DISC Personalities and Boardgames

My full time work, the one which is able to feed my family, is leadership training. One topic which many trainers conduct training on is the DISC Personalities. This is a simple framework which categorises people into four personality types. It is a tool you can use to understand other people and also yourself. By understanding people’s behaviours, we are able to communicate and work better with them. We reduce conflicts and build better relationships. I have taught this topic many times, and I realise when I look at it from the lens of a boardgamer, the DISC personality types can be described using boardgames! Let’s take a closer look. 

The four personality types are Dominance, Influence, Steadiness, and Compliance. The Dominant type are people who are direct, want to be in control, are impatient, and are action oriented. They are decisive. They can be sometimes blunt. They get straight to the point. In boardgame terms, they are the minimalistic Japanese games. No fluff. Deep Sea Adventure, Love Letter, Hanamikoji. They are the open information abstract games. Chess, Blokus, Patchwork. They like both the good and bad laid out in the open. They take responsibility for their actions. They like a healthy debate. They are the Splotter games - unapologetically honest. They don’t beat about the bush. Antiquity, Food Chain Magnate, The Great Zimbabwe. 

Love Letter

Blokus

Antiquity

Who would have thought? Antiquity, Blokus and Love Letter in the same category!

To work well with the Dominant type, show your competency, be well prepared, and be direct. They respect these. Don’t spend too much time on pleasantries. Respect their time. As opposed to proposing actions, give them options, because they like to feel in control. They like making decisions. Let them feel they are doing that. 

The Influence type are people who like to be the focus of attention. They like to talk and express themselves. They tell stories. They are performers. They care about how others think of them. They like making connections with people. They are often extroverts, often cheerful and bubbly. They are the type who talk about ideals and dreams, about lofty goals. In boardgame terms, they are your party games. Charades. They are the kind of games when you need to impress the judges, like Cards Against Humanity. The kind of games where you chat a lot with your friends. The social deduction games. Negotiation games, to some extent. Dexterity games and speed games. Codenames, Animal Upon Animal, Dixit, Halli Galli. 

Charades

Dixit

Animal Upon Animal

To work well with the Influence type, be a good listener, praise them, and be more casual with them. Convince them through stories and anecdotes and not numbers and statistics. They can talk but may not be as good in detailed execution, so you may need to monitor their work closely and help them when appropriate. They can get bored easily, so keep them entertained. Do have pleasantries even at the start of formal meetings. They appreciate making personal connections. 

The Steadiness type are people who tend to be quiet but supportive. They enjoy being part of a close-knit team. They can be a little resistant to change because they like predictability. Sometimes they find it hard to say no. They are kind. They like to feel appreciated. In boardgame terms, they are the modern Euro family games. No player elimination. No direct aggression. Mostly singing kumbaya and holding hands around a campfire. They are the pleasant point salad games where everyone scores points. Think 7 Wonders, Carcassonne, Agricola, Splendor. Everyone feels like a winner. The Steadiness type are the cooperative games. Everyone works together to try to win. Like Hanabi and Forbidden Island. They are the games which offer catch up mechanisms, because they don’t want anyone to feel left out. 

Carcassonne

Agricola

Hanabi

To work well with the Steadiness type, take time to build trust, and let them know you appreciate them. Be patient with them. Don't rush. Be sincere. They may be slow to warm up, but when you earn their trust, they will be steadfast supporters. 

The Compliance (or Conscientious) type are rational people. They are logical, fact-based, and may sometimes seem a little cold. They follow rules and they pay attention to details. They are the kind of people who collect large amounts of data and analyse them to death. They are disciplined and meticulous. They set high standards. In boardgame terms, they are the heavy Eurogames, the complex economic games, the spreadsheet games. They are also the wargames. Those games in which we see rules lawyering. Brass: Birmingham, Through the Ages, Here I Stand, Paths of Glory, High Frontier. 

Brass: Birmingham

Here I Stand

Paths of Glory

To work well with the Compliance type, stick to facts and figures. Present logical arguments and supporting data. Be punctual, be precise, be realistic. Don't talk airy-fairy. Don't tell them your hopes and dreams. Tell them why they are feasible and how they are to be achieved. Pay attention to detail. Give them time to think through and gather information to come up with their own conclusions. 

So here you are, something not so much about boardgames, but about a framework which you can use in your work and also personal life. I always tell my students, when you consciously observe people and make the effort to understand them, you will be able to work better with different types of personalities. You will be more productive and you will enjoy your work more. 

What are your top three games, and what DISC personalities do they have?

Boardgames as educational tools

In the past few months I have been exploring the training industry as a possible new career path. Suddenly my Facebook feed was flooded with all sorts of ads related to training. So many gurus offering free two to three hour seminars, on property investment, stocks trading, digital marketing, entrepreneurship, and so on. I went to some of these. These free seminars are all preview sessions, i.e. marketing sessions where they try to sell you their non-free workshop or training. All of them sounded a little dodgy to me. Perhaps it was because I recognised the many techniques they used to encourage (a.k.a. psycho) people to sign up, like saying how expensive the course originally is and just for today only you get this special price. In one case the presenter set a 7-minute countdown clock at the end of his talking, and said if you signed up before time ran out, you'd get some extra stuff. All these techniques only made me more skeptical. The presentations were spectacular and entertaining, but was what they sold really effective? It sounded too good to be true. In the end, I signed up for one of these courses.

The most well-known boardgame used in trainings is probably Robert Kiyosaki's Cashflow 101. Robert Kiyosaki is the author of Rich Dad Poor Dad. I have not read the book or played the game myself. What I have now is this game below called Leverage.

Allen gave this to me when he heard I was considering getting into the training business. This was a game from his friend who attended a business training course. The game was played during the course, and Allen's friend bought a copy. It was quite expensive, and I imagine the training course was probably very expensive too.

I have not played this game, and I do not intend to. Strictly speaking, I should not comment on it. My opinions on it are purely based on reading the rules and looking at the game components. Let's take a look at how it plays.

The game board has a circular track. Every player has a pawn which moves along the track based on a die roll. When you land on a space, you draw a card from a deck indicated by the space, and you do what the card says. This game simulates running a business. The text on the cards are all related to business situations. When your pawn passes a Profit space, this represents your business having run for one month, and you collect a monthly profit. If you have taken an overdraft, you must pay interest.

There are 10 types of cards in the game. 5 of them are called marketing leverage cards. They help you improve some aspect of your sales, and increase your monthly income. 4 of the card types are called business leverage cards. They are on the outside of the track. They represent important aspects related to growing and sustaining your business, e.g. IT systems, staff training and logistics. To win the game, you must achieve two things. You must have a monthly income of at least $100,000, and your business leverage value in all four areas must be at least 5 points. The 10th card type is the Oops card. These are unforeseen disasters that hurt your business.

These are the marketing leverage cards. They all describe various ways a business can improve its sales. This content is what the game is trying to teach the players. In game terms, the general function of these cards are similar. You are given the choice of investing a certain amount of money, for the chance of increasing one of the KPI's of your business. If you decide to gamble, you flick a spinner to see how much your KPI increases. In the best case, it increases by 10%. If you are unlucky, you gain nothing.

These are the business leverage cards. Sometimes you have the opportunity to increase one business leverage value by 1 or 2 points, at a cost. You may sell the rights to an opponent at a mutually agreed price. Sometimes the card is put up for auction, and everyone may bid for it.

If you land on a Bonus space, you may pick any card type to draw.

That's the spinner on the left, and the rulebook on the right.

At the start of the game, everyone draws a random profession card. Your profession card determines the starting parameters of your business. That long sequence of calculations is how you calculate your monthly income. It is another thing the game intends to teach. Every profession card has a different combination of business leverage values (they don't start at zero). The profession card also specifies your overdraft limit. That business at the lower right has no overdraft facility.

After you draw your profession card, you write down all the important starting parameters on your record sheet. This is the front page of your record sheet, where you write your starting situation.

This is the back of your record sheet. Every time you increase one of your marketing leverage KPI's, you calculate your new monthly income here.

I think the paper money in the game is decent. The design is loud and clear.

These are the Oops cards. Some force you to lose turns. Some make you lose money. Some lower your KPI's.

I think this is a very luck-heavy game. It's mostly a roll-and-move game after all, not all that different from Snakes and Ladders. You do have opportunities to make decisions, but you don't really have many meaningful decisions. When you draw a marketing leverage card, you get to decide whether to buy it. In most cases you probably should, because that's how you make progress. I can only imagine not buying when you are short on money and need to wait for the next monthly income. It actually doesn't matter which marketing leverage KPI you are going to bet on increasing. All five KPI's are multiplied to get your monthly income. When you increase one KPI, you multiply it with a certain percentage increase. Since everything is being multiplied, it doesn't matter which KPI. If I look at this from a game design perspective, this is quite stupid and pointless, like all resources are wood in Catan. But remember, the purpose is actually communicating those five KPI's to the players - the students. This game is not about playing a game. It is about teaching business.

Another opportunity for making decisions is when you draw a business leverage card. If it is something you lack, you probably should buy it. If it is something you don't need but someone else needs it, you probably want to sell it at as high a price as possible, unless he is close to winning and you need to deny him. If it comes to an auction, how you value the card very much depends on how lacking you are in that particular business leverage area. Not exactly rocket science. I have not analysed the cost distribution of the various cards. If the distribution is different for different types of cards, it may be an additional factor to consider when making decisions.

I have no urge to try this game myself. I study it only out of curiosity, to see what a training tool boardgame is like. It is certainly very different from what I usually play. It serves a different purpose, and it should not be assessed based on its entertainment value. If it conveys the lesson effectively, and people remember the lesson for a long time afterwards, it has done its job.

Here's another training tool game. I have played this one, during a training course I attended. It is a two-player game. The play area is a network of nodes with terminals along the edges. It is played within a 5-minute time limit, and the players may not speak or communicate in any way. You may play as many times as you want within the 5 minutes, and you take turns to be the start player. There is only one pawn on the board, and it always starts at the centre. You take turns moving the pawn one step. The pawn must not visit the same node more than once. Your goal is to move the pawn to a terminal on your turn. It's a very simple game.

Soon after my opponent and I started, I realised that when played competently, the start player would always lose, due to the design of the network. Both players would avoid setting up the other to win, resulting in the pawn moving in a big circle. Eventually it would run out of options, and be forced into a terminal. I pondered the lesson behind the game as I played. It was telling us that the whole point was to not compete. If we played competitively, a game took rather long to play, and our total wins would be low by the time the 5 minutes was up. If we played cooperatively and took turns to win, we would be able to play many games and score many victories. It was win-win. Once I realised this, I adjusted my method of play. When it was my "opponent's" turn to win, I helped her instead of playing against her, sending the pawn in a straight line to a terminal. Unfortunately she hadn't yet worked out what was going on, and I couldn't tell her due to the no talking rule. When it was my turn to win, she still played normally, which dragged the game. When time ran out, we didn't do very well.

After this exercise, the whole classroom compared scores, and one particular team outscored everybody else by a huge margin. One of the teammates was a German guy, Martin, and he too had figured out what was going on. However, he handled the situation in a different way from mine. Regardless of whose turn it was to win, he always selflessly made the pawn take the shortest path to the nearest terminal. When he started to do this, his "opponent" very quickly racked up many wins. She didn't yet fully understand the situation. However due to Martin's generosity, she felt compelled to also let him win sometimes. That was how their team went on to score many more points in total than the rest of us. I certainly learned something from this experience. Had I been smarter about this, and less insistent on taking turns to win, I could have achieved what Martin's team did. The lesson behind all this is in order to be successful, you must help others to be successful. Give, and you will receive. Great successes are built on a collaborative mindset.

As a game, this is poor design. A game where the start player always loses is a stupid one. However what I learned from it was valuable, and would stay with me for a long time. That is the true value of the game, or rather, this exercise. We probably should not think of this as a game. It is called a game because people associate a game with fun. It makes people feel relaxed. It makes people think it is something easy to do. It takes away seriousness.

When we say the phrase "educational game", we all know it comes with a negative connotation. The first thing that comes to mind is this game is going to be boring. Sometimes educational games fail to be fun, or educational, which is rather sad. There are certainly boring and ineffective educational games. In some cases, they are not as bad as we think. They are bad because we evaluate them based on entertainment value. Most gamers would scoff at those pricey business training games. At these prices, you can buy a dozen fantastic games. I find it amusing to examine some of these educational games. It's novel to me, because the games we play are so very different.

Merry Christmas

... and have a great 2016 ahead!

Malaysia

If you are a Malaysian, or know some Malaysian friends, please help me share this video far and wide: This Is My Home And Yours - Malaysia. This song written with friends back in 1997 has given me new meaning today, in the Malaysia of 2015. This is for everyone who loves Malaysia.

Update: If possible, please use this Facebook webpage when sharing: https://www.facebook.com/hiewchoksien/posts/10155973403365483

Merry Christmas

This is one of those rare posts with a "non boardgame" tag.

Merry Christmas! May there be lots of boardgaming and quality time spent with loved ones.

birthday cards

Every year I draw a series of birthday cards, usually ten different designs, for the following year, and then whenever a friend or relative's birthday approaches, I send him/her a simple card of my own design. I enjoy doing this, because it makes people happy. I have been doing this for about 10 years. For 2008, the theme I selected was boardgames and Lego. So here are 10 "Legolised" boardgame box covers. If you are reading this blog you probably know all of them, but if there are some that you don't know, or if you want to see how these drawings compare to the original, follow the link at the bottom.

My 2008 card designs

PC games

Before I got into the boardgame hobby in a serious way, my previous hobby was PC games. And it was actually boardgames that brought me into the PC game hobby. I studied computer science in university, but never got into PC gaming during my student days. For the first few years after starting work, I also did not get into PC gaming, despite being surrounded by computers all the time. (maybe I should say because of being already surrounded by computers all the time). I played some Axis & Allies and Samurai Swords in my early working years, and one day a colleague (who was very much into PC games) told me that there was actually an Axis & Allies PC game. That's what got me into PC gaming. The Axis & Allies PC game was actually quite lousy. It has a poor AI (artificial intelligence, i.e. a computer player), and it has some bugs. There is not much fun or challenge playing against the computer, and sometimes halfway through a game you can get stuck because of bugs in the program. But I do have fond memories with the Axis & Allies PC game. Ricky (who also sometimes plays boardgames with me now) sometimes visited me, bringing his laptop, and then we play Axis & Allies using our two laptops and a serial cable. It was fun. Much time saved on setting up and rolling dice. He prefers playing the Allies so I usually play the Axis. I also remember playing this against Ah Chung when I worked in Hong Kong for a few months in 1999 - 2000.

The games which I played a lot during my PC gaming days (approximately 1999 to 2003) were Shogun Total War, Civilisation II to IV, Europa Universalis II, and Pharaoh. None of the hot RTS (Real Time Strategy) games like Age of Empires II, Starcraft, Warcraft, or hot FPS (First Person Shooter) games like Counter-strike. I like "thinky" games and not "reflex" games. Not to say that there is no strategy at all in RTS games or FPS games, but they are just not my cup of tea. Shogun Total War is probably the only exception. This game was a very innovative RTS. It is much more realistic because terrain, morale, fatigue, troop type, weather, season are all factors during a battle. Soldiers don't fight in messy masses, but in organised units of 60 to 100 men. Unit formation, facing, whether you are near friendly units or surrounded by enemy units, are all factors during battle. Ben (or was it Ah Chung) commented that it was like playing Warhammer (we played exactly one game, ever), but in real time and the computer does all the tedious calculation for you. I played a lot of Shogun Total War. Its real-time battles are more about maneuvering and using formations and terrain to your best advantage, before you even engage in hand-to-hand combat. So, in my opinion, it is much less about being quick with the mouse than other RTS games. I was surprised no other PC games followed this excellent example. RTS games in the few years after Shogun Total War came out did not learn from it, and still stayed with their boring (to me) formula. Later there were Medieval Total War, Rome Total War, and Medieval Total War II. However, I didn't play those much. The strategic map part of the game became much more complicated and tedious for me, and although the graphics improved greatly, the basic strategies remained the same as in the original Shogun Total War.

A screenshot from Shogun Total War. This is the campaign or strategic level view, and not the battlefield or tactical level view. There was a debate on whether this gun factory building exists in the game, and I took this screenshot to prove that it does to other fellow players.

I even programmed a campaign editor, i.e. a scenario editor for Shogun Total War.

I started playing Civilisation II a long time after it was first released. This is a turn based game, where you start in 4000BC as a tribe of nomads looking for a land to settle, and then you build your empire up to the modern age. You grow your population, develop buildings, discover technology, build wonders of the world, trade with other civilisations, fight wars, and eventually race to be the first to build a spaceship to send colonists to Alpha Centauri (although this is just one of the victory conditions). Civ is a very addictive and engaging game. I played Civ2 a lot, Civ3 also a lot, but Civ4 not as much. I do think Civ3 is undoubtedly better than Civ2, and Civ4 is undoubtedly better than Civ3. One thing that I like about Civ4 is the AI's have more character and don't behave like emotionless calculating machines like in Civ3. In Civ4 a weak AI who is angry with you may decide to declare war on you, or a much stronger AI right next to you who can eat you for breakfast but likes you may never attack you. They feel more human to me than the ones in Civ3.

In the PC games that I have played, I mostly played single-player games. It was convenient, because I didn't need to look for opponents, and time was flexible - I could play at any time that suited me. The games I played offer much for a single player experience, so I didn't need to look for other players. I did play some online battles of Shogun Total War against other players, which was quite exciting, but internet connection was bad (dial-up) and maybe online battles with other people was too much for me, so I conveniently went back to just playing campaigns against the AI (you couldn't play campaigns online against other players). The disadvantage of playing against computer AI's is they are not as smart as humans. Some games are complex enough that you don't really see the AI's "stupidity" unless it is very obvious, but in some games the AI behaviour can get quite predictable, and the game becomes not challenging.

Some games require little or no AI, like Pharaoh, a city-building game which Michelle played even more than I did. You build a city and watch it grow, and the individual people in the city behave in certain known ways (looking for work, delivering goods), which you need to take into account when developing your city. You don't need an AI to compete with you. You are just building your own city peacefully, trying to achieve certain goals, e.g. a certain population level, or a certain level of culture or wealth. Pharaoh is a truly beautiful game. It is more beautiful than its predecessor Caesar III, and I find it is also more beautiful than its successors Zeus, and Emperor: Rise of the Middle Kingdom. Well, Emperor was quite beautiful too. Pharaoh was fun. You plan your city and watch the little people move about being busy. It is a joy to watch your city bustling with activity. And you get to build huge monuments, which you will need a lot of patience for.

The other game which I played a liked a lot was Europa Universalis II. This is truly a niche game. It is quite difficult to learn. It is about the Age of Renaissance and Age of Discovery in Europe. It was a time when Christianity splintered, a time of sailing and discovery and colonisation. This is a game about managing a nation, its domestic policies, its religion, rebellions, exploration, piracy, technology, trade, alliances, diplomacy and warfare. There is a lot of history in the game, occurring as events throughout the game, sometimes giving you choices to steer your nation in a direction you want it to go, with different effects to your nation depending on your choice. There is a very interesting concept of Casus Belli (cause for war) and reputation. You need to have legitimate reasons for declaring war, to avoid taking a big hit on your reputation, which is important when engaging in diplomacy. Nations of different religions have different strengths and weaknesses. I learnt a lot of European history from this game. Two other things I remember fondly of are the excellent soundtrack and the simple yet impressive opening scene - the camera pans through a dark church, a solemn hymn was being sung, and the camera finally rests on the bright artwork of the window, backlit by sunlight from outside. The text during the opening scene sets the tone for the period in the game.

I later played Hearts of Iron (covering World War II) and Victoria (covering the time between Europa Universalis II and Hearts of Iron, I guess), which were by the same team that did Europe Universalis, but I didn't play them as much.

After I got into the boardgame hobby at end of 2003, I gradually stopped playing PC games. The good thing about boardgames is it is an activity that Michelle and I can do together. And when my children grow older I hope to be playing boardgames as a family activity. I don't know whether I will get back into PC gaming. Maybe when I have a lot more free time, but that will probably quite distant in the future. I had fun, and I remember these games fondly.