Got 10 Minutes? You Have Time for a Game.

You're sitting in a restaurant. You've ordered, and now you're waiting.
Your flight boards in twenty minutes.
You're on a train with another hour before your stop.
You're riding in the back seat on a road trip.
You're at a convention between events.
You've got ten minutes before everyone needs to leave.
That's usually not enough time to play a tabletop game.

Usually.

When we originally designed Monsters, Magic & Mayhem, we wanted something people could play during the little gaps that happen on game night. While another game was being set up. While waiting for someone to arrive. While someone grabbed a snack or drink. While the GM desperately searched for the notes they swore were “right here.”

Or while someone was...                 Well...                   Destroying the bathroom.

But once we had a game designed to fit into those little gaps, we realized something.
Those gaps aren't limited to game night. They're everywhere.

A Game Doesn't Need a Game Table
We tend to think of tabletop gaming as an event.
Get everyone together. Pick a game. Clear the table. Open the box. Set everything up. Explain the rules.
Then play.

There's nothing wrong with that. We love those games.

But why should every tabletop game require a tabletop gaming session? Sometimes you've already got another kind of table.

A restaurant table.
An airport table.
A tray table on a train or airplane.
A coffee table in a hotel room.

Sometimes you don't really have a table at all, just a small flat space between two people. The question isn't simply whether a game is small enough to carry. It's whether it's small enough to play. There's a difference.

A Small Box Isn't Necessarily a Portable Game
You can put a surprisingly complicated game into a small box. Then you open it.

There's a deck of cards. Another deck. Tokens. Counters. Player boards. Dice. Markers. Something to track points. Something else to track turns. Suddenly your tiny game needs half the dining-room table.

That's fine if that's the game you're looking for.
But it isn't what we wanted from Monsters, Magic & Mayhem.

If we're going to call a game portable, we think the experience should be portable too. You shouldn't need a large playing surface. You shouldn't need a complicated setup. You shouldn't need a pile of loose pieces. You shouldn't need twenty minutes just to remember how everything works. And you shouldn't need to worry about a die bouncing off an airplane tray table and disappearing under seat 23B.

MMM doesn't use dice. It doesn't need a big board. It doesn't require an enormous collection of components spread across the table. Give the cards a little room and you're ready to play.

Ten Minutes Is Actually a Lot of Time
Ten minutes doesn't sound like much. In everyday life, though, we get ten-minute gaps constantly. We're just accustomed to treating them as not enough time to do anything. So we reach for our phones.

What if ten minutes were enough for a game? That's one of the ideas we've come to appreciate about MMM.

You don't necessarily decide: “Tonight we're playing Monsters, Magic & Mayhem.”

You can decide: “We've got ten minutes. Want to play?”

That's a very different relationship with a tabletop game. You aren't scheduling time for the game.
The game fits into the time you already have.

The Restaurant Test
A restaurant is actually a pretty good test of whether a game is truly portable.

Two people sit down. They order. Now there's a little time before the food arrives. Could you play your game?

First problem: space.

Menus, silverware, glasses, napkins and condiments are already occupying part of the table. Nobody wants you setting up a sprawling board across the place where dinner is supposed to go.

Second problem: setup.

If it takes ten minutes to prepare the game, you've probably just finished setting it up when the appetizers arrive.

Third problem: interruption.

At some point someone is going to walk up to the table carrying food. The game needs to be able to stop. Quickly.

That's the sort of environment MMM can handle. A small space for the cards is enough. Get them out. Play.
Food arrives? Finish up and put it away.

Although if someone is one move from winning when the pizza arrives, we accept no responsibility for the resulting diplomatic crisis.

Planes, Trains and Automobiles
Travel creates even stranger playing spaces.
On a train, you've probably got a small table.
On an airplane, you've got a very small table.

In the back of a car, “table” might be an optimistic description of whatever surface you've managed to create between two people. Those places aren't friendly to traditional tabletop components.

Dice are particularly adventurous travelers. Roll one enthusiastically enough on an airplane and it may embark on its own journey several rows toward the cockpit. Cards behave better.

That was another reason we originally wanted MMM to work without dice. It simplified the game, but it also made the game easier to play in places that weren't designed for gaming.

You don't need to roll anything. You don't need to find somewhere to put a board. You need enough room to play your cards. That's about it.

Portable Rules Matter Too
Physical size is only half of portability. The rules have to travel well too. Imagine pulling out a small game at an airport and then spending fifteen minutes teaching it. Your gate begins boarding just as everyone finally understands what they're doing. That's not especially useful.

A game intended for short, spontaneous play needs rules people can understand quickly and remember later. That doesn't mean there can't be strategy. In fact, that's one of the things we've deliberately worked toward with MMM.

The basic game is straightforward. Cards have Strength. Cards also have effects.
Players place their characters or monsters without knowing exactly what the other player is doing. Then those choices collide.

The rules don't need to create all of the complexity because the players create some of it themselves.

What do I think you're doing? What do you think I'm doing? Do I put my strongest card here? Are you expecting me to? Should I use this effect now or save it?

The game can create interesting decisions without requiring a large number of rules to create them. That matters when the entire point is to be able to say: “Want to play?” and start.

The Game Goes Where You Go
There's another benefit to a genuinely portable game. You actually bring it with you.

That sounds obvious but think about how many games you own that you would never casually throw into a bag. They're great games. They're just staying home.

A small game is different. Going on vacation? Bring it.
Flying somewhere? Bring it.
Going to a convention? Definitely bring it.
Meeting friends at a restaurant? Bring it.
Heading to somebody else's game night? Throw it in the bag. Maybe you play. Maybe you don't. That's the point. You don't need to plan an evening around it. You just need the opportunity.

Small Doesn't Have to Mean Disposable
We didn't want portability to come at the expense of replayability. A ten-minute game that's interesting once isn't much of a game. That's one of the reasons MMM evolved beyond its original design.

At first, Strength largely determined who won. That was fun, but after several games there wasn't enough left to discover.

Adding individual card effects changed that. Hidden placement changed it further.

Keeping the decks relatively small meant experienced players could begin learning what cards existed and thinking about what their opponents might, or might not, have. The physical game remained small while the decisions became larger. That's the balance we're after.

Small enough to carry.
Fast enough to play almost anywhere.
Interesting enough that you actually want to.
Find Ten Minutes

Not every game needs an evening. Not every game needs a dining-room table covered with components. Not every game needs a scheduled game night.

Sometimes you're waiting for your food.
Sometimes you're waiting for your flight.
Sometimes you're halfway across the country on a train.
Sometimes you're sitting in the back seat while someone else has several hundred miles of driving ahead of them.
And sometimes you're at game night waiting for the GM to find those notes.

They're still looking, by the way. They were absolutely certain they put them right there. Whatever the reason, you've got a few minutes and another person nearby. That's enough.

Find a little space. Find ten minutes. You've got time for a game.

Next from the Engine Room

Keeping Monsters, Magic & Mayhem small was easy.
Keeping it small without making it shallow was the real challenge.

We could have added more cards, more components, and more rules. Instead, we discovered that sometimes the best way to add more game isn't to add more stuff.

Next time: More Cards Don't Always Make a Better Card Game.