Individual Penalties

Penalties given in games that only directly apply to one of the players.

This pattern is a still a stub.

Using the pattern

Designing Individual Penalties largely resembles designing Penalties in general but avoiding directly affecting other players (i.e. avoiding making them into Shared Penalties). This can however become a somewhat blurred when affected players belong to Alliances or Teams.

The specific effects of Individual Penalties can be the same as for Penalties in general. However, Downtime and Player Elimination directly affect specific players and thereby are individual in their nature. While the effects of Individual Penalties apply only to one players, other players can become involved in it by using Player-Decided Distributions, either to decide which player should receive the Individual Penalties or to decide the specific effects of the Individual Penalties.

Consequences

Individual Penalties can be used to form Social Dilemmas when used together with Individual or Shared Rewards (although the Individual Rewards do not necessarily need to be directed towards the same player as the Individual Penalties).

The presence of Individual Penalties

Can Modulate

Mutual Goals, Penalties, Risk/Reward, Single-Player Games,

Relations

Can Instantiate

Social Dilemmas

Can Modulate

Alliances, Mutual Goals, Penalties, Risk/Reward, Single-Player Games, Teams

Can Be Instantiated By

Downtime, Player Elimination

Can Be Modulated By

Player-Decided Distributions

Possible Closure Effects

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Potentially Conflicting With

Shared Penalties

History

An updated version of the pattern Individual Penalties that was part of the original collection in the book Patterns in Game Design.

Acknowledgements

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