Asymmetric Starting Conditions
That players do not begin their game sessions with the same possibilities.
Contents
Examples
Classical Board Games have Asymmetrical Starting Conditions simply because they are turn-based and being the starting player is usually advantageous. Chess solves this in tournaments by letting players play several times and take turns which side they play. Go usually does this as well but can make use of compensation stones, called Komidashi in Japanese, for the white player that plays second; Based upon statistics this handicap has been set at 6.5 stones when using Japanese rules (the half point is to avoid ties). It has been proven for the more modern Hex that the first player has a winning strategy (the short proof is part of its Wikipedia entry[1]); it is however non-trivial determining it.
Since historical battles in practice never have had identical conditions for all involved sides, it is not to surprising that practically all Wargames, e.g. Advanced Squad Leader and Rommel in the Desert, have Asymmetrical Starting Conditions for their various scenarios. Not all these are intended to be balance and for these one may need to play multiple times with changed sides to determined the most skilled players; Memoir '44 is an example of a game that explicitly suggests this.
Using the pattern
Asymmetric Abilities
Asymmetric Goals
Asymmetric Information
Asymmetric Resource Distribution
One has some options in making games balanced even if players have Asymmetrical Starting Conditions. The most obvious one is Balancing Effects but another is to use either Back-to-Back Game Sessions or Rotating Starting Player since they remove imbalances by ensuring that all players have had all starting conditions.
Diegetic Aspects
Interface Aspects
Narrative Aspects
Consequences
Asymmetrical Starting Conditions is likely to make Player Balance difficult to achieve in games, unless modulated by Balancing Effects or having extensive play testing to ensure that no imbalance actually exists.
Relations
Can Instantiate
with ...
Can Modulate
Can Be Instantiated By
Can Be Modulated By
Back-to-Back Game Sessions, Balancing Effects, Rotating Starting Player
Possible Closure Effects
Potentially Conflicting With
History
New pattern created in this wiki.
References
Acknowledgements
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