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I find myself once again at the neighborhood coffee shop seeking a peaceful moment to write my weekly Substack post. But my mind is asking questions like “What if the cost of food goes up?”, “Will I be able to drive my car next year?”, “I could really use a cost-of-living raise.” “What if I lose my job?” “Can I even afford this cup of coffee?”
Economic uncertainty sucks. So, I’ve been doing what I always do when somethings on my mind, I’ve been designing about it.
Anti-capitalist game design
Have you ever noticed how in almost every Euro game there’s an action that just gets you some money? It’s usually not the best move, but it’s never a bad move. And having too much money? It’s never a bad thing. If there’s a player who’s struggling to find a way to expend all their money and resources, they are usually on the path to victory.
Money is good in every game (with the notable and important exception of the Mad Magazine Game), and that’s fine. I’ve got no complaints about acquisition of money as a game element. But, have you ever thought about how many games have hoarding, exploitation, and accumulation of wealth as assumed paths to victory? What if you decided to take a path that didn’t reinforce these assumptions? What if you actively worked against them?
I want to talk about anti-capitalist game design.
You can’t buy happiness, but you can buy victory points
By anti-capitalist game design, I mean game design using mechanics that play contrary to a primarily capitalistic mind set. I don’t mean “game design that’s against capitalism” but, if that’s your jam, I hope you find something useful here.
Tarot-inspired art: the 10 of coins
To help describe what I’m talking about, I’m going to describe some common game mechanics. These mechanics aren’t “bad”. They aren’t “good” either. They’re tools that a designer uses to create the game they want. I play games with all these mechanics and enjoy them when they’re the right choice for the game.
So here goes:
Actions get you money, money is spent on things that improve actions, repeat
Money is victory points or converts into Victory Points at a good exchange
Resource gathering is a zero-sum game
Money lets you buy buildings, cards, tiles, etc. that generate more money
Hoarding is rewarded
Monopolizing a resource, board space, tile, etc. increases returns
Prices for important resources fluctuate, such that some players are winners and others are losers
And so on.
All these mechanics feed into a set of assumptions that I’d classify as being broadly “capitalist”. Lots of games use these mechanics, but aren’t capitalist per se. Others use some of the mechanics, but the victory condition or aim of the game isn’t accumulation of money itself. For example, lots of Euro games are about gaining “prestige” where money is an important aspect of success, but not the only one. And a few use them in ways that can be used to criticize capitalism (John Company and 1830, for example).
That said, certain assumptions about how money work are common in game design.
The game is about something that can’t be purchased, like gaining experiences in Hokaido.
There’s no base currency, but maybe several that interact and flow in different ways, like in Vindication.
Victory points aren’t merely an accumulation, but rather require a balance of multiple factors, like appeal and conservation points in Ark Nova.
Victory isn’t based on points but on achieving some goal or preventing some trigger, like in Pandemic.
Money is a source of victory points, but an inefficient one, like in Concordia
In Hokaido, the game is intrinsically about gathering something that cannot be purchased—experiences.
In Vindication, you play a poor wretch who can only be redeemed by investing in community. Adding companions boosts your abilities. The game also lacks a single base currency and instead has several which tend to cycle in and out of play.
In Ark Nova, there are two types of Victory points, appeal and conservation. Your score is determined by the balance of the two. The more you have of one, the fewer you need of the other.
In Pandemic, like many cooperative games, you’re trying to achieve a collective goal or prevent everyone from losing.
In Concordia, and many similar games, money is exchanged for victory points, but at a typically poor rate, with other sources of points being better. Concordia also features a market or sort, but with static prices that are the same for every player.
Pull all the levers
President Bartlett said of economics that it’s not a matter of finding the right lever to pull, but a matter of pulling on all the levers just a little bit. Game design is the same. Economics is a science of risk, reward, and incentive, and so is game design. And game design has an advantage over economics. Unlike economics, games provide an alternate experience of reality. When we play a game, we’re engaging directly with a system or mechanics that includes incentives and rewards. Economics makes assumptions about incentives (and often gets them wrong), game design allows players to experience incentives directly.
I’m not an economist. When I started writing this article, I tried to come up with a definition of Capitalism. Here’s what I wrote:
You can extract wealth from anything, people included. This sucks if you’re the one of the receiving end, but if you buckle down, find a solid hustle, show up in the right place at the right time you can build up your capital until you become one of the ones on top, and then you can enjoy the fruits of your hard work.
Screw that.
Yes, “screw that” is part of the definition.
But more seriously, diversify your experiences of risk and reward. Write games that encourage weird behavior. Play in ways that cut across what the game seems to want you to do. Or, alternately, double down on the mechanics and exploit them to their fullest. Either way, you’ll learn something.
Next week I’m going to share a design for a game that utilizes some of these ideas. It’s called “Love in the Starbucks Line.” I’m not going to write it, but I think you might enjoy the pitch.
A different take on this is the original Junta. In the game, all money are "foreign aid" from the two (cold war) super powers. And the player who is the current dictator in the junta distributes (as little as possible) to the other players who are generals, admiral and security minister basically to bribe them to not start a rebellion. This is the main use of money in the game: bribing and hoarding more money than the others, as the player who stashes the most money in a Swiss bank account wins. But it is also the root of all evil as it the reason why the military inevitable stages a coup due to greed. So it is kleptocracy and not capitalism at play. A great example of political satire.
Reading this article, Tony, my first thought is about how D&D stacks up against a capitalistic game. I number each point and give it a “Check” or “No check” as it applies, or not, to D&D. In this assessment, I refer to the early editions—up through 1st Ed. AD&D—where gold equates to experience 1 for 1.
1. Actions get you money, money is spent on things that improve actions, repeat
Check: Adventurers often carry money out of the dungeon and spend it on better equipment (but there isn’t much better equipment unless they can buy magic items, which is usually a new school thing), hirelings, and strongholds. While we could argue either way whether strongholds improve actions, there is no doubt that hirelings do so.
2. Money is victory points or converts into Victory Points at a good exchange
Check: One experience point for a gold piece is a decent rate, though it depends on the DM’s generosity or stinginess.
3. Resource gathering is a zero-sum game
No check: Players don’t compete with each other for the gold or any other resource (apart from the occasional magic item). They work together to get more of treasure, which they split (usually evenly) between themselves. The gold is only zero-sum if we count that the party competes with NPCs and monsters for the gold. But NPCs and monsters are part of the scenario, not players.
4. Money lets you buy buildings, cards, tiles, etc. that generate more money
Half check? Unless the adventurers turn to mercantile activities, they generally don’t invest treasure. (Although from First Fantasy Campaign, we glean that Arneson seems to have encouraged “investments” and “hobbies” in pre-D&D Blackmoor.) Treasure does buy a player XP, which increases the character’s power, which enables the acquisition of greater treasures.
5. Hoarding is rewarded
No check: PCs spend their gold or not, but they aren’t rewarded for holding on to it. In fact, because a hoard might be stolen or draw unwanted attention, it can be better to buy rounds at the tavern.
6. Monopolizing a resource, board space, tile, etc. increases returns
No check: I can’t even think of any kind of comparison to D&D. Anybody…?
7. Prices for important resources fluctuate, such that some players are winners and others are losers
No check: Prices for equipment and hirelings might go up if the DM wants to experiment with a more realistic economy (which can happen after a long night drinking whiskey and reading the 1st edition DMG). Even then, though, it’s the same for the whole party.
2.5 checks (depending on how you count it) out of 7 isn’t bad for a game so focused on the almighty gold piece. Later editions that award less XP for treasure may score even lower on the capitalistic scale.
The great thing about any edition of D&D though is that a guy who has no interest whatsoever in economics or socio-politics understands an article on the topic because he was inspired to learn about those things to make his fantasy worlds feel real. Thanks Gary.