Properties › Complexity
Complexity: low
One or two sentences, no exceptions.
84 mechanics are coded this way.
Achievements
A list of named goals, usually kept by a platform rather than by the game's own rules, records each one when its condition is met in play and adds it, often with a point value, to a persistent profile shown to others.
Action Points
Each turn a player receives a fixed budget of points and spends them on any combination of actions from a menu with differing costs, with unspent points usually lost at the end of the turn.
Advantage / Disadvantage
A modifier applied by rolling two dice instead of one and keeping the higher result under favourable circumstances or the lower under unfavourable ones, in place of a numeric bonus or penalty.
Alignment Games
Players alternately place or move pieces on a lattice and win, or score, by forming a straight line of a set number of their own pieces, so each turn is a choice between advancing a line and blocking one.
Alliances
Players agree among themselves, outside any rules enforcement, to coordinate future actions against other players, with the understanding that the agreement can be broken whenever breaking it pays.
Appointment Mechanics
A rule gates actions or rewards on the real-world clock across sessions, so that a crop, timer, daily task, or streak matures or expires at a wall-clock time whether or not the player is present.
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.
Audience Participation
A rule gives people who are not players, such as spectators, viewers, or a studio audience, a defined input into a game in progress, by vote, suggestion, or shared control, so the crowd affects the outcome without holding a seat.
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.
Branching Dialogue
Conversation is presented as a tree of authored lines in which the player selects from a set of responses, and each selection decides which lines, information, or consequences follow.
Checkpoints and Saves
Progress is recorded at designated points or on demand so that failure returns the player to the last record instead of to the start, which sets how much play is at stake between records.
Clue Giving
One player who knows a secret word or target composes a clue under rules that forbid the obvious, and teammates must guess the target from it, with the quality of the clue deciding the score.
Connection Games
Two players alternately place pieces on a shared board and the first to form an unbroken chain of their own pieces linking designated edges or points wins outright, so every placement both extends one path and obstructs the other.
Constraint Logic Puzzles
A grid or arrangement must be filled so that every stated rule holds at once, such as no repeated symbol in a row, and the unique solution is reached by eliminating what the constraints forbid rather than by searching hidden state.
Cooldowns
After an ability is used it becomes unavailable for a fixed interval of time or turns, so the player rations powerful actions by timing rather than by spending a pooled resource.
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.
Cooperative Play
All players share a single win condition against the game system itself, so they win or lose together and the only opponent is an automated threat that escalates unless the group coordinates its actions.
Critical Hits
A rare band of the attack roll, usually the die's maximum face, that amplifies a successful hit with multiplied damage or an added effect, as an exception layered on an otherwise binary hit-or-miss check.
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.
Dexterity
Physical manipulation of components, such as flicking, stacking, balancing, or throwing, resolves an action directly, so success depends on motor skill rather than on a randomiser or a chosen option.
Difficulty Settings
A rule-level parameter, chosen before play or adjusted by the system during it, scales enemy strength, resources, or margins for error so that the same content can be played at several levels of challenge.
Divide and Choose
One player splits a shared pool into one portion per player, the others choose portions in turn, and the divider takes the portion left over, so the divider is pushed to make portions they value equally.
Drafting
Players select items in turn from a shared pool or from packs passed around the table, so that each pick both builds a private holding and removes the item from everyone else's options.
End-Game Triggers
A stated condition, such as a score threshold, an exhausted supply, a fixed number of rounds, or a single decisive event, that ends the game or starts its final round, so players manage when the game ends as well as how it is scored.
Escape Room Puzzles
A team confined to a space or scenario searches for hidden clues and solves a chain of interlocking puzzles whose answers open locks or reveal further clues, under a time limit, until a final lock releases them.
Fail Forward
A resolution principle under which a failed check must change the situation, introducing a cost, complication, or new development, rather than leaving the state as it was before the attempt.
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.
Game Clocks
Each side holds a budget of wall-clock time that runs while it is their turn to act, and exhausting the budget forfeits the game, a move, or possession, so thinking time is a rationed in-game resource.
Ghost Data
A recorded run, usually the best one so far, is replayed alongside a live attempt on the same course as a non-interfering figure, so the player races or compares against a past performance rather than a live opponent.
Gifting
A player sends an item or resource to another player who owes nothing in return under the rules, so the transfer is one-way and any reciprocity rests on custom rather than on agreed terms.
Hand Management
Players hold a private set of cards and must decide which to play, keep, or discard each turn, trading immediate use against future options under a hand limit.
Handicapping
A rule-sanctioned adjustment gives the weaker player a stated advantage, such as extra pieces, a head start, or an adjusted score, so that players of unequal skill can contest the same game on roughly even terms.
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.
High-Score Tables
A machine or service keeps a ranked list of the best final scores achieved on a game, usually with a short name or initials entered by each scorer, and shows it to later players as targets to beat.
Hit Points
A numeric pool representing how much damage a character, unit, or player can absorb; damage subtracts from it and reaching zero removes the holder from play or triggers a death procedure.
Initiative Order
A procedure, usually a roll or rating, that fixes the sequence in which participants act within a combat round, after which play proceeds in that order until the encounter ends or the order is redetermined.
Limited Communication
Players who share a goal are forbidden by rule from freely discussing their private information, so coordination must pass through a narrow sanctioned channel such as a rationed clue or a single token.
Lives and Continues
The player holds a small counted stock of attempts, each failure spends one and restarts play from a set point, and exhausting the stock ends the game unless a continue is bought, so attempts are a rationed resource.
Loans and Debt
A player may take resources now in exchange for an obligation to repay later, with interest, a recurring charge, or a lasting penalty, so present capacity is bought at the cost of a future constraint.
Lock and Key
Progress through a space is barred by locks that open only once the player has obtained a specific key, item, or ability found elsewhere, so the order of exploration is controlled by what has been collected.
Map Markers and Waypoints
The interface places icons on a map, minimap, or compass that mark objectives, points of interest, or player-set waypoints and updates them as state changes, so where to go is disclosed by the system rather than found in the world.
Match-Three
Pieces on a grid are swapped or dropped so that three or more identical pieces line up, the matched pieces are removed, and the grid refills, often producing chain reactions.
Memory
State that was briefly shown and then concealed, such as face-down cards or a played sequence, must be retained and recalled without aids, so success depends on remembering what has already been revealed rather than on new information.
Metacurrency
A scarce pool of points held by the player rather than the character, earned by play and spent to bend outcomes from outside the fiction, for example to reroll, improve a result, or avoid death.
Opposed Rolls
Two parties each make a roll and compare results, so the number one side must beat is set by the other side's roll rather than by a fixed threshold, and the higher result prevails.
Parry and Dodge Windows
A defensive input succeeds only if it is entered within a short window relative to an incoming attack, negating the hit and often opening a counter-attack opportunity.
Pattern Recognition
Players race to perceive a configuration satisfying a stated rule, such as a matching pair or a valid triple, in a shared layout; the first to call or grab it is rewarded, and play does not otherwise transform the layout.
Permadeath
When a character dies, all progress bound to that character is lost and cannot be restored by reloading, so each life is a single irreversible attempt.
Physics Puzzles
The player arranges objects or sets a launch and then lets a simulated or real physical system run, and the challenge is predicting gravity, momentum, and collision well enough that the system produces the required result.
Platforming
An avatar traverses platforms and hazards by running and jumping under a fixed movement model, so progress depends on the timing and placement of each jump rather than on choosing among options.
Player Elimination
A player who meets a loss condition is removed from play while the game continues for the others, so the session ends only when one player remains or a separate end condition fires.
Player Judge
One player, usually in rotation, serves as the sole arbiter of a round, choosing which other player's submission wins according to personal taste rather than a fixed rule, and the role then passes on.
Player-Authored Goals
Each player writes their own character's goals, beliefs, or drives on the sheet, and the rules pay experience or metacurrency for pursuing or testing them, so the players rather than the designer set what a session is about.
Prestige Resets
The player voluntarily discards accumulated progress to restart from the beginning with a permanent multiplier or bonus, so each cycle runs faster than the last and the reset itself is the progression.
Procs
An effect attached to an item, ability, or character fires automatically with a stated probability whenever a trigger event occurs, such as landing a hit, casting a spell, or being struck, separately from that action's own roll.
Progress Clocks
A segmented circle or track that is filled in increments as actions succeed or threats advance, so that a complex task or looming event resolves only when every segment is marked.
Promotion
A piece that reaches a designated zone, usually the far edge of the board, is replaced by or upgraded to a more capable piece, so advancing position is converted into a permanent gain in capability.
Pseudo-Random Distribution
Successive trials of a chance event are made dependent on earlier results, usually by raising the chance after each failure until a success resets it, so the stated rate holds over time while long droughts and streaks become rarer.
Push Your Luck
A player who has banked a provisional gain repeatedly chooses whether to stop and keep it or to continue for more at the risk of a bust that forfeits everything accumulated this turn.
Quick-Time Events
A prompt appears during a scripted sequence and the player must enter the indicated input within a short window; success continues the sequence and failure branches to a penalty or a death.
Race to the Finish
The winner is the first player to move a piece, or all their pieces, along a track to a goal or off its end, so victory is a matter of relative progress along a course rather than of score, capture, or territory.
Real-Time Play
Players act whenever they are able rather than in turns, so wall-clock time rations actions and speed of perception and execution determine who acts first and how often.
Referee Adjudication
The success and consequences of a declared action are decided by a designated neutral person applying judgement under published guidance, rather than by a table or randomiser alone, and that ruling is binding on play.
Rerolls
After seeing a roll or a draw, the player may throw some or all of the dice again, or redraw, within a fixed allowance or at a cost, and the new result replaces the old one.
Roll and Move
A die roll or spin determines how far a piece moves along a track, and the space it lands on determines what happens, so the randomiser rather than the player sets the piece's position each turn.
Roll and Write
Dice are rolled, in modern designs usually once for the whole table, and each player records results on a personal score sheet, choosing where each is written under constraints that make later placements harder.
Rondel
Each player's marker moves forward around a fixed circle of action spaces and takes the action where it stops; a few steps are free and further steps cost, so the current position limits which actions are reachable next.
Scene Framing
Play is organised into scenes that a designated participant opens by stating where and when the scene is, who is present, and what is at stake, and closes by cutting away once the stake is resolved.
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.
Semi-Cooperative
Players compete for an individual win but share a loss condition driven by the game, so if the common threat prevails every player loses and each must weigh feeding the shared defence against advancing alone.
Set Collection
Players gather items that score or unlock effects only when held in specified groups, such as matching kinds, runs, or complete suites, so the value of any item depends on what else the player holds.
Side Conversion
A player who is caught or defeated joins the side that caught them for the rest of the round, so that one side grows as the other shrinks until every player is on one side or a time limit ends the round
Side Swapping
A match is split into innings, rounds or halves, and the sides exchange roles or ends between them, so that each side plays both parts and the result combines what each scored in every part
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.
Sliding and Pushing Block Puzzles
Pieces are slid or pushed one step at a time within a bounded grid where they cannot pass through one another, and the goal is to reach a target arrangement in a legal sequence of moves.
Take That
A player spends a card or ability to inflict a direct setback on a chosen opponent, such as a lost turn, discarded resources, or damage, which the target can rarely prevent and which costs the attacker little.
Target Numbers
A single roll succeeds if it reaches a fixed threshold set by the task or read from a table, so the chance of success is fixed before the roll by the gap between the threshold and the roller's modifier.
Team Play
Players are grouped by rule into fixed teams that win or lose together, with scores pooled and often with differentiated roles inside the team, so the contest is between groups rather than individuals.
Tile Placement
Players add tiles to a growing map or personal grid under adjacency and matching constraints, so that the shape of the play area and its scoring features emerge from where each tile is put.
Time Track
Each action costs an amount of time that moves the actor's marker along a track shared by all players, and whoever is furthest behind acts next, so the length of an action decides when its taker acts again.
Trading
Players exchange resources, cards, or other holdings directly with one another at terms they negotiate themselves, so that the rate of exchange is set by the players rather than fixed by the rules.
Upkeep and Attrition
Holdings such as units, workers, or ships impose a recurring cost in food, money, or supply each round, and failing to pay it degrades or removes them, so growth must be matched by income.
Usage Dice
A consumable such as torches, rations, or arrows is tracked as a die rather than a count; after each use the die is rolled, and a low result steps it down one size until a low roll on the smallest die exhausts the supply.
Voting
A decision binding on the whole table is made by counting players' declared preferences under a stated rule such as majority, plurality, or unanimity, so persuasion before the count is the real contest.
Coding guideline for complexity
Low: one or two sentences, no exceptions. Medium: a paragraph with one to three sub-rules or timing exceptions; a single lookup table on its own is medium. High: several interacting tables, prerequisite graphs, or multiple interacting sub-rules.