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Author Topic: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic  (Read 22185 times)

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ipofanes

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"Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« on: September 16, 2014, 04:32:28 am »
+2

Dominion was the first deck-building game, and for all of expansions remains to revolve around this mechanics, unlike A Few Acres of Snow or Rococo, which use the mechanics among others.

How about making a list of mechanics and the game that use this mechanics only or as their central theme.

Here's a first shot at it an aggregation of our suggestions mechanics and titles (selected at my whim):

Winning and losing -- Coin toss
Memory -- Memory
Supply and demand -- Executive Decision
Bidding -- Kuhhandel
Area control -- Forum Romanum
Set collection -- Quartett/The Game of Authors/Happy Family
Concurrent moves -- Rock-Paper-Scissors
Bluffing -- Liar's Dice
Roll and move -- Chutes and Ladders
Rock, paper, scissors -- Rock-Paper-Scissors
Press-your-luck -- Pass the Pigs
Trick-taking -- Hearts
Politics -- Mafia
Simultaneously passing single cards around the circle of players -- My Ship Sails
Drafting -- ??

« Last Edit: October 29, 2014, 05:08:08 am by ipofanes »
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #1 on: September 16, 2014, 04:51:55 am »
0

Bidding - Modern Art / Going, Going, Gone
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #2 on: September 16, 2014, 08:09:46 am »
0

Roll and move - Candyland
Rock, paper, scissors - Rock, paper, scissors (lizard, Spock)
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #3 on: September 16, 2014, 09:05:38 am »
0

Memory - Memory Match
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #4 on: September 16, 2014, 12:02:16 pm »
+1

Press-Your-Luck:  Don't Stop
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #5 on: September 16, 2014, 12:34:57 pm »
0

Press-Your-Luck:  Don't Stop

Do you mean :

Push Your Luck : Can't Stop

?
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #6 on: September 16, 2014, 03:08:33 pm »
+2

Roll and move - Candyland

I think Chutes and Ladders qualifies a bit better here.
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   Quote from: sudgy on June 31, 2011, 11:47:46 pm

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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #7 on: September 16, 2014, 06:30:44 pm »
0

Seven minutes in Heaven (inspired by the xkcd that I'm too lazy to look up)
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #8 on: September 16, 2014, 06:34:19 pm »
+3

Google is pretty smart.  It's the first result for https://www.google.com/search?q=Seven+minutes+in+Heaven+xkcd

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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #9 on: September 16, 2014, 06:41:40 pm »
0

Winning and losing -- throwing a coin
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #10 on: September 16, 2014, 06:48:06 pm »
+1

Google is pretty smart.  It's the first result for https://www.google.com/search?q=Seven+minutes+in+Heaven+xkcd

I cannot describe how much I loved this.  Scrolling down, nodding sagaciously along in agreement.  Then calvinball.  Simply amazing.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #11 on: September 16, 2014, 08:27:05 pm »
+1

Press-Your-Luck:  Don't Stop

Do you mean :

Push Your Luck : Can't Stop

?

Can't Stop, Don't Stop, whatever.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #12 on: September 17, 2014, 12:29:33 am »
0

Press-Your-Luck:  Don't Stop

Do you mean :

Push Your Luck : Can't Stop

?

Don't stop (don't stop) don't stop the beat,
Can't stop (can't stop) can't stop the beat,
Won't stop (won't stop) won't stop the beat,
And go!
Fixed.

Also,
Bluffing and push your luck: Skull and Roses
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #13 on: September 17, 2014, 12:54:15 am »
+1

Also,
Bluffing and push your luck: Skull and Roses

Also Press-Your-Luck:  Press-Your-Luck

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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #14 on: September 17, 2014, 12:56:53 am »
+2

Making up rules: Calvinball.
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   Quote from: sudgy on June 31, 2011, 11:47:46 pm

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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #15 on: September 17, 2014, 01:06:57 am »
+6

Being an asshole: 52 card pickup
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #16 on: September 17, 2014, 01:26:12 am »
0

Being an a******: 52 card pickup

True story:

My dad: "Hey, do you want to play 52 card pickup?"
Me: "What's that?"
Dad: *shoots out a deck of cards*
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   Quote from: sudgy on June 31, 2011, 11:47:46 pm

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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #17 on: September 17, 2014, 09:27:12 am »
+3

I fell for that once. I wish I wish I had the perfect response for that back when I was younger.

Asshole: "Hey, want to play 52-Card Pick-up?"

Me: "Sure, how do you play?"

Asshole: *throws 52 cards on the ground*

Me: You win. *walk away*
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #18 on: September 17, 2014, 12:01:03 pm »
0

Being an a******: 52 card pickup

True story:

My dad: "Hey, do you want to play 52 card pickup?"
Me: "What's that?"
Dad: *shoots out a deck of cards*
I've done that to people before. It's great  ;D
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #19 on: September 17, 2014, 12:29:31 pm »
0

Being an a******: 52 card pickup

True story:

My dad: "Hey, do you want to play 52 card pickup?"
Me: "What's that?"
Dad: *shoots out a deck of cards*
I've done that to people before. It's great  ;D
Asshole.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #20 on: September 18, 2014, 03:05:15 am »
0

Making up rules: Calvinball.

on a more serious note: Nomic

What's the mechanic in Liar's Dice? It's not quite push-your-luck as you don't try to expand your profit on the risk of losing all but you try to (make your opponent believe you just succeeded to) beat a threshold which rises between turns.

On push-your-luck, I'd rate Pass the Pigs a bit more iconic than (the much more entertaining) Can't Stop.

Also: Trick-taking -- Hearts.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #21 on: September 19, 2014, 04:41:39 am »
0

Politics -- Mafia

edit: There has been an even more generically politics-involving game called "Conclave" where players play cardinals and vote for the pope. As there is no real benefit in voting for somebody in particular (other than to accelerate the end of a game seen by many as pointless), I don't really know if it should count as a game.
« Last Edit: September 29, 2014, 10:53:27 am by ipofanes »
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #22 on: September 19, 2014, 12:29:20 pm »
+1

Liar's Dice has bidding, probabilities and bluffing.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #23 on: September 19, 2014, 01:26:04 pm »
0

Liar's Dice has bidding, probabilities and bluffing.

Have you guys played the card game BS? I think it goes by a number of other names as well. That comes pretty close to a pure bluffing game, although of course there's some other strategy too.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #24 on: September 19, 2014, 11:34:20 pm »
0

I fell for that once. I wish I wish I had the perfect response for that back when I was younger.

Asshole: "Hey, want to play 52-Card Pick-up?"

Me: "Sure, how do you play?"

Asshole: *throws 52 cards on the ground*

Me: You win. *walk away*

All that means is he made the mistake of playing with his own deck. Never play 52 pickup with your own deck.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #25 on: September 19, 2014, 11:38:18 pm »
0

Liar's Dice has bidding, probabilities and bluffing.

Have you guys played the card game BS? I think it goes by a number of other names as well. That comes pretty close to a pure bluffing game, although of course there's some other strategy too.
Slightly off-topic but I much prefer the "Russian Roulette" variant of BS. Instead of simply checking if the person lied or not, the person calling "BS" has to pick one card from the cards that were put in. If it's the correct card, then they have to take the pile, even if the other cards weren't correct.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #26 on: September 20, 2014, 03:19:46 am »
0

Can a pure bluffing game exist without probabilities?  Even in Cheat/BS, there is some probabilities involved.  If somebody claims three kings and you have one in your hand, you might call them on it.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #27 on: September 20, 2014, 06:44:27 am »
0

Well probabilities is not a mechanic, it might just be an element of bluffing, I just included it in there because Liar's Dice is particularly mathy compared to other bluffing games like Skull & Roses for example, where double-guessing is more important.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #28 on: September 21, 2014, 01:20:07 am »
0

I fell for that once. I wish I wish I had the perfect response for that back when I was younger.

Asshole: "Hey, want to play 52-Card Pick-up?"

Me: "Sure, how do you play?"

Asshole: *throws 52 cards on the ground*

Me: You win. *walk away*

All that means is he made the mistake of playing with his own deck. Never play 52 pickup with your own deck.

Even with my own deck, I'd be willing to abandon it to stick to him. I can buy another deck of cards for a buck. Of course, my younger self would have thought it insane to give up on a deck of cards, so I talk the big talk now, but you're right that I'd be screwed if I let him do that to my own deck.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #29 on: September 22, 2014, 03:13:53 am »
0

Can a pure bluffing game exist without probabilities?  Even in Cheat/BS, there is some probabilities involved.  If somebody claims three kings and you have one in your hand, you might call them on it.

Also, bidding without any element of bluffing is rare, as in most games (unlike in most real-life situations) you profit from an opponent paying more than he intended.

What's Cheat/BS? The most common German variation is "Bube du lügst" where a sequence from 7 to Ace (cards 2 to 6 are dropped in many German games) is built (allegedly) with hidden cards. It often fails due to stalemates after one party monopolises crucial cards.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #30 on: September 22, 2014, 03:34:54 am »
+1

Can a pure bluffing game exist without probabilities?  Even in Cheat/BS, there is some probabilities involved.  If somebody claims three kings and you have one in your hand, you might call them on it.

Also, bidding without any element of bluffing is rare, as in most games (unlike in most real-life situations) you profit from an opponent paying more than he intended.

What's Cheat/BS? The most common German variation is "Bube du lügst" where a sequence from 7 to Ace (cards 2 to 6 are dropped in many German games) is built (allegedly) with hidden cards. It often fails due to stalemates after one party monopolises crucial cards.

Simple game with regular playing cards.  Those are just two names; I'm sure there are more.

It's been ages since I've played it.  As I recall --The deck is dealt out to all the players.  On your turn, you have to play any number of cards of the next value in ascending order.  If the previous player played 9s, I have to play at least one 10, then the next player has to play at least one Jack.  You declare (truthfully) how many cards you are playing.  Cards are always played face down, and you can cheat by playing the wrong cards (e.g. I say I'm playing two 10s, but I actually play a 2 and a 3).  If you thinking somebody is cheating, you can Cheat.  If you are wrong, you take all the cards played so far.  If you are correct, the cheater takes those cards.  First person to empty his hand wins.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #31 on: September 23, 2014, 09:52:41 am »
0

Can a pure bluffing game exist without probabilities?  Even in Cheat/BS, there is some probabilities involved.  If somebody claims three kings and you have one in your hand, you might call them on it.

Also, bidding without any element of bluffing is rare, as in most games (unlike in most real-life situations) you profit from an opponent paying more than he intended.

What's Cheat/BS? The most common German variation is "Bube du lügst" where a sequence from 7 to Ace (cards 2 to 6 are dropped in many German games) is built (allegedly) with hidden cards. It often fails due to stalemates after one party monopolises crucial cards.

Simple game with regular playing cards.  Those are just two names; I'm sure there are more.

It's been ages since I've played it.  As I recall --The deck is dealt out to all the players.  On your turn, you have to play any number of cards of the next value in ascending order.  If the previous player played 9s, I have to play at least one 10, then the next player has to play at least one Jack.  You declare (truthfully) how many cards you are playing.  Cards are always played face down, and you can cheat by playing the wrong cards (e.g. I say I'm playing two 10s, but I actually play a 2 and a 3).  If you thinking somebody is cheating, you can Cheat.  If you are wrong, you take all the cards played so far.  If you are correct, the cheater takes those cards.  First person to empty his hand wins.
Whereas in the version I used to play, you played the same value - so if someone leads with 2 3s, then the next player might put down a single 3, then the next one could go for quad 3. And we played with both the "reveal all" and "reveal one" variants, as well as wild jokers.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #32 on: September 23, 2014, 10:17:24 am »
0

Can a pure bluffing game exist without probabilities?  Even in Cheat/BS, there is some probabilities involved.  If somebody claims three kings and you have one in your hand, you might call them on it.

Also, bidding without any element of bluffing is rare, as in most games (unlike in most real-life situations) you profit from an opponent paying more than he intended.

What's Cheat/BS? The most common German variation is "Bube du lügst" where a sequence from 7 to Ace (cards 2 to 6 are dropped in many German games) is built (allegedly) with hidden cards. It often fails due to stalemates after one party monopolises crucial cards.
Bridge has bidding without bluffing.

In fact, it is illegal to make a highly unusual bid.
Your opponents may demand an explanation if they suspect you're trying to use secret bids to let your partner know you have certain cards.

There are certain unusual bids because of the scoring system. For instance, something like 2 Clubs scores more points than 3 Clubs (don't know an actual example) so there's no need to "overbid", because you only stand to lose more points if it fails without any points to gain.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #33 on: September 23, 2014, 03:47:19 pm »
0

In fact, it is illegal to make a highly unusual bid.
Your opponents may demand an explanation if they suspect you're trying to use secret bids to let your partner know you have certain cards.

More precisely, the opponents may always demand an explanation from your partner of what your bid means (according to your partnership agreement).  You are free to bid ridiculously, provided partner is also just as surprised as the opponents are by what you actually have (and subject to the proviso that if you do this often, your partner can start to expect it, and hence it becomes an unwritten part of the partnership agreement which must be disclosed).

These bids are called psychs.  (In the spirit of bridge's full disclosure, there are certain types of psychs that are entirely barred).

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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #34 on: September 23, 2014, 04:24:54 pm »
0

Spades also has bidding without bluffing. Well, I suppose you could bluff by trying to intimidate the other players, but I don't think that's the primary reason for the bid. It hurts you to bid too high or too low.

Each round of Spades has 13 tricks. You bid however many you think you can take (if you have the ace of spades, king of spades, and the queen of spades, you are guaranteed to get at least three tricks). You can overextend yourself and bid too high since successful bids get you points, so higher is better, but I don't view it as bluffing. Arrogance perhaps. You might bid too conservatively and not realize that you have stronger cards than you thought, especially if you bid nil.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #35 on: September 23, 2014, 08:05:24 pm »
0

The card game "Oh Hell" is basically just bidding with no bluffing.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #36 on: September 24, 2014, 03:11:42 am »
0

I wouldn't call the announcing of Spades (or Hearts) bidding as there is no special reward for the highest bid.

Bridge is special as it normally hurts more to confound your partner than it helps to confound your opponents.

Disclaimer: I never played Spades and just looked up the rules.

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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #37 on: September 24, 2014, 08:05:55 am »
0

I wouldn't call the announcing of Spades (or Hearts) bidding as there is no special reward for the highest bid.

Bridge is special as it normally hurts more to confound your partner than it helps to confound your opponents.

Disclaimer: I never played Spades and just looked up the rules.



You're still bidding in Spades, even though there's no exclusive benefit to bidding highest. I suppose the terminology should shift toward auctioning, as that is what bidding in many board games really boils down to.

And if we go that route, then I would tend to agree that it's hard to have auctioning without bluffing. I brought up Spades as an example of bidding without bluffing, but bidding is perhaps too broad of a term here.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #38 on: September 24, 2014, 08:10:13 am »
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Pretty much any eurogame that uses bidding doesn't have bluffing.

Or at least where bluffing isn't the main thing. Like in Tikal, you bid points for turn order (basically), and sure, you can sometimes bid higher than you're actually willing to pay so that someones pays more, but that's not the point of the mechanic in the game, if that makes sense.

Same in something like Evo or Cyclades.

Five Tribes has bidding for turn order and no bluffing at all.
« Last Edit: September 24, 2014, 08:11:31 am by Teproc »
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #39 on: September 25, 2014, 03:13:07 am »
+1

I suppose the terminology should shift toward auctioning, as that is what bidding in many board games really boils down to.

ok, it might have been a problem of semantics.

Cyclades is an example where I regularly overbid yield to the almighty deity only hoping that somebody else will raise be even more devoted so I could go Apollo which I intended to do anyway.You may also argue semantics, but it counts as bluffing in my book.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #40 on: September 25, 2014, 12:54:34 pm »
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Off topic, but I got to play Cyclades for the first time this weekend. I won without ever going to Apollo. However, another player who was stuck on Apollo half the game could have won if he had bid 10 on Ares instead of 11. He forgot about the cost to travel and had one fewer soldier to attack, which would have made the difference.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #41 on: September 28, 2014, 12:37:24 pm »
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It probably wasn't first, and I'm not sure what to call it (connecting?), but Trans America/Europa only really has one mechanic.  That's probably a large factor in whether people will like it: my family do, but I get the impression that some groups I've shown it to find it tedious. 
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #42 on: September 28, 2014, 03:41:45 pm »
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Off topic, but I got to play Cyclades for the first time this weekend. I won without ever going to Apollo. However, another player who was stuck on Apollo half the game could have won if he had bid 10 on Ares instead of 11. He forgot about the cost to travel and had one fewer soldier to attack, which would have made the difference.

That's both what's great and bad about the game. Anyone can win. You're never, never out of it. Which means that people sometimes complain that it's random, when really it's more that it's a political game, but I really appreciate that about it.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #43 on: September 28, 2014, 10:13:28 pm »
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Roll and move - Candyland

There's no rolling in Candyland. You draw cards and match colors. Roll and move I think is originally Parcheesi.

To add to the list:

Trick-taking - Whist
Cheating - War
Complaining about how bad your teammates are - DotA
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #44 on: September 28, 2014, 10:26:51 pm »
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What about Backgammon for roll and move?  Although maybe the doubling cube counts as bidding?  I'm not very familiar with the game, actually.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #45 on: September 29, 2014, 12:29:41 am »
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What about Backgammon for roll and move?  Although maybe the doubling cube counts as bidding?  I'm not very familiar with the game, actually.

It's not roll and move at all.  Role and move is "roll this, move your single piece there."  Backgammon is "roll two dice, move any of your pieces how much one die was rolled as."  You have a lot of choices with Backgammon, while roll and move is no choice.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #46 on: September 29, 2014, 03:42:22 am »
+3

What about Backgammon for roll and move?  Although maybe the doubling cube counts as bidding?  I'm not very familiar with the game, actually.

It's not roll and move at all.  Role and move is "roll this, move your single piece there."  Backgammon is "roll two dice, move any of your pieces how much one die was rolled as."  You have a lot of choices with Backgammon, while roll and move is no choice.

This is a misconception.  Roll and move means you roll and then you move pieces according to that roll.  A lot of roll and move games are terrible because there is no choice, but you can implement a good game with that mechanic.  Backgammon is a prime example.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #47 on: September 29, 2014, 09:52:47 am »
+3

I would agree that roll-and-move can be tactical. Any time you have multiple pieces to move (Backgammon, Trouble, Sorry), then you can make a choice.

And I included Sorry because I'll count cards (even Candyland) as random enough to be functionally the same as roll and move. The biggest difference is that not all outcomes are uniformly possible. Even if they are uniformly possible at the beginning, they cease to be after the first draw unless you reshuffle after every move (ugh!).

One could argue that it's draw-and-move, but if you're going to get that persnickety about semantics, then I would counter by grouping them all as randomly-pick-and-move, which just sounds silly.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #48 on: September 29, 2014, 10:32:16 am »
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What about Backgammon for roll and move?  Although maybe the doubling cube counts as bidding?  I'm not very familiar with the game, actually.

I am not looking for the oldest archetype but for the game which embodies the mechanics in its purest form. I prefer Chutes and Ladders as an example over Backgammon.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #49 on: September 29, 2014, 10:37:58 am »
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Roll and move - Candyland

There's no rolling in Candyland. You draw cards and match colors. Roll and move I think is originally Parcheesi.

To add to the list:

Trick-taking - Whist
Cheating - War
Complaining about how bad your teammates are - DotA

What's DotA? Are you sure what it according to you corresponds to is a mechanism?
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #50 on: September 29, 2014, 10:38:15 am »
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I wouldn't call the announcing of Spades (or Hearts) bidding as there is no special reward for the highest bid.

Bridge is special as it normally hurts more to confound your partner than it helps to confound your opponents.

Disclaimer: I never played Spades and just looked up the rules.



You're still bidding in Spades, even though there's no exclusive benefit to bidding highest. I suppose the terminology should shift toward auctioning, as that is what bidding in many board games really boils down to.

And if we go that route, then I would tend to agree that it's hard to have auctioning without bluffing. I brought up Spades as an example of bidding without bluffing, but bidding is perhaps too broad of a term here.


While it is called "bidding" in spades, I believe that this is a completely different definition of the word than is used in other game contexts. In spades, "bidding" really just means "guessing". The "bid" is just your best estimate at how many tricks you will take. But in general, when talking about "bidding" in board games, I think of an auction, where your bid is an amount you are willing to pay to get a reward.

Now, Pinochle sort of combines these 2 things. In Pinochle, you bid on how many points you think you can take, but you are also auctioning against the other players, to see who is willing to bid the highest. Like a traditional auction, only the highest bidder gets the reward (getting to choose trumps, and getting the kitty in a 3-player game), but like Spades, his bid also serves a guess as to how many points he thinks he can make.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #51 on: September 29, 2014, 10:40:28 am »
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Pretty much any eurogame that uses bidding doesn't have bluffing.

Or at least where bluffing isn't the main thing. Like in Tikal, you bid points for turn order (basically), and sure, you can sometimes bid higher than you're actually willing to pay so that someones pays more, but that's not the point of the mechanic in the game, if that makes sense.

Same in something like Evo or Cyclades.

Five Tribes has bidding for turn order and no bluffing at all.

This isn't my experience... if I think of bidding in Euro games, I think of Power Grid, For Sale, No Thanks, High Society, Princes of Florence... all of them have bluffing. Not bluffing like in Poker where you pretend to have better stuff hidden than you really do, but bluffing in terms of making it look like you want to win the auction when perhaps you really don't want to win (you just wanted to make it more expensive).
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #52 on: September 29, 2014, 11:02:21 am »
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Roll and move - Candyland

There's no rolling in Candyland. You draw cards and match colors. Roll and move I think is originally Parcheesi.

To add to the list:

Trick-taking - Whist
Cheating - War
Complaining about how bad your teammates are - DotA

What's DotA? Are you sure what it according to you corresponds to is a mechanism?
It's an MOBA and complaining about your teammates is definitely the biggest mechanic in the game, although it's not the only one.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #53 on: September 29, 2014, 06:37:12 pm »
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Roll and move - Candyland

There are no dice in Cand... aaannnnd it's been said already.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #54 on: October 09, 2014, 03:28:59 pm »
+1

I wonder if it could be possible to design a good (computer?) game that's literally just deckbuilding. You build the deck, an AI plays it for you against another AI and the person whose deck wins, wins the game. Or possibly, depending on the rules and the cards, the playing decisions could be full random too, or random under some rules (that you can't play a "Smithy" type card if you have a "Village" type card in your hand or something like that).
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #55 on: October 09, 2014, 04:09:43 pm »
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I wonder if it could be possible to design a good (computer?) game that's literally just deckbuilding. You build the deck, an AI plays it for you against another AI and the person whose deck wins, wins the game. Or possibly, depending on the rules and the cards, the playing decisions could be full random too, or random under some rules (that you can't play a "Smithy" type card if you have a "Village" type card in your hand or something like that).

Actually, this sounds like an interesting idea...
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #56 on: October 09, 2014, 05:42:07 pm »
+1

I wonder if it could be possible to design a good (computer?) game that's literally just deckbuilding. You build the deck, an AI plays it for you against another AI and the person whose deck wins, wins the game. Or possibly, depending on the rules and the cards, the playing decisions could be full random too, or random under some rules (that you can't play a "Smithy" type card if you have a "Village" type card in your hand or something like that).
Richard Garfield talked about this many years ago. You would build a deck, and then make no decisions during the "game," and then maybe sideboard.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #57 on: October 09, 2014, 06:14:57 pm »
+1

Gratuitous Space Battles does something like that for RTS games, I believe. You design a fleet, give it some orders, then send into battle.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #58 on: October 09, 2014, 06:26:14 pm »
+2

I wonder if it could be possible to design a good (computer?) game that's literally just deckbuilding. You build the deck, an AI plays it for you against another AI and the person whose deck wins, wins the game. Or possibly, depending on the rules and the cards, the playing decisions could be full random too, or random under some rules (that you can't play a "Smithy" type card if you have a "Village" type card in your hand or something like that).

Actually, this sounds like an interesting idea...

Isn't this basically what dominion simulators are ?
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #59 on: October 09, 2014, 06:54:09 pm »
0

I wonder if it could be possible to design a good (computer?) game that's literally just deckbuilding. You build the deck, an AI plays it for you against another AI and the person whose deck wins, wins the game. Or possibly, depending on the rules and the cards, the playing decisions could be full random too, or random under some rules (that you can't play a "Smithy" type card if you have a "Village" type card in your hand or something like that).

Actually, this sounds like an interesting idea...

Isn't this basically what dominion simulators are ?

No, you play in some way to build a deck, then the simulator plays.  I like the randomness idea though, makes for completely different strategy.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #60 on: October 09, 2014, 10:25:47 pm »
+1

My friend and I once tried a modified game of War sort of like that. The premise was a simplified version of ordinary War, but instead of a standard deck, we each designed a custom deck of 100 cards. Each player had 1000 points total which could be distributed amongst the cards as the player chose, so long as each card had a non-negative integer value. Then the decks would be shuffled and run against each other deterministically.

So it ended up being like Colonel Blotto: The Game basically. Kind of an interesting idea that held our interest for a few days. (My deck won obviously) Even War can be a fun game if you jazz it up!
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #61 on: October 09, 2014, 10:32:00 pm »
+2

My friend and I once tried a modified game of War sort of like that. The premise was a simplified version of ordinary War, but instead of a standard deck, we each designed a custom deck of 100 cards. Each player had 1000 points total which could be distributed amongst the cards as the player chose, so long as each card had a non-negative integer value. Then the decks would be shuffled and run against each other deterministically.

So it ended up being like Colonel Blotto: The Game basically. Kind of an interesting idea that held our interest for a few days. (My deck won obviously) Even War can be a fun game if you jazz it up!

Isn't this broken?  Whoever has the highest number can never lose that card, right?  Just assign 1000 to a single card and 0 to the rest.  I guess it depends on how you implement the War function.  If you have to deal out (for example) 3 extra cards that are "prizes" then you run the risk of losing the trump card as a prize.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #62 on: October 09, 2014, 10:39:13 pm »
+1

The "war" function was completely left out for simplicity. It's just, each turn the next two cards go head to head; if one is higher than the other, that player gets a point; if tied then neither player does. No cards are "stolen" either...after the deck is drawn the player with the most points wins. You could make the tie part more interesting if you wanted, or make the gradation finer/continuous to discourage ties. Negative numbers should really not be allowed.

So, for example, that deck of 1 1000 and 99 zeroes would lose badly against a deck of 100 10s.
« Last Edit: October 09, 2014, 10:42:39 pm by WalrusMcFishSr »
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #63 on: October 09, 2014, 11:08:32 pm »
+3

The "war" function was completely left out for simplicity. It's just, each turn the next two cards go head to head; if one is higher than the other, that player gets a point; if tied then neither player does. No cards are "stolen" either...after the deck is drawn the player with the most points wins. You could make the tie part more interesting if you wanted, or make the gradation finer/continuous to discourage ties. Negative numbers should really not be allowed.

So, for example, that deck of 1 1000 and 99 zeroes would lose badly against a deck of 100 10s.

Ah.  Not having the repeated passes through the deck is a significant change from the original game War.

My deck for this game would include the Jack of Spades, two Chancellors, Twofold Askara, Change History, Charmander, Epidemic, and Demonic Tutor.  Among other things.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #64 on: October 10, 2014, 07:28:32 pm »
+1

The "war" function was completely left out for simplicity. It's just, each turn the next two cards go head to head; if one is higher than the other, that player gets a point; if tied then neither player does. No cards are "stolen" either...after the deck is drawn the player with the most points wins. You could make the tie part more interesting if you wanted, or make the gradation finer/continuous to discourage ties. Negative numbers should really not be allowed.

So, for example, that deck of 1 1000 and 99 zeroes would lose badly against a deck of 100 10s.
Interesting. Clearly no one deck is optimal for this game, because in each battle you're best off either winning by a little or losing by a lot: if you know your opponent's next card is going to be N, then N+1 (for small N) and 0 (for large N) are both strong plays. So any optimal strategy has to be randomized.

I feel it should be possible to figure out the optimal strategy for this game, maybe with computer help, but I don't know how to do it yet.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #65 on: October 10, 2014, 08:47:43 pm »
0

The "war" function was completely left out for simplicity. It's just, each turn the next two cards go head to head; if one is higher than the other, that player gets a point; if tied then neither player does. No cards are "stolen" either...after the deck is drawn the player with the most points wins. You could make the tie part more interesting if you wanted, or make the gradation finer/continuous to discourage ties. Negative numbers should really not be allowed.

So, for example, that deck of 1 1000 and 99 zeroes would lose badly against a deck of 100 10s.
Interesting. Clearly no one deck is optimal for this game, because in each battle you're best off either winning by a little or losing by a lot: if you know your opponent's next card is going to be N, then N+1 (for small N) and 0 (for large N) are both strong plays. So any optimal strategy has to be randomized.

I feel it should be possible to figure out the optimal strategy for this game, maybe with computer help, but I don't know how to do it yet.

It sounds a bit like an extremely complex game theory "game." Like Prisoner's Dilemma, which is only truly a game when game theorists discuss it.  This has a very similar feel.
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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #66 on: October 10, 2014, 09:06:12 pm »
0

Ah.  Not having the repeated passes through the deck is a significant change from the original game War.

My deck for this game would include the Jack of Spades, two Chancellors, Twofold Askara, Change History, Charmander, Epidemic, and Demonic Tutor.  Among other things.

Yeah, I realize after you said it that it's a little silly to call it 'War' without the War mechanic haha. But that's how we originally conceptualized it.

Sweet deck though

Interesting. Clearly no one deck is optimal for this game, because in each battle you're best off either winning by a little or losing by a lot: if you know your opponent's next card is going to be N, then N+1 (for small N) and 0 (for large N) are both strong plays. So any optimal strategy has to be randomized.

I feel it should be possible to figure out the optimal strategy for this game, maybe with computer help, but I don't know how to do it yet.

Definitely I used a computer to try to optimize my strategy. It was just a genetic sort of thing though so I didn't make any serious attempt to rationalize it. My 'genomes' did have access to multiple decks that they would choose from randomly.

It sounds a bit like an extremely complex game theory "game." Like Prisoner's Dilemma, which is only truly a game when game theorists discuss it.  This has a very similar feel.

For sure, this was more of a thought exercise than anything else. But it was actually kind of fun, I think the idea is pretty cool. Before we did the computer-assisted match we played a test game using smaller numbers and physical cards, and that was mildly entertaining too.
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blueblimp

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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #67 on: October 11, 2014, 03:03:54 am »
+5

The "war" function was completely left out for simplicity. It's just, each turn the next two cards go head to head; if one is higher than the other, that player gets a point; if tied then neither player does. No cards are "stolen" either...after the deck is drawn the player with the most points wins. You could make the tie part more interesting if you wanted, or make the gradation finer/continuous to discourage ties. Negative numbers should really not be allowed.

So, for example, that deck of 1 1000 and 99 zeroes would lose badly against a deck of 100 10s.
Interesting. Clearly no one deck is optimal for this game, because in each battle you're best off either winning by a little or losing by a lot: if you know your opponent's next card is going to be N, then N+1 (for small N) and 0 (for large N) are both strong plays. So any optimal strategy has to be randomized.

I feel it should be possible to figure out the optimal strategy for this game, maybe with computer help, but I don't know how to do it yet.
Playing to maximize average points (i.e. expected value), rather than playing to win, turns out to be pretty straightforward. (Sorry that this is a bit off topic.)

First observe that you might as well uniformly randomly permute your cards. Any possible advantage you could gain by not doing this could be countered by your opponent uniformly randomly permuting _his_ cards. So all that matters is how many cards you select of each value. Given that, the expected value can be calculated using a double sum.

It's easiest to reason through the rest using a continuous version of the game, where the double sum becomes a double integral. In the continuous game, you're asked to pick a non-negative, non-decreasing function f on [0,1] whose integral must be 1/2. Your opponent simultaneously picks a function g satisfying the same conditions. Your score is: integral from [0,1] of (integral from [0,1] of H(g(y) - f(x)) dy) dx, where H is the Heaviside step function defined piecewise (see http://mathworld.wolfram.com/HeavisideStepFunction.html). Observe that the score is at least 0 and at most 1. (Edit: Whoops, checking this the next day, the double integral I gave there is actually your opponent's score, not your score. Since 1-1/2=1/2, the reasoning later on still works.)

In this continuous game, the best strategy is f(x) = x. Then the score (given by the double integral) becomes the Lebesgue integral of g, which is always 1/2, because we required its integral to be 1/2 as part of the game. Given that this is a zero-sum symmetric game, nothing better is possible.

Bringing that idea back to the original discrete game, the intuition is that you should choose about the same amount of each value, starting from 0 and ending up at whatever value makes the point total work out. (Let's use score 2 for a card win and score 1 for a card tie to make the arithmetic cleaner.) The rounding is a bit annoying. It'd be easier if the game had 950 points to distribute among 100 cards, because in that case you could do 5 cards each of 0,1,2,...,19. With you choosing that strategy, for a card value N your opponent picks from 0 to 19, its expected contribution to his score is just 2(N/20) + (1/20), and with 20 and above it's worse (<=2(N/20)), so his expected score can be no better than 95 + 100(1/20) = 100, which is exactly half the available total score.

When playing to win rather than playing to maximize score, this analysis still leaves open the door to strategies that try to tilt the score distribution so that they usually win by a little and occasionally lose by a lot. I haven't thought that through.
« Last Edit: October 11, 2014, 02:18:12 pm by blueblimp »
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ipofanes

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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #68 on: October 28, 2014, 04:04:24 am »
+1

I have replaced "Go" with "Forum Romanum" as the bare-bone area control game.

In Forum Romanum, each player, in clockwise order, puts a meeple on a 7 by 7 board, and rows, columns, main diagonals and certain rectangular patterns are scored once the last meeple has entered them. Can't get more basic than that. By contrast, Go is so much more than area control.
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Donald X.

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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #69 on: October 28, 2014, 01:59:00 pm »
+1

I have replaced "Go" with "Forum Romanum" as the bare-bone area control game.

In Forum Romanum, each player, in clockwise order, puts a meeple on a 7 by 7 board, and rows, columns, main diagonals and certain rectangular patterns are scored once the last meeple has entered them. Can't get more basic than that. By contrast, Go is so much more than area control.
Aw. Wolfgang Kramer as it turns out. Well he gets around. I had that premise, wondering if I was going to do more with it ever. For me the premise was "3-D area control." Each square gets a random chit at the start, that you take when taking that square. You score for control of rows, columns, and chits. It needed something more.
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blueblimp

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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #70 on: October 28, 2014, 05:15:07 pm »
0

Addition to the list:

Simultaneously passing single cards around the circle of players -- My Ship Sails
« Last Edit: October 28, 2014, 05:16:30 pm by blueblimp »
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ipofanes

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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #71 on: October 29, 2014, 05:07:06 am »
0

Addition to the list:

Simultaneously passing single cards around the circle of players -- My Ship Sails

<looking up rules> This is definitely barebone, even more so than the game known as "Schwimmen" in Germany.

Isn't there a more concise term for this action? It's not drafting, and "schupfen" in Tichu is not exactly the same.
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blueblimp

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Re: "Bare-bones" games sporting a single mechanic
« Reply #72 on: October 29, 2014, 09:08:11 am »
0

Isn't there a more concise term for this action?
I originally wrote something like "passing cards around the table", but that could be confused for drafting, which feels much different. Also the simultaneous play is pretty important. It's the same mechanic as on Masquerade, but I don't know what that's named either.
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