Yehuda just posted about board games and whether they are passive or active entertainment (
here). And that post, of course, really got me thinking (his posts seem to do that) about how this kind of thing would apply to kids and the games they play and if we should be taking this sort of thing into consideration with our after school gaming group.
Passive Entertainment
This shows up in a game when the game is ruled by randomness: you roll the dice or you spin the spinner or the drawn card determines what happens in the game. In Yehuda's words:
"When you roll the dice and laugh, groan, or jump for joy at the outcome, you are enjoying passive entertainment" In other words, you don't have to do a lot of thinking or "strategizing" in the game. Your involvement is quite passive.
Active Entertainment
If you play a game that involves you making many decisions, laying out plans, or thinking up different strategies that will help you accomplish the goals of the game, then you are involved in a more active entertainment. Again, in the words of Yehuda:
"When you're called upon to think or make a decision, you are enjoying active entertainment. There are different levels of active entertainment, from the simple (trivia: do I know it or not?) to the complex (how do I get my battalion to that base?). Regardless of complexity, you can rank better or worse players, and most of the time you can work to improve yourself."
In my mind these two "levels" of entertainment would lie on a continuum (each occupying an extreme).
This continuum could then be used to categorize games; games could be placed along this continuum. Some games would include some active and some passive entertainment. Other games would include more passive entertainment, but still include a little active entertainment.
Snakes and Ladders could be used as an example. In this game players spin the spinner and move their pawn the corresponding number of spaces on the board. If they end their turn at the bottom of a ladder, then they climb the ladder to the space above. If they end their turn at the top of a snake, then they slide down the snake to the space at the end of the snake. So, there is no decision making involved with this game. The random result of the spin determines all that happens in the game. I would place Snakes and Ladders at the extreme end of passive entertainment on the continuum.
This all raises a question in my mind: elementary school kids, what kinds of games would they prefer, and probably more importantly, what kinds of games should we introduce them to, games with more passive or more active entertainment included in them?
This quandary also arises from the following news post:
Star-Telegram. Were those who rated the games looking for a more passive or active entertainment experience?
but player immersion really difficult to measure, because it seems to be fairly subjective and player-dependent. i wonder if we would run into the same problems trying to measure active participation in board games. it would be interesting, at least to see how the kids characterize their game play and level of engagement with different games.
