Game Theory

[psyllogism]

The other day on Twitter I innocently asked:

Ideally, how often should the "most skilled" player win at a game?

I was inspired by this post on the BoardGameGeek forums, which posed the question in terms of a four player board game and asked for answers in terms of actual percentages. I thought it was a neat, almost philosophical question about

Comments

[anonymous]

Course then you have to take into account Cheats. If you can alter the probability of acquiring what you wish, say for example you're playing Magic (or any other card based game), and you know how your opponent cuts the deck, you can adjust the shuffle.

And the general card counting etc that can be done in playing card based games.

Course then theres whether or not you take into account individuals who count as statistical anomalies. (Watch Kara roll dice sometime ^^).

I'm aware that these factors aren't generally included in pure game theory, but they are inclusive in the entire game playing paradigm. The "less skilled" player might also be the better cheat ^_^

[psyllogism]

"card counting" may count as part of one's skill. "metagaming" in general (including cheating) certainly applies to this question, and also arguably could be part of "skill". This wasn't meant to just focus on "pure" game theory; that's just the easiest place to start from.

[anonymous]

though theres also the additional factor of open ended games. How does one define winning/losing in something that qualifies as an RPG?

[psyllogism]

then we get into definition of "game" ;-)

[prototaph]

To respond to some of your examples

[psyllogism]

The definition of "skilled" and "game" was part of the interest in posing the question ;-)

Good call on Battleship as another deterministic yet hidden information game.

[magus341]

I suppose my answer will be considered by some to be a cop out. Society has games ranging from 100% to 1/n where n is the number of players. In a race, the fastest person wins - 100% of the time. Then there are games where the more skilled player wins 95% of the time, like martial arts or gymnastics. A less skilled player can win, but only if the better player really messes up. Team sports probably range from 80% (American football) to 60% (baseball or soccer

[magus341]

P.S. I'm really starting to like Twitter, it's the haiku of computers.

[psyllogism]

Have you started a Twitter feed yourself, yet? ;-)

[magus341]

Nope. I use Facebook for tweet-like statements and LJ for anything bigger.

[prototaph]

I also believe that the concept of strategy changes between styles of games. As stated above, games with set endings (Agricola, Small World, etc...) will be played differently than open ended elimination games (Monopoly, Risk, etc...)or differently than achievement based games (Settlers, Ninja Burger, etc...). Someone who is good at the strategy at one may not be good at another. Example: I'd like to think I'm a good Settlers player as well as Small World. However, I am just not that good at Agricola or Ticket to Ride. The strategies elude me, where as in others I grasp it well. Adding the factor of the kind of strategic intelligence is important to the discussion of 'strategic intelligence'...

[psyllogism]

You sure do ramble on ;-)

[anailia]

I think what I said was something along the lines of,
"How often skill wins out is one of the first things you need to decide when setting up the 'flavor' of the game"

For example, there are party games like Charades (should be pretty even all around, always) vs competitive games vs family games vs war games vs strategy games vs sex games....