Board Game Theory

post by Optimization Process · 2023-04-03T06:23:47.081Z · ? · GW · 0 comments

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Do you ever lament, while playing a board game, "This game is too well-balanced and carefully designed!" Well, then! Come play some board games, at this event where you are forbidden from playing any game according to the rules-as-written, and strongly encouraged to add your own ill-thought-out and probably-game-breaking mechanics, ideally ones that contort the incentive structure in interesting ways.

Examples of games you might play:

• Pandemic, except each player's goal is to maximize their own "prestige" -- where prestige is the number of cubes you remove from the board -- rather than to save the world.
• Coup, except with big enough hands that almost all the cards are dealt.
• [Any competitive game with resources or points], except the players can create prediction markets on in-game events and bet resources/points in those markets.
• [Any many-player game with a winner], except the goal isn't to be the winner, but rather to not be the loser.
• [Any game where the goal is to get the most points], except the goal is to maximize your own number of points without reference to other players, rather than the probability you get the most points. Just like real life!
• Codenames, except one random secret player on each team is a traitor, trying to make the other team win.
• Magic the Gathering (or any similar game), but with proxies introducing various bizarre mechanisms. Some ideas to get you started:
  
  • Tragedy of the Commons: Each other player may choose to draw a card, or not draw a card. If all other players draw cards, you win the game.
  • Blackmail: Choose a target player with more life than you, and name a number X of life, along with an action or condition. If they don't perform the action or fulfill the condition, you both take X damage.
  • Reluctant Protector: target player with more life than you receives 1/2 of all damage you receive until the beginning of your next turn. (The damage you receive is not reduced.)
  • Precommitment: At the start of each turn, you may name something you will do or not do, for example, "I will not give into any Blackmail card" or "I will not spend more than three mana healing any other player." If you fail to fulfill your Precommitment, you lose the game.
  • Unfortunate Incentives: Choose two target players. Each gains 1/2 as much life as any damage dealt to the other player, until the end of the round.
  • Fortunate Incentives: Choose two target players. Each loses 1/2 as much life as any damage dealt to the other player, until the beginning of your next turn.
  • Democracy: Choose a number X, and a way to distribute X life among all players. All players (including you) simultaneously vote on the distribution; if more than half approve, that distribution takes effect; otherwise, you take X damage and do not participate in any remaining votes due to this card, and the player to your left names a distribution for the same X life. Repeat until a distribution is approved.
  • Dollar Auction: Choose a number X. All players (except you) simultaneously choose "Bid" or "Exit." Players who Exit are unaffected and lose the opportunity to Bid for the rest of this card’s effects. Each player who Bid gives you 1 life. Repeat, until nobody Bids. X of your life is distributed evenly (rounded down) among the last players to Bid.
  • Split or Steal: Choose two target players. They simultaneously choose "Split" or "Steal": if they both Split, nothing happens; if they both Steal, they both discard a card; if exactly one Splits, that one draws two cards.
  • Ultimatum: Choose a target player and a number X <= 4. The other player may choose to draw X cards; if they do, draw 4-X cards.
  • Signaling: Each player may sacrifice as much life as they want.
  • Schelling Point: Every player simultaneously points at another player. Whichever player was most-pointed-at gains one life per vote, and everybody who pointed at that player gains one life per vote. The player who sacrificed the most life on the last Signaling card is not mechanically special in any way, but every player is STRONGLY ENCOURAGED to point at them.
• (^ Maybe you don't have an easy way to make the custom cards indistinguishable from the back. Whatever, just use index cards and mix them in with your real cards! Yeah, it's probably broken as heck, but then the real game becomes figuring out how to abuse it! There is no moral law, so nothing is forbidden and everything is obligatory!)

 

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