Tit for Tat

I have class in less than 11 hours. Don't worry, I'll go to bed shortly.

But last night, I was distracted by a long chain of Wikipedia entries on game theory. Now, they mainly have application to gambling games, or the Prisoner's dilemma, heavily weighted in probability. Now, I probably won't take any of these strategies and apply them formally. I like games you can just pick up and enjoy. But there was one strategy, Tit for Tat. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tit_for_Tat)

Now, this is applicable in a particular game (the prisoner's dilemma), but this is applicable in any adversarial game to a certain extent, especially those like Munchkin and where it is easy to hurt or help a player and there is some benefit in cooperation.

Basically, when we start, I'm going to help you the first chance I get. Then after that, I copy whatever move you make. If you help me, I help you. If you hurt me, I hurt you. But if you hurt me, there will be a small chance that I'll forgive you anyway and help you.

It makes sense. I don't always follow it (especially later in the game, when opportunism tends to take over; the system relies on there being a next time where you can punish the other player, and if there are too few turns until a victory, the reasoning breaks down). But it's a good general model if I have to choose between helping the player for some small mutual benefit, or refusing to ensure that no one gains any advantage. Plus, people like you better when you help them, and in subsequent turns they'll be less likely to smack you down. (People will kick someone down if they're too ambitious... and usually the person that gets close to winning first catches the most flak... and flax, too, depending on the game.)

There are times, though, where I play a game ruthlessly. I don't like playing those games. They aren't fun, especially if you've made the other person not have fun. It's good to have some team spirit, some camaraderie to counterbalance the rivalry, the tension that Harry and Cedric feel when they compete for the Triwizard tournament cup. Especially when it's something as small as a game.

This is a flaw with Killer Bunnies and the Quest for the Magic Carrot. It's pretty easy to kill bunnies or lose them. In larger games, this is fine, because that means there's enough people to cancel out bad effects. With two players though, if one person grows powerful, there isn't a mass of cooperative tit-for-tats to drag them back down. (For explanation, if someone's bunnies all die, there is not very much you can do, and so turns turn into largely discarding cards and hoping to get a bunny again. It's like having a high point rummy hand when someone else goes out. Or trying to thwart someone getting 7NT when you have no face cards and your partner passed. It sucks.) It easily becomes a drudgery, to the point where I feel there should be a rule, like, "No intentionally killing the other person's bunnies if they're their last ones, unless you're killing yours in the process." For two players. Generally, even three player games work out much better.