Changing Rules & The Promise of Fluxx
Posted by Rob Herman at June 25th, 2006
I was still in high school when I first heard about Fluxx. (Yeah, that makes me feel old.) The promise seemed wonderful: All the rules are on the cards! Many of the cards you can play cards change the rules! There are cards like “War” and “Love” and “Time!” How sweet is that?
Unfortunately, the game ended up being disappointing to me. There are only about 4 types of rule changes, most of them pretty mundane (Play X, Draw X, Hand Limit X, Keeper Limit X). The Keepers have sweet, evocative names, but don’t actually do anything. Worst of all, Goals don’t really stay in place long enough that you can work towards them, so winning the game is largely a matter of lucking into drawing the right Goal at a time you can exploit it. The various Play X, for large X, and Keeper Limit and Hand Limit keep you from strategically holding anything back.
The “rules constantly change” idea, of course, is fantastically hard to successfully execute. I have a game sitting on my development shelf now, Satori, which I believe fulfills most of the promise of Fluxx, but had to abandon the changing rules entirely. (Satori is an article, or series, for another time.) I don’t think any other commercial game does any better. Apparently even programmers find “Programmer’s Nightmare” to be a nightmare indeed, and nobody else thinks it’s even worth the time.
On the other hand, the Discordian-esque parlor games Nomic and 1,000 Blank White Cards both look like they would be pretty sweet with the right group. (And more here).
I have an extensive set of 1,000 Blank White Cards…cards that I’ve collected from getting (making) people play with me. It’s one of those games where people never think they’re going to be creative enough to think up things to put on their initial cards but it always ends up being insanely fun.
I played Fluxx for the first time about a month ago. It was okay.
Fluxx is the luck of the draw, however, I have yet to see a non-collectable card game that is rich in strategy, due to the limited amount of cards. That is not to say that it is completely deviod of it. There are timing strategies than can be made with the way rules go into effect, but it requires a certain collection of cards, and it doesn’t necessarily amount to winning the game itself. There are a few combos (at least, in Fluxx 2.0) that really just allow you to establish a good base and screw your friends; there are little tricks you can use to let you slap down all your keepers, play all your worthwhile action cards, then trade your empty, worthless hand for another players and do it again. When you’re done, slap down a Hand: 0 and a Draw: 1 and watch as everyone dumps their hand to the floor. This can, at very least, put the odds in your favor as players are forced to play whatever card they draw, possibly including a goal that matches with the insane amount of keepers just played. But still, it is agreed that luck is really the base factor here. The amount of cards needed to do something like that is staggering, and only occurs once a blue moon. Chrononauts, I feel, could be an fantastic game, but you can’t even get the card base you need to do anything remotely strategic. Only one card drawn and one card played each turn makes for a slow game. If you could combine the two, I think maybe you’d be getting somewhere. Two (!) permanent goals, changing rules, varying amounts of cards drawn and played, and as a bonus, you’re (kind of) learning about history! In the end, just remember that Looney Labs is run by hippies, their imagination probably supercedes their strategy.
Wow, I really want to play 1000 blank white cards now. That looks like a riot.
I’ve been led to that page many times, but I never really had “the group” to play it with.
http://www.plaincards.com/Shop/shopdisplayproducts.asp?id=43&cat=Coated+Blank+Cards+%2D+Both+Sides+Blank
I say we place an order, buy some fine-tipped Sharpies, and get this hoss rolling.
Since it seems like there’s a lot of interest in it, after work today, I’ll put up a front page article and try to convoke a 1KBYC group.