GAMES DESCRIPTION: Luck (and perfect information), clarifications.

[Etoclas]

Hi everyone,
let's talk about games descriptions and the components: complexity, strategy, luck, interaction. Let's talk about "luck".

I see that the game 13 Clues (https://boardgamearena.com/gamepanel?game=thirteenclues) has "0 LUCK" component.

Now, for those that don't know the game, in 13 Clues people have to guess 3 cards. I could already stop here and say that this game has, however, LUCK factor. Guessing needs to have hidden information, otherwise it wouldn't be so.

Personally, I consider LUCK strictly connected with PERFECT/HIDDEN INFORMATION.
If you have PERFECT INFORMATION, moves can be classified as bad and good, objectively.
If you have HIDDEN INFORMATION, moves are related with probabilities, that are stricly connected to LUCK and CASUALITY.

So, considering this, I am not trusting what 13 Clues' game description says. The game has luck.

What do you think about it?

Etoclas

[MoiMagnus]

That's probably something you can report as a bug. Other games with "hands" that have no "randomness" except for the starting hand (like French Tarot, etc) have a Luck factor of 2 or 3.

One could argue that Clue has a relatively low Luck factor compared to those games (particularly because all the cards are mostly equivalent to one another), hence a 1 could be argued, and in general I would not put more than 2. But I fully agree that 0 is incorrect.

EDIT: Skull, a game where there are literally 0 randomness outside of the initial player order (all the players have the same starting hand), is rated with LUCK 2 because how the imperfect information and high number of players still make the game unpredictable.

[el cosimo]

13 clues is idd a lot of luck:

Sometimes you can guess without knowing all hidden information and hope you are correct. That is also a kind of luck. You also need to get the luck that people ask questions that help you..

It don’t depend on your own choices alone, so need also a lot of luck.

Sometimes in a game with 6, you can’t even play because player 5 know everything already.

[Etoclas]

Yes, I will report it as a bug.

Thank you both for your answers

[Romain672]

I regulary follow some Trackmania on Twitch, which is a racing car game, and there is often debate between what is luck and what isn't luck.

Trackmania has no 'luck' component: with the same input, you always do the same thing.

Now, if you are one pixel more left, you can either touch slightly a wall or not and so lose lots of speed, or you can if your car is on the sky, completely change the direction of the car.

Furthermore in competition, you can totally be good to do well a certain obstacle 99% of the time, and miss it twice in a row during the 5 races of the competition.
And you can be slightly sick during the competition, or have a call which completely distract you.

And same for how all others are or the 'luck' they have during that competition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vN7ih576VYM .


What I really like about all those things: it's not 'random generation' dependant. You will always do the same thing with the same input.
But I consider all those things as luck.
The one thing I could maybe not consider it is your opponent. That's close, but atm, I still consider it as luck (so yeah chess is a game with some part of luck :p).