Variance Mitigation & Player Preferences
I played Cascadia over the weekend, and got into an interesting conversation on variance mitigation, player preferences, and Nut Hunt.
Variance Mitigation
Variance mitigation mechanisms allow players to proactively reduce randomness in a game. While there are innumerable implementations of risk mitigation, many mechanisms fall into one of a few categories:
Manipulating results: Many games give players resources that they can spend to manipulate results. There is a whole genre of dice manipulation games where you can fudge the rolls a little. For example, the workers in Castles of Burgundy can be spent to add or subtract 1 to the roll of a die.
Re-doing results: Many games allow re-dos (so a re-roll or re-draw) either by paying a resource (a one time use card), or as part of the standard procedure of the game. In King of Tokyo on each turn you roll all of the dice, and then may re-roll any number of the dice, twice.
Mitigating results: Archeology is a trick taking – push your luck game. Cards are drawn from the deck, and when a sandstone card is drawn players must discard half their hand. Each player starts with a tent card that they can play to prevent the effects of one sandstorm.
The risk mitigation mechanism in Cascadia that sparked our conversation is the nature tokens (adorable pinecones). They can be spent either to manipulate results (you can take a non-paired combination of animal tokens and tile), or to re-do results by re-drawing any number of animal tokens.
Whether to spend tokens is an interesting decision as not only are they a limited resource, but they are also worth a small number of points at the end of the game.
Player Preferences & Nut Hunt
I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about player preferences & psychographic profiles. Players have different appetites for immersion, strategic complexity, social interaction, and variance.
Gamer motivation profile from Quantic Foundry
But, I think it goes a little deeper. It might be my personal bias showing through, but after playtesting Nut Hunt with hundreds of people, I’ve observed a wrinkle – or additional depth to player preferences around variance.
Through my formative years I gravitated to games that are about understanding and using the odds to your advantage – Magic: The Gathering, Poker, Backgammon, Axis & Allies, and Warhammer.
These are all high variance games, and a lot of the strategy in them is layered on top of that variance. That is, you put yourself in an advantageous position, and let the cards fall and the dice tumble as they will.
Sometimes you can play well, and still lose.
Early Nut Hunt playtesting - December 2020
Variance mitigation in these games is about proactive positioning, rather than mechanism that allow you to adjust your outcome after the fact.
I designed Nut Hunt with this design aesthetic in mind. Nut Hunt is a gateway level game that takes about 30 minutes to play. It has a decent amount of variance built into it – which fits the theme and weight of the game.
There is strategy around that variance in where and when you recruit squirrels and build nests. It is a proactive strategy about positioning to take advantage of the disruption caused by the fox.
Occasionally, in playtesting, we’ve gotten feedback recommending variance mitigation mechanisms. Usually, in the form of some limited resource that lets you shift where the fox goes.
I often try and get a rough sense of player game preferences, and those suggestions seem to come from a specific type of gamer who prefers euro games. It’s not feedback that I get from tcg players, social gamers, or dudes-on-a-map-wargamers.
I think it’s an interesting wrinkle. You sometimes hear designers talk about variability of inputs rather than outcomes. And from a theoretic perspective - either inputs or outputs could have the same impact on win percentages and player advantages.
But, the feeling and desire for agency after an event of variance is a very different motivator than craving the high stakes moment where you roll a handful of dice and hope for the best.
What are your favorite games built on playing the odds?
