Ra: Shoulda Been a Card Game
Posted by Rob Herman at May 4th, 2007
Last time, I promised to talk about why Ra is so popular. But that article is proving difficult to write, and I have this moan here, all ready to go.
Ra is billed as a tile-based board game, but the tiles are, in fact, a major pain. There are 180 of them, which is very unwieldy–and you have to randomize them, and do it well, because like tiles tend to clump together during play and drawing several identical tiles in quick succession would turn the game very weird, very fast. Because every player in turn has to draw a tile, you need to pass the bag or box around the table, and this is more of a drag than it sounds.
In a sane world, Ra would have been a card game. 180 cards is a lot, but there is precedent for it–Bohnanza has a lot, as does Bang. Cards are easier to draw from (a stack in the middle is much nicer than passing a bag of tiles around) and easier and faster to randomize. None of the tiles require any special placement, stacking, or manipulation, and it could all be handled by placing cards on top of each other.
Unfortunately, for some reason, there’s more prestige in a tile-laying board game than in a card game, so we’re stuck with a clunkier–but prettier, and more expensive–mechanic. At least the game is good.
Hmm…You make some good points. The tiles would work fundamentally as cards, and passing the bag around is a pain. However:
1) I don’t know that it would make the game less expensive. IIRC, the MSRP is already $35. I wouldn’t expect a game that “feels” like Ra to cost less without a lot of sacrifices to production quality.
2) I don’t feel that randomizing tiles is much trouble. They are hard to shuffle, but unlike cards, you don’t have to stack them up afterwards, either. Since they’re in a bag, you won’t necessarily draw the tile that is “next to” the last one.
3) Cards would be much bigger than the tiles. (Unless they are so small that they will be hard to shuffle, of coures.) Even assuming that you could put like cards on top of each other, the board and each player’s playing area would have to be a lot bigger. This would be even more unwieldy than passing the bag around.
4) Tiles ARE more fun than cards. I feel that cards are best suited to the times when you either hold them in your hand, or when you need the pieces to be big enough to hold instructions on them. With a game like this, where you put simple, small bits directly on the table, I prefer tiles.
Actually, there was a version of Ra released only in Germany that only uses cards. It’s called Razzia, and sadly drops the Egyptian theme in favor of mafia art. The game plays by the same rules, except that there are no disaster tiles and the numbers of tiles have been adjusted downward to a total of 120 for a more managable deck size and a shorter game. Each round is played until seven Ra tiles (’policeman cards’ in the new theme) have been played.
Overall, the game is said to have the advantages of greater portability and a much speedier game thanks to easier handling of the cards and shorter rounds. However, I think the new theme is unfortunate - it’s no less flimsy than the original, and much less attractive. I’d still be tempted to pick up a copy to have in addition to the Uberplay edition of Ra, but Razzia is extremely difficult to get; Ebay lists no copies, and it’s univerally sold out.
Still, the idea of a quick Ra game is appealing. I’m considering mocking up a 120ish card version, and if it plays well, upping to the full 180 cards. I do think that randomization is a serious problem with Ra, as well as the slowness of passing that damn bag around. It’s often tempting to have one person hold the bag and just have people indicate verbally if they’d like a tile flipped.
Razzia: Sounds neat. While the Egyptian theme is pretty, it feels very, very abstract. Surely the mafia theme will feel bolted-on too, but perhaps a little less so.
Nevin: You bring up some good points. In particular, the tiles do feel nice, and they do seem like they’ll hold up pretty well. (However, I don’t think the increased size of cards would be a problem–you could stack them like, say, enchantments in Magic, with just the top of all but one of the cards of a type showing.)
We tried having one person hold the bag and draw the tiles for everyone, rather than passing the bag around.
While it does speed up the game noticeably, it has two disadvantages. First, it makes it easier to accidentally skip a player, or to have the tile-holder accidentally pull when the active player actually wanted to call the auction. Second, it’s too easy to lose track of who pulled a Ra tile.