Last night Ian and I had a discussion about tension in games. We wanted to figure out how to add more tension to a game, but first we need to define what exactly tension was. We decided to break it down.
First, we picked out some games that we felt had tension. I brought up Ticket to Ride as a game with a lot of tension. As a player, you are always on egde wondering if you will get the right cards in time or if someone will steal your route. In my book, there is no greater tension than in a five player game of TtR. Another game that has tension is Carcassonne: You can feel it when tie up a lot of meeples in a city or farm all the while unsure of whether you can make it pay off. Agricola also has tension in that you don’t know if you can feed your family or if someone will take the resources you desperately need.
Second, we tried to find the common factor in all of these games. The first thing we noticed was that the player took a risk. The bigger the risk, the more tension felt. The second thing we noticed is that the longer the risk takes to resolve, the higher the tension. In Ticket to Ride, you make have an LA to New York ticket from the start of the game. You may not complete it until the very last second. In Agricola, your entire plan revolves around getting the grain action, but you have to sit there patiently waiting for the other players to place their farmers.
In summary:
Tension = Risk x Time
This seems obvious laid it out like that. Now that we have the formula, we can think about it in terms of our own games. What can we do to ensure that our games have the right amount of tension?