic Galaxies, which was early there for me as well, those are both of the ones that got me into the Tiny Epic, the Scott Almes games, that one was kind of held up as a Roll for the Galaxy-lite, what people kind of...
Dave Eng:
Well, I don't know, because at the time, I never played Roll for The Galaxy. I only played Tiny Epic Kingdoms.
Brian Eng:
I think as far as explaining it.
Dave Eng:
Oh, you mean like-
Brian Eng:
Right now.
Dave Eng:
... Just a general overview?
Brian Eng:
Yeah. I played Roll for the Galaxy a couple of years later, I think. I think Tiny Epic Galaxies is still my favorite of the Tiny Epic games. Although I will say, I have a backlog of them now, so I haven't played some of the newer ones.
Dave Eng:
Oh, yeah. Yeah, me too. I'm big backlog, not a Tiny Epic backlog, a big backlog.
Brian Eng:
Oh, well, yes, I have a big backlog, but a few of those are Tiny Epic games. Okay, so that covers our first games, played first, follow games played. We'll move on to our favorite follow mechanic games. Would you like to go first, or...
Dave Eng:
Yeah, I guess we'll follow that format because we're trading off. Number three, my favorite, and you had brought this up before, Bri, it's going to be Tiny Epic Galaxies for me, it was the very first, well, not the very first. It was not the very first Tiny Epic game I played. I think that was Tiny Epic Kingdoms that you showed me. Then afterwards, Tiny Epic Galaxies, I think is like, I haven't played all of the Tiny Epic games, but I think is the best out of all of them.
I really liked this, because again, I was looking for games in a small box. I felt that big box games were kind of daunting. I really like the follow mechanic because it provided you something to do with your downtime. I think that's where the follow mechanic really shines, because otherwise, when other people take their turn, you could go do whatever. You don't even really have to pay attention, even though you should in between turns.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, it really keeps you invested-
Dave Eng:
Yeah, exactly.
Brian Eng:
... In what's going on.
Dave Eng:
What I got introduced to the follow mechanic with Tiny Epic Galaxies is that it's strategic in that other games we've talked about so far, you must follow. Whereas with Tiny Epic Galaxies, you may follow, and you can only follow if you have culture, which is a resource to spend that allows you to duplicate someone's action. I would go with Tiny Epic Galaxies as both my favorite Tiny Epic game I played, and also my favorite follow mechanic game.
Brian Eng:
Okay. Yeah, it was definitely on my short list, but I actually think for our follow mechanic episode, it would've been a clean sweep Puerto Rico for me. I think that Puerto Rico just has such staying power for me. I still could play that and really enjoy that game. It might be my favorite, but I will put an asterisk there.
In preparation for this episode, we played a game that I think I liked better than you called New Frontiers. I don't think I'm the first to say it, but it's basically Puerto Rico in space.
Dave Eng:
I think it is, yeah.
Brian Eng:
I like that it has more variation. In Puerto Rico, your upgrades are set. There are the same buildings that you can build every game, whereas there is some randomization in New Frontiers that I think would add some, just kind of switch up the game a little bit, which I liked. I would keep it as an asterisk because I haven't played it enough to really say that it kind of beats out Puerto Rico for me.
It's definitely, even from our couple games that we played, it's a strong contender for me. Because I was trying to just not have Puerto Rico be the only thing we talked about, I did pick another one that is also very close, but doesn't get to the table a lot, and that is Rising Sun.
Dave Eng:
Yep.
Brian Eng:
Have you played Rising Sun?
Dave Eng:
Yeah, I have, but not as many. Well, one, it's a long game, and again, it doesn't get to the table enough. I played at least twice.
Brian Eng:
You kind of need to have a good group, yeah. That is one where I definitely really enjoy the game, but it's hard for me to get it to the table. It's hard for me to say it's my favorite, because I think I've played it three times total, maybe four.
Dave Eng:
It's tough.
Brian Eng:
Rising Sun is another one that...
Dave Eng:
It's an awesome looking game, but it's tough to get to the table.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, yeah. It does do some different things with the follow mechanic as well, but I think I have that elsewhere in my notes here, so we can talk about that later in the episode.
Dave Eng:
Right, right.
Brian Eng:
Okay. I think that concludes our example section.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, so we're going to go into beyond the basics now.
Brian Eng:
Yeah.
Dave Eng:
Like before, we're going to both roll our D20s, and whoever rolls higher is going to lead.
Brian Eng:
Okay. Ready? Three, two, one. I got two.
Dave Eng:
All right. Now, I got 11.
Brian Eng:
Okay.
Dave Eng:
All right, so I'm leading us off. All right, so in this section, we're going to go through each individual different aspects of the mechanic. We're going to start out with the first one, which is integration with theme. We're specifically looking at the questions like, is this flexible enough to fit into different themes, and can it help to create a cohesive and immersive experience?
At least my input here, and I was talking to Brian about this prior to us recording, was that I thought I liked this mechanic more than I did. Part of the reason I thought I liked it more was because I just liked the fact that it addresses a lot of that downtime. When I was looking at this with theme, it seems like there is a few themes that tend to be represented with games that they have the follow mechanics. I can't say that the follow mechanic alone is big on theme, but overall, the follow mechanic is pretty versatile and can be used generically.
I went through the list, Brian, and I had these as three major themes. Space games that have the follow mechanic, Eminent Domain, New Frontiers, that you said before, Roll for the Galaxy, Race for the Galaxy, Terraforming Mars, which has a follow mechanic. Oh, Terraforming Mars: Aries Expedition. That's what the-
Brian Eng:
Oh, okay. I was going to say.
Dave Eng:
... and then Twilight Imperium Fourth Edition has follow mechanic, three historical games, Glass Road, Carnegie, and Glory to Rome. Then fantasy ones-
Brian Eng:
I would put Puerto Rico into...
Dave Eng:
Historical?
Brian Eng:
... Historical as well.
Dave Eng:
Oh, yeah, that's true. Historical, Glass Road, Carnegie, Glory to Rome, and then fantasy, Merchants of the Dark Road, Villages of Valeria, and Tiny Epic Kingdoms. I feel like you could pretty much use the mechanic with any theme. I don't think it's really tied to it. It's generic for me, at best, I would say.
Brian Eng:
Yeah. I agree. I actually don't think that the follow mechanic itself fits any... You can use it with the theme, but I don't see it adding to the theme on its own. The closest that I could come up with was in Rising Sun, actually, what we were just talking about. The way Rising Sun works, it's the same idea. You draw three tiles on your turn, which each have different actions, and you have to pick one from those tiles on your turn.
A big part of Rising Sun is you can ally with one other player in the middle of each round, or sorry, certain tea ceremony times in the game. If you are an ally of the player choosing, you both can take the more powerful version of the action, whereas everyone else takes the more basic version of the action.
Dave Eng:
Yeah.
Brian Eng:
Well, it kind of depends on the action. Some of them don't have it. One of the actions is betray your ally, so the ally doesn't get anything then. That one was the only one that kind of made a little bit of sense as why you would have to follow or why you would get any benefits based on the action of another player from a theme standpoint. Yeah, I agree. It's very generic. Again, I just don't think it actually adds to the theme at all.
Dave Eng:
Yeah.
Brian Eng:
I enjoy it from a mechanic standpoint and from a gameplay standpoint, but I don't actually think it adds to the theme.
Dave Eng:
Okay, I'm glad I wasn't the only one that thought this. All right, so that was integration with theme. You want to lead off the next one, Bri?
Brian Eng:
Sure.
Dave Eng:
Depth and strategic options?
Brian Eng:
Depth and strategic options. In this one, I think that generally, I think that I do enjoy the follow mechanic for what it adds from a strategy and tactical standpoint. I enjoy that you're anticipating the choices of the other players and adapting your strategy to what you think they're going to play. Generally, there are a set number of known actions. That's kind of how it works.
You can kind of look at their game state and say, "Okay, well, they're probably going for this, so they're going to pick one of these actions, which is going to lead me with this," and trying to create your combo or your chain of actions based on anticipating them. I think I like that you have to kind of be agile too, because if they don't do what you anticipated, you're going to have to have an alternate strategy.
Your strategy is also going to depend on, "Well, they probably think I'm going to do this, but I can throw them," you see them preparing for you to do something, so you kind of go a different way.
Dave Eng:
I think that when you think about what you see other players preparing for, I feel like you're examining the game as a two-player scenario. It doesn't always have to be that, I realize, for the follow action, but oh, did you have something else to go, Bri?
Brian Eng:
It's okay, go ahead.
Dave Eng:
Oh, okay.
Brian Eng:
We can go back and forth a little bit.
Dave Eng:
One of the things I was thinking about was that, and we brought it up before, is it a mandatory follow or an optional follow? If it's an optional follow, then do you have to spend some sort of resource in order to make it happen, like with Tiny Epic Galaxies? The strategic part of it, I think, is not only determining if you have to follow, or if you should, or must you follow, or if you should follow.
Then if you follow, if you have the resources to spend it, is, again, looking at the game state, looking at what other players have and their resources, and then trying to mitigate it, or at least take the action that is most beneficial for you or least beneficial for the other player.
Brian Eng:
Right.
Dave Eng:
I see the examples as in Tiny Epic Galaxies, like I said, it's been a culture in order to follow. The other one, though, and we played this on BGA, and I was like, "This is not making sense to me." Then I had a physical copy of Glass Road, so I learned how to play Glass Road in person. I think that one has the best combination of must and... No, it has a must follow in it.
In Glass Road, for those of you who've never played Glass Road before, you're playing as glass makers in the Bavarian woods in the 17th century, and you all select a hand of cards. Then one player is the first player who will play their card. If you have that same card in your hand, which is an action, you have to follow it.
Brian Eng:
You're picking out, what is it, like three actions for that round each out of a set number of 10 actions or something like that.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, yeah.
Brian Eng:
Then if any of your actions match one that the other player played, you both kind of get part of the action, right?
Dave Eng:
Yeah, yeah.
Brian Eng:
Sorry, go ahead.
Dave Eng:
It's like you get to do, you're probably going to do three actions, but you have a hand of five cards. I was talking about this with my group afterwards, whereas if you choose an action that no one else has, you get a super action, because you get to do two things on the card. If you choose an action that someone else has, you get to do half of that action on the card, but at least you still get to do an action.
Otherwise, if you chose three cards that no one else chose, you only get three super actions that round, whereas if you had some follow actions, you could get one super action or a few super actions, and a few half actions. If you're thinking about it from an action economy, which I know we talk about a lot, sometimes it may be good to follow, sometimes it's not good to follow if you need to take a really big, big action. That, I think, is the most strategic part about follow for me, but it's really based on specific games.
Brian Eng:
Right. Just going back to what you were saying about, that you have that option to choose to follow or not, or if you do follow and then not having the resources, if you have to follow, that kind of thing. One other aspect of that that isn't actually specific to the action you're choosing, though, is kind of that risk reward again, of choosing a suboptimal action for yourself, because it will benefit you the most by hurting your opponents.
It doesn't even have to be the action, but just the fact that if they don't have a way to perform that action properly, not only can they not perform it optimally for themselves, but generally, when you, in the, I'm thinking of games like Puerto Rico or Tiny Epic Kingdoms, where those actions can only be chosen once in a round. Now, that action is gone for them for that entire round. If we're thinking of a game like Puerto Rico, there is an action to ship your goods.
If you know that the other player's going to get some goods, but they don't have anything right now, and you may only have like, oh, I only have one corn to ship, which isn't going to get you a lot of points, but it gets you something, so I'm going to pick the ship action, you get the bonus because you chose the action, you get to ship your one corn, the other player doesn't get to ship anything. Then also, they won't be able to ship anything until the round cycles.
Who knows what the situation's going to be at that point? I was thinking of it more in that sense of the action itself as a commodity, almost.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, that's an interesting way to think about it, because that is a true, if you believe in min-max strategy or max-min strategy, you have a very small advantage. The additional, I don't know if you'd call it subjective advantage, is the fact that you prevent your opponent from doing something would be a huge advantage for them.
Brian Eng:
Yeah. Maybe I look at it that way a lot because I do generally play a lot of two player, and it's easier to weigh it out like that into two player. You can still do it with more, but obviously, the more players, the harder it is to then weigh that action for all the other players. Then it becomes less aggressive. I don't like it as much.
Dave Eng:
No, it has to be as aggressive as possible.
Brian Eng:
I would much rather hurt the other person more than get points myself.
Dave Eng:
"I have to win at all costs!" All right, so that was our "Depth and Strategic Options?"
Brian Eng:
Yeah, right. We'll move on to balance and fairness, and you can go ahead and lead us off on this one.
Dave Eng:
All right, so for balance and fairness, we're really looking at if this mechanic gives all players a fair chance to succeed, and is it more based on strategy or luck? Is there any opportunities for players to catch up and for other additional player interaction? If it's an unbalanced mechanic, it can lead to frustrating experiences and discourage players. I can say I think that overall, the follow mechanic really embodies the fact that you can keep players engaged if it's a turn-based game when it's not their turn, because they either have to follow or they can choose to follow.
It could go either way on fairness. It's going to be really, I think, based on the actual game, must follow versus optional. It gives the players a lot of agency to do their part in the choice architecture and decision framework, because it allows them, like you said, Brian, to choose a specific action that'll be a minimal benefit for them, but a maximal loss for someone else. I think you can really play with those different game states and those different games that you're playing.
From a game theory perspective, I think that follow mechanic, especially if it's a must follow, it can be very strategic. I don't know if it's going to be balanced, because I think that's subjected to the game, and if it's fair, I think it's going to be really based on play testing. I think that the two games I cite here is going back to Tiny Towns, I think it's really great for providing good player agency and choice architecture without bogging down the players.
It was a game, Brian, I'm going to cite, that I definitely know you did not cite, because you've never played it before, because it's a game I've designed, called Estate Sale that has the follow mechanic. I was going through it and I was like, "Well, wait a second. That game I designed that Brian's never played, it's got follow mechanic." I won't go through the entire game, but the overall premise is that I was inspired by this by going to an estate sale.
If you've never been to one, it's basically a garage sale for someone that has passed away, and they're basically just trying to sell, they're liquidating everything in the house. In Estate Sale, you are playing a family member that's trying to compete against other families to buy a bunch of stuff in this estate sale, so that you earn the most number of points or money to win. The game only has four actions. I think, it's been a while since I got on the table, it's like buy, auction, dumpster, and move.
Brian Eng:
Okay.
Dave Eng:
When you choose an action, you do that action, you take a main action, everyone else has the option to do a follow action that's less powerful. All the other actions you didn't choose get a random commodity token from the bag.
I designed it that way because I wanted it to be, I felt it was self-balancing, in that you can't always afford to choose the same action, because the benefits from choosing other actions that haven't been chosen in a while are growing. Those are the two games I said.
Brian Eng:
Okay. Yeah, so I thought of this more in the sense of, I just looked at how... I think that, yeah, I agree, the balance definitely depends on the implementation. I just looked at a few games and saw how they tried to deal with balance. If we go back to, I'm going to start with Puerto Rico, because it kind of is similar to what you're talking about, where the actions that are not selected in Puerto Rico in a round, they get a coin on them to incentivize them to be chosen if they haven't been chosen for a long time.
I think it's set up in such a way that the number of actions is there so that the start player rotates. I do feel that there is, in a follow game, especially when you get a more powerful version of the action, there is an advantage to the player who picks first for that round. I think that Puerto Rico does the rotating player, the New Frontiers or Puerto Rico in space that we played, they have an interesting system where you actually, there's an action that moves your turn up in the turn order.
Dave Eng:
Oh, that's what that is.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, I think we never used it in our game, and I'm not sure if it matter, it's probably less impactful in that two player game, but I bet it probably has more value in higher player counts. They handled it that way, where you have to use an action to move your stuff up in the player order. The one game that I can think where there has been debate on the balance of it is back to Rising Sun again. In that game, there is a very limited number of action selections in the entire game.
When you have a higher player count and there's very few action selections, I think that brings up this issue of, is it balanced? When the actions are so important and there's so few to choose from, I think what people argue in that is that if you are first player in certain player counts, you have more turns than the other players. Because the turns are so important, they say that there's an advantage. Now, the player order is set in that based on the clans that you choose. It's not random.
I don't know if that's been balanced, and I can't say enough that I played it enough, that it definitely came up as someone questioned it in the game that we played. My argument, my counter to that is that if you think that a player's going to have more turns and an advantage, then try to ally with that player, because you get the bonus of the action that player chose if you're their ally.
I think because that game relies on negotiation, I think you could mitigate it, but I couldn't say for sure, because I don't think in my lifetime, I will get it to the table enough that I could be an expert on balance for that game.
Dave Eng:
I feel like that needs to be...
Brian Eng:
Sorry, go ahead.
Dave Eng:
That needs to be stated as a caveat in the rule book, like an asterisk and a call out box, and it's like, "Listen, the player that's going to choose the action, they're potentially going to get a lot more action, so it would be-"
Brian Eng:
Maybe you want to be an ally with them.
Dave Eng:
... "Your benefit to ally with."
Brian Eng:
I think they have a little general strategy section in the book, but I generally try to not read those until I play the game a few times.
Dave Eng:
Yeah. I feel like that's kind of a critical thing to know, though. Especially if the allyship is going to radically swing the game in a player's favor..
Brian Eng:
Again, it might not need it maybe because they know which player's going to be first based on the clan. Maybe that's balanced in the clan powers. I'm not sure, because the clans are asymmetric, they have asymmetric powers in that game. Maybe it's balanced in that sense. I don't know, but I know that that is an internet argument for Rising Sun. Okay.
Dave Eng:
Balance and fairness?
Brian Eng:
Yeah, so that was our balance and fairness, we'll move on to player engagement and fun. Is this my turn to lead off?
Dave Eng:
Yeah, you lead off. That's fine.
Brian Eng:
Okay. I think we spoke about this a number of times, but as far as the player engagement, I think this is, depending on how you want to look at it, very, very beneficial to player engagement. I think it keeps you involved, because it's important that you know what is being chosen on other player's turns, plus you will possibly be playing on other people's turns if you're following their action.
I definitely think it's a positive for player engagement. Fun, again, I think comes down to the specific game itself. I generally like the follow mechanic. I can't think of too many games where I think that it detracts from the fun of the game, but I also generally like high player interaction games.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, yeah, nice. For me, I brought this up before with Glass Road because I was interested in playing it. We played on BGA, it didn't really sink in with me. I had to play it in person to really get the appreciation for it.
I think the most interesting and fun moment for me, like we said before we were discussing Glass Road is about those action selection with the cards, and it was a lot of like, "All right, I'm going to choose these five cards because three of these cards, I don't think anyone else is going to play, so those are going to be my big actions, but these other two players I think are ripe for using it, so I want to try to use that."
You also have to determine what order you're going to play them in, because sometimes if a player plays it and you don't have that card in your hand, you may not follow. It was an interesting decision space, and I also think what made it fun for me, because I'm like, "Okay, this is like, if everything was my way, I would play these five cards in this specific order, in order to do this, to win the game." I think that was one of the most fun moments.
I'm going back to my earlier statement about I think the big decision if you're the designer here is are you going to have a mandatory follow, or it's it going to be an optional follow? If it's an optional follow, do you have to spend any resources to do so? A game I'm going to cite here, and I know, Bri, you talked about New Frontiers, which was the first or one of the space follow games we played on BGA.
Brian Eng:
Yes.
Dave Eng:
The other one that I actually liked better was Eminent Domain, because-
Brian Eng:
Eminent Domain, yeah. That was interesting.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, it's a combination of deck building and with the follow action, which we covered deck building in our last episode. I think that Eminent Domain seems to be in the most flexible game we played so far where this has been the case, and the game still hasn't sunk in with me because I think we played twice and I lost twice.
Basically, when you are the first player, you choose an action to lead, and then you do that action, and then you choose a secondary action, and then you can boost that secondary action with cards in your hand, and then other players have the option to follow you also using cards in their hand. Did I summarize that correctly, Brian?
Brian Eng:
Yeah, they call the secondary one, first, you choose an action, then you choose a role, and you can boost the role with your cards.
Dave Eng:
Yeah. I thought that was really cool because depending on my hand, I'm like, "Okay, I definitely need to survey, but I can do a really big attack, because I have all these other attack cards in my hand. I could boost it with all these other attack cards." I thought that was a cool decision structure, at least for me.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, that one definitely has promise to me. I feel like it was a disservice for me to play it the way we generally play turn-based. I feel like I want to play that one in real time. I think the pacing will be better, and just because it has that deck builder portion, I feel like I need to be playing it in real time and to kind of pay attention to everything that's going on.
I still enjoyed it, and it was definitely interesting to me too. That one had been recommended to me before, a few times for a while. I think it's an older game.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, yeah, I think so.
Brian Eng:
It's definitely been around, but yeah, I enjoyed that one.
Dave Eng:
Oh, yeah, it's from 2011.
Brian Eng:
Yeah. Yeah, that's definitely-
Dave Eng:
Considered ancient, I would say.
Brian Eng:
In the board game space for sure.
Dave Eng:
How about you, Bri? Player Engagement and Fun?
Brian Eng:
Yeah, I started us off on that one, so...
Dave Eng:
Oh, you did.
Brian Eng:
We'll move. Yeah. Yeah. We'll move to variety and replayability?
Dave Eng:
Okay. All right.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, you can start us on this one.
Dave Eng:
Okay. For this one, we're looking if it has enough depth and variability to keep players coming back for more, and then trying to determine the mechanic scales with different player counts. For me, I think that the follow mechanic can offer some really great depth and variety. I talked a little bit about that with Glass Road, so that is something that I think would make the game very replayable.
I think that I would like to see if there could be tied to a smaller subset of actions, and I think that the way it works right now is just with a wide set of basic actions. I think there are going to be some exceptions, but for the most part, the games we played are pretty wide, standard actions. I think that the heaviest follow game that we played is on BGA, and it's Carnegie, and that game just finished. I had a tough time learning that game.
I couldn't find any good videos that really jive with me, and I ended up reading the PDF rulebook, but over the course of several days I just read a section, put it down, read another section. That did not help with my comprehension. Then I just launched into the game on BGA and I'm like, "Okay, I generally feel like I know what's happening here, but we'll play and see what goes on." I haven't picked it up since, but I would think that, and Bri, let me know what you think, I think that was the heaviest follow game we tested.
Brian Eng:
I think that's definitely the heaviest one we played. I'm kind of in the same boat. I feel like I was having trouble learning it by watching, and then I think you had started the invite off, and so it got to the point where I'm just like, "You know what? I think I know enough to get started. I'm just going to start playing the game," but because I didn't really fully understand, I was playing, but I didn't look at how you score points or anything like that.
I knew the actions to do, I knew the mechanics of playing the game, but there was a lot of moving parts in that game, and I didn't really fully understand how they interacted. Again, I think it suffered, at least from a learning standpoint of playing by mail, how we play it turn-based like that. When it's heavier like that, I feel like I need to be sitting there and watching everything happen, especially when the other player's playing too.
Dave Eng:
I agree. I agree.
Brian Eng:
That was definitely the heaviest one. I do think the space, the follow mechanic, because you can, it is a very open, because it's not tied to a theme or anything like that, as we said, where it may be a detriment in that sense. I think that leaves it open to giving it a lot of chance for variety, because you can kind of fit it with anything. You can fit it with any actions, and just the sense of changing that action order that it happens in is really going to give you a lot of variety and replayability in the game.
If we look at, again, one of the older, possibly oldest is Puerto Rico, which has a set actions, it has set buildings, there is a little bit of randomization, but the games, I've been playing that one, although I think there is one small expansion that I don't own, but we never got tired of it, because it just, the outcome is different, just because you're going to pick those actions at a slightly different order. I think that alone gives you a lot of variety and replayability.
Dave Eng:
Nice. Cool. Should we go on to the next one, Brian?
Brian Eng:
Okay, innovation and originality. Does it offer something new and interesting? Yes, I do think that it has shown a lot of innovation. We just talked about Eminent Domain, which is like a deck builder and a follow mechanic mixed together. I spoke about Rising Sun a bunch of times, which adds that ally mechanic into it. We have different variance on how, you're mixing it in with different ways to choose actions as well, so there's the drafting, whether it be drafting from an open pool, or drafting from your cards, or whatnot.
I think there's plenty of ways that you can implement the follow mechanic or add it to other, I know you talk a lot about meshing one mechanic and finding another mechanic that it's never been mixed with, and an interesting way to do that. I think that the follow mechanic is one that is ripe to be meshed with many other things that may not have been tried yet, or found a way to make it interesting yet.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, you're right. I do look for ways to mesh that mechanic with something new. We talked about this before, I kind of disagree with you, I don't think that the follow mechanic offers a lot of innovation, and I guess just new offerings for me. You talked about it with theme, which is that I don't think the theme is really influenced by follow.
You could pretty much throw the follow mechanic on any game, save for any games that I think have just a long play time. Again, if it's like, you decide to include a follow mechanic and make it mandatory, that means for a four player game, each "turn" has four actions to resolve, as opposed to just one, the live player's action. If you have a follow, then you do it, and then everyone else that's playing the game has to do it.
If you're already playing or designing a really long game, I think having the follow mechanic would just make that long game even longer.
Brian Eng:
Of course. It could speed it up because people are doing their... They're getting a lot more done in round, because instead of having one action per round, you have however many players' actions in a round, depending on how that's set up. You would design it in such a way... Maybe when I say that it offers a lot of innovation, the thing is it's hard to separate the follow mechanic from action selection and action drafting because it kind of goes together, because you're following actions.
In some way, there has to be an action to follow. It's hard to separate that. If I package that together and think of joining all of that together with other mechanics, maybe that's what I'm thinking of.
Dave Eng:
Yeah. I think that it didn't work for my Estate Sale game because the follow mechanic only makes it so that there's just more things to do. It doesn't actually speed up the game, it just makes it so that you may be able to score more points.
Brian Eng:
Right.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, I think that it's, trying to think of a cooking reference here. I feel like the follow mechanic is just kind of like the salt for cooking. You could use some, you could use a lot.
Brian Eng:
Using what you just said, and I haven't played your estate game sale, but I assume your estate game, does it just go by number of rounds?
Dave Eng:
No, this is, it's triggered by the depletion of a certain resource. At least that's how it's designed right now, for depletion of a certain resource.
Brian Eng:
I think if the goal is building, so in Puerto Rico, you're filling up your tableau with buildings, and by having a follow, you're getting more done in a round. I actually think it pushes you towards end game faster than if you didn't have it.
That's the way I say, you're getting more done in a round. Yes, the rounds take longer, but whether that balances out one way or the other, again, that comes down to the design in my opinion.
Dave Eng:
Right, right. Well, when you play this game, Bri, you can give me the feedback, because right now, it's way too long.
Brian Eng:
Gotcha.
Dave Eng:
That's always one of the pieces of feedback.
Brian Eng:
Right.
Dave Eng:
All right.
Brian Eng:
Okay. Okay, so that finishes off our beyond the basics, and we move on to the bonus round. We were discussing before we started recording the episode, that I was kind of scrounging together to fill in my topics and stuff. I don't have a lot for the bonus round. If you've got anything, you can lead us off here.
Dave Eng:
All right. I wrote down some key points out. One of them was, I was talking to my group about this episode recording. I told them I was researching the follow mechanic for this one episode, and then one player in the group immediately said, "Oh, you mean like following suit, like in trick taking?" I'm like, "No."
Then I was thinking about it some more and I'm like, "Is following suit and trick taking the same as a follow mechanic?" I said no, because I think the action is the trick, unless the trick is like connect, or the card you play is connected to a specific...
Brian Eng:
I think that the action is playing the card.
Dave Eng:
Action is playing the card.
Brian Eng:
Which is mandatory, everybody has to do that, so you're not following. That's the only action.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, I guess, yeah. I did not say it as eloquently as that, but I was like, "No, that's trick taking. We're playing a different, we're testing a different mechanic here."
Brian Eng:
Yeah, I can't come up with a better descriptor for the follow mechanic, but I can understand how that would be confusing.
Dave Eng:
Yeah, that's true. Well, my group has also been playing a lot of trick taking games, so that's why I guess they had a disambiguation. The other point I had was that, talked about Tiny Towns before, with the bingo aspect, I call the mechanic in that game. Has the mass market appeal that way. For me, I'm really breaking down follow into two different types. It's going to be the mandatory follow, the optional follow, and then I think your game is based on how you structure the follow mechanic.
I think overall, and Bri, you said this specifically with Puerto Rico, I think the follow action can have an outsized impact on the game, really depending on the number of players. If it moves the game state faster to the end, based on you being able to follow and moving the game along, and then it could speed up an otherwise slow game. Then I think that the overall, if I had to pick one shining star of the follow mechanic, it's the fact that for turn-based games, it gives players whose turn it's not something to do. I think that's one of the most valuable aspects for it.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, I agree. I think we talked about that in the player engagement section is I think that's the thing I enjoy about it is that it helps with that, eliminating that downtime in between turns. Especially if you have players that are more prone to AP, you can spend that time strategizing a bit more, because your turn is not empty, or your time is not empty during another player's turn.
Dave Eng:
Yeah. Yeah.
Brian Eng:
Okay. Well, did you have anything else for bonus round?
Dave Eng:
No, that's it. I said my piece.
Brian Eng:
Yeah, I don't really have anything there. I guess that wraps up our follow episode of AP Table Talk. If you'd like to hear more content like this, please be sure to subscribe. You can also check out more of our content, projects, and other information about us at www.universityxp.com
Dave Eng:
Thanks for joining us. We'd love it if you took some time to rate the show. We live to lift others with learning. If you found this episode useful, consider sharing it with someone who could also benefit. Until next time, game on.
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Cite this Episode :
Eng, D. & Eng, B. (Hosts). (2024, December 22). AP Table Talk: Follow. (No. 127) [Video]. Experience Points. University XP. https://www.universityxp.com/video/127
Internal Ref: UXPJ8QQUDNPS