Ludifying Lovecraft in Arkham Horror - Game Play: Paratextuality in Contemporary Board Games - page 11

in that world's contextual information. Relying on the automated understanding
of the cult world reveals an underlying tension in paratextual board games
between an element of narrative surprise and a reliance on familiar tropes.
Because players know that Arkham Horror is based on Lovecrat, they can assume
that other worldly demons and monsters will appear. If monsters did not appear,
the game would appear out of step with the original text. Other paratextual
games reveal additional moments of automation between cult text and game:
District 12 , based on the Hunger Games ilm, does not introduce the characters of
Gale, Prim, and Peeta (see Chapter 6). Rather, the players are expected to know
who these characters are (and why they are in certain locations, like the bakery
or the woods) before the game begins. Battlestar Galactica expects its players
to automatically know that Cylons are bad and humans are good. Paratextual
games rely on audience foreknowledge (although audiences do not always need
that knowledge to enjoy the game).
he combination of the complexity of a paratextual board game's rules, the
characteristics of its play, and the input of diferent players creates a variable
algorithm that makes each session unique but recognizable as the same game.
We say we are playing Arkham Horror even though we may use diferent
characters, cards, monsters, locations, and even a inal enemy. All game sessions
of Arkham Horror look similar, but minute variations at the start make each play
of the game vastly diferent from the others. For instance, at the beginning of
the game, each player randomly draws one of sixteen characters. Each character
has diferent attributes that change the way the game progresses, including
special abilities and diferent skill levels in speed, sneaking, ighting, will power,
lore knowledge, and luck. Each character starts in a diferent area of Arkham.
At the start of each turn, players can construct their own custom skill levels,
and although only eight players can play at one time, the large pool of sixteen
choices opens up diferent ways to play. Diferent characters may have diferent
backstories, so from a narrative point of view, the game may subtly shit
depending on whether one is playing as adventurer and archeologist Monterey
Jack (who continually uncovers magical artifacts), as gangster Michael McGlen
(whose stamina is extraordinarily high), or as dilettante Jenny Barnes (who
earns money at every turn). And ultimately, the characteristics that deine each
character—the amount of stamina and sanity, the special powers they possess—
will inluence the game play.
Additionally, the irst player starts the game by randomly drawing one of
eight Ancient Ones who will slowly awaken as the game progresses (Figure 1.1).