Literary theme vs artistic theme in boardgames

To explore the two meanings of theme in boardgames, I would have to take you through literature and music. Bear with me, it’ll come around.

In literature, theme is the central idea of a piece, where the writer can help us examine our world. We can explore topics such as jealousy, corruption, patriotism and courage in a story supported by subject, setting, plot, characters and style. Theme is the reason such works are written, and all else supports that.
Anyone who thinks that the meaning of Moby Dick was about whaling has grasped the subject but missed the theme.

Musical theme is in recurring melodies and style to build mood. So now ‘theme’ means artistic direction. In film, sound and visuals add to the mood and support the elements of character, setting and style. Darth Vader had his own theme music, for example, and in four seconds, without breaking Vader’s stride, we know that an imperial badass has entered the scene.

As well as artistic theme, of course, film has literary theme. Art supports the mood and setting, which supports the story, which supports the literary theme. ‘Theme’ then covers both ends and mean opposite things!

In games, literary theme is a subjective experience, and pretty hard to prescribe, nor would we want to beyond a point. We can lay out the conditions for an experience we want them to have, but it is up to them to have it. In the same game, one player might learn something about the seduction of greed, another about trust and betrayal. The next time they play, they will hopefully have a different experience.

‘Theme’ in boardgames more often refers to the artwork and flavor text, which support the setting, characters and style, and the franchise we just borrowed from, to deepen the emotional response. Artistic theme in games is so pervasive that theme has come to mean any design decision that is not a mechanic.

A broad category indeed! And further confounded when, as I would argue, mechanics does more than artistic theme to support literary theme.

Games offer the rare experience of us being involved in the decisions of a character in that world. Of taking risks without guarantee of the outcome, and of learning something different each time we play. The player is not merely watching characters on screen facing theme-filled dilemmas, but actually having that experience themselves. As soon as we can get the players making meaningful decisions, the richer their theme will be.

How to use theme in boardgames.

In my earlier discussion on theme and plot, I pointed out that in a film, theme was unimportant except to induce plot – being moments of dilemma and decision by a character. And is then discarded. Like a squeezed orange peel. Same goes for games. 

And we can see this in abstract games with no theme at all – Chess, Go, Uno, Cards Against Humanity. The only theme Cards Against Humanity has or needs is a black box with the words ‘Against Humanity’ on it, inviting bad taste and inviting participants to lower their moral expectations of their friends and themselves. Any further instalment of theme would be a hindrance to the plot, which is for the players for decide how to squeeze the maximum of humour from their hand of cards.

Theme is to be kept to a minimum, before it overruns a game. This doesn’t stop first-time designers from overloading with theme. Much of which becomes not theme at all.

If I were designing a game to accurately re-enact some piece of history, and felt compelled to include every detail of that event in the order in which they happen, I no longer have theme, I have nostalgia. Same goes for film tie-ins or childhood activities. These details do nothing but get in the way.

On the other hand, there’s Twilight Struggle.

Rich with detail, every event of the Cold War is included, and every key position represented. If you’re an American history buff, you might experience nostalgia, but each card can be played as a decision, which affects the game, so it becomes plot. These plot cards need not take place in the order they happened in real life, nor affect the territories that it affected in history. They need not happen at all. Global thermonuclear meltdown can happen in the game, which I don’t recall happening in real life.

But that threat – that the world could end in a puff of plutonium – is only possible if the event could happen in the game. It creates tension. At the threat increases, breaths shorten, eyes widen as we feel the impending doom of a very bad day.

Conversely, in Tokaido, I want my character to have a pleasant experience, which can be projected as coming from having completed a mountain landscape painting, or mild disappointment as I missed the last of the sushi, and I cannot eat takoyaki again.
Ah, gakkarida.

THAT is theme. Theme helped us identify why we feel a bit jumpy at this moment, and relieved at another. Theme channels and directs our drama, holds something accountable for our emotions.

These are the experiences we play for, and this I what theme can do. Plot gets them invested and makes them take a path, but theme – the emotions, the experiences – is the juice we were waiting for. It is worth including if you know what theme is. It is not the designer showing off how much research he can do about the topic, it is about welling up and directing the emotions as coming from an element of the game.

Try doing that, Chess!

The Hitchcock dilemma in boardgames.

Often it has been asked of boardgame designers whether they start with mechanic or theme, and there never has been a decisive answer, since it seems that often they don't know themselves which they might have come up with first, and it is not always the same.

Perhaps they were pondering a mechanic, like deck-building or worker placement, when a thematic idea struck them and they knew how the mechanic would fit the theme, or perhaps the other way around. Chances are that many start with both in their heads until something connects with something else.

Some, though, and I am guilty of having done this before, get so wrapped up in the theme, adding in details as they think of them, that they forget about the purpose of a game. It is through this that we get historical reenactments, where any deviation from actual history is either punished or not accounted for in the game. My own was to fit so much cricket information onto two poor, overworked slabs of cardboard that I eventually just went out and played the sport instead.

Perhaps the best answer I have heard about starting with theme is to find out what is fun about a topic - ANY topic - and replicate that experience at the table. And I agree.

But I'm going to go Hitchcockian on you.

Alfred Hitchcock started with a dilemma, somewhere around the end of the first act. He wanted to present an awful choice that the characters must make, then have the audience reel and squirm as they came closer to making it. The spy whose job it is to start a relationship with someone, only to be told to then betray her. What does he do? What would the audience do if they were he? Love triangles, power exchanges, desperate acts, betrayal of duty all abounded in Hitchcock's world.

Theme was not important. Plot was. Plot gets you to the decision. Hitchcock pointed out that theme was a McGuffin - an object that the characters cared a lot about, but the audience didn't, so don't bother explaining too much about it except that it is there.

The whole film, then, became about conveying plot. Presenting only the information necessary to get the audience to understand the elements behind the choice he is about to make, and the rest of the film is the resolution of that decision, with decision upon decision being made after that either to carry out the plan decided upon or to rescue himself from the trouble that that decision has caused. Usually both.

Games, then, should do the same. Start with the decision you would like your players to make. Do you want them to bargain? To trust each other? To betray? To build, attack, liaise or gamble. And we ought to get to this second act as soon as we can, without additional information.

The theme can quite easily be given by the box itself, or the first page of the manual, or as a scenario is read out, but while the theme is fun to help players' imaginations get involved, they will be listening out for plot. What do I need to know to make decisions in this game? So there are 15 turns until sun-up and we have to survive - do we ALL have to survive? Are there enough resources to go around, or are there ways of getting more? What does my character have to do to ensure his own survival? As tiles are laid out, players look for plot-driven opportunities. As cards are gathered along the way, this affects their choice of direction in the game.

Next time you play a game with character cards, read it for how it affects plot, as opposed to theme. Some might merely describe the character's physical appearance, age, height or background, but unless these alter how you will use that character to make decisions later, it is merely theme. Cosmic Encounter is on many people's list of game favourites, and apart from its simplicity, it is largely due to the character cards which alter each player's plot so greatly that everyone is on their own path trying to use their own race's abilities to best advantage. The plot of character against character becomes paramount. The theme of space is merely there to give such a range of races to invent.

We have recently seen the secret character cards and agendas coming back into games. Perhaps the best example of a plot base with theme I have seen is Dead Of Winter.

Dead Of Winter - the theme is on the box and on every piece of artwork, and not much else needs to be said! You are in a frozen town, supplies are running low, you can't move easily, and zombies are barging in. The atmosphere is claustrophobic already!

But now plot comes in. Scenario. What do we all have to do to make it through this? Now I get my secret agenda. What decisions do I have to make to personally win? Now character cards - and already I have a choice which will affect the plot. The characters have abilities useful for the scenario and secret agenda. Once I have chosen, this will also affect the decisions I will make later. Do I choose that which will help the group, or myself? I haven't even started playing yet and the game is playing me!

Is that plot enough? No! Every round there is another plot crisis, every single turn are 'crossroad' cards. Theme, PLOT! Theme, PLOT! Throughout the game I make many, many morally ambiguous decisions, and I can't tell anyone my reasoning because some of it is my secret agenda! I alone own my personal dilemma, much like I were a character in a Hitchcock suspense drama.

Not that all games can nor should be so heavily plot-driven, but it pays to know the difference between plot and theme and, when embarking on an idea for a game, start with the dilemma you want them to have, work backwards from there, and waste no time in getting them there.

Games in development

My third game idea - the others fell into the 'way too complicated' rookie mistake pit.

Goblins' Lair!

YOU are the goblin. Help other goblins find the sneaky-thiefy hero, track him down and eat him!

You might not want all those other goblins to join you, though, so knock them about then head in for the kill.

Some parts Scotland Yard, some parts prisoner's dilemma, other parts gnawing on legs.

Currently in playtest phase.