Effects › Social
Bluffing
Incentive to misrepresent one’s state or intentions.
15 mechanics carry this tag.
Auction and Bidding
Players compete for an item, right, or position by offering bids under a stated auction procedure, with the item going to the highest or otherwise winning bid and the price set by the players rather than by the rules.
Betting
Players commit stakes to a common pot in a structured round of raising, matching, or withdrawing before an uncertain outcome is resolved, so the size of what is won or lost is set by the players rather than by the rules.
Bluff and Challenge
A player makes a claim about concealed state that may be false, any opponent may challenge it, and a reveal then penalises whichever side was wrong, so the decision is whether to lie and whether to call.
Cooperate or Defect
Players each secretly choose to cooperate or defect over a shared payoff and reveal together, so mutual cooperation divides it, a lone defector takes it, and mutual defection usually forfeits it.
Crowd Blending
A player's figure looks the same as computer-controlled figures around it, so the player survives by acting like them while an opponent watching the crowd must pick that figure out by its behaviour
Deal-Making
Players strike specific bargains whose terms include future conduct, such as an attack withheld, a vote cast, or a later payment, and the rules decide whether those terms bind or rest on trust.
Fog of War
Parts of the map and the positions of opposing pieces are concealed from a player except where their own units currently have sight, so information must be gained by scouting.
Hidden Movement Pursuit
One player moves secretly across a shared map, recording each move privately, while the other players move openly and try to corner them using scheduled reveals and clues left by each move.
Hidden Piece Identity
Pieces stand in public positions but their rank or type is concealed from the opponent, usually by facing away, and an identity is revealed only when pieces make contact, so knowing where is separated from knowing what.
Hidden Roles
Each player is secretly assigned an allegiance or identity that sets their win condition, and an informed minority works against an uninformed majority who must identify them before being eliminated.
Hidden Scoring
Points or money earned during play are kept concealed from opponents, behind a screen or face down, so that the standings are known only in part and players must estimate who is ahead from what they saw being earned.
Interrupts and Reactions
A rule that lets a participant act outside their own turn in response to a defined trigger, such as an enemy moving into view or a spell being cast, with the response resolving before or instead of the action that provoked it.
Secret Objectives
Each player holds privately dealt or chosen goals worth points at game end, so opponents must infer what a player is pursuing from their visible actions while the player decides how much to reveal.
Simultaneous Action Selection
All players choose their actions for the round in secret and commit them at once, after which every choice is revealed and resolved together, so no player can react to another's decision within the round.
Traitor
In an otherwise cooperative game, one player or possibly none is secretly assigned to oppose the group, so loyal players must pursue the shared goal while judging whether setbacks are bad luck or sabotage.