Anonymous Actions

Actions that cannot be unconditionally linked to a specific player.

This pattern is a still a stub.

Examples

Apples to Apples

ESP Game

Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game

Using the pattern

A requirement for Anonymous Actions is that there is an Uncertainty of Information about which player made an action. A common way of supporting this to have several players performing Collaborative Actions through placing Cards or Chips since then they may unsure about who contributed with which game elements, an example of this can be found in the skill resolution system of Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game. This can be also be achieved through adding Random actions provided by the game system (Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game does this also through the destiny deck).

Player-Decided Distribution of Rewards & Penalties

Anonymous Actions can be used to allow Betrayals to go unnoticed or possibly repeated, and can also allow Traitors to not only have to work through Stealth.

In games with Unmediated Social Interaction, players can reveal themselves as the source of Anonymous Actions unless the take care with what they say and how the show their emotions to events taking place. This may make the pattern difficult to combine with Unmediated Social Interaction but if Penalties are linked to revealing oneself (as for examples is the case for Traitors in games such as Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game or Shadows over Camelot) this makes Roleplaying a prerequisite for Game Mastery.

Consequences

Since it is more difficult for players to associate actions with players and thereby their strategies in the game, Anonymous Actions makes games have less Predictable Consequences.

Relations

Can Instantiate

with Unmediated Social Interaction and Penalties

Roleplaying

Can Modulate

Betrayal, Traitors

Can Be Instantiated By

Randomness, Uncertainty of Information

Collaborative Actions together with Cards or Chips

Potentially Conflicting With

Predictable Consequences, Unmediated Social Interaction

History

New pattern created in this wiki.

References

-

Acknowledgements

Jonas Linderoth