Of course, the game might legitimately be a bad game, but the story you got caught up in was much worse.

So then youвЂ™d rush your move just to make up for the foot-dragging, and you ended up losing badly. ItвЂ™s easy to walk away from a game feeling cranky about the game when what youвЂ™re really cranky about is the player to your right who would spend twenty minutes on a move and then make a play just when you were going to get up to get another drink. Keep in mind, though, that how youВ experience the second level of narrative, the board level, can be profoundly influenced by the above the board level. Not your usual story?ДЄt least, not a good story to be a part of at the moment, but a great story to tell later. And then he complains when one of his units gets taken outвЂ¦ Not a good story. Memoir 44 might be entirely ruined for you by the guy making shooting noises every time he fires at your position. When weвЂ™re up to this level, our experience of the second level can be deeply changed. Remember, though, that we can-and sometimes need to-keep the second and third levels separate. Those are stories that have nothing to do with game design, but they certainly influence play and how the game unfolds that particular time. Who sits down at the table? This might be the evening when your friend of ten years slaps the board from the table, or someone turns to their spouse and says that they canвЂ™t keep living under the same roof. And maybe a victory in the process.ДЄnd then thereвЂ™s one more level of story, one that hardly involves the game at all: What story takes place among the players? This story is part of the meta-game, as some people refer to the time and space above the board and outside of the rules. Deeply strategic decisions-or even meaningful tactical ones-let players build a satisfying story. Candyland, Sorry!, and Fluxx (among others) have their detractors because the story is outside of the playerвЂ™s control.

Randomness and luck work pretty strongly against coherent storytelling. And you hope the story is different for good and compelling reasons. And itвЂ™s this story that will be different every time. How did the story work, now that weвЂ™ve experienced it? Did the intersection of rules and story work? Someone might find the rules intriguing, someone else might find the completed story compelling. This second level of story is where most of us decide whether or not we like the game. The game wants to tell a story, but the story of each playing extends-or changes, or subverts-the story thatвЂ™s built into the game. ItвЂ™s the story of the blue monkey opening the most cages, or the story of how my group of explorers picked up the most loot on the island. As the game is played, the story unfolds. This story relates closely to the story the game wants to tell, but now thereвЂ™s a bit of separation. Once youвЂ™ve got the gang settled around the table and the pieces are out, you start a different story, though. We look at the story, at the rules, and weвЂ™re either interested in playing-to some degree or other-or weвЂ™re not. With this level of story, however, the game exists as an abstraction. I might not like managing resources in medieval Europe or the Industrial Age, but if weвЂ™re mining ore around Saturn, well, thatвЂ™s a game I could play. The story the game is telling influences design and marketing choices. Humans tend to like stories a whole lot more than they like arbitrary decision trees and operations (though we do seem to like those, too, or we wouldnвЂ™t have been gaming for as long as we have), so even a thin veneer of story helps to engage players. The game has a story it wants to tell.ДЇrequently, that story is the theme, and when we talk about how well the theme is implemented weвЂ™re talking about how well the storyline syncs up with the rules. You control this army as it moves across the checkered field to engage the other army. YouвЂ™re all epidemiologists trying to stop multiple global disease outbreaks. I ask that question because I know-as a game reviewer and game explainer (IвЂ™m the guy hosting the game day, so IвЂ™d better be prepared)-that the first step to getting people interested in a game is to describe the gameвЂ™s narrative frame. But the question I have here is this: whatвЂ™s the story? Take a set of rules, the board and bits, set them up, have your gaming gang stop by, and you have what you need for a damn fine evening.

Life just doesnвЂ™t get any better, does it? Unless you add beer. Pop the pieces out of their frames, sort them by color and use, and settle down for a serious read with a new rule book.

You slip a sharp blade between the box and lid to cut the shrinkwrap, pull the thin plastic off, open the box, and breathe deeply of the aromatic inks and glue.

1001 nights games