Races & Brawls (GDJ 3)

"Man Writing" by Oliver Ray

I've lost some momentum in game design and thinking through its major components; let's make up some ground.  Today's post looks at the two main types of games.  I start with the hypothesis:

All games can be considered races or brawls.*

A race is about being first in a group to complete a challenge.  That challenge could be amassing a certain number of points, traveling a specified distance, building a civilization, etc.  In each case, a group of people are engaged in the same activity, using shared or separate resources to complete their goals.  Think "speed."

A brawl, on the other hand, is about eliminating competition- being the last man standing.  Think "strength."

These definitions are simplistic, but you see the difference in focus.  Incidentally, most so-called "eurogames" are races, where efficiency is rewarded, and many "American games" are brawls, focused on hurting your opponent.**
Some examples:

Brawl	Race
Bang! The Dice Game	Clank!
Chess	Ethnos
Magic: The Gathering	Isle of Skye
Risk	Pandemic
Star Wars Miniatures	Ticket to Ride

Of course, games can have both- Isle of Skye is a race (most points wins) with brawl elements (you can affect your opponents in negative ways), and Magic the Gathering is a brawl (get your opponent to zero life) with race elements (before he does it to you)- but generally speaking, games fall into one or the other category.

Thinking of games at this level helps the game designer.  What do I want to make?  A race or a brawl?  Both are fun, and both have challenges.  Races need a well-defined end state ("first to 10 points," "most points after five rounds," etc.), and the game play changes considerably based on that.  Most people are in races until the end, and even if they know they can't win, will want to do as well as possible.  In multiplayer brawls, on the other hand, some (or many) players are knocked out early and may have to wait a long time until the game ends.  There can be more political factors in brawls, like ganging up on the leader, which changes how people play the game ("I'll lay low early on so nobody targets me").  There are pros and cons in either type of game, but the designer must be cognizant of them.


*I'm indebted to Richard Garfield and others for these concepts and terms, as presented in his excellent Characteristics of Games (review forthcoming).

**There are interesting cultural insights here.