Game Mechanics
Game mechanics or mechanisms are the core of any game. If you do not know what game mechanics are then this will be a crash course. There are plenty of game mechanics that you may not recognize when playing a game because you are so used to seeing them. A great example would be Player turns, this is the most basic mechanic that is used in almost every game. Knowing all different mechanics can make it much easier to learn and teach different games. I would like to go over some of my favorite game mechanics and why I like them.
Card or Dice drafting is a great mechanic in games. I like the choices and competition that goes along with these types of games. One of my favorite card drafting games is 7 Wonders. In 7 Wonders you are passing cards around the table and taking one and passing to the next player. What I like about this is that sometimes you cannot always try and get what you need but instead it is more valuable to take options from another player, this can happen a lot in 7 Wonders. Dice drafting is similar, and I like to explain it like this. Everyone knows how to play Yahtzee, but let's say instead of rolling your own dice you will roll dice and place them in the center of the table. Now, everyone will take turns taking dice from the center to build their full house, Yahtzee, 3 of a kind, etc. Roll Player is a game that uses a dice drafting mechanic.
Another mechanic that I love is worker placement. Worker placement is when you allocate the People or Meeples you control to do a specific task. This mechanic works great in games where you are building something or in gaming terms "engine building". My favorite worker placement game is caverna.
The last mechanic I would like to talk about is social deduction. There are plenty of games that use this mechanic and they usually make great party games. Games like Werewolf and The Resistance are great games that use social deduction. My favorite game that uses this game is Secret Hitler. In Secret Hitler you can be a Fascist, Liberal or Hitler. The Fascists and Hitler will try to bluff to make the Liberals think that they are actually Liberal and not Fascist. These games usually end in a bunch of laughs and everyone saying "I knew it was you!"
