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Letting players influence VP returns

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Mon, 10/18/2004 - 18:40
GeminiWeb
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Joined: 07/31/2008

Hi,

I'm starting to think about designing a game where, rather than having fixed VP returns for doing things, the VP return can be influenced by the players. Consider 2 examples:

(1) Settlers of Catan - create a way that players could make (all) cities worth 3 points, rather than 2 points ... or the longest road only worth one point.

(2) Puerto Rico - Consider a new role which allows a player to alter the VP returns on shipping a particularly good. For example, you might only get 1 VP for every two commodities shipped (of a specific type), or you might get 2 VPs for a single type of commodity.

Thoughts? Examples of games which do this?

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Mon, 10/18/2004 - 23:14
#1
Trickydicky
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Letting players influence VP returns

Do you mean each individual player could alter the VP requirements during game play? That would make for a very interesting and probably frustrating game. If the ways to get VP are constantly changing it could be very fun if handled properly.

If I misunderstood please clarify what you meant.

Thanks

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Tue, 10/19/2004 - 00:16
#2
Zzzzz
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Joined: 06/20/2008
Letting players influence VP returns

Very interesting idea, I do not know of a game off hand that does this, with respect to altering VP, mid game.

Though I cannot think of one right off hand, I would guess, if you look at it from a larger picture, there must be games the influence reward/awards (thus VP) during a game, based on player interaction.

One such game, though I dont feel it is a great example, would be the standard RPG. One could argue that experience is just another form of VP. The way in which players interact with the world, through actions, combat, etc, can alter the value of VP (or experience) a player will receive.

Hmmm, as I think about it, not sure if what I stated makes sense. Ah well, nothing gained, nothing lost! I will think about this more, I hope someone else has some good input for this topic!

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Tue, 10/19/2004 - 00:25
#3
GeminiWeb
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Joined: 07/31/2008
Letting players influence VP returns

Trickydicky wrote:

Quote:
Do you mean each individual player could alter the VP requirements during game play?

To some extent.

I did not necessarily mean that a target number of VP required to win would change (e.g. 10 VPs for strandard Settlers of Catan), but that could be included.

I did include the idea of VP awards given out during a game (e.g. shipping commodities in Puerto Rico). For example, consider a game similar to Puerto Rico except the VP returns for shipping drop off as more of a commodity are shipped away (e.g demand drops off back in the old world).

Similarly, I included the idea of VP awards given out at the end of the game (e.g. building VPs in Puerto Rico). For example, consider a game where you purchased things and the price dropped and you sold them and the price increased (fairly standard). Now consider that your final score is determined by working out the total value of your holdings at the end of the game based on the prices at the end of the game. Thus, the more you purchase something, the less valuable it is in VPs.

Hope that clarifies things.

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Tue, 10/19/2004 - 07:26
#4
jwarrend
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Joined: 08/03/2008
Letting players influence VP returns

The best example of this is probably "Age of Mythology", in which each turn, several players allocate VP cubes to several different payout mechanisms, and when someone is eligible to receive that payout mechanism, he takes all the cubes from the card. (So, for example, I think there's a card that says "Won the last battle", and the next player to win a battle would get that card).

I think that also, stock games probably have an aspect of this. In Acquire, the size of the chains on the board determines their respective values, so you can drive up the "VP" payout for a chain by making it bigger.

I think in principle, this is a doable idea. Indeed, I have a game in very early development that uses a concept sort of like this (I originally came up with it for Disciples, but scrapped it early on), but it's quite different in implementation. The key difficulty for an idea like this is balance. Fixed payouts are more straightforward to balance, I think. On the other hand, just like auctions let you "cheat" on designing costs for this, flexible VP payouts could let you "cheat" on designing VP payouts. The one thing you should watch out for is that it will be easier for a "best" strategy to emerge if players can decide what gets rewarded with VP. If there's one route that's easiest to pursue, they can make that route be the main VP route, and negate the others, reducing the game in scope, which would probably be bad.

Let us know more as you go further, it's a neat idea! Good luck!

-Jeff

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Tue, 10/19/2004 - 10:21
#5
Chad_Ellis
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Re: Letting players influence VP returns

GeminiWeb wrote:
Hi,

I'm starting to think about designing a game where, rather than having fixed VP returns for doing things, the VP return can be influenced by the players. Consider 2 examples:

(1) Settlers of Catan - create a way that players could make (all) cities worth 3 points, rather than 2 points ... or the longest road only worth one point.

(2) Puerto Rico - Consider a new role which allows a player to alter the VP returns on shipping a particularly good. For example, you might only get 1 VP for every two commodities shipped (of a specific type), or you might get 2 VPs for a single type of commodity.

Thoughts? Examples of games which do this?

I think this is a great idea, and the fact that we're all struggling to think of really good examples shows that it hasn't been done too much.

You can play around a lot with how victory conditions change. For example, players might each choose a victory bonus at the start of the game (in secret), so that part of the game was trying to guess what other players had given bonuses to. Or you could make it a regular part of play during the game, e.g. certain commodities become more or less valuable due to changes in supply/demand.

IMO, games that add even a fairly simple extra level to the basic victory conditions add a LOT of play.

Best regards,
Chad

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Tue, 10/19/2004 - 11:22
#6
rkalajian
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Letting players influence VP returns

I think a good way to have variable VPs is making it so everyone can't score big off the same things.

Example:
Lets say you have a building game. A certain structure in this game is worth 3 VP at the beginning, but if people start building hordes of this structure the VP goes down to 1. This would help promote diversity in some games, forcing players to alter their strategy.

A game like this would have to score at the end, and even then this mechanism might be difficult to implement.

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Tue, 10/19/2004 - 13:20
#7
Anonymous
Letting players influence VP returns

Sounds like a great idea to incorporate. Of course, the proof is in how the mechanic is worked into the game iteself. I like the idea that people have been tossing around regarding decreased VP value of a commodity or property as the demand for that item goes down. Like Jeff said, balancing will be an issue. Especially since economic models may lend themselves too much to a runaway leader problem.

jwarrend wrote:
The best example of this is probably "Age of Mythology", in which each turn, several players allocate VP cubes to several different payout mechanisms, and when someone is eligible to receive that payout mechanism, he takes all the cubes from the card.

This sounds like a great use of the mechanism you're talking about. Various payout conditions are available (or introduced by palyers), everyone can add potential VP to the payouts that they feel certain to claim, then players maneuver to claim the most lucrative payout vehicles. That way, the most lucrative will automatically be more difficult to attain (since its being the most lucrative will be the end result of many players contributing to its payout, therefore many players will be vying for it). Conversely, conditions with lower payouts would be relatively easier to attain.

Sounds like your idea could be worked into an interesting economic mechanism (not sure if that's the direction you're headed in).

Best of luck!

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Tue, 10/19/2004 - 13:31
#8
zaiga
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Letting players influence VP returns

rkalajian wrote:
I think a good way to have variable VPs is making it so everyone can't score big off the same things.

Example:
Lets say you have a building game. A certain structure in this game is worth 3 VP at the beginning, but if people start building hordes of this structure the VP goes down to 1. This would help promote diversity in some games, forcing players to alter their strategy.

A game like this would have to score at the end, and even then this mechanism might be difficult to implement.

The game La Strada by Martin Wallace has a scoring mechanism very similar to that. La Strada is a basic connection game where you score points at the end of the game for cities that you have connected to. However, the more people connect to a city, the less that city is worth. If you are the only one to connect to a city you receive 5 points, if one other player also connects to that city you get 4 points, etc.

Because of the scoring mechanism you want to make it difficult for other people to connect to "your" cities. However, you still want to connect to other cities yourself as well, so that is something you have to balance. I haven't actually played the game, but it sounds interesting in theory.

- René Wiersma

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Tue, 10/19/2004 - 15:53
#9
Anonymous
variable payouts in Amun Re

rkalajian wrote:
I think a good way to have variable VPs is making it so everyone can't score big off the same things.

Amun Re uses a mechanic that allows the players to determine what pays. At first, I remembered it as VP but after reviewing the rules I discovered it was money.

While not directly influencing Victory Point, the payout influences the amount of money each player receives. Each player sacrifices an amount to Amun Re, the sum of the sacrifices determines 1) the amount of money received for each farmer - 1x to 4x and 2) if the camel areas, which represents trade due to a bad harvest year, pays out.

There are additional rewards or punishments based on the amount you sacrificed compared to other players. It is a great mechanic, because if a single player would receive a huge payout, the other players band together to prevent it.

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Tue, 10/19/2004 - 18:19
#10
GeminiWeb
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Joined: 07/31/2008
Letting players influence VP returns

Thanks for all your comments.

To fill you in some more, there is no specific game at the moment, although my original thinking was that the mechanic might work well along the lines of an economic theme (as SiskNY suggested), or in terms of the idea suggested by rkalajian:

Quote:
Lets say you have a building game. A certain structure in this game is worth 3 VP at the beginning, but if people start building hordes of this structure the VP goes down to 1.

In both cases, the basic idea is that demand would drive down VP returbs.

he otehr idea I had was closer to what jwarrend referred to for Age of Mythology where players allocate VP returns as part of the game.

The main idea was to get an interesting VP mechanic to stimulate some ideas for a theme and work from there ...

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