Victory points are a common win condition in many tabletop games. I want to argue that they ought to be used sparingly, and their presence in a game is often due to laziness or lack of creativity.

First, let me make it clear that simply tracking points of some kind does not mean that a game uses victory points. Victory points are, by definition, abstract and not representative of health, money, etc. Moreover, in many sports, such as a basketball, points simply track the number of minigames won before the timer ends. This is not at all how board games use victory points. Consider if basketball, for example, used scoring in the same way that many “point-salad” tabletop games use it: on top of the points assigned when the ball enters the basket, perhaps teams will achieve points based on how far down the court they made it before losing possession. Perhaps a steal or block will be assigned a point. Would this improve the game?

I would say ‘no’ for three reasons:

1. Tedious and non-immersive. Let good or bad plays serve to further the team’s overall quest to achieve the primary objective. Every play does not need to be its own minigame with its own point value. In tabletop games specifically, tracking victory points is effectively a meta-chore that invariably requires rules, components, and time outside of delivering the promised experience.
2. Non-thematic. Victory, influence, reputation, glory — call it what you want, but it’s still abstract. Capital, destroying an army, catching a murderer, surviving a zombie attack, or creating a monopoly is thematic. First player to X victory points is not.
3. Arbitrary. If we’re assigning victory points to X, why not also to Y? Why not also to Z? Moreover, why is X worth 1 point? Why not 2 points? Are we not denying players the opportunity to discover the value of certain actions when we tell them outright what they’re worth?

Exceptions could be made to abstract games — a genre of game I am admittedly not a fan of — but within games that are trying to mimic the real world in some way, you can see the inconsistency. If the game isn’t abstract, why is the victory condition abstract? This is inconsistent. I saw this quite clearly in a game design forum recently, when someone wrote this in their defense of victory points in a 4X game:

VPs allow me to apply small bonuses for certain effects, such as combat and politics, which can add up as players engage with those systems.

I had to ask, why is it not enough for these systems to produce incremental strategic benefits that allow players to reach their main objective? Many of the best games of all time have straightforward, thematic objectives: Counterstrike, Warcraft 3, Civilization 2, Dota 2, HOMM 3, Darkest Dungeon, etc. No need to assign arbitrary values to one’s success in a particular area; a good designer weaves them all together seamlessly to affect the outcome. A base expansion means additional resources. A happier populace means resistance to rioting or propaganda. An new trade route means a stronger economy. A large infrastructure means faster production of units and buildings. And so on.

You will notice above that I only mentioned computer games. What is so fascinating about computer games is that they can completely remove the tedium of tracking VPs and yet the best computer games typically eschew VPs. I will not lie, I think the quality of game design in computer games is far beyond that of tabletop games, where “Euro games” have seemingly normalized the uninspiring VP objective. Victory points blemish so many otherwise beautiful tabletop strategy games — as though great generals of the past marched to the battlefield or build wonders of the world in pursuit of an abstract number by which they would be ranked with other figures of history.

Some have claimed that my comments only apply to war or 4X games, whereas in political or economic games, there is no need to have an objective that is the result of political or economic dominance: the designer should choose a point at which the player could consider themselves economically dominant. Again, I consider this lazy and unimaginative. If the goal is political power, why not require the player to gain a majority of seats in a galactic parliament? If the goal is economic power, why not require the player to buy out their competition or build a certain structure or number of structures?

Let’s take a simple example that we’re all familiar with: Settlers of Catan. The first player to ten victory points wins. Buildings, army size, road size, and progress cards can all increase one’s victory points. But let’s ask ourselves, what is the objective this game, thematically? Is it not to establish oneself as the dominant settler? Why then not make the game end after a certain number of rounds (which is already beneficial since players will have a clearer sense of when the game will end) and the winner is the player with the most resources? (Obviously this might require other rules adjustments.)

A thematic tabletop game that I am aware of that may implement victory points well is Dominion — and perhaps that is because the victory points are tangible rather than abstract, in that they take up real estate (pun intended) in one’s hand. Since the victory points are effectively game pieces, immersion is not broken and tracking them does not require extra components.

In conclusion, as designers, we should ask ourselves if they’re using VPs because their game needs it or if they’re inadvertently forsaking their duty as a designer to create a game that is thematic and clean where it matters most: the objective.