I have heard Cole Wehrle talk about the idea of “play” here and there recently. I went to try and find his references to this idea but came up short so if someone knows where to find this, feel free to link it. I am in no way a professional or a philosopher here, I’m just a gal who likes to play board games and muse. At the risk of sounding melodramatic, I think there is some intersection between board games and philosophy. I think it converges at the idea of “play”. The definition feels somewhat elusive but we know what it is when we think about it. It varies from kids playing pretend, to adults playing sports, and even to the sexual realm (don’t worry, I’m not about to make this Freudian).
When it comes down to it, play is freedom. Well, now we have to define freedom. Such an easy task. Bear with me on this, I swear I won’t drag you down this wall of text without any payoff (whether it’s gold or fool’s gold, we’ll find out together). Let’s simplify it and just ask, “What is freedom in the context of board games?” You can’t just sit down at the table and start freely making your own rules. There’s a framework that we engage in. We use an accepted set of rules as our jumping-off point and then see what happens, more or less. If the goal is to win, we must be disciplined and follow the rules to achieve that end. Here’s why I love what Cole does. There are many games out there with really complicated mechanics and procedural steps you take to “do” the board game. In Arcs, you are provided with a simple set of rules to operate from and then told to dive in. Do whatever you can possibly come up with. Yes, your opponent can use that card in an insane way that almost seems like it breaks the game. But guess what? There’s like 15 other cards in that deck that do something similar if you can figure it out too. These games let your creative juices flow. Your interactions are not written in the stars. By design, this wide action space is allowed to happen.
It feels silly at first blush, but there’s definitely a biological platform for play, in mammals at least. It’s a developmental necessity. Kids are constantly playing in order to learn and you can see just about any baby animal do the same. We are all familiar with the idea of “playing fair”, certainly. It’s how we interact socially, in some sense. That’s why cheating feels so bad and even offensive. What a shame we could not sit in each other’s presence and engage honestly in a fun, lighthearted moment. As Bob Dylan says, “Freedom just around the corner for you but with truth so far off, what good will it do?” But play is a bigger part of life than only when we were kids. In fact, I think it’s absolutely vital we engage in play as adults. And I don’t think we do it enough. I don’t mean play at the expense of responsibility or as a form of escapism. But through play, we find a way to keep our minds creative. We find boundaries here. It helps us experiment with ways to look for opportunity in the world, giving us opportunities to act out negotiation, navigation, and commitment. As well as blowing up ships, murder, political intrigue, and cartel management but ignore that for the moment.
When I first played Arcs, I was genuinely struck by the brilliance of this game. I’ll go ahead and assume most of you know what I’m talking about when I say people have an intuition for value. For example, I get misty eyed when listening to Pachelbel’s Canon in D. Or chills when reading different passages by Dostoevsky. It’s the experience of something beautiful, something that stops you in your tracks. When objective value breaks into your life, it affects you. I’ll even go so far to say I physically feel these moments. It’s a lightness in my chest and an expanding of my mind. Now, I won’t go so far as to compare Arcs to The Brothers Karamazov, but within the board game space, this is excellence. I immediately felt my mind expand with all the possibilities this game provides because it provides a space in which to experience that freedom or play. Arcs is essentially one, giant “Aha!” moment. I do believe play is a higher good and Cole’s games really get to the heart of this for me. Prior to Arcs, John Company 2nd Ed. was his best example of this. And now that Arcs has been released, it’s clear to me that this is Cole’s intention. This is his aim when he sits down to create a game: how to create a space in which a group of people can sit down, follow a specific set of rules, and just freaking go for it.
In Arcs, an experience is created where we can relate to each other in ways that would not have been possible outside of play. The game facilitates the idea. What if we were each a space empire vying for control of the galaxy? Now, if these certain rules were in place, how would you go about it? Arcs is the perfect sandbox game in that regard because the mechanics only exist in service to creating the sandbox. This is the point I’m trying to get at. The fat has been trimmed and we’re left with a place ripe for exploration. There have been musings on whether Arcs is Cole’s peak. I think not. I think he has clarified his vision of how to facilitate play and can now transfer that idea to anything he wants.
There is so much space to explore in this game. When people talk about “replayability”, this is what I think of. The only limit is what my mind can come up with. I understand there will be people who feel very differently than I about this game for various reasons…’it’s hot outside’, ‘Mercury in retrograde’, ‘I’m allergic to board games’…these sorts of things. I just accept it’s a possibility they don’t feel the same and I don’t confront the horrifying idea more than I have to. So now do I walk around all hoity-toity with my nose in the air proclaiming my new high-minded board game philosophy? Well, falling in step with Mr. Wehrle, no. I just go play the damn thing and have fun.
Beau 