History of Fun: Cooperative Board Games

In 1903, a woman named Elizabeth Maggie filed a patent for what she called “The Landlord’s Game.” It featured a square board full of properties that players could purchase. If you landed on someone else’s property, you had to pay them rent, and there were also taxes and railroads throughout the board. Sound familiar? Maggie’s creation is often discussed in relation to a similar board game that emerged a few decades later, but that’s a conversation for another time.

What stands out about The Landlord’s Game, at least to me, is that it included a groundbreaking feature: players had the option to play with single tax rules, later known as “prosperity.” In this mode, players worked together to ensure that even the player with the lowest wealth could prosper. Many historians consider The Landlord’s Game the first commercial cooperative board game, as there were no individual winners or losers; players collaborated as a team.

Fast forward 120 years, and the world of board games has changed dramatically. We’ve moved far beyond the simple thrill of classic games, evolving into complex experiences like developing a prosperous island nation or navigating the intricacies of games like Twilight Imperium. In this new era of gaming, cooperative board games have become staples of the tabletop community. From Arkham Horror to Gloomhaven to Pandemic, game designers have taken the idea of collaboration to the next level.

It’s easy to understand the appeal of a group of friends triumphing together, but some of my favorite memories of cooperative gaming involve failing spectacularly. What is it about losing together that can still be enjoyable? What does that tell us about game design, community, and our own unique minds?

Hi, I’m Justin Dodd, and this is “The History of Fun,” an exploration of the origins of human enjoyment. Today, we’re looking at board games, specifically cooperative games, where players either all win or all lose, with the game itself as the only opponent. I’ll be trying to figure out, with a little help from my buddy Matt Leacock, creator of the Pandemic series, why losing together can be just as fun as winning alone.

Let’s talk a bit about board games. I’m a big board game enthusiast; my closet is full of dozens of games, and I host multiple dedicated board game nights each month. I even taught board game rules professionally for a while. Suffice it to say, I have a deep fascination with people gathering around a table to play.

I’ve also dealt with depression throughout my adult life, and I know two things to be true: first, something as trivial as a game night isn’t a substitute for therapy, and second, those game nights don’t feel trivial to me. In fact, those nights spent with people I love, laughing and engaging in something that objectively doesn’t matter, often feel like the things that matter most.

Maybe asking why the things we love are worth loving is akin to looking a gift horse in the mouth, but I wonder if there’s something to gain from taking fun seriously—treating it as a meaningful part of being human. Fun, especially involving tabletop games, has been a part of human history since seemingly the beginning.

To recap briefly: dice have been discovered all over the world, dating back at least 5,000 years. Some dice found in ancient Greece were made from sheep or goat knuckle bones. Ancient Egypt had a game called Senet, which was even mentioned in the Book of the Dead. The Royal Game of Ur, dating back to around 2650 BCE, is thought to be the oldest still-played board game.

In the 1990s, anthropologists found that a small number of people in India recalled playing a game similar to backgammon, which has entertained people since at least 2000 BCE. A version called “Ludus Duodecim Scriptorum” was played during the Roman Empire. The game remained popular and saw a resurgence in the 1960s, thanks in part to Prince Alexis Obolensky, known as the father of modern backgammon.

By around the year 1000, chess had spread throughout Europe and has been regarded as the best game of all time by many ever since. A few centuries later, Parker Brothers was founded and released over 1,800 games, including classics like Clue, Sorry, Risk, Trivial Pursuit, and Monopoly. The Spiel des Jahres, essentially the Oscars of board games, began in 1979, and the games that won Game of the Year have gone on to achieve massive commercial success. Now, board games are a multi-billion dollar industry with thousands of titles to choose from.

But where do cooperative games fit into this timeline? We see hints of it back at the turn of the century with The Landlord’s Game, but it took a while for the idea to catch on. In the 1970s, a few family games were released with unique collaborative elements, like a game called “Choices,” which was a values-oriented moral dilemma game.

In the 80s and 90s, we finally saw games that resemble modern cooperative board games. Arkham Horror, set in the Lovecraftian universe, was released in 1987, where players took on unique characters and worked together to protect the world from interdimensional beings. In 2000, the Lord of the Rings board game was released, which many future game designers would cite as a direct influence. After that, the genre really exploded, with entries ranging from fantasy to sci-fi to action-adventure.

Many modern board games can be overwhelming, with rule manuals longer than some calculus textbooks and hundreds of tiny pieces to keep track of. I’ve learned to read the room during game nights; if people aren’t looking to spend four hours battling Cthulhu, I might suggest a more casual game instead.

Take “Hanabi,” for example. In this card game, players try to collectively play a game of Solitaire, but the twist is that you can’t look at your own cards. You must discreetly clue your teammates into what cards they have and when they should play them. It’s simple yet falls under the cooperative game category by giving every player the same goal.

Now, let’s hear from Matt Leacock, a board game designer best known for the Pandemic series. Matt has designed several influential games over the last 20 years, including Pandemic Legacy, which is highly regarded in the tabletop community. He also designed Forbidden Island and Forbidden Desert and is currently working on a new cooperative game called Daybreak, focused on climate change.

Matt, how long have you been designing games?

“I’ve been designing games since I was a kid. I have early sketches from when I was about eight years old. I started as a hobby in high school and self-published my first game in 2000. The first one that was actually published was Pandemic in 2008.”

You’re known for making cooperative games. What’s the process of creating a cooperative game compared to a competitive one?

“I find it easier to think about competitive games because I can create a cardboard opponent for players to fight against. In a cooperative game, I have to generate an interesting opponent using only a deck of cards, which is the part I really enjoy.”

What do you think makes someone enjoy a cooperative game more than one with a single winner?

“There’s a lot in common between the two. In cooperative games, you get camaraderie as you work together to overcome challenges, unlocking different kinds of fun. You experience collaborative problem-solving, creativity, and social bonding, which you wouldn’t necessarily get in a competitive game.”

Cooperative games force you to practice important human skills. One study showed that collaborating in games like Pictionary resulted in statistically significant similarities in brain activity, correlating with increased effectiveness at tasks.

An article by Larry Chao discussed the role of oxytocin in collaboration. While often referred to as the “love hormone,” its exact role is debated, but it’s thought to facilitate human interactions. Chao offered eight leadership behaviors that can increase oxytocin and improve team cohesion, which perfectly aligns with cooperative board games.

The Landlord’s Game was designed to teach players about Georgism, the economic ideology that land should be taxed for the community. The game “Community” from the early 70s aimed to provoke discussions about important questions like whether we are our brother’s keeper. This practice of creating cooperative games as educational tools continues today.

In Pandemic, players work as a team to combat diseases, with each person taking on a different role. Matt shared an interesting case where Pandemic was used in a UK medical school to teach doctors how to work together effectively.

So, cooperative games are effective for practicing social skills, but why are they so popular? What makes them enjoyable, especially when everyone might lose? A 2006 study sought to identify what makes collaborative games fun, focusing on the Lord of the Rings board game. One key feature of effective collaborative game design is the tension between perceived individual utility and team utility. Players should feel unsure whether to act selfishly or for the greater good of the team.

The authors also emphasized the importance of the game’s difficulty. In cooperative games, the challenge comes from the game itself, so creators must work variability into the design.

Matt shared his thoughts on game difficulty: “I don’t like it when players win the first time because it implies they can just put the game on the shelf. If they lose, I want them to feel that victory is within reach next time.”

When I play with friends, we might be climbing the rungs of a collaborative ladder, but why is that enjoyable? What does fun look like to you?

For me, fun often involves the “aha” moment or the formulation of a clever plan. I enjoy cooperative games because they generate problems to solve, and I like the creativity and experimentation involved in game design.

Research shows that solving puzzles and figuring out patterns is satisfying for our brains, often resulting in a dopamine rush when we have that “light bulb” moment.

We’re currently experiencing a golden age of board games, with a boom in the multi-billion dollar industry. Resources like Kickstarter have lowered barriers for independent creators, leading to popular games like Gloomhaven, currently ranked as the best game on BoardGameGeek.

However, the pandemic in 2020 made it difficult to enjoy board games with friends. Many people, including Matt and myself, found ourselves unable to gather for our regular game nights. This time apart made me reflect on what matters most about playing board games: is it winning, mastering a skill, or collaboration?

When we finally got back together in person, it was a wonderful experience. Board games serve as a context for social interactions that video games can’t replicate. They’re an excuse to sit around a table with friends, engaging in something meaningful.

Even if the activity is just a bonus, we choose games that evoke feelings, even if that means losing together. In fact, research shows that people often prefer close games to easy wins, as the challenge of testing limits is exciting, even in defeat.

Cooperative games create a perfect middle ground for fun, allowing players to strive for something while focusing on enjoying the journey, win or lose.

Thanks for watching this first episode of “The History of Fun.” We’re excited to explore the various ways humans have entertained themselves throughout history. If you have topics you’d like us to cover in future episodes, leave them in the comments. I’d love to hear about your favorite game to lose, whether it’s a challenging boss in a video game or a board game I should check out. Until next time, don’t forget to roll for initiative and watch out for Cthulhu lurking in the water. See you soon!