I think that Scythe is a remarkable board game which has been completed. The words “think” “remarkable”, “board”, “game”, “revealed”, and “completed” warrant their own blog posts defining them in the future, but for now I want to prioritize Scythe’s revelation to me and how I think it can impact our future within these terms:
Think
My opinions are thus, as I am not the arbiter for final judgment, nor do I hold all the salt. It is possible that Scythe could be the greatest game ever made. How can I write this? There are a number of factors, the greatest of which is that I think that it hits all 7 core emotional triggers for the mind to experience. This is not the space in which I define what this means, but I will give examples of the seven and how it could be possible for Scythe to impact others as people experience it. Emotions are a part of our brain, and though I am not the expert on them, there are many resources by professionals from which I have gleaned insight into the field and am excited to share with others!
Fear. Fear is the first emotion we feel, the core feeling, and it stops us from acting. When you give a person a choice, they will experience the pain of fear, and the opportunity to express that pain to the world passively, assertively, and aggressively. Passivity ignores your own rights as a living creator, where aggressiveness ignores others rights. When one asserts they are afraid, it allows them to listen to others and grow in wisdom. Scythe offers those who experience it so many choices that people can grow in wisdom throughout their journey and after it's done. This is compounded when players add in the expansions, and when trying out other fan made situations.
Guilt: The pain of guilt blocks us from experiencing the sensation of the pleasure of freedom. In order for us to have freedom, we need to be forgiven. I do not believe that we can forgive ourselves, so playing solo will not allow us to experience this emotion, however Scythe has a lot of player interaction which does allow us to feel guilt, seek forgiveness, and experience freedom! “The Art of Possibility” by Ben Zander tells us that positive and negative are both downward spiral terms, in that they do not allow us to live in “Possibility”. Even still, Scythe has positive and negative player interaction in it. Through enlisting recruits in the game, if you do an action where your neighbors have already enlisted for that action, they receive a bonus. I love to house rule this action and just let all players gain the benefit. The negative player interaction involves having fights with the other players, in which you both may lose a resource, and one will gain a solid benefit. One amazing thing about Scythe is that you do not have to participate in this if you really do not like feeling or expressing this emotion in order to win - though it is particularly difficult to do this, unless you are playing cooperatively, which I will touch on below! When we interact with others though, we are either guilty of the positive or negative effects we cause others to experience, and have the opportunity to assert that we are guilty, seek forgiveness, and experience freedom in Scythe - a truly remarkable thing to be able to practice.
Disappointment. The pain of disappointment blocks us from getting help and being humbled, or having a sober judgment of who we are (not to be confused by selflessness - which is putting others before yourself). If we are passive with our disappointments, we will become shamed, but if we are aggressive we will become narcissistic. Neither of which are the point of the pain of disappointment and should be avoided if possible. In Scythe, players can strategically plan out their first 8 or so moves before any randomness can occur, however before the game even starts, they can gamble and randomly draw how they will start the game! It is impossible for us to know all the things, and in the base game of Scythe there are 5 factions and 5 player mats, with 2 starting objectives and usually some combat cards with different values and distribution of those values in the deck. I’m not a mathematics expert, but the starting variability is large with this game, which allows us to be disappointed with our starting set up. Not only that, but after those first few starting turns, additional randomness ensues when players draw encounter cards.
Loss: The pain of Loss or sadness blocks us from experiencing love and honor. If we ignore our own rights to feel sad, we pity ourselves, where the aggressive expression of loss is apathy. When we assert that we are sad, we can honor what we have lost and expand our ability to love. For me, whenever a game ends in Scythe, I experience sadness as I really enjoy playing this game. Asserting that I’m sad allows me to honor the time I was given to experience it and express my love for it and the respect for even having it. I look forward to future sessions, or sharing this love that I have with others. If I did not experience Scythe I wouldn’t even have the opportunities that I do now, thus the experience allows me to be a contribution in this space.
Hurt: The pain of hurt blocks us from truth and strength. When we realize we have been lied to, we can turn that pain inward and become resentful, but if we turn it outward we will reject others or the environment. Asserting that we have been hurt will strengthen our relationships and help us on our path to truth. In Scythe, we come to the table with the assumption that we will agree to play with a certain set of boundaries or rules. I like to houserule games I play and put a time limit on turns. In Chess this can be tournament rules or speed chess. This way I don’t resent players from taking forever on their turn. Scythe has a two action system where after you declare your action location, the next player can start their turn. In the rules it states that when you are finished with your top row action it's the next player’s turn, but 3 out of the 4 starting actions do not affect others that much, so we go ahead and start after declaration. If players break this social contract, we can become hurt. Also, players can outright cheat. When I play, cheating usually happens because we are forgetful, but it still allows us to assert that we essentially broke the contract, and grow in our trust of each other. The more we experience Scythe together, the stronger our relationship becomes if we assert we have been hurt or think we may have hurt others by forgetting or outright cheating, which then would further lead to feeling disappointment, guilt, and fear.
Illusion: The pain of illusion blocks insight and learning. Illusion is different than being lied to, as it is us not understanding or seeing how something really works. When we realize we were illuded, we can feel lonely and become reclusive, or we can also isolate ourselves, choosing to live in a fantasy and ignoring how the world really works. As we assert that we feel lonely, we can grow in intimacy with how things are, and grow in insight or knowledge. Where fear helps us grow in wisdom, loneliness through illusion helps us grow in knowledge. In Scythe - the game is fundamentally a racing game, in which the game will end once someone has gotten six triumphs. A lot of people are outspoken about their disdain for this, so much so that Stonemaier released a module that gave everyone equal turns, fundamentally changing the game. Since this is not in the base game, others have houseruled it to be so, which is great! What a wonderful opportunity for Stonemaier to support the community over their product. However, as we grow in our maturity, we will develop our ability to find joy from illusion. This works in Scythe by the first player to get 6 stars isn’t necessarily the winner. They are the person to finish in first place, but like Nascar - the winner is the person or team with the most points at the end of the race. Mind Blown.
Anger: the pain of anger is the desire for change. If we do not submit to change and growth, then we will become depressed. If we are aggressive with the change we want to see, we will become prideful. Asserting that we are angry, allows us to let the pain flow from us and make changes that affect ourselves and the world. This change is not inheritinly positive or negative, good or evil, it is simply change. In life, living organisms take energy from the sun and changes it into more order, however entropy eventually spreads this out. In the book series The Tales of Alvin Maker Entropy is a character in the book. I love this idea, and in Scythe players have so many things they can change. Creators are actively working on things they want to change with Scythe, and are making their own fan creations, or their own inspired games. Stonemaier has even released a sequel to Scythe at this point which I hope to be able to reveal in the future. In the base game however, the game is an area denial game, not an area majority. Therefore when other players are blocking your movement to different spaces, it makes us angry as we want to change the game state. Problem solvers are great at anger, and many have fun when they get to make changes that they see may be possible.
Remarkable
Not only is Scythe worthy of a remark, but Stonemaier is as well. So much so that I will start conversations with others about these two things. This is word of mouth marketing at its finest. Stonemaier will replace lost or broken pieces to any of their games. That means if you find Red Rising at Target on Clearance because it has been opened and in fact is missing all of its helium, Stonmaier will send you a bag of it, which may cost them more than what they sold target for the game in the first place!
Scythe is not only very close to the Nickelodeon TV show Avatar, it is also one of the highest rated games of all time on boardgamegeek, currently at #16. I think it could be number 1 as it is more accessible than Brass Birmingham (current #1) can go heavier or lighter depending on your preference, can be played completely solo, completely cooperatively, or extremely competitively in tournaments from the work of people like this who are working to make the game even more balanced than the completed version has been.
I have already touched on it, but being able to practice forgiveness is so huge. Many people have extreme emotional abuse by their elders as most people do not practice asking forgiveness. Think about it, when was the last time you literally asked someone to forgive you? When has someone asked for yours? In any conflict you can practice this, and some people love freedom so much that their favorite games are ones like “The Resistance” where they lie, cheat, and get to be guilty of so many things. The freedom that comes from confessing your guilt and receiving forgiveness from others should be enjoyed, and is meant to be enjoyed.
Board
The board of Scythe is a work of Art. It is not worth its price in cardboard, and thus if you are struggling to make ends meet, I would strongly encourage you to seek Scythe out to experience it for free. There are numerous places to find a copy to play for free, and some libraries will let you take their copy home for free to try out, or some cafes have it in their collection that you can check out. I hope that someday everyone can own a copy of Scythe if they also own a copy of Monopoly, as I think it is a superior experience, and it was undoubtedly inspired by Monopoly. Jamey the designer has at least played it before even thinking about making Scythe… I don’t think there needs to be a different version of Scythe like there are versions of Monopoly, but Stonemaier is actively making different translations of the game as demand rises for it - which is also a remarkable thing worth talking about.
The board is not only a work of art, but is functional, and Stonemaier has made a neoprene playmat for it, and can make a rubber one as long as you are not allergic to latex. How cool is that. To top it off, they made an enlarged version, a modular board, and an electronic one to boot. This company works with Stonemaier to make visually impaired improvements to games, and I don’t know if they have a board yet, but not only is it possible, but probable if demand is there. This fan made a 2 player board that can be printed and stuck on the back of their extended board, and I hope to see an even more modular board with the release of Expeditions, and an extra large demo board like Azul or Tsuro .
The board is fairly intense to set up, so I really want a way to introduce new players to the game more efficiently, but that will have to wait for now. One option is to leave it set up for conventions or stores so people can check it out and get started more quickly, and board game tables that can cover it are great for this. However, that is an added cost to the functionality of the game on top of paying for the wonderful art. All in all Scythe’s board is amazing and a testament to other designers, and has been hugely inspirational to others in the industry.
Game
The game itself is fun - in that it does a great job at letting people play with different aspects of the product, and come to a resolution. Games are different from Activities in that their purpose is to have fun. People come to it for enjoyment rather than strictly growth or improvement. The word enjoyment comes from Joy, which in Hebrew is a state of being or noun. Joy is the sacrifice of one’s personal desires to express an emotion passively or aggressively, and instead express it assertively for the benefit of others or the environment. In Scythe, many of the mechanics allow players a great opportunity to do this with others or even by themselves!
What makes Scythe Fun is the ability to volunteer to feel a desired emotion, and successfully assert that emotion through play. As an example, players who enjoy feeling fear, have lots of choices in Scythe. If they go the whole game trying to control the experience, they will not have fun but leave anxious. On the other hand if they rage out and flip the table, then they will likely also feel guilt and shame. Asserting that they are afraid to make a choice, they may listen to others or seek out advice and learn what is the optimal action to take. The fun is making that switch from fear to wisdom! The other emotions can likewise be felt and asserted, and if one can realize that and be mindful of it, have a truly remarkable experience, maybe even tearing up thinking about it as evidenced by BoardGameBollocks.
Solo gaming is a thing, and a lot of people prefer playing by themselves to avoid conflict resolution. That is totally cool, however, as we continue to live, we have the opportunity to grow in our capability to resolve conflict with others. One thing that has helped me practice this is having a social contract when participating with others that includes a bill of rights. This can change per the situation, but generally it means others have the right to be or have things, like the right to change their mind or be wrong. There are numerous rights you can agree to, but Vance Crowe had a great conversation with Jamey the designer where they didn’t agree on everything but still were able to talk to each other. Vance is an expert in conflict resolution, and as such the conversation they share is Jamey’s best in my opinion as he is able to share things that he wasn’t able to articulate before.
In Scythe if you want to play a competitive game on your own island and not interact with others, you can probably do so, but you may not win, and you certainly won't get everything out of the experience that you could have by journeying outside of your island. Not everyone has the ability to play with others though, and for those people, Stonemaier has worked with Morten to give a very good simulated multi player experience but alone. Players can use the items for an automated player in a multiplayer game, or can just play by themselves. Additionally, other creators have made and are making their own automas for Scythe, and the expansions for Scythe are compatible with the automated player so less people are left out from experiencing this game.
Revealed
The revelation of this game came to me after watching a children’s show called Avatar the last airbender. Specifically this episode about the eastern idea of chakras. I was already familiar with emotions but this episode was seen at the same time that I was going through counseling for communication. I was learning about assertiveness and conflict resolution, and it dawned on me that Scythe allowed players to experience all of these in a real way. Not only that, but somehow Jamey created a game which thematically was very similar to the show in several ways:
(slight spoilers)
The show and the game both implement the use of airships, have a different history of sorts, and take place during the same time frame - especially with the addition of The Legend of Kora. Some of the names of actions are identical, for instance one faction’s abilities are called Burrow, which in the show is how the earth benders first learn from the BadgerMoles to move earth! There is no killing of workers or other players in Scythe, which in Avatar the air benders do not believe in killing and are vegetarians, but in battle they immobilize and imprison rather than kill. In Scythe’s automation rules it explains that players and automated players have a teleportation device that allows players to instantly traverse space. In combat, you literally spend more power than the other player to send them to their home base, instead of killing them.
This thematic nearness is a great way to introduce fans of the show to the game in my opinion, and is how I play the game, which is rated for 14 year olds, with my 6 year old son. On top of that, there is a way to play the game cooperatively. Others have played cooperatively against the automa in a multiplayer game, and as long as one player has a grasp for the rules, you can play where players play normally and if their average score beats that of the automas - the players win, or fully cooperatively where they can share spaces, resources, power, money, and objectives.
Cooperatively is how I introduce the game to new players, and I am working on my own fan made campaign which I hope could possibly be made into a prequel to Scythe to get even more people introduced to play the base game. In the expansion Rise of Fenris there are two additional ways to play cooperatively, and if you are playing the base game it is super easy to do Desolation without buying anything extra. The complete rules to desolation can be found here, (page 46 and 47) but basically you use two unused factions mechs, or any 6 figures (legos work fine but take away from the theme a bit) and a 6 sided die, and halfway through the game the automated player moves around the board and can attack other players. Players win if they get a predetermined amount of triumphs, or win 6 battles against the automated player. Players lose if they lose 6 conflicts, or don’t triumph in 18 turns. It is very basic but it is also very hard and gives a great challenge for new players. It's great as it also gives players 6 uninterrupted turns to learn the basics of how the game works. Then when players attack or get attacked, it isn’t personal, and potentially players can work together, not fundamentally breaking the game in a respective way as one of the factions has the ability to move on every turn of the game already. So very cool.
Completed
The designer of Scythe has stated that he does not see a future in which he adds anything to the game, and thus in his mind it has been completed. This is another remarkable thing, for I do not know if I could make a list of 10 completed games, let alone a top 10 list. The designers of some of my favorite games have come out and said they are actively working on expansions for their games and many of the top 100 games on this esteemed website have continued production and new editions of them. Since Scythe is “finished” it allows other creators to make their own renditions and fan made content where they can be fairly confident their work won't get retconned in the future. I am one of those creators who hopes to publish my own works some day that add to the joy which Scythe has graced me with. If you want some helpful advice for doing this yourself, Karel of Automa Factory has his own stellar post that is worth your time to digest:
Closing thoughts (not final as I’m still alive and reserve the right to change my mind on things)
Scythe is a piece of art, but also a functional game that has the potential to change all of our lives in a myriad of possible ways. I believe it could be the best game ever made, and others are actively working on continuing to support it which means innumerable hours are being sacrificed to keep it relevant. If you have played it and hate it, I’d love to read your comments on it. If you would like to dialogue (have a face to face conversation) about it, you can email me and we can work to set something up. I hope to develop more content around this game, but for now hope you have found value from reading thus far.
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