I view board games as a simulation of sorts.
A chance to step outside of space and time to experience a narrative for a few hours.
Different then a role playing or wargame in that the rules are not as complex and the experience is more portable.
Set up and play.
The key to this simulation is immersion.
That point when the game pulls you in through a fusion of the rules, components, and narrative to the point where you are now in the game.
Good board game design creates this narrative, bad board game design breaks it.
Three examples of bad board game design.
The worst offender is rules where a player misses a turn, as this is the easy way out of the simulation.
Something happens, a conditional effect, a result of a bad roll, and you loose your next turn.
Bad.
This takes you out of the game for the next turn, it breaks the immersion as there is nothing to do but sit there. I get it that it is an easy effect mechanic, but every turn the players should have a choice.
Swap a missed turn, with being able to take less actions, or a limit to the dice rolls.
Enforce some sort of penalty as a condition, but always let the players engage when it is their turn.
Second example would be open ended win conditions where there is no enforced timer.
We keep playing until somebody wins the game.
Bad design as it drags the game out way beyond a reasonable play time. Immersions starts to fade after and hour and a half, and if it is going to be extended beyond this the rules need to be tight and build the (good) tension in a way to keep it going.
Implement a timer to the game, where players can’t min-max and have to engage and not always make the best most optimal conditions.
Knock out conditions would be saving the best of last.
Those times in a game when you take a loss, your character dies, or you are defeated and the penalty for losing is so high, you are effectively removed from the game, unable to catch back up or impact the game moving ahead.
Character death or player knockout should have consequences, some sort of loss, but not a loose everything and start over condition.
How many board games in your collection have these bad design rules?