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Social Meta-gaming as a Mechanic

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spaff
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Joined: 11/05/2015

In games, there can be a meta game that arises between regular play groups. Certain social agendas materialize on the game board. I grew up with three other siblings and both my parents. My mom introduced me board gaming- admittedly my dad taught me chess and I’ve always kept that love of playing, but he never was into the other board games we played at the time (to be fair, all the games where roll and move so I can’t blame him. Teaching me chess showed me there were depth to games). My mom played Monopoly and Careers over and over again with us, Careers being the favorite (and come to think of it incorporated an innovative luck mitigation mechanic AND hidden asymmetric victory conditions plus a trade system nearly as vibrant as Catan, which seems overly progressive for a roll and move game in the 50’s). However she often played in such a way to purposefully let us win. I quickly became unsatisfied with empty victories and played in such a way to handicap myself to offset her own handicap. A relational reality influencing game play. Later on as my siblings became old enough to all play together, I arose as the normal victor, an alpha player if you will. I was the oldest and had years of experience over them, and despising my mom’s tactic of “going easy” I chose the opposite tactic and always went hard. The meta then developed over the years that in order to beat me, my three siblings would always team up against me in the board game- Monopoly? No one would trade with me or at least not offer any remotely fair trade. Risk? Everyone would attack me. Later when we played Catan- road blockage and sub-par trading. I went from winning most of the time to losing all the time. To this day this meta game continues- now I can either suggest co-ops or resign to losing any other game horribly. I suppose my strategy didn’t consider far enough into the future. Likewise, my roommate from post-college and I developed the meta game of rivalry. Whenever we played, whether with 3 players or 5 or 2, we only were in it to beat the other roommate. We would always play and posture in the game with little acknowledgement of players other than each other.

This meta that happens I am interested by. The recent CMON/Eric Lang Rising Sun recently has done something to “codify” a meta-game, that is alliance building. I’m interested in “codifying” these meta-rivalries than can occur. Say in a 4x game, you can develope Nemesis in the game, and that has a certain impact on the gameplay. Not that you directly choose who your nemesis is, but that, say the more you attack the same person, the closer, or more strongly, you become Nemesis or in-game rivals via a mechanic of the game.

Rivalries impact the emotional tenor of any game. When you lose to a rival it seems infinitely worse than a lose to another. When you win it feels infinitely more sweet. Your play gains fervor and even aggression in a way that may not be true against other opponents (speaking for myself perhaps)

If you were to incorporate this as a mechanic into a simpler game like Risk- how would you do it?

As a quick design on my part, the first thing that comes to mind is every player has a “Nemesis track” with say 9 spaces. They have a corresponding token for each other player, every time they lose a battle to any player they move that players corresponding token up one on the track. For every three levels on the Nemesis track you gain 1 additional reroll on the dice against that player in a battle. This could be extrapolated to any game I suppose, just adjust the length of the track and type of bonus based on how many battles typically occur and how “winning” a battle is determined.

What about you?

Rick L
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Joined: 08/22/2016
I never really thought about

I never really thought about how this tends to affect gameplay experience much, but now that you posted this, I've definitely seen this go on in a couple of big ways!

I have an uncle that wasn't much older than me, and he was a real mentor figure for me, my brother, and a couple other cousins that were close to us in age, and we used to play Risk all the time.

But my uncle was extremely competitive - he "had" to win! He had developed 2 mechanics to counter the rest of us who would usually gang up on him. Mechanic #1 was to cheat. Mechanic #2 was to flip the board and end the game before an inevitable loss lol!

I like the Nemesis track idea. What if you put 3 circles per player on the risk board out in the ocean somewhere. Each player would put one of their color pieces on YOUR track when they attack you, and move it up each time they attack you "in a row" - meaning that if they attack another player, they move their piece to that player's track. So if they attack you 3 times in a row, they become your Nemesis, and you get re-roll bonuses - something like that.

Of course, that doesn't completely keep players from ganging up on you, just motivates them to attack each other on occasion.

As for Catan, I don't know - my older daughter's boyfriend usually beats us at Catan, even though we all try our best to make it difficult for him.

spaff
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Joined: 11/05/2015
Your uncle seems to have a

Your uncle seems to have a knack for elegant board game design!

I like the circle idea, it does the same thing but is simpler (in a good way) than a track.

This isn't an exercise to mitigate teaming up per say, but thinking of a mechanic that captures the essence of "Rivalry" so even people who aren't emotionally invested in a game like me and my old roommate or your uncle can experience tangible impact from repeated actions against or from another player.

FrankM
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Joined: 01/27/2017
Mandatory vengeance

In a game with some kind of morale/momentum mechanic, there could be a penalty for not taking the opportunity to attack a nemesis.

"I know that the Generalissimo has a strategic role for our squad to play, but the Enemy was right there and it broke the troops' hearts to let the Enemy soldiers pass our concealed position unharmed. I could see the anguish in our sniper's eyes..."

questccg
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Joined: 04/16/2011
Makes for a GREAT Scenario name...

What I got: "Nemesis" (Expansion Scenario #5).

I'd like to introduce some kind of "traitor" mechanic to the game. This is an idea brought on by your sibling rivalry.

Perhaps it has to do with building a TOP SECRET "Dreadnought"-class starship.

The idea was first brought to my attention by my Creative Writer. And it just seemed to like "blossom" with the idea of having one player benefit from a superior starship - he/she could use to defeat the opponents.

It reminds me about "Betrayal at House on the Hill", I've seen a few playthrus and I get the idea that perhaps the game "changes" once the traitor is revealed.


What do you think? Should everyone be exploring to BUILD the "Dreadnought"??? Like a RACE to be the FIRST player to build it...

OR

Should only one (1) Player be the lucky player that randomly has the "Dreadnought" starship.


And what happens NEXT? Should all players gang-up on the player with the "Dreadnought"?? Or should it be an exclusive starship only that player may build???

I'd like your thoughts/comments/feedback on this Scenario IDEA!!!

Cheers everyone.

spaff
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Joined: 11/05/2015
Great ideas

Wow, those are some great ideas. I really like the idea of getting a penalty vs a bonus. I had thought to make this work well some sort of "Morale" needed to be introduced. That seemed like it may be too fiddly (to me anyway), BUT I think if you gain a bonus for attacking and a penalty for not attacking, that abstracts the idea of morale into the one "Nemesis" or "Rival" mechanic.

I also like the scenario of all players racing to secretly build over 1 person randomly getting. Someone getting that superior ship from the beginning is very similar to: https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/5206/ogre

The racing mechanic is interesting- it doesn't guarantee the person who gets the OP ship a victory- but it goes from a racing game to a player elimination/ cooperative/ semi cooperative game

tikey
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Joined: 03/31/2017
Sounds pretty

Sounds pretty interesting.
From what I cam see a "Nemesis" could also work maybe by having bigger rewards/penalties from combat against that person. That of course would work as long as both nemeses are at a similar level.
In competitive videogames I've seen this used and I think that it could work with the Domination mechanic, where that title is awarded to someone who constantly defeats the same player over and over, inciting the dominated player to get "revenge". In videogames is mostly flavour but it could work as a balance mechanic in a boardgame were a player that's dominating another by constantly beating him would see diminishin returns in his rewards while the dominated can get a much bigger one by getting revenge on his dominator.

spaff
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Joined: 11/05/2015
I'm glad you brought that up.

I'm glad you brought that up. Here (http://www.bgdf.com/node/19482) the idea of XP was introduced by X3M for my current design. It would be interesting to balance the reward/penalty in terms of XP. If you keep winning against the same person you earn diminishing returns of XP, as you say, but that player is incentivised for "revenge" by gaining a large amount.

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