Drawing Stacks

A collection of cards or tiles that have a sequence in which they should be drawn to determine outcomes of certain gameplay actions.

Drawing Stacks are collections of cards or tiles that are drawn in sequence by the players. They are typically used in games that do not distribute all cards or tiles to the players at the beginning of the game.

Examples

The most common example of Drawing Stacks are probably their use in card games such as Solitaire, Poker, and Magic: The Gathering. Dominion starts with several face-up stacks each consisting of only one type but each player has a Drawing Stack of his or her own that is expanded throughout the gameplay. Carcassonne and Forbidden Island are examples of games using Drawing Stacks consisting of tiles (although the latter also used Drawing Stacks of cards). An expansion of Settlers of Catan provide a Drawing Stack to let players have randomized outcome but have them more closely fit to the statistical most likely distribution.

Some games use several types of Drawing Stacks. Space Alert uses one for randomizing which action cards are available to players, one for external threats, and a smaller one for internal threats. In Shadows over Camelot there are two Drawing Stacks, one for good events and one for bad. When one is depleted both are reshuffled which may entice players to draw from one stack just to empty it so the other stack is reshuffled. Pandemic also has two stacks, one for player cards and infection cards; drawing an epidemic card from the player stack reshuffles drawn infection cards on top of those not yet drawn. Thunderstone has players building their own Drawing Stacks like Dominion but also has stacks for monsters.

Several games allow players to manipulate the Drawing Stacks beyond simply taking a card. The Chancellor card in Dominion allows the action of putting the entire Drawing Stack in the discard pile, forcing a reshuffle. This can be advantageous if one knows that the cards one wants has already been played so one wants a reshuffle as soon as possible. In the Fluxx Reduxx and Family Fluxx variants of Fluxx the card Choose a New Rule let a player go through the Drawing Stack or the discard Pile and choose a card, after which one reshuffles the searches stack or pile.

Using the pattern

Primary choices when creating Drawing Stacks are what type of game elements the stacks should consist of, and what distributions of specific game elements they should consist of. Cards and Tiles are common options and typically used for supporting the drawing (Collecting) of Resources but for Tiles this may also be to support Tile-Laying.

The memory function of Drawing Stacks of Cards or Tiles offer design possibilities both regarding player actions and timing of events in the game session. Being able to view or select Cards

In games where players may wish to empty Drawing Stacks since they Dominion

Further, Cards and Tiles allow the distribution to be changed explicitly during gameplay through events in the game.

Rerolls

Discard Piles

Draw Spread

Arithmetic Progression Geometric Progression

Although Drawing Stacks are most commonly used for Cards they can also be used for Tiles, and then most often to introduce Randomness into Tile-Laying. Multiple Drawing Stacks can be used to allow the players to perceive a chance of Luck as well as making it easier to judge the individual sizes of the stacks. If certain categories of the Cards or Tiles are specially marked, multiple stacks may also be used to distinguish these and let players choose within which subset of Cards or Tiles they draw. A special case of having additional Drawing Stacks is to use drafting, i. e. by having some Cards or Tiles placed openly beside the Drawing Stack, which can be chosen instead of the topmost items from the stack.

Drawing Stacks are usually combined with Discard Piles, stacks of Cards or Tiles that have been used in the game after having been drawn.

Collectable card games allow the players to have individual Drawing Stacks which they have created within certain boundaries. This allows the players to create various strategies and make Tradeoffs between commonality and the variety of the types of cards.

Consequences

Drawing Stacks are a form of Containers for game elements. Drawing Stacks makes it possible to have Fixed Distributions while at the same time having Randomness and Uncertainty of Information. However, the order is set once the stack has been shuffled. Many card games use Drawing Stacks to postpone the distribution of cards to the players, in effect causing the players to have Imperfect Information and only Limited Foresight of the resources they will have, forcing them to plan for several possible distribution possibilities. Even if players may only see the Cards or Tiles they themselves draw, Drawing Stacks can support Memorizing and when this is possible these two patterns together encourage Stimulated Planning (especially when combined with Discard Piles).

Relations

Can Instantiate

Containers, Fixed Distributions, Imperfect Information, Limited Foresight, Memorizing, Randomness, Uncertainty of Information

with Memorizing

Stimulated Planning

Can Modulate

Resources, Tile-Laying

Can Be Instantiated By

Cards, Tiles

History

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

Acknowledgments

Marcus Brissman, Guy Lima Jr., Stephan Meyers, Johan Toresson, Jose Zagal