Theming Player Strategies

In the past couple of posts, I have discussed actions and structures in games and how to think about designing them thematically. You may want to read those posts first. In this post, I'm going to talk about incorporating player strategies into your theme. Shoutout to my omni-gamer husband (and several friends) who helped me come up with this list of strategies. 

Player strategies are emergent styles of gameplay that ideally lead to having a shot at winning the game. Games consist of goals and obstacles, and strategies are how players attempt to overcome obstacles to reach a goal. Stories are also made up of goals and obstacles and characters who strive with them. Notably, in acting the term tactics is used to describe the ways an actor relates to goals and obstacles within a scene. So it makes sense when designing a thematic game to consider the mechanical strategies as thematic opportunities. Probably the easiest way to handle theming strategies is to design different player powers that lean into different strategies and give each power a specific character who has a motivation for behaving that way. Another way would be to have thematic endgame achievements for employing certain strategies. When playtesting, observe the types of strategies used and see if you can develop in-world reasons for characters behaving that way. To help you on your way, I have compiled a list of player strategies (and a few tactics) that you might encounter or purposely design into your game. I've tried to focus on non-degenerate strategies, although some of these are borderline depending on how they interact with your specific design. I've tried to group similar things together and have had to invent a number of names. Let me know if there are common strategy names I have missed. I've grouped the strategies into optimization, misdirection, defense, and timing categories. For other ways to shape character/player motivation and strategy, read this article from Games Precipice. 

• Optimization strategies break into two overall types: positive and negative. Most games have at least one type of optimization strategy. 

Positive Optimization is getting the highest possible value from each of your turns. Often games that encourage positive optimization won't contain other viable strategies. And when there are other strategies they can feel out of place, like take that in a resource management game. Examples of positive optimization include drawing extra cards, maximizing resource production, selling high, and timing payouts to buy low. Positive optimization is usually found in efficiency puzzles or cycles. Themes that blend well with positive optimization include almost any type of technology or production, including farming. 

Negative Optimization is the strategy of reducing the scope your opponent's options for their turn. Both positive and negative optimization are a form of 'action economy,' a term I learned from Matt Colville's YouTube channel. Colville uses action economy to describe combat balance in Dungeons and Dragons, which dovetails nicely with negative optimization. This isn't merely a 'take that' strategy. Rather this strategy is mostly found in PvP or PvE games, where you can kill/damage/capture something that your opponent uses to generate actions. The simplest example is a squad-based skirmish game, where if you kill off some of the opposing forces, their options become more limited on their turn. However, casting a slow spell or imposing some other condition has a similar effect of worsening the action economy of your opponent. A scorched earth strategy would be an extreme form of negative optimization. Negative optimization is almost exclusively found in open conflict games, although Citadels is a covert conflict game that has two roles in the base game that negatively impact other players' action economies. Themes should be amenable to conflict; in the case of Citadels the negative optimization roles are assassin and thief, which are thematically appropriate. 

The following strategies are subtypes of positive and/or negative optimization strategies. 

Raising the Floor is a type of positive optimization that involves improving your base economy or statistics. This strategy centers improvement and long term goals over short term gains. An example is moving up the income track in Space Base. Themes for raising the floor could be economic in nature or emphasize mechanical or physical improvements (like going to the gym to raise your strength score). 

Specialization is focusing on a single path within a game. It is often a style of positive optimization, but sometimes players may want to specialize for reasons other than optimization (especially in games where specialization isn't the best path to victory). This strategy could also be negative optimization if used to cut other players off from a type of resource. Specialization allows players to identify with their character's career, such as 'pig farmer' or 'cloth merchant.' Roles, objectives, or achievements can further allow players to invest in their character's business successes (or failures). 

'A Boat in Every Port' is optimization by way of spreading out your forces. This is the opposite of specialization. While most likely positive optimization, it could be a negative optimization strategy by taking resources or opportunities before your opponents can. Rarely will spreading out result in total dominance, rather this approach often gets rewarded when coming in second enough times allows for a cumulative first place finish, for example in Pandemic: Contagion. This strategy may also put pressure on other players to go after opportunities before they planned, which could put them off balance.  Business related themes (like market penetration) work well here, as do more abstract concepts like viral spread (of either kind of virus). 

Denial is a form of negative optimization built around neutralizing your opponents powers. This strategy takes its name from Magic: The Gathering. Counterspell, take that mechanics, and blocking are all forms of denial. Themes can emphasize defensiveness or battlefield control powers for characters that make use of denial strategies. 

• Misdirection strategies seek to signal to your opponent that you aren't a threat and can be safely ignored. Games with covert conflict benefit from misdirection strategies. 

'Keep Your Head Down' is a strategy of quietly earning points or completing objectives in such a way that no one notices when you take the lead. While this can manifest as players being physically quiet, mechanically it can look like un-flashy play styles and gradual progress. This strategy is often seen in games with open conflict but alternate win conditions. In King of Tokyo, the player who goes after victory points rather than damage can sometimes eke out a surprise victory if other players aren't paying attention. However, like in King of Tokyo, going for gradual points may be the least thematic part of a design. While it would make the tone of the game darker, the rolling for victory points strategy in King of Tokyo could have been themed around eating bystanders: the more you eat, the more points you get. While this strategy crops up in other styles and structures of games, it's more likely to be an 'above the table' strategy of keeping quiet if there isn't an alternate win condition involved. 'Keep your head down' blends well with diplomatic or pacifist themes when in conflict games. 

Intentional Underdog is a strategy of hanging back behind the leader. This could be to take advantage of catch-up mechanics or to avoid getting ganged up on by other players. Intentional underdog is distinct from 'keep your head down,' because 'keep your head down' is about getting ahead while no one notices, but intentional underdog is about artificially putting on the brakes to stay out of the lead. Theming your catch-up mechanics and placement bonuses and penalties could give players in-character reasons for employing this strategy.  

Sandbagging is when a player hoards resources only to convert them into points at the last possible moment. When a player sandbags, their true standing in the game is obscured for most of the game. In this strategy the player is never truly behind, but appears so. Sandbagging is more common in resource management games while intentional underdog is more common in conflict games, but there is a certain amount of overlap. Sandbagging may be undesirable in a game, in which case limits can be placed on the amount of resources that can be hoarded. But if the strategy is desirable, themes of stockpiling, hoarding, or misers (or dragons) would be appropriate. 

Social Leveraging is a meta-strategy of convincing your opponents that you aren't a threat through persuasion, cajoling, pleading, etc. The meta-strategy of not drawing attention to yourself in 'keep your head down' falls into social leveraging. Mechanics such as bluffing, negotiation, and trading require players to employ a certain amount of social leveraging. Social leveraging benefits from themes where characters have in-world reasons to talk to one another. 

• Defense strategies are about protecting yourself and your possessions. While negative optimization focuses on slowing your opponent, defensive strategies focus on dealing with hindrances and penalties that come your way. 

Turtling focuses on defensive measures at the expense of everything else. This can end up looking very similar to sandbagging, except that turtling is fairly exclusive to open conflict games. If this strategy is desirable, you could theme a faction around paranoid isolation or a history of getting invaded. 

Weatherproofing is the strategy of always having enough resources to cover possible penalties on top of what you need for regular gameplay. (This strategy could also be called 'feeding your family' after the mechanic in Agricola.) Weatherproofing is usually less extreme than sandbagging and has a different motivation. Themes could emphasize a character's foresight, prudence, wisdom, or even community care. 

Taking the Hit is the opposite of weatherproofing. (You could think of it as 'starving your family.') This strategy could be employed in resource games with penalties or in open conflict games. In covert conflict games you could 'take one for the team' by getting eliminated to draw suspicion off of another team member. Themes could emphasize a character's willingness to sacrifice or toughness or fearlessness. 

Cutting Your Losses focuses on retreating from a battle so as not to lose the war. This strategy is found in open conflict games, but also in games with betting, push your luck, or market investments. Themes could emphasize a character's business savvy, strategic brilliance, or inability to stay the course. 

• Timing strategies and tactics are about choosing your moment or window in order to succeed. Timing strategies are so in the moment and often brief that you could also consider them tactics. 

Rushing the Objective focuses on achieving a goal before your opponents have time to fully power up. It is the opposite of sandbagging. This strategy undercuts attempts at optimization but is risky because there is usually a narrow window before a game ramps up. This strategy can be deployed in any sort of point scoring game where players control when the game ends. It can also be found in open conflict games where a player may attempt to wipe out all other players before more advanced units can be unlocked. Rushing could lead to specialization where a player has a monopoly on a resource. Themes could emphasize hastiness or greed. 

'No, After You' is a delaying tactic that attempts to force one of your opponents to take the undesirable choice. This is the strategy that occurs late in every round of Azul. This strategy also occurs in competitive games with global threats where all players could lose. Themes could emphasize cooperation/selfishness, market forces, or the downsides of pioneering/innovation. 

Hail Mary is a tactic of attempting to pull out a victory from the jaws of defeat. This tactic can help players feel like they still have a chance at winning, but if it succeeds too often games will feel overly random. If you have a deus ex machina card in your game, try to tie it into your theme. (Imagine, for example, if the 'You Win' card in Space Base had a theme.) 

If the actions of a game constitute the plot elements, then player strategies are how the story gets told. A fully integrated theme will take into account how the game is played and not just what comes in the box. So much of the experience of playing a game comes from deploying different strategies. It just makes sense to consider those strategies when designing your theme. 

ShippBoard Games is a board game design blog that updates most Mondays.