Over the past few months, I've been thinking a lot about expansions. Whether it's playing The Hidden Ones DLC for Assassins Creed Origins or adding in the Warriors of Middle Earth pack to War of the Ring, one question has been on my mind: what makes a "good" expansion?
To find out, I reached out to the internet.
Now, while I reached out to fans of both video games and board games, it's clear that the majority of respondents were board game fans, as is visible in these two questions:
So, I'm not going to pretend that this is by any means scientific, and you should probably consider that these questions have a bias toward people who may not necessarily consider video gaming to be their primary hobby.
However, I found it really interesting how different the results were for what people expected out of expansions for the various mediums.
What Makes a Good Expansion
One thing I was interested in, naturally, was what elements people thought consisted of a good expansion. In this question, they were able to check any elements they considered to be important.
For the most part, these expectations came out similar enough. It seemed like using an expansion to add mechanics to a game was more popular on tabletop titles than televisions. In fact, I was surprised to see that new game mechanics added in expansions were less popular than I'd expect in both categories.
Talking about the board game (and not the 90's era PC one), one user wrote:
The Rise of the Empire expansion for Rebellion. It includes new characters, new units, and new cards to change up the game but maintains the core gameplay features. It offers a vast improvement on the basic combat system. Everything is modular, so can be mixed and matched at will with the core game.
Some users did enjoy the new mechanics, as long as they had modular implementation:
The best BG expansions I know are the 2 expansions to Champions of Midgard. Although they added new mechanics (something that can often bloat a new game), these new mechanics harmonized with and indeed enhanced the original mechanics (and theme) of the game. Now the base game is unthinkable without these expansions. But I'm not sure this lesson translates to IA - the game is already complex enough.
Finally, it appeared some players did embrace totally new mechanics for their games.
Catan: Cities and Knight. The new mechanics add so much more depth and choice than the base game. Honestly, if I had my way about it, I doubt I'd play without it.
For video games, we also had some users who preferred to not have new mechanics in their expansions:
World Of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade. This added "more of the same" to an already great game, but the new raids were vastly improved versions of a mechanic that already existed.
And despite what the survey graph reported, many users did seem to appreciate new mechanics that video games brought:
Endless Legend Tempest: I like it improves the base game a lot with new game mechanics, new factions, etc.
Now, while mechanics tended to be one of the largest apparent discrepancies between the two mediums, it's also worth noting that "Continuation of Story" slightly favored video games. Now, while I know that board games can totally tell stories (and even outside "legacy" and campaign games) but I'm also not terribly surprised at this- there's definitely a preconception that video games more often tell a story than board games. I personally don't agree, because I find board games just as immersive as video games, and sometimes even more- but I'm sure that's where those stats come from, and I'm confident that discrepancy would've widened even more with a larger percentage of video game survey takers.
Finally, I'd like to note that one of the top results in each category was "More of What Made the Base Game Great". I think that when compared to "New Mechanics" or "A Completely Different Experience", it's clear that the results of this survey show that its participants don't want a reinvention of the wheel for their expansion- they just want more of what they already love.
What Expansions Should Avoid
I think the results of this survey are most interesting when dealing on what expansions should avoid, though.
As is apparent, the participants of this survey had one specific thing that they did not want in board game expansions- game breaking of bloated additions. That category towered above the rest in its question, but its equivalent wasn't even the top answer in the same question directed toward video game content. That, I think, is very interesting, and I have three theories:
1) Board Gamers, being the majority of participants, simply aren't as concerned with the balancing of video games
2) Depending on genre, video games may not require the careful balance that board games do. For instance, if someone was comparing a tabletop war game to the newest single player open world title, it's clear that the war game's balance would be one of its top priorities while the open world game could focus on other things like immersion and story.
3) The participants were actually pretty savvy on video games, and realized balance issues could be fixed in a patch. Board games, unfortunately, don't have that luxury, at least not as conveniently.
Regardless, one other thing sticks out to me with this survey- the accessibility "yellow" bar. Now, technically the two questions don't have exactly the same topic here. For board games, I ask about an expansion making it more difficult for new players to join- much like how the addition of Warriors of Middle Earth and Lords of Middle Earth can make War of the Ring even more intimidating to a new player. For video games, I ask about player segmentation with online games, like how 2015's DLC in Battlefront caused the online community to be fractured, with players who owned DLC having to choose whether to play the new maps or remain in lobbies with those who didn't buy the new content. Interestingly, board gamers seemed less concerned with this question than with the video game equivalent.
Perhaps this is sort of the inverse of the board games' ability to update with a patch, though. While there's nothing an end user can do to alleviate segmentation online, a board game owner can take it upon themself to make sure a new player is properly educated in a game, even if the rules are more complex than just the core components.
Either way- again, this was hardly scientific, but it was still interesting to hear everyone's thoughts. Personally, I agree that a good expansion needs to bring more of what worked without needing the burden of new complexities- that's why I personally really liked The Hidden Ones, but don't love Warriors of Middle Earth. It's why I think Daybreak is a far better expansion to ONUW than Vampire, or why the gimmicks of stuff like lootboxes in no way excite me like actual DLC.
So, for what it's worth, that's how I think expansions should be handled.
May the Force be with you!
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- Thomas
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