Expansion pressure

by Christian Heckmann

You anglophone people don't have a word for "Expansionsdrang"? The best dict.cc comes up with is "urge for territorial expansion"? I pitty you!

Anyway. Yesterday, a friend sent me a link to Jennifer Derrick's excellent article Expansion Exhaustion - The Mental Cost of "More" and it got me thinking. If you haven't read it, go do so, it's well worth your time and even though I'll try to make this piece here understandable for everyone, it might be that certain things will make more sense if you've read the original article.

So expansions, eh? Curse and blessing of this hobby of ours at the very same time. Blessing because they lend longevity to much beloved games, which is always a nice thing. Curse because of pretty much everything that Jennifer mentions in her article, plus some more. I don't know if I've ever been prone to completion-itis, I certainly was (and still am) in regard to certain games (like Doomtown: Reloaded for example, because reasons) but generally... Sure, being able to look at a game-box and know that everything there will ever be for this very game is in there sure feels kind of nice, but even with games that I like a lot, completing them is more of a nice-to-have than a real must. I only own two of the Eldritch Horror-expansions and while the rest of those is on my Want-list and I'd probably snatch them up if I got a good offer, I'm perfectly content with the game as it is. Likewise with other games like Star Wars: Imperial Assault or Imperial Settlers. In the case of Cthulhu Wars, I've even consciously decided which of the many, many expansions will never enter my collection (spoilers, it's pretty much all of the neutral monster stuff). So yeah, probably no completion-itis to be found there.

I also don't feel the pressure of some of the other things that Jennifer mentions as badly as she (and some of the commentators) seem to. Storage was never a big problem for me. The components fit in the box of the base-game or (better still) the base-game fits in the even smaller expansion box (like it did with Lords of Waterdeep and Betrayal at House on the Hill)? The stuff is gonna go into a single box, no questions asked. If they don't, well, that sucks but then I guess I'll have to keep both boxes and/or find another handy solution (I keep all of my surplus BattleLore (Second Edition)-stuff in the Fate of the Elder Gods: Beasts From Beyond-box). Sorting components also has never presented itself as a huge problem to me, because I usually don't do that (duh). Which might stem mainly from the kinds of expansions I gravitate towards.

So in order to progress further, we should probably talk about the different kinds of expansions there are. So let's do that, shall we? So as far as I'm concerned, expansions can be rudimentarily categorized thusly:

Add-ins, a.k.a. "More of the same"

Expansions that basically just enhance the content that already exists with new cards or new tiles or new... I don't know, dice? The small-box expansions for Eldritch Horror are a good example for this, buffing up the various decks and perhaps throwing a new Old One or a few investigators into the mix. Those are probably somehow the least and most controversial at the same time. Least because they are safe and familiar and shouldn't catch anyone flat-footed. Most because if done poorly, they can come across as an uninspired cash-grab, just a bit of stuff that could have or should have been featured in the core game... I'm usually fine with those expansions. If they have a good value for money ratio.

Add-ons, a.k.a. "Sticking some new stuff to this"

Those expansions that add new elements to and/or change some that were previously in a game. Lords of Waterdeep: Scoundrels of Skullport is often mentioned as a great (maybe even essential, even though I don't agree with that) expansion that makes Lords of Waterdeep better by just adding a few things that interact very well with what is already there and don't really overcomplicate things. Which is probably what all of these expansions should be. But it doesn't always work like this. If the game in question was already a tightly encapsulated design, just sticking things to it can lead to a lot of clunkyness. I've previously lauded the Kemet: Ta-Seti-expansion as one that improved Kemet A LOT (even though it still wasn't enough to draw me back into Kemet), but it does so in a very, very clunky way, by tacking strange secondary effects onto the formerly... eh... "elegant" (that's not really a good word to describe Kemet, but I guess we'll go with it for convenience's sake) action selection mechanism. I'm certainly no expert in that regard, but I don't consider this particularly good game design. I mean, it worked in this instance, but it doesn't always...

Complete gamechangers, a.k.a. "I never really liked the original game anyway"

The ones that change so much stuff in the original game that it pretty much gets turned into a whole new one in the process. One of the worst examples of this is probably Cyclades: Titans, which takes the clever and elegant auction-game Cyclades and turns it into a stupid third-string pseudo-wargame that eschewed pretty much all of the original game's strengths and made it absolutely terrible in the process. In case you didn't notice: I'm not a big fan of Cyclades: Titans. And this experience kind of colored my opinion of expansions of that kind. I mean, I'm sure not all of those are unthankful bastardizations of the original design, but... yeah. Cyclades: Titans is. Anyway, what was I talking about?

New modules, a.k.a. "New options for old games"

Not to be confused with the recently super-popular modular expansions. I'm rather talking about stuff like the faction packs for Cthulhu Wars, Imperial Settlers or BattleLore (Second Edition). New ways to play the same game. "But aren't those just add-ins or add-ons as well?", I hear you ask. Yes. No. Maybe. I don't know. Can you repeat the question? Sorry, got carried away for a moment. The thing is, these kinds of expansions "feel" different than other ones. They don't change and/or enhance the game as much as just... providing a fresh perspective on previously known concepts, if that makes any sense. I tend to really like these kinds of expansions, because they are probably the most useful when it comes to tailoring a game to your preferences. If you find yourself interested in what comes in that box, go for it, because that's what you get. If you don't, skip it, no harm done. That's cool.

And finally...

Modular expansions a.k.a. "Look, we don't know either"

These have gained a lot of traction lately. And I can kind of see the appeal. "Here's a bunch of modules that you can pick from to enhance the game, choose whichever you like and leave the rest". That pretty much sounds what I just praised in the previous paragraph. But to me, it pretty much always feels like kind of a lack of conviction in the own vision. If I buy an expansion (or a board game in general), I kind of expect that the designer has put the effort into it to pinpoint the "best way to play" this one and tell me how it works. And yeah, it's possible that the designer thought up all of these new ways to play it and loved them all equally, but that doesn't really help. Plus I'm not one of those guys who goes "Okay, with which modules and expansions and optional rules and stuff do we want to play this time?", if I get a game to the table, I mostly want to know what I'm getting into, so even if an expansion is modular, I'll probably find my preferred way to play in time and then I'm only gonna play that way. That is unless the modules aren't compatible with each other, which is really stupid and shouldn't be, Splendor: Cities of Splendor! Then again, Splendor really doesn't profit from anything in that box.

Look, none of this is exact science, if you'd like to classify expansions differently than I just did, feel free to do so, there's also probably a bunch of expansions out there that break the boundaries of those definitions (Lords of Waterdeep: Scoundrels of Skullport is technically a modular expansions because there's two modules in it and modular expansions generally aren't really a type of expansion but a compilation of other expansions and AAAAAH, MY BRAIN!) and stuff and that doesn't really matter. We just need a bit of common ground to talk about expansions, alright? Fine.

So judging by everything up there, I see myself as a fan of expansions that don't necessarily paw at the elegance of the original design too much. Adding things is fine, if it's in line with how the game originally worked. Having more options is always a nice thing. But yeah, the things that Jennifer describes in her article in my estimation mostly stem from expansions that fail to insert themselves into their core-games in a smooth way. That sounded awful. Anyway, this can lead to bloat, to fiddlyness, to clunkyness, to games staying on the shelf despite the fact that they were once favorites, just because some halfbaked expansions came along to ruin their innocence. But yeah, not all of them are like this. If handled correctly, expansions can enhance a game greatly and bring out the best in it. It's not the concept itself that is flawed, it's just the execution. Sometimes. Lackluster expansios, those that hold back their games or feel like cheap cash-grabs, they can sour us on the whole principle of expansions, sure, but like with everything, it's up to us to find what we like and want, what works for us and then encourage designers and publishers to do their best, by simply rewarding them for it.

So after reaching out in pretty much every possible direction when expansions are concerned, what am I actually trying to say with this overlong post? Well, maybe just: Publishers and designers, keep up making good expansions, expansions that respect their original games, enhance them in meaningful ways and make us want to play them. Also make that Gravwell: Escape from the 9th Dimension-expansion. It's about time!