Coordination between competitors: good clean fun or dirty cheating?

[bostonquad]

Suppose in a 3+ player strategy game, 2 non-leading players coordinate to put themselves in a better position relative to the overall field. Is this part of the fun, or is it cheating? Or does it depend on the game, or on other factors?

Example suggesting it's ok:
Risk is a classic game where 2 weak players often discuss a temporary alliance to resist a stronger player, giving each of the 2 weaker players a better chance to win the game. My experience is this is accepted by all as part of the strategic nature of the game. (Examples for other games abound)

Example suggesting it's not ok:
Automobiles (here on BGA) is a racing game where sometimes 2 players block another player from advancing far down the racetrack. (This may or may not be intentional.) Recently, pointing out a way to block a player was denounced as collusion and dishonorable.

Can anyone offer guidelines as to when temporary coordination between competitors is considered ok, and when it's not?

[voriki]

It comes down to a lot of personal opinions on what is cheating.

My own opinion is that there are 2 ways to victory.
Either by winning(duh), or by making the opponent not win.

If player A is close to victory, and player B realizes this, he could alert player C of this "hey buddy, if we don't crank up the heat on A, neither of us could win".
But, important, it should all be public information. If there is hidden information(example a card game, and B saw A's cards, he cannot tell C what he saw), it should remain hidden. All information should be acquired through logical reasoning.

And once the threat has been thwarted(being player A), players B and C can continue with normal gameplay.


The opposite is the act of Kingmaking, which is cheating.
This is B and C actively playing together, with an already predetermined endgoal in sight to let one of them win, and that one of them will make himself lose on purpose to let the other win without any sort of tactical advantage.
This is always a tricky part, as it depends from game to game.

In the game of Love Letter for example, one could make himself lose a round on purpose if he was Jestered by a winning player, to make sure the other one cannot get the final winning point and there is still a chance for a next round to keep the game going instead of ending prematurely.

[juff666]

Well... it depends... on a track as montecarlo, closing a door is not cheating

[StephenMcG]

It is entirely table specific. I am pretty against "table talk" where players talk strategy about specific players. I dont mind talking in general about the game being played e.g. "Not many folk going for science this time!" or "Good god - look at how many combat cards Ben has played".

In one game of Manhatten, one of my friends said to another "If you make this move, I will make that one" both of them detrimental to my position. I said "if you do that, my win condition will now be that you do not win and, if I have space, will also counter the second person". They made the moves, I spent the rest of the game playing against both those players, disregarding my place in the game. The fourth player won easily.

I understand I ruined that game for all four of us but it felt really wrong for them to collude to disadvantage me. I would not have minded them making those moves if they had not verbally coordinated them - that is part of the gameplay.

I dont think there are clear lines to draw though - my friends now know I am very much against it and dont do it any more.

[Dennis W]

I'm curious about this. Unspoken thus far is that you can only disagree (or report if Kingmaking) with 'Table Talk' if it's public. There was no reason for those convo's to be public right? As a new player of Space4X I assumed using private chats was how the game was played - like Diplomacy. So I assume Private Chats abound discussing these very schemes in all appropriate games. Since peeps could easily meet up on any other media to discuss - it is not something that can really be policed.

imo - As long as there are 'Private Chats' - weighing an opinion on this is moot. Judge Public Talk harshly and discussions go private and you don't even have a clue about them to prepare for it.

After some play time at Space4X, I've reverted to asking if everyone playing is okay with banning private chats for the game. Felt too cheaty to start a 3-4 player game with an Alliance Partner. While everyone so far has agreed, I'm not a moron I don't do Private Chats, but I assume some still do.

That's what happens when a cool niche thing get popular. Every single new potential Board Gamer we introduce to this wonderful platform is going to come with their own set of ideas concerning honorable gameplay. And many will have no concept of this beyond Ranking being the only thing that matters. This is the age we live in.

I hate it - but I see no viable solution. Except mostly playing with peeps I actually know. Which is sad.

[TheSmolDog]

Sometimes on King of Tokyo I will encourage another player to smack or let another player into tokyo so that I can smack them next turn etc - and I see that happening a lot in that game. Particularly as some people's tactics seem to be never to smack, which really throws the whole game off. I see that type of chat in public messaging as fair, although others have said they don't like it, and yet others have accused me of saying it to gain an individual advantage rather than collaborative advantage - I see trying to manipulate other players for non-collaborative advantage as unfair but for mutual advantage as fair, but I do see how different people will feel differently.

in some games like Forbidden Island collaboration is all but essential.

[Zozoken]

Table talking and coordination will always be a touchy subject. Personally, I think it's a good idea to have general rules of etiquette for the game in question on the rules page of the game. That way, everyone is on the same page.

For example, if you look at the BGA rules for Hearts, you'll see that calling out to the other players at the table that someone is trying to "Shoot the Moon" is a breach of table etiquette. It could very well ruin the chance of that player succeeding and end up with a lot of points instead. There's already a risk involved with shooting the moon, so this kind of table talk is frowned upon.

Another example is Hanabi. In that game, you have to work with limited information and other players are not allowed to tell you what's in your hand, even though they can clearly see it. Certain groups have made little codes or conventions to reveal as much information as possible without saying anything, but almost all groups would agree saying "Player 3, make sure not to play your 2nd card from left" would be cheating and against the spirit of the game.

And then there's the issue of "quarterbacking" which happens sometimes in cooperative games like Pandemic, where one player ends up trying to tell all the other players how to play their turns in order to ensure the highest chance of victory. It feels really unpleasant and adds a lot of pressure to the game, especially as a new player. For it to work in the first place, all the players need to be on the same page and agree to it or else the person doing all the planning and coordinating may as well be playing a solo game.

Kingmaking has already been talked about. Although it can be frustrating to continue playing a game that you know you are going to lose and no chance to forfeit without hurting the game for everyone (for 3+ player games), it's bad form to throw away the game which allows a specific player to win.

So there's a few rules of thumb for table etiquette and players coordinating against the leader. Will coordination ruin another player's turn? Will it change the nature of the game? Or is it like the case of Risk, where naturally the players in a bad position will gang up on the dominating player for the sake of their own survival? I wish there were better ways to know what the proper table etiquette is, but unfortunately it really comes down to the group you're playing with and the nature of the game itself.