Anyone who’s ever played games has run into some that allow two people to gang-up on a third player, or stand to the side while two other players beat the crap out of each other, ready to move in and strip the bodies bare (often referred to as “turtling”, that is, hiding your vulnerable appendages in your shell while the maelstrom rages outside).

TURTLING IS SOMEWHAT SELF-CORRECTING; SAVVY PLAYERS WILL NOT ALLOW THIS TO HAPPEN, AND IN FACT, IT CAN CONTRIBUTE TO THE FUNDAMENTAL MECHANICS OF THE GAME.

Players are more likely to make deals with each other instead of attacking, realizing that such attacks are going to create an imbalance that gives the “turtle” an advantage. They will delay attacks until such an attack can proffer them a distinct advantage, such as extra troops, money, or playing pieces.

This points us to a way to avoid the potential for turtling in your game design; rather than decimate the players in the fight, offer them both some sort of gain from the battle that puts the “turtling” player in a neutral or disadvantaged position, for example, the winner of an encounter gets increased resource production, armies, territories or money. The loser could get some consolation, such as extra cards from the winner (as with the Compromise in Cosmic Encounter).

THIS IS A PARTICULAR PROBLEM IN WAR GAMES.

Some designers dodge the bullet by splitting four players into two teams. War games are supposed to be a simulation of a real event, however, so turtling is a perfectly valid strategy. The cry of “I’m not the threat, he is!” is bound to resound in such games. The Turtle really does want to encourage opponents to decimate each other; there are few gains to be made in an actual war, and many losses. Here, one must decide between realism and quality of game play. And this is why so many war games are limited to two players.

Risk gives a great example of one solution; the game makes it obviously painful to be in a conflict and weaken yourself in front of 3rd parties, but it also rewards you highly in extra troops, maintaining a balance. Yet Risk contains many weaknesses, for example, ganging up on players.

In Risk, and many other games, two players can pick out one player and use double-forces on him, kicking him out of the game early and leading to a very unsatisfactory gaming experience. Manhattan also has this defect; it’s fairly easy for two players to stomp on one player they don’t like, effectively reducing his/her chance for winning to zero early in the game. Drakon had a lesser version of this issue; you could see how close to winning each player was near the end-game, and if one player was a move or two away from collecting their last piece, everyone would gang up on him. This led to games where everyone had 4 gold coins and were trying for the 5th for the win. While not a terrible flaw, it did sometimes lead to “kingmaker” situations where one player’s move could determine who (of two other players) would win the game.

In the example of Drakon, Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) solved the problem by the simple expedient of labeling the gold with varying amounts and hiding it from other players, so no one knew how close you were to winning. In the case of Manhattan, since the game is played in four cumulative scoring rounds, one could add an optional rule to make the player in last place invulnerable to attacks (you couldn’t play a building on top of him during the round), thus changing the dynamics of the game and wiping out the imbalance of “gang-ups”.

Risk is a trickier problem; ganging-up on the leader is necessary to maintain the stability of the game, so you can’t remove it as a mechanic as it’s critical to game play. Ganging up on a weak player to remove him from the game and grab all his territory is also a main strategy in the game. I have no real solution to this one; the basic design of the game is built around this mechanic.

USUALLY WHEN I DESIGN A GAME, I TRY TO MAKE IT SO PLAYERS CAN’T GANG UP ON EACH OTHER.

Many modern games avoid this by turning the game into (almost) a multi-player solitaire game, like Puerto Rico and San Juan, where player interaction is minimized. In the case of Puerto Rico, your main interaction is denying your opponent a specific ability for that turn. Dominion is similarly a solitaire game where you vie for common but almost unlimited resources, and where player interaction is limited to certain card effects available to anyone, and which often affect all opponents equally (such as the Witch). Other games, like Settlers of Catan concentrate player interaction on limited resources (board spaces) and more importantly, trade between players. Note here that when players interact, it isn’t an attack that results in weaker positions for those players, but trade that results in stronger positions for both players. The only way you could really gang-up on a player during trade is for players to avoid trading with him at all (and usually greed will prevent that).

LOOKING AT SOME POSSIBLE OPTIONS TO YOUR DESIGN TO AVOID THE “GANGING-UP” PROBLEM;

  • 1. Dodge the question by limiting play to 2 players or teams. Magic the Gathering did this (with 3 or more players, the gang-up issue is severe, and blunted only by the amount of alcohol consumed during the game).
  • 2. Make player interaction negligible or non-existent, as in Take-It-Easy. Player interaction may be simply limited to the question of “who’s ahead”, or who makes the best strategic (but non-interactive) decisions, as in Dominion.
  • 3. Make player interactions positive, so that players involved in any encounter both gain something, as in Settlers of Catan or Bohnanza. This is a fundamental characteristic of many successful Eurogames.
  • 4. Make the losing player invulnerable while in last place, or make “last place” a way to get certain gains no other player gets. For example, if you lose an auction, you get part of the money that your opponents have bid (as in Faidutti’s Boomtown).
  • 5. When a player attacks, distribute the effects equally among opponents (like the Thief or Witch in Dominion).
  • 6. In a 3 or 4 player war game, offer a “compromise” or surrender or occupation scenario, where the occupied player gains a free defense from the opponents forces and keeps his population, but essentially loses his territory, while the attacker gets the resources and points for that territory. The loser maintains the chance for revolt, also. Or, offer ways for players to share territories.
  • 7. Players compete for a limited pool of resources, as in Carcassonne or Kingdom Builder. Player interaction is dependent upon an individual’s choice each turn upon a common pool of resources, thus limiting the options available to all other opponents equally. There is no real chance for “ganging up”.
  • 8. Create a game where the players work together for a common goal, like Shadows Over Camelot, or almost any RPG.

And in summary…isn’t that a great phrase for a pedantic, boring article?…you might note that some of the games I’ve picked out as examples for methods to avoid the “ganging up” problem have also been some of the most commercially successful. In games where two people gang up on a third (who isn’t the leader), chances are that player isn’t going to play the game again. I’m sure I’ve only grazed the surface of this subject, and that many of you will disagree with some of my conclusions, but hopefully this will get you thinking about it the next time you put pencil to paper for your next game.