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Seeking a list of mechanics...

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InvisibleJon
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Howdy All,

I've been tasked with creating a list, "as complete as reasonably possible with no more than a couple of hour's thought," of popular game mechanics for board and card games. I've been given a seed list to start, and I've scarfed the list from BoardGame Geek (both included at the end of this post). There's also a web tool that automatically generates board game design challenges that I'll try to find again.

Can y'all help me out, either by pointing me at a list or essay, or by offering additional mechanics? Cast as wide a field as you wish to. More is better than less.

Thanks! I sincerely appreciate it. I'll check back again in about six hours.

Jonathan

The Seed List:
Push-your-luck
Combo building (poker, Yahtzee)
Piece capture by replacement
Piece capture by surrounding
Piece capture by jumping
Roll-and-move
Simultaneous play
Real-time play
Trick taking
Tile laying
Roleplaying / individual victory conditions (these are probably actually separate mechanics)
Matching high dice (as in Risk combat)
Rock-paper-scissors
Point attrition (as in MTG or Cthulhu Dice - this probably has a formal name but I don't know it)
Target score
Die-roll result table (which has some specific cases like CRTs which it might be worthwhile to enumerate)
Auction
Rules-writing (as in Nomic)
Tech tree, as in Civilization/RTS (the concept of improved powers and abilities was introduced along with the tech tree, but are the two inseparable?)
Last man standing
Catch-up mechanics
Leader-favoring mechanics

The BGG List:
Acting
Action Point Allowance System
Area Control / Area Influence
Area Enclosure
Area Movement
Area-Impulse
Auction/Bidding
Betting/Wagering
Campaign/Battle Card Driven
Card Drafting
Chit-Pull System
Co-operative Play
Commodity Speculation
Crayon Rail System
Dice Rolling
Hand Management
Hex-and-Counter
Line Drawing
Memory
Modular Board
Paper-and-Pencil
Partnerships
Pattern Building
Pattern Recognition
Pick-up and Deliver
Point to Point Movement
Rock-Paper-Scissors
Role Playing
Roll and Move
Route/Network Building
Secret Unit Deployment
Set Collection
Simulation
Simultaneous Action Selection
Singing
Stock Holding
Storytelling
Tile Placement
Trading
Trick-taking
Variable Phase Order
Variable Player Powers
Voting
Worker Placement

Pastor_Mora
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Sub categories

Well, John, that's quite a list you have! But, as it always happens to me, I find it difficult to get it all at once, I tend to get mixed up and confused right about by the middle. I think is because there is no order among all of them, just alphabetical, wich is good if you are looking for the meaning of a word, but not if you are trying to cathegorize a game or viewing how many mechanics could there be regarding some specific element of a game. So,

I wonder if it could be arranged by sub-categories to make it simpler to use actually. For example,

Board
- Hex-and-Counter
- Tile placement
- Modular Board, etc.

Objective
- Set collection
- commodity speculation
- combo building
- Last man standing, etc

Interaction
- Voting
- Auctioning
- RPG, etc

Action "Issuance" (¿?)
- Worker placement
- Roll and move
- Card Drafting, etc

Action Resolution
- Area (all)
- Matching high dice (as in Risk combat)
- Rock-paper-scissors

This is a cathegorization right from the top of my head. I honestly doubt that BGGs have thought of it this way. I know there have being much debate over some of them. But, if you have the opportunity to rewrite history, maybe some order other than alphabetical would be appropiate.

Keep thinking!

InvisibleJon
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Thanks!

Thanks for the input, Pastor_Mora. I've accumulated a few other resources and I'll put them here later today, or perhaps tomorrow.

Later on, when I have time, I hope to use the information I've gathered to flesh out the Game Mechanics section of the BGDF.

sedjtroll
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Joined: 07/21/2008
New hotness

Conspicuously lacking in your lists is the new hotness of game mechanics... Deck Building!

Dominion
Thunderstone
Ascension (saw it at GAMA)
Eminent Domain (Coming soon from Tasty Minstrel ;) )

There may be more I can't think of offhand. I'd wager a number of deck building games will surface in the next year or so.

Pastor_Mora
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That a headline!

You are publishing Eminent Domain??? Good work!!! Do you have a release date?
Congratulations :)

red hare
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Joined: 11/09/2009
great resource

Go go Invisiblejon... I was just using BGG's search function to find specific games by category and it made me think of your project. Whatever list you come up with, I think it's important to consider how you want people to be able to access the information. Half the time I know a game or a group of games that use a game mechanic but I don't know what the mechanic is called. Being able to find out through a search is really valuable... just a thought...

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