Designer Diary: Gentleman's Deal, or Where Game Design Meets Game Theory

Hello! My name is Yan, and I am the author of Gentleman's Deal, a new boardgame from GaGa Games. Here is my story...

Background

As a boardgame designer, I am very interested in game theory. Everybody who knows game theory even a little can understand that game theory isn't about regular games most of the time. I know that, too, but game theory is full of mathematical problems and different game-like systems. More importantly, people have been working on these problems for years! That is thousands of playtests that have been already held with open access! All in my hands! So I started digging into this.

My first goal was to make a game based on the prisoner's dilemma. Game theory has told me everything about its main problems, paradoxes, and dominant strategies. I changed the dilemma so that it became more fun, more playable — more of a board game. That game was Swords and Bagpipes.

After publishing S&B, I started searching for another cool game theory problem to use, and I stumbled into the "Pirates' Gold" riddle — and that what Gentleman's Deal is all about.

Pirates' Gold Riddle

Five supersmart pirates want to divide one hundred gold coins between them. According to the Pirates' Code, they must distribute it the following way:

Quote:

The oldest pirate offers a way to divide the stash, then everybody votes. If half or more of the voters accept the deal, the gold will be divided the way described. If most of the pirates are against it, they will kill the dealer and start again. What should the first pirate do?

This riddle is solvable by the method of reversed induction. (I don't really know how it is called in English, so I just translate it roughly.)

• If two pirates are left, the pirate proposing the deal will get everything. He will offer one hundred coins to himself, they will have a tie vote, and the deal will be accepted.
• If three pirates are left, the pirate proposing the deal can offer one coin to the youngest pirate, which is more than the nothing he would get in a deal with only two pirates, so they will seal the deal.
• If four pirates are left, the pirate proposing the deal will bribe the guy who would be left out if only three pirates remain.
• And so on...

That's it! So how are you going to make the game out of it? Let's figure this out!

What's the Main Idea?

A negotiation-based party game! I wanted to make a game in which the dealer would get some resources, then offer a way of dividing it. All the players would then vote to decide whether or not they like the proposed distribution.

What Must Change to Make the Riddle a Board Game?

1) People shouldn't drop out of the game for too long.
2) The game shouldn't end after five or fewer rounds.
3) The game shouldn't be solvable.
4) People must have some "conditions" that make them more or less "appealing" for the dealer — and the overall "appealingness" shouldn't be too obvious.

Stage 1: Early Development

What did I do exactly? That was a long journey, so let's get back to 2014. My first attempt was rather straightforward. People were playing as countries during the Berlin Conference of 1884-1885, and the dealers would be offering each other parts of Africa. I have to admit that was the most boring setting that I've ever done in my games, and I am a big fan of Smash Up and other cool themes.

Anyway, in my game people received the cards with each new deal every time, then tried to distribute them. If the dealer loses, he doesn’t drop out of the game, but rather he — brace yourself — drops out of the game until the next acceptance of a deal.

That was a real hardcore rule, which allowed players to drop several opponents in a row out of the game in order to divide a big fat pile of resources between smaller groups. That was really complicated and not everybody got it. And as you remember, my idea was to create a party game.

Stage 2: Mafia Theme

I next returned to this prototype after almost a year. In 2015, I "kickstarted" an English version of Swords and Bagpipes and was now ready to continue my project by changing the setting and fixing the most major flaws.

First, I had noticed that the game was solvable because everyone knew everyone else's income. You could count the opponents' coins and decide exactly how many coins you could offer to each player. And I had constructed the most ridiculously overweighted counting system in the world that included a VP-tracker with several resources that combined personal goals (Container style) and the place where you got them.

That was re-e-eally complicated.

So I simplified it and simplified it and in the end I had only one resource that was hidden behind the screen. That was exactly what I needed! People can't remember the income of each player anyway. And it took almost a year of playtests.

The second big thing was the different "conditions" I talked about earlier. I realized quickly that the only punishment the dealer can get was skipping the turn. Without detailed information about money and without the ability to make a "kicking combo", every player became the same. There were not a lot of things to negotiate about. It was still possible. There were triple-vote tokens, for example, but that was not much.

And then the "Partners" kicked in...

Stage 3: Le Finale

I worked with one Russian publisher at a time. The "partners" cards really make this game. The six cards that can go from one player to another drastically enrich the gameplay as people now get things to negotiate about. They still have triple-voting, different offers, and different money behind the screen, but now they also have cool abilities:

• Do I want to negotiate with the guy who has the Senator?
• Do I want to give some to the Sheriff so he won't take me down?
• The guy with the Banker will get money anyway. Maybe I will give him a little bit extra to lure him to my side?

And this is only tip of the iceberg.

I went with this version to Essen and showed it to several publishers. GaGa Games made the best offer.

I hope that this game becomes a success as I think that it's a really cool pure-diplomacy party game, and the full rules are available on the Gentleman's Deal page here on BGG.

Thank you for reading.

Yan Yegorov