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Those of us who have played alot of games come across alot of sameness in rules, but we also encounter rules, and mechanics that really catch our attention as resolve game situations in ways that are particularly innovative, elegant, fun or in some other way an improvement over other methods.

What are some game mechanics that you've really enjoyed or found innovative and where have you found them? It's ok if it turns out that they were invented in some other game first, just tell us where you first discovered them. Also, it doesn't have to be an obscure mechanic, it could be something particularly effective in a popular game that you feel is an elegant solution to a game issue.

I'll start with two.

First.
The WarEngine (the core rules for the now defunct "Shockforce" game) mechanic from Aaron Overton of a number of dice rolled and a number of dice kept. This is written in a statline as as 2k2 or 4k5 or 3k1, etc, etc.
The stat allows the player roll the first number of dice, but they can only keep the second number.
This is used mostly in combat and defense, but I could see game designers using it as part of many mechanics. It allows you to add alot of variation without necessarily increasing the size of the dice or even number of dice rolled. It also offers variation in modifiers. A given modifier could force you to roll less dice, keep less dice or both.

Second.
The activation mechanic from Andrea Sfiligoi. This rule forms the bedrock for "Song of Blades and Heroes" and most other Ganesha Games products.
In it, a player rolls from one to three dice (their choice) against a characters quality stat. Each success gives an action, but two failures passes play to the other side. This means that a player is gambling as they choose whether to roll 1, 2 or 3 actions for each character.

-Rolling one dice is always safe as if you fail, you simply activate another character.
-Two is fairly safe, though there's still the possibility of rolling two failures and passing play to your oppoenent.
-Three is a very real gamble, but is sometimes worth it if you need multiple actions to achieve a certain maneuver or a more powerful action.

It's not a terribly complicated mechanic but it keeps the player engaged as every activation is a small gamble and a choice that must be made.

What are your favorite game mechanics?

Mantics movement, terrain and shooting from Deadzone. Simple, Clear, concise and elegant, cant ask for more.

Table divided in squares, you move from any part of your square to any part of a square X squares away. Shooting is by default assumed to be obstructed in some way due to terrain dervris (factored in the models base to hit difficulty), you get a bonus if you can see 100% of the target including mini and base with no obstruction what so ever.

I quite like the idea of movement in the X-Wing game where you select your manouvre (speed, direction, facing) in advance, placed face down on a counter. Once it's all declared you turn them face up and move in initiative order.

That way the later players to move don't get any advantage, and you need to try and anticipate what your opponent is going to do.

I liked the Crimson Skies movement mechanics. Everyone plans their movements, but if you have advantageous position (trailing an opponent) you get to know part of the movement pattern of the opponent to represent your ability to track him. It was very well done. Hell, the whole game was pretty well done.

The honor system from HackMaster 3rd edition RPG. Depending on your class and alignment, you were penalized and rewarded for certain actions, which would lead to bonuses like 5% extra EP, or +1 to die rolls, or 1/game rerolls. Fun system.

I'm a fan of Battletech's initiative sequence.
Lowest initiative moves first, highest moves last.
Highest Initiative shoots first, lowest last.

Also we started doing a pen and paper Cthulhu Tech game where instead of dice each player has a deck of playing cards. When making a "roll" you use your skills to determine how many cards you flip over Ace being a failure and taking away the "best card" you flipped. You try to make poker hands of a minimum of 3 cards so a flipping a 5 6 7 would make 18 + the skill it's governed by.

So if you flipped 4 cards Ace 5 6 7 your best card would be a 7 the Ace takes it away you now only have a 6+ your skill. 10-Kings are 10. You also have a set of "drama" cards in your hand normally around 10. You can use them at any time to enhance your hand or a friend or even use them to take away from someone i.e. you can use an Ace to take away a success or lower a success from someone else. But when you do it you have to add Role Play drama to the scene.

It's a fun and interesting way to do rolling. It adds some craziness to the game.

Herzlos wrote:
I quite like the idea of movement in the X-Wing game where you select your manouvre (speed, direction, facing) in advance, placed face down on a counter. Once it's all declared you turn them face up and move in initiative order.

That way the later players to move don't get any advantage, and you need to try and anticipate what your opponent is going to do.

I agree its pretty good, but it pales in comparison to Robo Rally!

You had to plan a whole sequence of moves, using cards that were randomly dealt, to fill a number of slots that got reduced as you took damage, on a board that had various active squares, such as conveyor belts, that could completely relocate your position and facing!

Turns where one player spent the whole movement phase spinning in the spot while another misjudged his movement and ended up clear over the other side of the board facing the wall were common.

For the oft touted "beer and pretzels" game, I've yet to find a more entertaining one.

I like the "go until you fail" mechanic where your turn ends when you fail to do something important. Bloodbowl has it, but in wargaming, you'll find it in Crossfire, a WW2 game by Arty Conliffe as well as the free skirmish adaptation Company Commander by John Leahy.

http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Company_Commander/

 azreal13 wrote:

I agree its pretty good, but it pales in comparison to Robo Rally!

Love that game! I play it with NASA Programmers.

Cheating fethers!

I was a huge fan of the reaction system Andy Chambers wrote into his Starship Troopers rules for Mongoose Publishing. It's been so long since I played it that I can't remember the exact mechanics off the top of my head, but they basically created a system where both players were often doing things at the same time. It actually felt like a real battle where things were happening all at once instead of the I go you go style of some other games.

I also liked the actions points system in the old FASA game called VOR. You basically had "x" amount of points that allowed you to do anything you wanted in any order on your turn provided you had enough points left. So for example, if it costs my soldier 2 points to shoot, and 2 points to "walk" and I had 8 points to spend, I could shoot 4 times, walk, shoot, walk, shoot, etc etc.

From the same game there was army called "Growlers". They were basically what you would get if you crossed a T-rex with a huge Gorilla. They had a high-animal intelligence and functioned similar to a wolf pack or lion pride. You had models for females, baby Growlers, juvenniles, Bulls and Chieftans. The book actually had a campaign system where your models could start as "babies" and continue to grow up as long as they kept surviving battles. They could even eventually become huge bulls that would challenge your Chieftan for leadership of the pack. It was a really fun way to create a very engaging gaming experience.

 kronk wrote:

 azreal13 wrote:

I agree its pretty good, but it pales in comparison to Robo Rally!

Love that game! I play it with NASA Programmers.

Cheating fethers!

One of my regular X Wing opponents is the chap who owned RR, even now, he is still guaranteed to turn left when he means right or vice versa at least once a game!

I always though the "initiative" system for bolt action was cool.

Instead of an I go you go system, both players have a certain amount of "order dice" for however many units you have. Both sides place their dice in a cup. You then pull a single die from the cup without looking. Whoever's die it was gets to activate a unit. Your unit could run, move and shoot, set up over watch, assault, take cover, rally, etc. And it really helps to keep things interesting.

It makes for a really fun system and keeps you guessing, since you never know if you'll get the next move or not. You really have to think on your feet and plan ahead.

My other favorite would be the Reluctant/Confident/Fearless and Conscript/Trained/Veteran system of flames of war. Its very simple but works very well.

Great responses folks! I really want to go read some of these games now.
Keep 'em coming.

Herzlos wrote:I quite like the idea of movement in the X-Wing game where you select your manouvre (speed, direction, facing) in advance, placed face down on a counter. Once it's all declared you turn them face up and move in initiative order.

Mattlov wrote:I liked the Crimson Skies movement mechanics. Everyone plans their movements.

azreal13 wrote:[ agree its pretty good, but it pales in comparison to Robo Rally! You had to plan a whole sequence of moves...

Interesting, I have an aversion to hidden command games and kind of thought they were mostly something that historical gamers (Tractics anyone... ugh). I didn't realize that they were being used to such popular effect in X-Wing.

Tycho wrote:I was a huge fan of the reaction system Andy Chambers wrote into his Starship Troopers rules for Mongoose Publishing. It's been so long since I played it that I can't remember the exact mechanics off the top of my head, but they basically created a system where both players were often doing things at the same time.

Reaction system games are becoming more popular now, I didn't realize that SST was one of these. Tomorrow's War had one, and the various Two Hour Wargames publications thrive on them. Guess I'll have to acquire a copy of SST now.

frozenwastes wrote:I like the "go until you fail" mechanic where your turn ends when you fail to do something important. Bloodbowl has it, but in wargaming, you'll find it in Crossfire, a WW2 game by Arty Conliffe as well as the free skirmish adaptation Company Commander by John Leahy. http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Company_Commander/

Is this similar to the command activation in games like Warmaster and Future War Commander (aka Warmaster gone Sci-Fi)

I like a lot of the mechanics in Gears of War the board game:

It is essentially an action-point based game (not unlike space hulk), but what makes it really special is that the action points aren't just numbers or tokens. They are represented by cards (dealt to you each turn) that have alternative 'special actions' printed on them. So during your turn you can discard any card to perform any normal action, or you can discard specific cards to perform the specific special action on the card. Every card is different so there is a bit of luck involved but also a bit or skill with how you manage your hand. Every card also belongs to a suit of 'response actions', which can be burned outside of your turn to respond to certain events (ala overwatch).

The really beautiful part is that any cards you have remaining in your hand represent your health. If you take a wound you have to throw away a card, and you can only recover 2 back each turn. So if one team member performs a lot of actions quickly then they will be very vulnerable, and will usually have to take cover and rest while other team members protect them. It's a really elegant system that gives you a lot to think when deciding how to spend your actions.

Another thing I like about the game is that all the evil mooks are controlled completely by a deck of AI cards, so no one ever has to get stuck pushing the hero fodder around. This makes it much more fun with just two people, and you can even play it solo.
_______________________________

Another game mechanic I quite like is the use of weighted dice in super dungeon explore. You have blue dice which are crap, red dice which are fair, and green dice which are awesome. The characters all have attributes like 'armour' and 'dexterity', but rather than having absolute values, they instead have a certain mixture of different coloured dice that they roll for each stat. What is nice about this is that it isn't always immediately obvious who is best at something. For example some characters roll 3 blue dice for attack, while others roll 1 red and 1 blue. To make it even more dynamic, the blue dice have a better chance of rolling hearts (which replenish health), while the red dice have a better chance of rolling potions (which power spells). So if you are low on health you might choose to make a weaker attack with more blue dice in the hopes of rolling some extra hearts.

Reaction system games are becoming more popular now, I didn't realize that SST was one of these. Tomorrow's War had one, and the various Two Hour Wargames publications thrive on them. Guess I'll have to acquire a copy of SST now.

I'd highly recommend SST if you can find it. Very smooth rule set (not perfect - it had issues - just nothing really game breaking) that played super fast. My group was regularly able to play games involving over 100 models (basically a similar game scale to modern 40k) in just under an hour. The reaction system had a lot to do with that. Things started happening very quickly once the armies closed to within a certain distance of one another.

Tycho wrote:

Reaction system games are becoming more popular now, I didn't realize that SST was one of these. Tomorrow's War had one, and the various Two Hour Wargames publications thrive on them. Guess I'll have to acquire a copy of SST now.

I'd highly recommend SST if you can find it. Very smooth rule set (not perfect - it had issues - just nothing really game breaking) that played super fast. My group was regularly able to play games involving over 100 models (basically a similar game scale to modern 40k) in just under an hour. The reaction system had a lot to do with that. Things started happening very quickly once the armies closed to within a certain distance of one another.

Thanks! I'll check with my friend who seems to collect oop rulebooks. If he doesn't have it, SST stuff seems to come up often at my FLGS's twice-annual game auctions. I'm not a fan of THW rules, but I like Tomorrow's War and it'd be neat to see another variation on the theme.

 Eilif wrote:

frozenwastes wrote:I like the "go until you fail" mechanic where your turn ends when you fail to do something important. Bloodbowl has it, but in wargaming, you'll find it in Crossfire, a WW2 game by Arty Conliffe as well as the free skirmish adaptation Company Commander by John Leahy. http://games.groups.yahoo.com/group/Company_Commander/

Is this similar to the command activation in games like Warmaster and Future War Commander (aka Warmaster gone Sci-Fi)

Sort of. In those games your turn ends when you fail a command roll. In Company Commander, Crossfire and Bloodbowl, your turn ends when you fail specific game actions. In Bloodbowl, for example, if you do a pass action and it's incomplete your turn ends. Or if your drop the ball. Or one of your players fall down or get injured. In Company Commander if you fail to pin any opposing models when you shoot at a unit. Or if opportunity fire effects you sufficiently, you can end your turn there as well.

Everything in Malifaux. I don't know who the design team is, but I truly believe that is one of the few wargames to have brought some real innovative gameplay.

a) The fact that its played with cards, and not dice. At first I thought it was gimmicky, like they were doing it so they could say "hey look how different our game is!", but when you learn the mechanics and play the game, it is completely different. Each player has their own deck of standard playing cards, and you flip cards to resolve things like combat, using abilities, morale, etc. This means that there is less randomness because of the nature of a card deck. It also means that an astute player can keep an idea of what cards he might flip next during a turn, which adds a real touch of tactics to the simple element of resolving basic events.

b) how each turn a player has a 'control hand' or 6 cards that they can replace instead of the card they flipped. This adds a distinct level of resource management to the game. It can also lead to some real mind games with your opponent, trying to guess what his hand is like, and trying to force him to waste his high cards through feints, baiting, etc.

c) triggers. Basically, this is how suits are used in the game. Models will have special passive abilities that can be activated if a certain suit is played during a flip. This in combination with the control hand really makes the game what it is and makes the game feel like no other mainstream wargame. You'll find yourself agonizing over using your high card to save a key model or saving it because its suit would allow you to trigger a very useful ability.

I could go on for hours why I love Malifaux's various game mechanics. I think the fact that it is diceless may put off some players out there, but the way it is handled gives the game just enough randomness while keeping it a game that really tests a player's skill. I think it approaches resource management in a way that not many modern wargames do. Warmachine comes close with its Focus and Fury system. That's also a great game.

As mentioned above, the mechanics behind X-Wing are brilliant.

I also rather like the pure simplicity of Zombies!!! where a 4+ is all you need to roll.

Edit: Great thread!

I love the Action/Reaction system of Force-on-Force. It keeps all players in the game at all times. I adore this mechanic!

I like the damage system in X-wing. It is simple and elegant. Very easy to understand and see at a glance.

I enjoy the pre-manuever mechanics in Aeronautica Imperialis (similar to X-wing but better). You choose a manuever that will impact your speed/height and when during your movement you will use it. You really have to think about how you and your opponent will move. Great game, with even more depth than X-wing.

I like the Special Orders in Battlefleet Gothic becaue you have to make choices that give you advatanges but also weaknesses. How you use your Special Orders and when is a big part of the game.

I really like the command rolls in Warlord Games (also Warmaster and Warmaster Ancients), where you go until you fail. It make sit challenging to keep your army together, with some units not acting as they are suppose to.

I also like that in Warlord games (and many historicals) you don't actual remove casualties. I painted all of those darned solders and I want to use them all for the entire game!

To me the most important part of the game is how you control player interaction in the form of a turn sequence.

 Eilif wrote:

First.
The WarEngine (the core rules for the now defunct "Shockforce" game) mechanic from Aaron Overton of a number of dice rolled and a number of dice kept. This is written in a statline as as 2k2 or 4k5 or 3k1, etc, etc.
The stat allows the player roll the first number of dice, but they can only keep the second number.
This is used mostly in combat and defense, but I could see game designers using it as part of many mechanics. It allows you to add alot of variation without necessarily increasing the size of the dice or even number of dice rolled. It also offers variation in modifiers. A given modifier could force you to roll less dice, keep less dice or both.

Second.
The activation mechanic from Andrea Sfiligoi. This rule forms the bedrock for "Song of Blades and Heroes" and most other Ganesha Games products.
In it, a player rolls from one to three dice (their choice) against a characters quality stat. Each success gives an action, but two failures passes play to the other side. This means that a player is gambling as they choose whether to roll 1, 2 or 3 actions for each character.
What are your favorite game mechanics?

I own and play both of these games and the rules you've pointed out are great strengths of those games.

I don't think you could roll 4, Keep 5

On a side note, I beta tested SHOCKFORCE and was one of the people who ran around demonstrating it at local shops. We still see a game of Shockforce played maybe once a year , when the mood strikes. I argued with Aaron about the "k" part being "d" for discard, but he wanted something that looked more unique and couldn't be confused with "d" meaning dice like in RPGs.

Ooh, Decipher's Star Wars CCG!

Your deck is both your resource, your life and your game pieces, as well as being used to resolve events through random number draws!

I don't think I ever needed a single counter, dice or marker in any game ever.

 Smacks wrote:
Another game mechanic I quite like is the use of weighted dice in super dungeon explore. You have blue dice which are crap, red dice which are fair, and green dice which are awesome. The characters all have attributes like 'armour' and 'dexterity', but rather than having absolute values, they instead have a certain mixture of different coloured dice that they roll for each stat. What is nice about this is that it isn't always immediately obvious who is best at something. For example some characters roll 3 blue dice for attack, while others roll 1 red and 1 blue. To make it even more dynamic, the blue dice have a better chance of rolling hearts (which replenish health), while the red dice have a better chance of rolling potions (which power spells). So if you are low on health you might choose to make a weaker attack with more blue dice in the hopes of rolling some extra hearts.

That mechanic sounds very much like Descent. Different-colored dice, of which some are better than others, and they also have special symbols printed on some faces which can trigger other abilities.

I have to say I love the activation/suppression mechanic in Dust Warfare:
Each unit gets 2 actions per turn: take 1 if you have a reaction marker, and take 1 if you have any suppression markers. If you have any suppression markers you can't react (overwatch). The reaction/overwatch mechanic is also used as the fight-back-in-melee mechanic.
This culminates to making sure you have overlapping fire protecting your own units, and if you want to get close to the enemy you'd better be damn sure that you have suppressed them and all their nearby friends first, otherwise you're going to have a bad time. You need to support your assault units with 2-3 ranged units to lay down covering fire for them to run in, and if you really want to make sure a unit is not going to bother you for a turn you need to suppress them with 2-3 units.

The suppression mechanic also translates into the morale mechanic: if you have more suppression markers than models in the unit, you are fleeing. Models with good morale have a better chance of removing suppression; models immune to morale (vehicles, zombies) don't get suppressed.

In fact, I like pretty much all of Dust Warfare mechanics except for the blast/area of effect weapons; they only hit the unit you're targeting, meaning you are perfectly able to call in an artillery strike into the middle of a close combat and not hit your own models.

Old Epic order tokens. I loved that idea. I loved that you had to commit to something, not merely react. It added a phase where you weren't rolling dice, weren't comparing stats but you were directly trying to outplay your opponent.

 Kojiro wrote:
Old Epic order tokens. I loved that idea. I loved that you had to commit to something, not merely react. It added a phase where you weren't rolling dice, weren't comparing stats but you were directly trying to outplay your opponent.

Also the blast markers which debilitated the formation as they accrued was a nice touch.

I always liked the warzone first editon activation and action system, made it very tactical

I'm a big fan of the ARO system in Infinity, as it better represents how two smaller teams of elite soldiers would act. Someone walks in front of you and shoots? Shoot back. Someone runs across your line of sight between cover? Shoot at them. Someone starts shooting you as you're running? Start dodging.

It has its complexities (face to face rolls are ridiculously hard to figure out when you're starting), but it creates a very tense small scale game.

Might, Will and Fate in the Lord of the Rings. Only heroes have these statistics. Might allows you to either increase the result of a dice roll by one or call "heroic actions". Will is used to increase the result of a dice roll of a courage test or for a magic spell. Fate can save a hero from death. Because the Lord of the Rings is so much about heroes, it makes them really stand out, but because the model only has a limited amount of these points, you need to manage their usage effectively.

Maybe this is a boring one compared to some in the thread, but I really love the hand to hand combat mechanics of the Lord of the Rings game. Instead of the combatants hacking away at each other in some predetermined order, each side in a fight gets one dice (per attack stat) and the highest roll wins and gets to strike at the enemy (once per attack stat). It just feels so much cooler when the models are having this duel rather than just swinging at each other.

For example, you might have Aragorn vs two goblins, so Aragorn rolls three dice and the goblins roll two, and whoever gets the highest single dice roll wins (with ties broken by the Fight stat). So maybe Aragorn rolls 1, 2 and 6 and the goblins roll 5 and 3, and Aragorn wins and gets to strike at the goblins three times before they get pushed back an inch.