The Gospel and Games; or, Games about the Gospel

Alright, so the thing about really great tabletop games is the fact there there are often multiple ways to win, or different paths to victory.  That's why I love the games Dominion and 7 Wonders so much.  For example, in 7 Wonders, am I going to try and win by getting a lot of green cards?  I could, but I could also win by going for blue cards.  Or red cards.  Or stock up on brown and gray cards.  Actually, going for just one of these won't work, so I'll have to figure out which combination I'll have to go for (going for green AND red cards, for example).  The point is, in 7 Wonders there's not just one pathway, not just one strategy that will cause you to win if you take it every time.  The fun of the game is figuring out which of the many strategy to take, and which combinations work best together.

Dominion is the same way: which cards should I buy, and which combinations should I go for?  And it's different every game, because every game will have different cards that can do different things.  The major idea and fun factor behind the game isn't even really playing the cards, it's deciding which strategy and combination you want to go for.

Let me give you a bad example of this, or, in other words, a game where there is no multiple pathways to win.  There's just the one path, and if you don't follow it, you'll lose.  Monopoly.  My sister loves Monopoly, and this Christmas break when I'm back home I fully intend on playing with her.  But Monopoly is a game where in order to win you have to rely on just one strategy.  When you land on an unowned property, you can do one of two things. You can either: (a) buy the property, or (b) not buy it and put the property up for auction.  If you choose (b), you are going to lose. That's not even a choice--you buy the property no matter what when you land on it.  So Monopoly is an example in which one strategy is always better to take than the other.

Now, I've tried making games about the gospel, and about church topics and so forth.  But here's the major dilemma I get when I try this: if I want to make the game spiritually accurate, one path always has to be better than the other.

I had an idea for a game of Life where you have to make choices involving doing what's right or what's wrong, whether you should pay tithing or whether you should keep that 10%.  Here's where the problem comes in: if I want to model the game after real life, then paying tithing will always, always trump not paying it.  You paid your tithing?  Sweet! Here's two blessing tiles, which will improve your score 10 times more than keeping that extra 10% of your income would have.  I get into the Monopoly problem: one strategy is always better than another.  So why would I ever go for the crappy strategy?  Why would I ever not pay the 10% in tithing, getting two blessing tiles, whenever I cross a Payday space?  I wouldn't. That would be stupid.  (A side note here: maybe I should make this game anyway, just so that children could be taught the principle of always paying tithing.)

Another problem I have run into with making games using gospel topics is the idea of rank, that one thing is better than another.  For example: I created a game called The Golden Plates.  I spent months inventing, play testing, and designing it.  Covenant Communications wanted a prototype to see if it was something they'd want to publish. (Which is totally awesome by the way!)  The game made it through the first couple rounds of play testing with them, and I thought for sure that they would end up publishing it.  Unfortunately, however, it hit a snag, as was later reported to me by one of their playtesters. The main concept of the game, you see, revolved around giving suggestions to which plates/records to include in the final version of the Book of Mormon.  Each cards was thus ranked, and the highest ranking one would make it in.  The problem was this: the testers were concerned about the idea of one scripture being more important than another, and that it would teach that some scriptures are just better or more important than others.  Okay, yes, I saw this as well and I agree that it isn't the best thing to teach kids.  Unfortunately, that mechanic was central to the game.  So now what?

Here is the idea that one gospel principle isn't really technically better than another.  (I went to the Temple 5 times, which beats your home teaching 8 times!)  In the gospel context, they're all the same amount of importance. -ish, I mean, in my Plan of Salvation game I have Christ being the most powerful card, because of well, yeah. Let's be real, Christ is better than repentance because without Christ there would be no repentance. Christ is better than resurrection because without Christ there would be no resurrection. He's the center of the entire plan and the most important part. And so I reach another dilemma, because in many if not most games, certain cards ARE going to be more powerful than others. That's just the way it is. In Monopoly even, sure Park Place is more expensive than Tennessee Avenue, to kind of balance out how awesome it is, but if I were to try to trade you my Tennessee Avenue for your Park Place you would say, "Heck no."

A shout out to my brother Eric for doing the artwork on these cards!

There you have it: two main dilemmas that I have come across while trying to make games centered on the gospel and church-related material. Either I have unbalanced and thus not fun strategies (obey the gospel or not? Hmm, I wonder), or else I have one gospel principle being unrealistically better than another (because no matter what my game might say, the Book of Alma is not really better or superior than the Book of Enos). As I continue to make games, maybe I'll figure it out.