Designing Conflict for the Whole Table
Aggression is a bad strategy in a multiplayer game. When you spend resources attacking another player to hurt their position, the rest of the table benefits as much as you do, but with
Foreshadowing Makes Event Cards Feel Fair
Event cards can cause frustration if they feel too unpredictable. To avoid players feeling arbitrarily rewarded or punished, an event needs enough foreshadowing to give them an idea of what to expect. There
Players Hate Wasting Free Actions
Players hate wasting resources, and resources they cannot store make avoiding waste all the more urgent. Free actions are a resource that cannot be stored for later, since they are once-per-turn opportunities. They
How to Escalate Tug-of-War Games
Players need to feel that a game is moving towards a resolution. Framing your victory condition as a tug-of-war undermines this because one player's progress erases the other's. If
Applying Sanderson's Laws to Board Game Design
Brandon Sanderson, an author famous for his magic systems, came up with three laws for writing a magic system. They are, in order:
1. Your ability to solve problems with magic is proportional