Discard Piles

Areas or stacks where cards or tiles are placed after they have been used.

Games that use cards, chips, or tiles often distinguish between those that have yet to come in play, those that are in play, and those that have been used. Discard Piles are used to keep track of used cards etc. While this may be for pure practical or aesthetic reasons, other uses is that these represent future drawing stacks or resource areas for those with abilities to take game elements from the Discard Piles.

Examples

Players of Race for the Galaxy place the cards they have used as payment for actions in Discard Piles. When the drawing stack is empty, these Discard Piles are shuffled and used as new drawing stacks - meaning that discards cards can return to gameplay.

Cards in Seven Wonders are only discarded at the end of each era with the except of cards discarded for money. The players are then permanently out of gameplay except that the player controlling Helicarnassus which can pick a limited number of cards from the Discard Pile during a game instance (the leader Solomon provides this special abilities once as well).

Using the pattern

Discard Piles can be either closed or opened. Closed Discard Piles hide the important information of the game elements in them and do not let the players go through the piles. These piles can be used to provide an advantage of Memorizing (with the most famous example being the cards played in games such as Blackjack). Open Discard Piles, by contrast, either place the game elements so that they can all be seen or allow the players to go through the pile. These open piles support Stimulated Planning but may also cause Analysis Paralysis since they allow players a more complete view of the game state.

Discard Piles make possible a certain kind of Privileged Ability: going through the Discard Pile and taking, or directly using, one of the items in the pile.

Can Be Modulated By

Privileged Abilities

Consequences

The most basic function of Discard Piles is purely logistic: they define places where to place used game elements - most commonly Cards or Tiles. However, like Drawing Stacks the size of Discard Piles may function as a Game State Indicator since they allow players to judge how far the gameplay in a game has progress if game instances are limited by how many times Cards or Tiles are used.

Discard Piles make easy candidates for refilling Drawing Stacks, and when Cards or Tiles are recycled in this fashion the games that do this have a Closed Economy.

Can Modulate

Analysis Paralysis, Stimulated Planning

Relations

Can Instantiate

Game State Indicators

with [Drawing Stacks]]

Closed Economies

Can Modulate

Analysis Paralysis, Cards, Drawing Stacks, Stimulated Planning

Can Be Instantiated By

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Can Be Modulated By

Privileged Abilities

Possible Closure Effects

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Potentially Conflicting With

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History

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

Acknowledgements

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