Asymmetric Starting Conditions

That players do not begin their game sessions with the same possibilities.

Even if many games strive to provide players with equal chances, few actually provide the exact same conditions in the start of the game. This may be because one player begins before another, because they are given different resources due to randomness, or because they have themselves created their own setups. In all cases this leads to them having Asymmetrical Starting Conditions.

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); it is however non-trivial determining what it is.

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.

Games where players put together their own set of components to use, e.g. armies in Warhammer Fantasy Battle or decks in Magic: The Gathering, have Asymmetrical Starting Conditions in all but the most implausible case (that of the players independently having selected the exact same set up).

Although their exists a standard setup for playing Settlers of Catan, experienced players often randomize the hex tiles of the game to provide variation. Regardless, the bidding system to place starting settlements and roads cause the players to have Asymmetrical Starting Conditions since these settlements will be producing different resources (the main point with the standard setup is to guarantee that more or less balanced setups between the players are possible).

Players of Category:Roleplaying Games have characters with varying abilities, skills, and personalities that they play. That these may be more or less powerful in any given situation is typically not a problem since the gameplay is cooperative most of the time and roleplaying the struggle against great challenges can be more important than actually succeeding.

Using the pattern

Asymmetrical Starting Conditions only make sense in Multiplayer Games sine in Single-Player Games there can be not asymmetry between players. They can be achieved in three many ways: decided by the game designers before gameplay begins, decided during setup by Randomness, or as effects of Player-Decided Results. These ways can be used independently or together to reach various levels of asymmetry, and do not so much differ in which others patterns they make use of as what effects is wanted on an overarching level for the game.

Game Worlds

The easiest way Heterogeneous Game Element Ownership

Common ways to vary starting conditions between players include giving their Units Characters Avatars

Asymmetric Abilities Asymmetric Goals Asymmetric Information Asymmetric Resource Distribution

Asymmetric Roles

Late Arriving Players

Turn-Based Games

Asymmetrical Starting Conditions easily ruin the possibility of Player Balance unless additional adjustments are made to the game design, and there exist some options. 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. Note that Player Balance may not be a problem in games based upon Cooperation - here it may be more important that all players feel that they can contribute and that they have individual areas in which they have chances to excel.

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 Modulate

Multiplayer Games

Can Be Instantiated By

Asymmetric Abilities, Asymmetric Goals, Asymmetric Information, Asymmetric Resource Distribution, Asymmetric Roles, Late Arriving Players, Player-Decided Results, Randomness

Can Be Modulated By

Back-to-Back Game Sessions, Balancing Effects, Rotating Starting Player

Potentially Conflicting With

Player Balance

History

New pattern created in this wiki.

Acknowledgements

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