Bugs: Recent Topics Paging, Uploading Images & Preview (11 Dec 2020)
Recent Topics paging, uploading images and preview bugs require a patch which has not yet been released.
Player Elimination
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Games where you are allowed to re-enter should have a reason for it. Talisman lets you come back as another character, which is totally fine and fun because at its core Talisman is really just a fun romp around a fantasy land. It's a bummer to lose a character you've built up, but you're still likely to have fun starting out again unless it's very late in the game.
Being effectively eliminated, but not properly eliminated, sucks. But it's better than catch-up mechanisms, which are rarely thematic or all that interesting. Pete doesn't like when a player that is effectively eliminated plays kingmaker/troublemaker, but I suggest that a player in that position hasn't really been eliminated because they still have something to offer in a well-designed game.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Runaway leaders are a very similar problem. Though all players are in the game at all times at least nominally, in some games a player may be destined for last place early on with nothing to do about it. Many engine building games and games with an exponential growth economy have that problem by their very nature. And most catchup mechanics seem, as others already mentioned, completely arbitrary or worse yet, are so powerful that the early game and midgame don't really matter.
Games with growing economies may introduce some kind of diminishing returns to investment or maintenance fees. But that will only make the leader run away more slowly. What seems to work best is providing players with high risk/high payout and low risk/low payout options and incentivizing the leading players to take the latter. High risk may be due to luck or/and the maneuver being more difficult to execute in some way. The high risk play may backfire, but it gives players a fighting chance and feels pretty natural.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
quozl wrote: What's the proper game that came later?
Something like Game of Thrones is pretty close to Diplomacy, but is much shorter and doesn't have stalemate lines. But even it has the Lannister elimination problem.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
And even though player elimination sucks, it does do one good thing in games that have it - it provides tension as players play to get over their fear of getting eliminated.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
- Posts: 1728
- Thank you received: 771
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Regardless, be sure to let us know what you think of the game!
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
- Posts: 11077
- Thank you received: 8037
For other games, especially shorter games or games with a horror theme, I still think that player elimination is potentially a good mechanic.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Realistically it certainly does suck and Reiner is pretty much right... but that doesn't make him actually right for everyone. I know that it sucks to be eliminated or even worse essentially eliminated from a game. I have experienced it first hand many times. I also know that playing with very little chance of winning is still better than not playing at all. None the less I stand by player elimination as a fine mechanic that definitely has a place and feels at least as real as any result possible in the gaming world.
It is generally seen as an antiquated mechanic in gaming but I don't think it's done yet. There is still some life in there if anyone wants to find interesting ways to deal with it (I like the sounds of what they've done with that Nevermore game). If I was game designer myself I think that it would be hard to not use player elimination at some point. It's easily the most 'elegant' (kind of a joke to use that word... it's intentional) end game mechanic out there. You are the last man left, you win. It couldn't be any simpler.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
- Posts: 490
- Thank you received: 277
Monopoly
Axis and Allies
Bang!
Betrayal House on the Hill
Blood Feud New York
Heroscape
Jenga
King of Tokyo
Shadow Hunters
Samurai swords
Titan
Tsuro
Just a partial list of great games with player elimination.
Frankly, I don't understand why it's a problem for anyone. I would much rather be eliminated or have another player eliminated than sit there at the table as a lame duck for too long. Pete touched on some key issues with lame ducks. If I know I have no shot att winning I might try and help the game by putting pressure on the leader, but. I meta game my game group. So I tend to utter the word JIHAD and spend the rest of the game trying to make the person I feel is responsible for my demise wish he had picked on someone else. That person may not be the leader.
Risk legacy has a rule where you lose your entire army you are given a few units and allowed to reenter the game. What the hell is the point of that? I would love to hear an instance where someone parlayed that last gasp into a win.
I guess the question is are you happy to still be playing a game beyond the point you know you cannot win? For me the answer is usually no. Eliminate me, please.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
- Posts: 490
- Thank you received: 277
Love Letter
Coup
Werewolf
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Alastair MacDirk wrote: ...Jenga...
Jenga is an interesting selection. As it does almost the exact opposite of what most games do. There really isn't any player elimination, one person loses and that's it. That game is simply about finding www.sportsnet.ca/hockey/nhl/maple-leafs-...ssel-to-penguins/out who the biggest loser is. I've always found that kind of fascinating. I think they put some rule in there like whoever last built up successfully before the towers collapse wins but we all know that all anyone pays attention to is who lost. Who ruined the tower. It's an odd mechanic.
Some of my favorite player elimination games.
Sac Noir (or Bausack)
Wiz War
Cutthroat Caverns
Rune Age
A lot of DoaM's
Or even light card games like crazy eight countdown where the first out wins but we keep playing until only one loser is left with their lonely hand. It's a reverse player elimination and in that case the first out wins... lots of card games work this way.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
In college, we would set the board up in a corner of a dorm room and resolve one move every couple of days, meaning there was ample time to chew over your secret plans via text or email, or while walking to class, while eating in the cafeteria, etc. Having to wait 48 hours between moves is just long enough to make you beautifully neurotic: wondering who might be plotting your demise while lying to your face, wondering whether you should reconsider backstabbing Austria and so on. Played like that, Diplomacy a really specific, special kind of experience and I can't think of anything else that even comes close. It amplifies the underlying paranoia that's, like, a crucial element to Diplomacy. That shit has you hearing Bernard Herrmann strings in your sleep. But, yeah, pile into a smelly room all day and a good chunk of the night? Yeah, no thanks, that sucks.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.
Please Log in or Create an account to join the conversation.