Bluffing

Conveying false information to other players in order to influence their behavior to one's own advantage.

Players have a possibility to convey false information to other players in order to benefit from the situation. Usually the basic information for Bluffing is something about the current game state, as is the case in Poker. It is possible, however, that Bluffing concerns other game components such as past events and actions, players' goals, and even players' strategies and intentions. One of the simplest games of this kind of Bluffing is an iterated version of Paper-Rock-Scissors, where the players try to outguess the other player's action based on previous plays and social clues.

Examples

Poker uses Bluffing as one of the basic characteristics of the game. The players do not have direct information about the other players' hands but try to guess the relative values based on the play of previous rounds, social clues, and how the players are playing the current round. Bluffing in Poker thus means that the player is trying to give a false impression to other players about the actual value of his hand.

The classic board game Diplomacy has all the information about positions of the players' armies and fleets available to all players. Bluffing in this game is based on giving the other players false information about the current strategies, goals, and agreements between the players. The game even has a specific diplomacy phase for giving the players the ability to scheme together with players against other players.

Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game is a board game where players are co-operating but some players are traitors they need to bluff that they are ordinary players. Dead of Winter has a similar feature, but where it is not certain that there is a player with opposing goals; all players however have personal goals that need to be fulfilled to be eligible to be part of a common victory. These personal goals can requires players to hide their intentions (so that other players don't ruin this even if the game is geared toward co-operation) but also allows any potential traitor to hide their goals behind personal goals.

The spy is one of the classes in the Team Fortress series. Players of this role can mask themselves to be seen as being other roles and belonging to the opposing team. Performing as the other roles and team without shooting (since this removes the disguise) through various forms of Bluffing is however required to place the spies in positions where they can be most efficient for their teams.

Using the pattern

Uncertainty of Information is the primary requirement for Bluffing to be possible in a game. This since players need some part of the game state to be unknown to other players to be able to try Bluffing.

In order to have the possibility for bluffing, the game should have Asymmetric Information together with means of players giving each other Indirect Information about game components, that is, the players do not have direct access to the required information but can get it from other players, usually via Social Interaction. Games that have Symmetric Information as well as Direct Information about game elements limit the possibilities for Bluffing but can still have it concerning players' goals, strategies, and intentions. This, however, also requires that players have a possibility of some kind of cooperation and that the player actions can have an effect on the other players' position in the game. An example of a game not satisfying these requirements is a 100 Meter Dash, or almost any other sports race, where Bluffing seems to be almost impossible.

Bluffing is possible in almost all cases of Negotiation and can be used to avoid situations where Randomness would normally let players feel Luck, since Bluffing can add a level of social skill even on totally random situations. Common examples where Bluffing is usually possible include Trading, Betting, and Bidding. An explicit type of game element that can be used for Bluffing is Alarms when these can be activated by players' actions.

Bluffing can be directly designed to modify some other activities. One example is Bidding (though being able to pretend to bid on something when not doing so) and Alarms (by being able to set of false Alarms).

Can Be Instantiated By

Asymmetric Information, Beat the Leader, Betting, Gameplay Mastery, Indirect Information, Imperfect Information Negotiation, Performance Uncertainty, Player Unpredictability, Secret Goals, Social Interaction, Trading,

End State Scoring together with Imperfect Information

Sanctioned Cheating together with PvP or TvT

Can Be Modulated By

Direct Information, Symmetric Information

Narration Aspects

Games with Symmetric Information can be difficult to combine with the possibility for players to bluff since other players can be able to deduce goals and intentions of those that try to bluff.

Consequences

The possibility of Bluffing in games creates uncertainty about results and thereby Tension, especially for the Bluffing player. Bluffing modulates Social Interaction between players, and players bluffing must be able to control their Emotional Engrossment. This is especially true if the game is played face-to-face, i.e. with Player-Player Proximity or Unmediated Social Interaction. It should be noted that even though Player-Player Proximity can require more skill and produce more Tension, it is not a requirement. As long as the possibilities and channels for Negotiation exist, there is a possibility for Bluffing.

Bluffing in most cases leads to at least a possibility of Betrayal but not always since the influence a bluffer might be aiming for does not necessarily need to be negative for the player being affected.

Having the possibility to bluff in a game provides players with Risk/Reward choices related to if they should bluff or not. That players can differ in how good they are at Bluffing means that the pattern opens up for Social Skills influencing the gameplay. This in turn can affect if and how players take on any potential Social Roles of a game, e.g. if they will try to dominate other players.

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Relations

Can Instantiate

Emotional Engrossment, Risk/Reward, Social Skills, Social Roles, Tension

Can Modulate

Alarms, Bidding, Social Interaction,

Can Be Instantiated By

Asymmetric Information, Beat the Leader, Betrayal, Betting, Gameplay Mastery, Indirect Information, Imperfect Information Negotiation, Performance Uncertainty, Player Unpredictability, Secret Goals, Social Interaction, Trading, Uncertainty of Information

End State Scoring together with Imperfect Information

Sanctioned Cheating together with PvP or TvT

Can Be Modulated By

Direct Information, Symmetric Information, Player-Player Proximity, Unmediated Social Interaction

Possible Closure Effects

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Potentially Conflicting With

Symmetric Information

History

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

Acknowledgements

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