Properties › Randomness
Randomness: input
Chance resolved before the player decides.
34 mechanics are coded this way.
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.
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.
Contract Bidding
Before play, players compete to declare how much they will achieve, such as a number of tricks, the highest declaration becomes a binding contract, and scoring rewards fulfilling it and penalises falling short.
Deck-Building
Players start with identical weak decks and improve them during play by acquiring cards into their own draw pile, so each purchase changes the distribution of future hands.
Deduction
Players uncover a hidden fact fixed at setup by making queries whose answers eliminate possibilities, racing to be the first to state the solution with certainty.
Dice Placement
Players roll their dice and then place them one at a time on action spaces that require or reward particular values, so the roll constrains which actions are reachable and placed dice block or outbid later placements.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Pattern Building
Players place pieces onto a personal board or grid to complete specified arrangements, such as rows, colour layouts, or shapes, scoring when the target configuration is achieved.
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.
Pick-Up and Deliver
Players move a carrier of limited capacity to collect goods or passengers at one location and carry them to another location that pays for them, so earnings depend on the route between source and destination.
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.
Procedural Generation
Maps, dungeons, encounters, or other content are assembled algorithmically from random inputs at play time rather than authored in advance, so each session presents a different arrangement.
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.
Random Tables
A die roll indexes a prepared list of outcomes to generate an encounter, event, or detail at play time, so the content of a scene is selected from an authored distribution rather than chosen.
Random Upgrade Offers
At set points in a run the game draws a small random selection of upgrades, usually two to four, and the player keeps one, so a build is assembled from choices among offers the player did not set
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.
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.
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.
Shared Narration
Authority to narrate what happens in the fiction is distributed among all players by rule, passing by turn, by interruption, or by spent currency, so no single facilitator owns the story.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
Trick-Taking
Players each contribute one card from hand to a round called a trick under a follow-suit rule, the highest card by rank or trump wins the trick, and the number or content of tricks won is scored.
Variable Player Powers
Each player begins with a different rule exception, capability set, or faction that breaks the symmetry of the shared rules, so the same situation offers different options to different players.
Word Building
Players form valid words from a limited supply of letters, by placing tiles on a shared grid or assembling them from a rack or draw, and score by letter values, word length, or placement.
Coding guideline for randomness
Input = randomness resolved before the player decides (a dealt hand, dice rolled then allocated, a generated map). Output = randomness resolved after the decision (an attack roll, a loot drop). Code "both" only when the canonical form has both stages.