As a reflex in one of my recent game design, I started making a list of actions a player can do during his turn.
But I was wondering, is it possible to have a game that does not offer any actions for the player to do and still have some strategy?
Making a game with no actions?
Thu, 11/27/2008 - 09:57
Thu, 11/27/2008 - 10:46
#1
Depends
I guess that depends on how you define "action." If the difference between a puzzle and a game is that players make decisions in a game (as opposed to solving a puzzle), there must be some way for a player to impose those decisions into the game system, which I would call "taking actions" in broad terms.
So, what do you mean by having no actions? A pure negotiation game maybe? The action is "negotiate with other players to come to an agreement" ...
Thu, 11/27/2008 - 12:06
#2
If there are no actions then
If there are no actions then there is no strategy... and no game either for that matter.
Now some games define "actions" to mean a certain kind of action -- like playing a card, investing in development, or whatever -- but other things that are more subtle -- such as drawing or discarding a card, choosing to save action points for another round -- are still actions in the broader sense.
Sun, 11/30/2008 - 06:14
#4
There are games that have
There are games that have some strategy with inaction, but I don't believe there are games that have no action on the part of a person every turn. Each decision is an action... even if that choice is inaction. So, even if it is pointing to a person or winking, that is an action.
Some games will have a player miss his turn and still affect other players... maybe a combination of a couple of racing games I have played could illustrate it a bit better... one game allows a car to maintain the lap count by playing a draft card (this is essentially a non-turn). Another has each car on a specific spot on the gameboard wherein players must go around each other, creating an obstacle. If you combine the two, you basically affect those behind you in that they must spend extra movement to pass you.
Sounds like another good idea for a tougher GDS challenge to me, but I still haven't seen those suggestions get implemented.... a man can dream.
Sun, 11/30/2008 - 17:56
#5
Another approach that could
Another approach that could be taken would be that rather than choosing which phases do happen to themselves/others players instead choose which phases don't happen. Imagine a game with a set of related phases such as Puerto Rico for example, but with a requirement that players must be able to fufill some requirements whenever a phase comes round or suffer a penalty. Players have limited power to stop some phases each round, trying to control/restrain a game engine that's already rolling, limiting its costs, rather than building one.
Mon, 12/01/2008 - 12:29
#6
Meddler wrote:Another
Another approach that could be taken would be that rather than choosing which phases do happen to themselves/others players instead choose which phases don't happen.
Is there a practical difference between choosing which ones happen so the others don't and choosing which ones don't so the others do? I can choose to eat pizza for lunch or tell the waiter at a restaurant that I want food but refuse everything but the pizza and end up with the pizza by default, but it's the same end result in each case.
So it's not about if you take action or not. The difference should be on how you take your actions.
So for example, role taking in puerto rico is much more different than having a list of action to perform.
So in order to add variety and proceed in a different way, it's just a matter of varying how the actions are takens.