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Paul DeStefano
United States
Long Island
New York
It's a Zendrum. www.zendrum.com
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The blank tiles in Scrabble have a distinct in game purpose. They morph. You pay the penalty of not scoring anything for that tile, but it opens up the possibility of words that you simply could not have made without that blank. Most notably, my dog's name, Fizzgig.
With various changes in the economic world impacting every industry, it would seem that the multi-tasking generic game piece is on the rise.
Making the mold for a miniature, and indeed the work of the original sculptor is fairly expensive. So for years we have seen games scale on cost by having the footsoldier/captain/general be the same sculpt, but with some variation in paint. Or a minor variation to the sculpt like a dagger becoming a sword.
For gameplay purposes, it makes no difference. Thematically, for the feel of the game, there seems to be a bit of an impact.
Collecty type miniatures games like MageKnight and all that it spawned also held to the literal model of singular sculpts representing multiple grades of the character. It is simply more efficient.
Again, the clear negative being that the same piece get's used, and let's face it, that can get boring.
Or...
Like the Scrabble blank, perhaps it can be used to allow a game to be expandable for a much more affordable price. Or allow higher quality components by including fewer differing items.
There's a few clear examples of publishers giving more gameplay with less variety of pieces right about now.
The wonderful CoOp Fantasy war romp Defenders of the Realm uses what at first appear to be annoyingly similar little monkish pawn things to represent the vast hordes of minions flooding the land. Going back some thirty years, Wizard's Quest gave you a mighty fistful of tiny generic "orc" markers that were simply teeth and eyes to simulate the attacking hordes. Defenders has variations to the attackers, and so the Orcs and Demons both look like little dudes in robes.
Are those actually orcs and demons, or are they just followers of that faction? It doesn't really matter. The game could have had little orc chits and chipboard bits for demons and dragonkin, but instead recycles the scult numerous times in various colors.
Upon opening the box, sure, it feels like a bit of a disappointment. But in play, it really doesn't matter, you just start seeing the colors, which is all that matters.
Then comes the Dragon expansion, which I don't have yet. But still, it introduces new minions that ravage the countryside. And it does so in a remarkably simplistic and efficient manner.
Each color minion is simply a different type of enemy now. Now, had the base game had differing sculpts by army, the expansion would have to as well, and either the expansion would cost even more than it presently does or it would not give us those minion rules. Had the base game given unique cardboard chits, still, new chits would have to be made for each expansion minion type.
So there's the crux of the issue. Cooler to have different cardboard bits for each army or multitasking miniatures.
The game is epic in scale and sense. The tiny minion figures are cool. Yes, traditional wargames would have no problems with the chits at all, but this is a more colorful and thematic due to the little crowds of guys on he board, and more likely to sell to a non-wargame audience. In time, if more expansions introduce more races, the re-purposed minis become even more cost efficient.
Looking at some otehr recent and upcoming titles, the new deck building but with dice game Quarriors! indeed comes with a bucket of dice. 130 or so. Custom cut dice are not cheap. To minimize the expense but maximize the play value, just exactly what the dice are in a given game are determined by cards. So while this die over here may be Dragon X type this game, next time we play it may be Dragon Y type.
This reduces the number of actual dice needed for such a huge variety drastically. This is a blessing and a curse. As any reasonably addicted gamer will tell you, you never have as many dice as you want. On the other hand, do we really need another Plano box to sort all the dice. Well, yeah, sure, but that's not the point. We're agreeing as players with the industry to recognize the manufacturing costs associated with variation and accepting compromises.
Sometimes, the compromise might be more for the sake of speeding play rather than just money. Let's now look over at the hotly anticipatedThe Lord of the Rings: The Card Game. Characters generate this generic substance - "resource". Different characters generate different resources. Some generate Tactics, some Lore, some Spirit and so on based on their 'sphere of influence'. Yet FFG, a company reknowned for piling on more bits than many shelves can tolerate, cuts back here. Rather than supply a pile of tokens for each resource type, you get a pile of generic 'resource tokens'. Yes, it reduces the game price by not having to include another few sheets of cardboard. But in all truth, who really wants to start shuffling through token baggies in the middle of the game for the right token when a generic one will do?
There's a balance here that must be struck between the consumer and the marketplace. How much cool uniqueness do you want in component vs how much replayability. For the same dollar, do you want more scenarios with shared components, or more unique components?
In the end, different companies and different players will take different sides.
That's what I see going on now in component multipurposing. What have you observed?
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