A great idea for a list. One older game that I thought had a brilliant interaction between players was Hansa Teutonica. When you bump a player off of a route, with one of your pieces they get to replace it with two pieces elsewhere. It adds a whole new dimension to the game. I wish that mechanism was in more game designs.
I was going to mention Hansa, one of my favorites and such a clever way to make what could be a negative interaction a positive and part of the core strategy of the game.
Planet unknow is a good example. You have to rotate the Lazy Susan and by doing so, you force others players to draft tile in a specific area but it’s not too mean. You’re competing too for some share objective and civ card.
I love Taluva for this, you're building an island together by layering tiles, and you can use those tiles to crush other people's settlements, but crucially not the last hose in a village. Since the higher land is more valuable though, you're always giving your opponent(s) opportunities for growth by placing the high value tile right next to them. Leads to some really fun and interesting strategies, and let's you be mean without making other people feel defeated.
Septima's player interaction system works really well with its witchy theme: if players choose the same action they gain a benefit but it also raises the suspicion of the witch hunters!
There was an interesting study out there on the prisoners dilemma where participants made a bot that would either steal or share based on their programming. The end result was the programs which survived and thrived (won) were almost all primarily nice in nature, but also able to be mean in retaliation. I think this highlights an important factor for us as designers to fully equip our players, fully co-operative interaction and fully negative interaction just don’t hold much weight because it doesn’t reflect reality.
The combat or auction elements of a number of those games inherently add some pain to me. The ones I don’t think that were mentioned are ‘card markets’ like in Ark Nova or Clank, or achieving milestones & awards (and funding them) like in Terraforming Mars. Thanks for the video.
We just played Imhotep last night, and it kinda fits this category. It has fairly high interaction. While moving boats with other players stones is pretty much always a positive interaction, it might not be the ideal move for the other players. It can sometimes be a little cruel.
Great topic and list! High player positive interaction is something I seek out when adding games to my collection. Some other games that come to mind for me: Space Base, Dice Town, Foundations of Rome and Ready Set Bet, and Trio. I really like the follow mechanic where active player gets something but then so do all other players to a lesser extent…Earth and Fort are additional examples to Puerto Rico.
Really enjoyed your video, always put off by games which deliberately disrupt the game for another player. One game which you haven’t included is Flamecraft. In Flamecraft every time a player enchants a shop, other players benefit by getting more resources when they visit, every time a dragon is placed in a shop, other players can visit and use its power it’s whole ethos is sharing the bounty!
Thanks a lot for the list! I think interactiok in a multiplayer game is something that can be really tricky to get right so this list is full of good inspiration. For a classic game, Poker is one I think does it really well. For a more modern example, I would mention Blood Rage. Both give players huge agency over which conflicts they participate in and make it difficult to attack another player directly. Do you consider Scythe a game where you are cruel to your friends?
I like those examples! I wouldn't consider that about Scythe in 99% of games, as you don't destroy anything another player has invested in--their units can be back on the map in the next turn (and you may have lost popularity in the process). The game discourages more than 2 combats per player. The 1% includes very rare situations where someone goes out of their way to pin another player on their home base, though I think that's much more about the player than the game.
Jamey, a future topic for one of these videos could be games with interesting/most replayable/favorite variable start conditions. There's lots of ways you could go with that one. Hopefully you haven't done one of those before? Games like Dominion (endless kingdom variation), Spirit Island (highly variable player powers), & Food Chain Magnate (map layout).
Thanks! I have a few videos on this topic: th-cam.com/video/O_0UNqSwfNc/w-d-xo.htmlsi=gZ88tmifiHUlXPzF and th-cam.com/video/rANt4jHHiXw/w-d-xo.htmlsi=NZNjcka6vmo_F42-
I'm not sure whether you'd consider football cruel by this metric? I think yes? MtG's commander format is an interesting case study here, in that it takes an inherently zero-sum, cutthroat base game, where ‘interaction’ means removal and counter spells, and yet Commander shows that people are absolutely willing, even hungry, to tone back what they bring to that table and just bring something aesthetically fun, even as it isn't optimal for winning per se. As someone whose childhood included such honorable games as ‘let's just fight, 1v1 irl’, I love a good scrap, but it's also really interesting to see different ways this happens. Like, would a game hit the same competitive urge, but feel less cruel, if fights were a conclusion to the game, that only happened after you achieved a confidently winning position? You'd still need to build around what other people are building to counter them, but you wouldn't damage their ability to play before the end of the game. I don't know, I'm just spitballing here, but I think it's a big area of game design that deserves a lot of thinking.
I think I mentioned in the video that 1v1 games largely don't apply to this: If I'm signing up to play Magic, Star Realms, or football, I know that the goal of the game is to attack the other player/team, and that's their goal. The same applies in 3+ player competitive games (the focus of this video); but in those you can choose to be cruel to a specific opponent, potentially undoing or destroying what they've invested in. It's certainly a form of interaction, but there are so many other methods of high interaction.
I love interactive games, but I really dislike kingmaking, so I’m often looking for games without too much direct negative interaction. So this list is perfect for me!! ☺️ Thanks Some other games that come to mind for me: - Clank - how all players affect the frequency of dragon attacks, so you’re keeping an eye on each other in case anyone makes a run for the exit. - Catan - getting resources on other players’ turns - Bus - shared resources / network. As you lay buildings, you’re often putting them on other players’ routes as well - so you can benefit from others’ turns. New passengers also go to a shared area (the train stations), so are available to anyone connected to the relevant station. - El Dorado - highly interactive because you can’t occupy the same space as other players. So you can become blocked / stuck behind other players (so infuriating - love it!), and there’s often a race to get through narrow passages. And the rare cave token which allows you to move past other players can then create dramatic turnarounds. Thanks for the great video!
Would love to see a similar list for high interaction mechanisms that ARE cruel, if there are any that you enjoy. Not haphazard take-that or even combat, but games where you can be absolute jerks to each other (like Mexica or Senators) are some of my favorites.
That might be a difficult list for me to make. :) The closest would be games that allow for sneakiness, for which I have a list: th-cam.com/video/5Rawu_V_-Vo/w-d-xo.htmlsi=sXjtBqzMFlwleq0v
As far as games with direct conflict go we like Ankh: Gods of Egypt. While you have a lot of conflict that happens it also has some of that forced interaction where you fight at set times in every region you are present. We have found that knowing when and where combat will come cuts out a lot of the cruel feelings that combat has because it takes away some of that targeting aspect. I think that has a decent middle ground as far as these combat interaction games go.
I appreciate how those elements make combat feel much less targeted and more like something that happens at certain times (I like Dune Imperium for the same reason).
I'm raising my eyebrow at your Root example. Each player does not have an instant win condition. What DOES exist are the Domination Cards, where you win if you rule 3 same colour clearings (or opposite corners) at the start of your next turn. And this removes being able to win via 30 VP, for yourself. First you need to get to 10 VP... and then actually obtain the card. Very hard to pull off, since its very easy to shutdown.
Now I’m curious which games have mechanisms where you can be cruel to your friends. Would you consider most wargames in that category? Root? Diplomacy? 18xx (when you can rust trains or block other players)?
One that we have been playing since 2008 is Cutthroat Caverns. You have to fight your way out to safety by taking on a randomized stack of baddies. There is no way to make it out by yourself, so you have to play nice(ish) as you take them down, but every so often, you might look the other way and let another player take a hit from the beast instead of finishing it off. You might even shank them yourself. In the end, only one can have the most glory and win the game. That puts a target on the back of anyone leading. You have to be able to literally stab each other in the back and still get along, or this game is simply not for you. We love it!
I think any 3+ player game where you can directly target a specific player and undo, destroy, attack, or steal from a specific other player is the type of "cruel" game I'm referring to. As I mention at the end of the video, I think those types of games have a place and can be fun in the right group--better to do those things on the tabletop than in real life--but in this video I wanted to highlight that there are so many other forms of interaction than combat and take-that.
This is a great list because players often talk about wanting more interaction, but it is frequently difficult to define what is meant by 'interaction'. "My decisions can directly affect other players" is a simple but effective way to describe it. The flipside to this is what does 'multiplayer solitaire' (MPS) really mean - often it is applied to games erroneously given many games are a 'race' to have highest VP by the end of the game, yet no one describes a 'pure' race game, like HEAT, as MPS, but it has a similar effect.
I completely agree, especially about how freely--and incorrectly--"multiplayer solitaire" is thrown around. Very few games have absolutely no player interaction, and when that's the case, it's there by decision, like in Rolling Realms.
A great idea for a list. One older game that I thought had a brilliant interaction between players was Hansa Teutonica. When you bump a player off of a route, with one of your pieces they get to replace it with two pieces elsewhere. It adds a whole new dimension to the game. I wish that mechanism was in more game designs.
That's a clever one!
I was going to mention Hansa, one of my favorites and such a clever way to make what could be a negative interaction a positive and part of the core strategy of the game.
Planet unknow is a good example. You have to rotate the Lazy Susan and by doing so, you force others players to draft tile in a specific area but it’s not too mean. You’re competing too for some share objective and civ card.
I find the cruel games I enjoy most, are short games, so it doesn't feel like all my hard work was wasted. Something like 'Hey, that's my fish!'
I like that distinction--the length of the game makes a big difference for me too for that category of games.
I love this topic. Thank you for focusing on interaction, the part of board games that keep drawing me back.
I love this video idea, been looking for exactly this for my family nights, thanks for sharing!
Thank you!
I love Taluva for this, you're building an island together by layering tiles, and you can use those tiles to crush other people's settlements, but crucially not the last hose in a village. Since the higher land is more valuable though, you're always giving your opponent(s) opportunities for growth by placing the high value tile right next to them. Leads to some really fun and interesting strategies, and let's you be mean without making other people feel defeated.
That sounds amazing!
Dice Forge has nice mechanic where if you are bumped from a location you get to roll your dice and gain resources
Septima's player interaction system works really well with its witchy theme: if players choose the same action they gain a benefit but it also raises the suspicion of the witch hunters!
That’s clever!
Great List! I Hubby and I enjoy playing cribbage the crib makes the interaction a lot of fun
There was an interesting study out there on the prisoners dilemma where participants made a bot that would either steal or share based on their programming.
The end result was the programs which survived and thrived (won) were almost all primarily nice in nature, but also able to be mean in retaliation.
I think this highlights an important factor for us as designers to fully equip our players, fully co-operative interaction and fully negative interaction just don’t hold much weight because it doesn’t reflect reality.
The combat or auction elements of a number of those games inherently add some pain to me. The ones I don’t think that were mentioned are ‘card markets’ like in Ark Nova or Clank, or achieving milestones & awards (and funding them) like in Terraforming Mars. Thanks for the video.
We just played Imhotep last night, and it kinda fits this category. It has fairly high interaction. While moving boats with other players stones is pretty much always a positive interaction, it might not be the ideal move for the other players. It can sometimes be a little cruel.
Great topic and list! High player positive interaction is something I seek out when adding games to my collection. Some other games that come to mind for me: Space Base, Dice Town, Foundations of Rome and Ready Set Bet, and Trio.
I really like the follow mechanic where active player gets something but then so do all other players to a lesser extent…Earth and Fort are additional examples to Puerto Rico.
That's one of my favorite mechanisms, and I love those examples!
An interesting video - thanks!
Really enjoyed your video, always put off by games which deliberately disrupt the game for another player. One game which you haven’t included is Flamecraft. In Flamecraft every time a player enchants a shop, other players benefit by getting more resources when they visit, every time a dragon is placed in a shop, other players can visit and use its power it’s whole ethos is sharing the bounty!
Flamecraft is a great example!
Thanks a lot for the list! I think interactiok in a multiplayer game is something that can be really tricky to get right so this list is full of good inspiration.
For a classic game, Poker is one I think does it really well. For a more modern example, I would mention Blood Rage. Both give players huge agency over which conflicts they participate in and make it difficult to attack another player directly.
Do you consider Scythe a game where you are cruel to your friends?
I like those examples! I wouldn't consider that about Scythe in 99% of games, as you don't destroy anything another player has invested in--their units can be back on the map in the next turn (and you may have lost popularity in the process). The game discourages more than 2 combats per player. The 1% includes very rare situations where someone goes out of their way to pin another player on their home base, though I think that's much more about the player than the game.
Jamey, a future topic for one of these videos could be games with interesting/most replayable/favorite variable start conditions. There's lots of ways you could go with that one. Hopefully you haven't done one of those before?
Games like Dominion (endless kingdom variation), Spirit Island (highly variable player powers), & Food Chain Magnate (map layout).
Thanks! I have a few videos on this topic:
th-cam.com/video/O_0UNqSwfNc/w-d-xo.htmlsi=gZ88tmifiHUlXPzF
and
th-cam.com/video/rANt4jHHiXw/w-d-xo.htmlsi=NZNjcka6vmo_F42-
@jameystegmaier ah! I've seen your game replayability video, that one was nagging at the back of my brain. Thanks!
I'm not sure whether you'd consider football cruel by this metric? I think yes?
MtG's commander format is an interesting case study here, in that it takes an inherently zero-sum, cutthroat base game, where ‘interaction’ means removal and counter spells, and yet Commander shows that people are absolutely willing, even hungry, to tone back what they bring to that table and just bring something aesthetically fun, even as it isn't optimal for winning per se.
As someone whose childhood included such honorable games as ‘let's just fight, 1v1 irl’, I love a good scrap, but it's also really interesting to see different ways this happens. Like, would a game hit the same competitive urge, but feel less cruel, if fights were a conclusion to the game, that only happened after you achieved a confidently winning position? You'd still need to build around what other people are building to counter them, but you wouldn't damage their ability to play before the end of the game. I don't know, I'm just spitballing here, but I think it's a big area of game design that deserves a lot of thinking.
I think I mentioned in the video that 1v1 games largely don't apply to this: If I'm signing up to play Magic, Star Realms, or football, I know that the goal of the game is to attack the other player/team, and that's their goal. The same applies in 3+ player competitive games (the focus of this video); but in those you can choose to be cruel to a specific opponent, potentially undoing or destroying what they've invested in. It's certainly a form of interaction, but there are so many other methods of high interaction.
I love interactive games, but I really dislike kingmaking, so I’m often looking for games without too much direct negative interaction. So this list is perfect for me!! ☺️ Thanks
Some other games that come to mind for me:
- Clank - how all players affect the frequency of dragon attacks, so you’re keeping an eye on each other in case anyone makes a run for the exit.
- Catan - getting resources on other players’ turns
- Bus - shared resources / network. As you lay buildings, you’re often putting them on other players’ routes as well - so you can benefit from others’ turns. New passengers also go to a shared area (the train stations), so are available to anyone connected to the relevant station.
- El Dorado - highly interactive because you can’t occupy the same space as other players. So you can become blocked / stuck behind other players (so infuriating - love it!), and there’s often a race to get through narrow passages. And the rare cave token which allows you to move past other players can then create dramatic turnarounds.
Thanks for the great video!
Those are excellent examples! I like that you mentioned kingmaking as well.
Jamey have you played Via Nebula? So much cool interaction and almost all of it super positive!
It's been a while, but I've played it once.
Would love to see a similar list for high interaction mechanisms that ARE cruel, if there are any that you enjoy. Not haphazard take-that or even combat, but games where you can be absolute jerks to each other (like Mexica or Senators) are some of my favorites.
That might be a difficult list for me to make. :) The closest would be games that allow for sneakiness, for which I have a list: th-cam.com/video/5Rawu_V_-Vo/w-d-xo.htmlsi=sXjtBqzMFlwleq0v
I thought this video will be about Concordia :D
As far as games with direct conflict go we like Ankh: Gods of Egypt. While you have a lot of conflict that happens it also has some of that forced interaction where you fight at set times in every region you are present. We have found that knowing when and where combat will come cuts out a lot of the cruel feelings that combat has because it takes away some of that targeting aspect. I think that has a decent middle ground as far as these combat interaction games go.
I appreciate how those elements make combat feel much less targeted and more like something that happens at certain times (I like Dune Imperium for the same reason).
Ctrl + PgDown switches to the next tabsheet
Thank you! :)
I thought Camel Up had some very fun interactions. Competitive and funny
I agree 100%!
Wingspan - The Dirty Birds Expansion
I'm raising my eyebrow at your Root example. Each player does not have an instant win condition. What DOES exist are the Domination Cards, where you win if you rule 3 same colour clearings (or opposite corners) at the start of your next turn. And this removes being able to win via 30 VP, for yourself. First you need to get to 10 VP... and then actually obtain the card. Very hard to pull off, since its very easy to shutdown.
You're right, a better way to phrase it is that each faction has a very different way of progressing in the game towards 30 VP.
Now I’m curious which games have mechanisms where you can be cruel to your friends. Would you consider most wargames in that category? Root? Diplomacy? 18xx (when you can rust trains or block other players)?
I wasn’t yet at the Root part of the video. 😂
One that we have been playing since 2008 is Cutthroat Caverns. You have to fight your way out to safety by taking on a randomized stack of baddies. There is no way to make it out by yourself, so you have to play nice(ish) as you take them down, but every so often, you might look the other way and let another player take a hit from the beast instead of finishing it off. You might even shank them yourself. In the end, only one can have the most glory and win the game. That puts a target on the back of anyone leading. You have to be able to literally stab each other in the back and still get along, or this game is simply not for you. We love it!
I think any 3+ player game where you can directly target a specific player and undo, destroy, attack, or steal from a specific other player is the type of "cruel" game I'm referring to. As I mention at the end of the video, I think those types of games have a place and can be fun in the right group--better to do those things on the tabletop than in real life--but in this video I wanted to highlight that there are so many other forms of interaction than combat and take-that.
I wish rumble nation was available in north america. Very hard to find.
This is a great list because players often talk about wanting more interaction, but it is frequently difficult to define what is meant by 'interaction'. "My decisions can directly affect other players" is a simple but effective way to describe it. The flipside to this is what does 'multiplayer solitaire' (MPS) really mean - often it is applied to games erroneously given many games are a 'race' to have highest VP by the end of the game, yet no one describes a 'pure' race game, like HEAT, as MPS, but it has a similar effect.
I completely agree, especially about how freely--and incorrectly--"multiplayer solitaire" is thrown around. Very few games have absolutely no player interaction, and when that's the case, it's there by decision, like in Rolling Realms.