In the following posts, I will try to explore what is going on inside a player’s head as they experience board games. I am not a psychologist, nor have I had any type of professional training. I am, however, an keen observer of the human condition as well as an enthusiastic board game designer. I will be drawing on the expertise of psychology experts and behavioral economists, as well as my own experiences and those of other board designers. I will try to explore and define the the behavior of players of tabletop games in a way which can be be helpful to the designing of board games.
Board game mechanics graphics and art are discussed quite often but player behavior generally takes a back seat. How much players enjoyed a game, or how much they were intrigued by the art or mechanics, is about as far as people go when player behavior is brought to the table. It is rare to hear a discussion about the nuts and bolts of player behavior.
Geoffrey Englestein discusses “Loss Aversion” and it’s cousin “The Endowment Effect” in two of his books GameTek and Achievement Relocked. Richard Bartle tried to classify the different types of gamers in his player taxonomy. There have also been a number of books about the Psychology and Neuropsychology of video games. I have yet to find a comprehensive guide, breaking down board game player behavior to it’s basic nuts and bolts. Geoffrey Englestein and Isaac Shalev gave us an encyclopedia of mechanisms in their Building Blocks of Tabletop Design. I am going to try to do something similar with Behavioral Mechanics. (A term I coined…I hope it sticks)
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