The Dice Tower's "Top ten games with a Pasted On Theme" left me wanting to argue with them about the nature of themes in games. Here's my argument.
Some games have no theme at all. These are called abstract games. For example when you place dominoes next to other dominoes all you are doing is placing dominoes next to other dominoes. You are not attempting to simulate any other kind of activity.
Some games have such a thin veneer of 'theme' that it might as well not be present at all. In the game of chess you are moving different kinds of men around a battlefield in order to capture the men belonging to your opponent. But when your knight captures a bishop you do not conjure up a picture of a man in armour riding his horse past intervening soldiers in order to kidnap (or maybe kill) a mitre-wearing man of the cloth. All you think of is that your little wooden piece has moved to a new square thereby removing your opponent's little wooden piece from the game. It would be difficult to argue that chess has any meaningful 'theme'.
On the other hand, in the game Memoir '44 the theme provides a large part of the enjoyment. You are moving your troops up the Normandy beaches under a barrage of gunfire hoping that at least some will survive long enough to kill the enemy. Or are you? Aren't you just moving little plastic figures from one hex to another? Can't it be both?
Time for a couple of definitions. For the duration of this blog I'm going to define the mechanics of the game as the process of moving pieces, rolling dice, shuffling, drawing or playing cards and collecting or discarding tokens - all according to a set of rules. And I'm going to define the theme of the game as the 'real life' activity that the game represents, such as finding cures for diseases, managing a farm, climbing a mountain or surviving life on a desert island. I'm also going to include such things as fighting dragons, trading with distant planets, vanquishing super villains and guiding a civilisation through 2000 years of history as being 'real life' activities too. None of us may ever fight a dragon, but we know that the experience of lashing out with a sword at a fire-breathing monster would be very different from the experience of rolling a twenty-sided die and seeing what number comes up. My point here is that game theme and game mechanics are always radically different things.
So why are some games regarded as having a 'good' theme? For me it comes down to this: When you describe your actions, do you naturally describe them in terms of the theme or the mechanics? Did you send three thieves to steal treasure, or did you discard three black cubes to gain five money tokens?
Take Incan Gold for example - one of the games (wrongly in my opinion) featured in the 'Pasted On Theme' list. There is only one decision each player has to make on their turn - do I go further into the temple or do I leave? Either way there is a risk. Expressed in terms of game mechanics the choice is between moving the tokens so far collected into your cardboard tent where they will be worth points at the end of the game or gambling on getting more tokens in later turns (though maybe losing them all and not scoring any points this round.) In terms of theme the choice is this: would it be brave or foolhardy to push deeper into the temple? There are potentially greater riches to be found, but I've had warnings of a rock fall and spiders ahead and if I come across either of them suddenly I can lose everything I've collected so far.
The experience of choosing one of two cards to put face down on the table (mechanics) is very different from the experience of choosing whether to move forward or backwards in an underground corridor (theme). Yet there is enough of a similarity in the consequences of the decision that, at least in your imagination, you are not choosing a card you are choosing to press on into (or turn back from) the unknown wealth or danger in an Incan Temple.
When the decisions made in a game are similar to decisions you might make in the 'real life' activity, then it is easier to immerse yourself in a game and feel that you are actually doing more than just moving pieces on a board. I'm overtaking three cars to get ahead in the race. I'm flying to Paris because the city is in danger of an outbreak of disease. I'm planting corn because I'll need the crop to feed my family. I'm equipping the dwarf with an axe and the paladin with a flaming sword and we're going into the dungeon to fight the ice demon.
The worthies at the Dice Tower sometimes used the argument that if the same mechanics can support a variety of themes then the theme must be 'pasted on'. I disagree. Say, for example, that you have a game which is basically about collecting sets of cards to earn victory points. You could make this entirely abstract by just collecting sets of colours or numbers. But the game might be more fun if you are collecting animals for your zoo, or if you are a Martian invader collecting 'earthlings', or if you are a medieval trader collecting luxury goods. And if I am gleefully flying my UFO around the countryside picking up cows and chickens, the fun is not spoilt by my knowing that the same mechanics could be used with a different theme. So what? I've just beamed up four cows! Beat that, my bug-eyed green opponent!
So a good theme is one which allows you to imagine you are engaged in the 'real life' activity even whilst you know you are really just moving stuff around a table. For this reason I agree that the Dice Tower were right about Dominion. Ostensibly the theme is that you are prince expanding your dominion over various people and places. But you don't feel as if you are actually doing that. You just feel that you are drawing cards, getting extra actions and adding cards to your deck. When you can afford a province it doesn't feel as if you've extended your land holdings it just feels as if you've added a 6VP card to your deck.
Admittedly some of the cards in Dominion do make thematic sense. Sort of. A moat protects you. A mine increases your wealth. A village (with its extra population) allows more actions. But very few of these actually feel as if you are triggering real life benefits.
Other games manage to support the theme through the details of the game pieces and cards. One of the most thematic games I've played recently is Evolution. In particular I enjoy the way the different 'traits' placed on your species make perfect sense. For example, species which can 'forage' will pick up two food from the watering hole instead of one. Species with a 'long neck' have access to food in the treetops before they need to start taking the limited supply from the watering hole. 'Scavengers' gain meat food whenever a carnivore has made a kill. 'Pack hunting' carnivores can attack creatures bigger than themselves.
I know there is a danger in using theme to interpret rules. Often some rules don't quite make sense thematically. What makes a great theme is when the mechanics and the theme seem to dovetail together effortlessly.
My conclusions?
a) Games with good themes are not intrinsically better than abstract games. Even themes which may be 'pasted on' can help you enjoy a game. And there are some game mechanics which are just brilliant fun regardless of any associated theme.
b) The following three things, if done well, enhance the theme of a game:
Appropriate artwork and components. e.g. Memoir '44 with its miniatures.
Decisions and consequences within the game which feel similar to the same kinds of decisions and consequences that you would face in the real life situation. e.g. Incan Gold.
Detailed rules or cards or special abilities which make sense within the theme. e.g. Evolution.
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