LogFAQs > #977012607

I don't know if I'd go so far as to say competitive games are "nicer," but I get the argument and certainly agree that cooperative games can be frustrating a lot of the time.

Not even from a disagreement standpoint; they're just hard to get right. Unless all players are at an exact equal skill level, you're almost always going to run into an issue of quarterbacking unless A) the game is designed around reducing or explicitly limits table talk between players, both of which hurts the overall cooperative feeling, or B) the game is easy enough that some players can kind of just do the tabletop equivalent of button mashing without compromising success, which also isn't exactly a satisfying experience for anyone.

The more sprawling co-op games like Eldritch Horror feel like they should be littered with memorable moments of team triumph, where even the most disastrous playthrough leaves you with the recollection of one incredible roll of the dice that everyone around the table is sitting on the edge of their seat for, where weeks later you can collectively relive the exact circumstances and board state that led up to it. That would make all the overhead and frustration worth it - a unique shared experience that you can't get from competitive games because you're all on different teams there and, by definition, one player's success is another's failure.

But my group has way more stories like that from competitive games. And I guess you could say that part of the reason is that in at least some aspect of the design philosophy (at least for good games), there's a consideration that even players who are losing should be having fun. Everyone losing together, especially in an utterly dominant fashion, after struggling against unfair odds just leads to a feeling that time was wasted. A competitive game at least ensures that one person comes away feeling accomplished, and usually it's more than that because the others can feel like they made them earn it in a balanced battle.

So maybe in a way, you're right that they're nicer. Guess it depends on your definition.