“no communication” rules in board games
every design thought i post here on this blog is just an opinion, but this one is extra an opinion because it's mostly down to my taste and nothing else. that said, man i really do not like 'no communication' rules in cooperative board games!
I mean specifically coop games like Sky Team, The Crew, etc. These are essentially fully formed cooperative games that for certain periods or in entirety will forbid the players from communicating with each other. in contrast to games that are VERY MUCH about this (The Mind, Hanabi, Mysterium) or are in total semi-cooperative (Captain Sonar). Pandemic and other games encourage communication but restrict what information can be discussed, ie the contents of your hand.
on purely an engagement level this annoys me. I am hanging out with my friends, i want to talk to them! the whole point of a board game is to sit around the game and operate the little bits and bobs to produce some shared emotions, and rules like these are literally stifling to that.
further, what indeed constitutes communication? how literal should I take the restriction? if I make significant eye contact with my friend who I think is making a mistake, am I breaking the rules? to the logical end point I may as well play by email and simply include a chess notation-like instruction set to the other players.
given the amount of caveats I listed above, maybe it's just specific games I dislike, or cooperative games in general? that's probably true to some degree. but I think the difference between the games listed above that do limited communication well and those that irk me is one of preventing player quarterbacking. without such a rule a player could play the entire game by themselves, instructing everyone else exactly on how to play. to that I say, completely seriously: find better players.
I'm in a space that frequently references what we call 'the modality rule' after user modality who coined it for use in TTRPGs: don't solve an external social or player problem with an in-game mechanic. if you're playing a cooperative game with someone who is quarterbacking, tell them to knock it off. if a game relies on this kind of restriction, then ultimately I will not find it particularly enjoyable to play.