Properties › Interaction
Interaction: direct
Targeted effects on a specific opponent.
33 mechanics are coded this way.
Aim and Recoil
The player steers a reticle onto a target in real time while spread, recoil, and sway perturb it after each shot, so whether a shot lands is decided by continuous pointing precision and recovery rather than by a roll.
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.
Combat Results Tables
An attack is resolved by computing the ratio or difference between attacking and defending strength, finding that column on a printed table, rolling a die, and reading a graded result such as eliminate, retreat, or exchange.
Combo Systems
Successive actions executed within a timing window chain together, with each link enabling or multiplying the next, so a correctly timed sequence yields more than the same actions performed separately.
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.
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.
Doubling Cube
Before rolling, a player may offer to double the stake of the current game; the opponent must either concede at the present stake or accept the doubled stake and take sole possession of the right to double again.
Full-Loot Loss
A defeated character survives, but the equipment it carried is destroyed or left, in whole or part, where the victor or anyone else can take it, often with insurance or protected storage softening the loss
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.
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.
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.
Hunt Games
Two sides on one board are unequal in number, movement and goal, so that one or a few strong pieces try to capture the others or escape while many weaker pieces, unable to take them, try to hem them in
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.
Kill Streaks and Bounties
Consecutive defeats of opponents without being defeated are counted, and set counts grant the streaking player rewards such as new capabilities; many games also pay a bounty to whoever ends the streak
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.
Piece Capture
A piece removes an opposing piece from the board by moving onto it, leaping over it, or enclosing it, so a spatial relation between pieces converts directly into permanent material loss.
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 Invasions
A player enters another player's ongoing single-player session as a hostile, uninvited or on a trigger the host has set, and the intrusion ends when one of them is defeated or the host clears the area
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.
Security Zones
A shared world is divided into areas with graded rules on attacking other players, from areas where any attack is a crime to areas with no rules, and an attack the area forbids flags the attacker for retribution by the system or by players
Social Conflict
Characters settle a dispute through a structured exchange of argumentative moves that wears down each side's position until one yields, and the losing side is bound by the result, often softened by a compromise.
Sowing
A player lifts all the counters from one pit and drops them one at a time into successive pits around a circuit, with captures or further moves decided by where the last counter lands and what it finds there.
Status Effects
A named temporary state such as poisoned, stunned, or hasted is attached to a character and alters its capabilities by a fixed rule until it expires, is cured, or is otherwise removed.
Stock Holding
Players buy fractional shares in entities such as companies or chains, receive dividends or bonuses in proportion to their holding, and may gain control of an entity by owning the largest block.
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.
Tournament Formats
A fixed schedule and pairing rule composes many individual games into one larger contest, such as a knockout bracket, a round robin, or a Swiss system, and decides who advances, who is eliminated, and how the field is placed.
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.
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.
Vulnerability Windows
A player-owned structure can be damaged, captured or destroyed only in a scheduled period, often after an attack has put it in a protected state whose end the defender partly sets, so sieges are fought at appointed hours
Coding guideline for interaction
Solo: operates identically regardless of other players. Indirect: players affect each other only through shared state without targeting (blocking a worker space, depleting a market). Direct: targeted effects on a specific opponent. Cooperative: a shared goal is intrinsic to the mechanic (hidden roles is not cooperative, whatever its information coding; team-based is mixed). Mixed: canonical implementations routinely span two or more. Opponents controlled by the game system are not players: a mechanic whose canonical form pits one player against the system codes solo; code direct only when the canonical form targets another human player.