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[TiGD] Chit-Pull System

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Mon, 07/10/2006 - 13:58
Zzzzz
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A game mechanic used in the game of Keno over 2100 years ago in China. The use of this mechanic includes gambling (Keno, Bingo), board (Celtic Quest and Arkham Horror) and war (Silent War) games.

The mechanic is very commonly used to produce random results or even random ordering of player actions. Often the results are obtained by drawing small cardboard counters from a bag. Chits are usually smaller than tiles, but chits might also take on other forms, such as modern day Keno balls.

The concept of the Chit-Pull mechanic is very simple, and can introduce so much to a game, but what influences a designer to use the Chit-Pull mechanic in a game?

What might be the benefits of using Chit-Pull in a game design?

What might be the negatives of using Chit-Pull in a game design?

How could one implement another type of game component that mimics the Chit-Pull mechanic? (For example is using a deck of cards the same as drawing a chit from a bag?)

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Mon, 07/10/2006 - 14:47
#1
Willi_B
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[TiGD] Chit-Pull System

A chit with a line on it from a permanent marker would still be unnoticeable in a bag until drawn, whereas a card so marked on the back would be evident, and, possibly avoided or sought.

Chit -pull gives the illusion of randomness... even if it isn't... a physically torn chit could still be felt in the process of the grab.

A shake-and-drop chit could avoid the feel... but a splayed corner could catch in the bag.

I think chit-pull is useful for random setups and the like, but it is similar enough to cards that I would probably just do cards in most instances. I think kids would like it more, so maybe if the game was marketed to a younger audience, I would choose chit-pull.

A couple of advantages of chit-pull as compared to cards: if you want to throw cards back in you have to shuffle. Likewise, chits would be much more impossible to memorize if unknown chits are constantly thrown back in to the bag.

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Tue, 07/11/2006 - 07:19
#2
Gogolski
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[TiGD] Chit-Pull System

Zzzzz wrote:
How could one implement another type of game component that mimics the Chit-Pull mechanic? (For example is using a deck of cards the same as drawing a chit from a bag?)

I think it all depends on what you want to achieve with your chit-pulling appart from that random drawing element.
The well known cube-spewing-tower in I-forgot-which-game (never played it, not for sale in Belgium, I think...) is a kind of chit-puller. But, as I understand it, throwing in more cubes, could result in more cubes coming out (be they yours, or another player's...). It could also result in cubes coming out that got stuck inside the tower previously...

The cosmic-ashtray in Alan Moon's Andromeda is another way to replace the chit-pull-bag, but I think that the ashtray does nothing more than the bag.

Zzzzz wrote:
The concept of the Chit-Pull mechanic is very simple, and can introduce so much to a game, but what influences a designer to use the Chit-Pull mechanic in a game?

What might be the benefits of using Chit-Pull in a game design?

What might be the negatives of using Chit-Pull in a game design?
The main questions are:
- What components do you have?
- What extra "game-effects" do you want to achieve?

Components:
I'm designing a game in which each player has a little board on which chits are put to reflect his status. When someone needs random chits, they are pulled from a bag and put straight onto the board.
If you draw cards in this example (or if you use Andromeda's ashtray and cubes), you will have to replace the card or cube with the right chit and put it on the board, which is just a silly way of loosing time and tempo.

So a game that has chits and needs random-chit-generation will probably benefit from chit-pulling. (If the chits can be easily replaced with cards or cubes, then another system might work just as well...)

Extra "game-effects":
NOTE: I used the words "Game-effects" for rules that are added to the chit-pulling or everything that gives more control over the chitpulling-result, etc...

1] Somewhere in your game, you want someone to control the next chit:
You could make someone draw/choose a chit and let that player keep it untill another player wants to pull a chit and receives the chit that the first player kept.
This is not very elegant, and it might be skipped/forgotten. It could more easily be achieved with cards: Draw three cards, order them and place them on top of the deck.

2] Players control the contents of the chit-pull-bag:
If players can (or even must!) put extra content in the bag of chits, than chits seem better than cards, as much time would otherwise be lost shuffling a deck after adding new cards to it. (the ashtray could work...)

If you want the contents to be static, you draw a chit show it to everyone and put it right back in and then resolve the result of the chit which was pulled.
Likewise, you could do this with cards and put the drawn card underneat the deck without shuffling. Every player knows that it will be a while before that card comes up again (or the chances are less if the same card is in deck multiple times...).

Cheese!

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Wed, 07/12/2006 - 08:33
#3
Zzzzz
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[TiGD] Chit-Pull System

Ok to keep the topic going a little more. Can I get people to give me input on the following use of a chit-pull system.

A chit-pull system used to determine the winner of a bid.

For example, say a game gives each player Y chit tokens. These chits are color coded for each player. During the course of a game, players will be faced with a bidding phase. At the time of a bid, players will place their selected number (or bid) of chit tokens into the chit bag. After all bids are placed into the bag, a random chit is draw to see who won the bid. Obviously the more chits a player places into the bag, the more likely chance they will have to win the bid, but yet they can still lose (which straight up bidding does not really allow for).

So, would this be a good or bad use of a chit-pull system?

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Wed, 07/12/2006 - 09:13
#4
w0rf
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[TiGD] Chit-Pull System

Of all the examples provided so far, that seems like the best implementation of the system. A sort of "weighted" random determination.

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Wed, 07/12/2006 - 10:19
#5
OutsideLime
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[TiGD] Chit-Pull System

Quote:
For example, say a game gives each player Y chit tokens. These chits are color coded for each player. During the course of a game, players will be faced with a bidding phase. At the time of a bid, players will place their selected number (or bid) of chit tokens into the chit bag. After all bids are placed into the bag, a random chit is draw to see who won the bid. Obviously the more chits a player places into the bag, the more likely chance they will have to win the bid, but yet they can still lose (which straight up bidding does not really allow for).

I like it a lot. Variants on this mechanic might include options where players commit their chits blindly, or where the bag goes around and each player sees how many chits the previous players have put in. Greatly different effects would result from using one mode or the other. This goes on the List Of Great Ideas, along with various things I've stolen from Seo.

~Josh

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Wed, 07/12/2006 - 12:22
#6
Yogurt
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[TiGD] Chit-Pull System

Zzzzz wrote:
Obviously the more chits a player places into the bag, the more likely chance they will have to win the bid, but yet they can still lose.

This is in fact the same idea as the Wallenstein cube tower, which is the game Gogolski was trying to think of.

In Wallenstein, your soldiers in the tower (your bids) persist between combats, so soldiers you throw into one battle can stay hidden and then reappear across the country in some future battle. While odd thematically ("where have you guys been?") it's a way of moderating luck, so that bad draws at one point may be balanced by good ones later.

Wallenstein also has neutral farmer cubes who help the defender.

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Wed, 07/12/2006 - 12:39
#7
Scurra
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[TiGD] Chit-Pull System

OutsideLime wrote:
Quote:
For example, say a game gives each player Y chit tokens.
Variants on this mechanic might include options where players commit their chits blindly, or where the bag goes around and each player sees how many chits the previous players have put in. Greatly different effects would result from using one mode or the other.
My "Planning Permission" game uses a bidding system a little like this. Players have a number of white (yes) and black (no) votes. When the secret vote comes up, they can commit as many or as few votes of either (or both) colour(s) as they wish. Then the vote is counted, but because everyone is using white and black no-one knows exactly who voted which way and how. It can lead to some interesting tactical decisions, especially as the mechanism for redistributing the votes is somewhat random... (Sadly, the rest of the game was a bit ordinary, so it's currently on a very back burner.)

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Fri, 07/14/2006 - 12:02
#8
Willi_B
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[TiGD] Chit-Pull System

Instruct players to have the chosen number of chits in hand when the bag is passed and it works without the possibility of players cheating their bid by feeling others bids in the bag.

However, if scrutiny of bid size matters and you still need to keep secret the number of chits each player bid even after the draw (unlikely, I suppose), I would suggest a large enough bag to allow all players to drop simultaneously.

Sounds like you have a good idea for what you are attempting to accomplish.

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