Society for the Reformation of Mechanisms?: A Molly House review

I appreciate the idea of taking risks in design. There...

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Great Read! Honestly, I had not even heard of this game before this review but the first thing I did was send a link of this review to my son. I am so happy that a game took such chances to address a subject like this.

Great review. I'm more positive on Molly House than you, as it's locked in a three way fight at the moment with Vantage and Fate of the Fellowship for my game of the year, but I understand where you're coming from.

Thanks. And I still might get there. It's just not singing to me in the same way that Arcs doesn't sing to sornars and Gary Sax, I think.

Well done, Jack. Your review is my ideal balance between discussion of mechanics and theme, and analysis of what did and didn't work for you. I hesitate to repeat my usual grievances regarding Cole's games, but it seems like his opaque mechanics always create a disconnect between theme and gameplay that I am unable to enjoy. But I am glad that Cole is finding an audience, because he is creating novel games instead of the lazy shovelware that currently floods the board game marketplace.

I think I may be becoming more skeptical of Cole's designs generally and Molly House sounded very mechanically overwrought without enough payoff so I've sat on the sidelines for this one. They used to be autobuys for me. I can't put my finger on it but I feel like they aren't all that well developed; maybe it's because he has his fingers in so many pots with wehrlegig and with leder, but I'm not sure. His Oath expansion suite sounds like an absolute v2 of the game *mess,* but I still backed it because it's one of my favorite games. But I increasingly am not sure if he liked the same things about it I did!

There's no question he still makes some of the most interesting games in the hobby.

edit: I recognize that Jo is codesigner here but I must say that all the subsystems that you have to understand the implications of to play with effectively are pure Wehrle to me.

I think he makes very interesting games that are not for me.

It’s great to see new articles appearing here again.

Gary Sax wrote: I think I may be becoming more skeptical of Cole's designs generally and Molly House sounded very mechanically overwrought without enough payoff so I've sat on the sidelines for this one. They used to be autobuys for me. I can't put my finger on it but I feel like they aren't all that well developed; maybe it's because he has his fingers in so many pots with wehrlegig and with leder, but I'm not sure. His Oath expansion suite sounds like an absolute v2 of the game *mess,* but I still backed it because it's one of my favorite games. But I increasingly am not sure if he liked the same things about it I did!

There's no question he still makes some of the most interesting games in the hobby.

edit: I recognize that Jo is codesigner here but I must say that all the subsystems that you have to understand the implications of to play with effectively are pure Wehrle to me.

Yeah, I'm in this camp and am much more skeptical about his designs going forward. I think he's falling victim to the thing many great authors do; as his star has risen it's getting harder and harder for his editors to push back against him.

I also love Oath but I must concede that the game was probably weeks of development time away from being a total disaster and those weeks could've been in either direction. After finding an interesting design space his process becomes so volatile and he works up until his lock date so what game you get more or less hinges on his (and his playtest group's) mood that week.

@Jackwraith, great article and glad to see new content here! I was always skeptical of this one and my few plays have left me there. I think the game is grokkable without too much effort but I also think it's not interesting enough for me to invest the effort.

n815e wrote: It’s great to see new articles appearing here again.

Have multiple in the pipeline, too, since I know Wade has a list that he's eager to talk about and I've been playing quite a few things in the year-and-a-half that the site has been dormant. Plus, there's some older stuff that I always wanted to get back to (like a broad look at the GIPF series.)

sornars wrote: Yeah, I'm in this camp and am much more skeptical about his designs going forward. I think he's falling victim to the thing many great authors do; as his star has risen it's getting harder and harder for his editors to push back against him.

That's certainly a possibility. The prime example in that respect that I remember from when I was young was Stephen King. His 70s stuff is weird, twisted, incisive. He hits you with the main thrust of what he's trying to create and doesn't deviate. By the early 80s, he was enough of a bestseller that they just gave him the keys to the kingdom and things started to go off the rails. You'd find yourself in the middle of a 400-page story and he was still building a world, rather than reaching for that horror level that compelled you forward. I put down The Stand and never went back except for works where I knew he was constrained (short stories, novellas.)

I know that Cole carries some of the mindset that Amabel Holland does, in that a game doesn't necessarily need to be "fun" in order to be a game. I know that she's not concerned in the slightest about designing something that rewards repeated plays and I wonder if some of that bled into things like Arcs, where the real benefit of the experience, which has been stated pretty broadly by most players, is the campaign game, which is more about the different stories than the actual mechanisms. Molly House is a different scenario in that I think repeated plays was clearly the intent (not least to become accustomed to the game's rhythms and strategies) but it also carries enough thematic weight that it's possible just playing it once or twice is enough to open people's eyes to what they were trying to say about that period of history and culture and if people go past that, great. If not, likewise, great.

Yes, even with a cursory exploration you did start to feel the themes resonate. Actually, one thing that stood out in your review was how the traitor mechanic remained hidden for your group; maybe it’s the group I play in (very in line with the Knizia quote wrt playing to win) turning traitor became an obviously tempting thing. It also felt like a pretty big thematic exploration on the tensions between personal and community survival (and with some reflection, what surviving under those circumstances even means). Is a life without joy (VPs) really worth living?

Right. That thematic exploration is what I was hoping that mechanism would be, but it just hasn't developed for us. As you say, might just be a group/local meta thing in that most of our players have been trying to win in the "regular" way and play toward that angle, which may have limited their opportunity to turn traitor, even when they latterly realized that it could be a thing.