J.K. Rowling created a magical universe teeming with wizards, spells, goblins, and most importantly candy. The Harry Potter books are great despite all their flaws and proph-outs (when a fantasy series resorts to prophecies). But this is a game-design blog, so by Merlin’s beard we’re going to talk about the Dumbledore of games: Quidditch. From a writing perspective I would have preferred it to involve spells - you know, that thing that makes Wizards unique and interesting - but let’s talk about the mechanics as they are. At first glance the game is zany and creative, but digging deeper I become more and more glad that Rowling stuck to books rather than game design. Quidditch does a great job of showing HARRY POTTER single-handedly winning the day, but it’s not a sport anyone would ever play in reality (and not just because Americans would be too fat to fly).
Players respond to incentives. They are extremely adept at optimization and divining the best strategy to maximize their chance to win. They will pursue these strategies without regard to how the designer thinks the game “should be played” or how fun those strategies are. In a well-made game the path to victory will also be the most fun way to play. But it’s very easy for a game to become bogged down into an unenjoyable morass.
Some games offer incremental advantages to players who repeatedly micromanage tedious resources. Players may hate it, but they will do it. A good designer avoids situations where you force the player down a road they won’t enjoy.
Even worse, some of these games will later say, “oh, actually that didn’t matter because the game is actually being decided by something out of your control”. Imagine that you built up a massive Monopoly empire and have practically won, only to see your opponents say, "whoever lands on Free Parking gets $1,000,000". They say it gives them a chance to catch up. If this were part of the actual Monopoly rules, it would completely invalidate all your interesting and/or skillful play beforehand to replace it with coin flip. Players hate tedium, but they hate even more seeing a huge time/energy/skill investment be ignored due to events out of their control. Randomness has a place, but if it is given too much freedom it detracts from the game.
Quidditch splits seven players into three categories: people who deal with the Quaffle (3 Chasers and 1 Keeper), people who deal with the Bludgers (2 Beaters), and the person who deals with the Golden Snitch (1 Seeker). A Chaser nets 10 points for their team by scoring with the Quaffle, while a Seeker ends the game and scores 150 points by catching the Snitch.
When Wood explains the game to Harry he says, “if you catch [the Snitch], we win”. He isn’t far off. Almost every game will be decided by the capture of the Snitch, relegating the play of more than half the team to irrelevance.
What if Magic worked like this? Imagine if the game was otherwise unchanged but with the following additional rule:
Every upkeep roll a die. If it lands on 6, the active player take 20 damage.
It wouldn’t matter how smart Richard Garfield was, how elegantly designed he designed the color wheel, or how much work Maro et al put into the latest set. This would kill Magic. Your deck choice would be irrelevant, all your skills meaningless. Every once in a while by sheer chance a game might develop into interesting board positions and interactions only to end abruptly. Magic games would become fancy coin flips.
This is the biggest problem with Quidditch. Sure, the Seeker needs to work hard, but most of the time it doesn’t matter what anyone else does (except the Beaters, they seem important).
JK also doesn’t give players enough credit. Let’s assume for a moment that the only hard rules are those we directly witness with no hidden surprises. Were you a Quidditch captain, how would you create the ideal team?
Off the bat, you could see that trading any one Chaser for a second Seeker more than doubles your chances. I personally might build a team with 2 Keepers, 2 Beaters, and 3 Seekers. If we assume I had equal level players, this would crush any standard Quidditch team. And what if players could fill multiple roles, switching at will between Seeking and Chasing? That would widen your options even further.
It wouldn’t even take a great strategist to make these changes. For the game to exist as we read it they would need a dictionary-sized rulebook. The rules would insist that, like a goalie in soccer, only the Seeker can touch the Snitch. But what’s to stop Chasers from acting as spotters, or interfering with the enemy Seeker? What defines “Keeper” as different than “Chaser”? Why can’t a Chaser just hold the Quaffle indefinitely, since it would appear impossible to strip the ball from her without incurring a foul? Can a Beater score the Quaffle, or hand his bat to another player?
Every rule added complicates the game and reduces its elegance. Eventually you’d have a morass of complicated and difficult-to-comprehend rules dictating exact guidelines for how the game should be played. And even then, min/max-ing gamers would find some other small loophole to give them an advantage. Often designers assume that by turning enough knobs on the details they can salvage a bad design. This is usually not the case.
Every problem I’ve mentioned stems from the same issue: too much importance is given to the Snitch. If the Snitch makes you win 90% of the time, then 90% of the average player’s effort will get devoted to the Snitch (this is a simplification, don’t think too hard about it).
However, a simple but huge change to the rules would fix all the aforementioned issues:
Catching the Snitch ends the game, but grants no points.
All the problems I mentioned instantly evaporate. Now a close game is very tense, with teams constantly changing strategies to match the current situation. Each Quaffle scored puts that team proportionally closer to winning. Every player is now equally important and needs to work with their team. A good Seeker would need to balance Seeking with harassing his opposite. High risk/high reward gambits would evolve in which a team's Chaser might become their Seeker, sacrificing some defensive power for the chance to end the game on the spot (like pulling a goalie in hockey). However, the opposing team might respond by moving their Seeker into Chaser duty, doubling the pressure. What once was seen as a bug to be avoided (players being able to switch roles) becomes an important strategic focus. A bug becomes a feature.
This would be a Quidditch worth thinking about, worth writing about, worth playing for years on end, one with evolving metagames and constantly changing strategies. But JK didn’t need a well-made game, she needed a game for HARRY POTTER to win against all odds by himself. Harry Seeks alone, occasionally observing the game going on around him but without it ever really affecting him. Rather than seeing him evolve to become a strategist and team leader, we see him grow into his role as a lone knight sallying forth without paying heed to others.
Some behaviors are learned through games. Maybe Harry would have been better off if he had played this Quidditch rather than JK’s. Then he might have listened to people a bit and demonstrated good leadership, rather than blindly following his own lead and charging alone into battles he wasn’t prepared to face.
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