So, you want your game to appeal to more people by increasing the player count? There are a number of things to consider when doing this:
- Downtime Between Players
- Caring About the Game off Turn
- Overall Game Time
- Resources
Downtime Between Players
The main issue with increasing player count is increasing the downtime between turns; no one likes to wait so long between their turns that they have time to make a plan for what they want to do and they then forget what the plan is before it actually gets to their turn.
When you try to increase the player count of your game, you’ll notice things that you wouldn’t have noticed at lower player counts. The first thing you’ll want to do is really streamline your game and make things clear and easy. Here are some ways to do that:
- Have a reference card for what happens on a player’s turn and include any iconography that is important to gameplay.
- Don’t give too many choices; having a player choose one card from three is a much faster choice than being able to choose from four or five cards.
- Instead of allowing players to do things in any order, it might be faster to make things happen in a specific order; this also prevents players from forgetting or thinking that they forgot to do a specific part of their turn.
- Draw cards at the end of a player’s turn, instead of at the beginning or during the turn, so that players can think about their cards while other players are taking their turns.
- Include indicators for when places are important to other players, so no one forgets an important aspect of the game.
Now, if you’re increasing the player count, you can make some changes to the larger-player game to further streamline the experience:
- The number of actions per player could be based on player count. For instance, if you have 3 actions per player when playing with 2-4 players, you could have 2 actions per player for 5-6 players.
One major part of downtime between players depends on the amount of change that the game state goes through before it gets back to a player’s turn. If there’s a lot that can change from one turn to the next, it doesn’t make sense for the players to make a plan that they won’t actually be able to execute when it gets to their turn. They might just check out and not pay attention to anything until it gets to their turn, then they have to analyze all the different options they have while everyone is waiting.
Here are some ways to minimize change between players’ turns:
- Instead of all the cards you can buy or choose being random, have 2-3 standards that are always available. This way, if the card that a player wants gets taken, they don’t have to completely reevaluate all the available choices.
- In a worker placement game, make it so you can still go to a location if someone is there, but you have to pay a bit extra instead of being completely shut out of that space. There can also be a ‘bump’ mechanism or something similar where the player gets something if another player also wants to go to that space.
Caring About the Game off Turn
If the players really care about what is happening when it’s not their turn, the game won’t seem like it’s taking as long as it is. There are a few easy ways to make players pay attention to other players’ turns:
- Let players get resources, or some other minor benefit, based on what other players choose to do on their turn.
- Have the end game condition be player-initiated.
- Include events that affect everyone and can be triggered by players.
- Make your game story-driven, then players will want to know more of the story.
- Give the players a follow mechanic, where they can get a minor action or benefit based on what other players choose to do.
Overall Game Time
Increasing the number of players a game can support can end up increasing the playtime of the game as well. One way to keep the game about the same time is to base the end game timer around the player count, instead of something like the number of rounds. It’s really helpful to base the end game on the number of players as then you won’t get a game that can be 30 minutes or two hours, depending on the number of players. It’s usually a much better experience if the game takes about the same amount of time to play regardless of players or slightly longer for more players, but not double the amount of time.
Here are some ways to base the end game on player count:
- The game could be a certain number of rounds, depending on the number of players. For example: 5 rounds for 4 players, 4 rounds for 5 players, 3 rounds for 6 players.
- If the game ends when the cards run out, add in slightly more cards for more players.
- You can also use a point pool and the game ends when the players take all the points from the pool and the number of points in the pool is based on player count. For example, you might put 10 points in for each player, so if you’re playing with 6 players, the pool would start with 60 points.
Resources
One thing you want to keep in mind for players is the number of resources that they’re getting; if they’re getting and using resources the same way at all player counts, adding in additional players will most likely add in time for each player and add to the overall game time, as well.
However, if you can make the number of resources available to players dependent on the number of players playing or make the costs lower if more players are playing, then the game won’t feel as long when you have a higher player count.
For example, in Dreams of Tomorrow, there’s a different set of rondel cards depending on if the player count is high (4-6) or low (1-3). The lower player count cards give more resources, while the higher player count cards give less resources. This would be a problem, however, every player that ends their turn on any space with the three meeple icon allows other players to get a resource. This means in a 6 player game, players are getting 4-5 resources off turn (1 resource per other player) and in a 2 player game, players are getting 0-2 resources off turn (2 per player). The result of this is the play time for the game is about the same regardless of player count.
Keep in Mind
Here are some last things to keep in mind when making your game go to a higher player count:
- Player elimination can matter a lot more in a higher player count.
- Have appropriate rewards available; you might want to reward only 1st and 2nd place in an area control game at lower player counts, but give out more rewards in higher player counts. For example, rewarding 1st, 2nd, and 3rd in a 4-player game, then add in 4th place for a 6-player game.
- Have enough ‘good’ options for players. One example of this is in worker placement games; you can have more or less spaces depending on the number of players. You want players to all be able to go somewhere where they can make progress towards their goal.
- Games don’t have to be the same feeling at every player count. If a game plays differently at each player count, that might give players a reason to try the game at each player count. However, this difference shouldn’t completely change the game or create a situation where one player count is the optimum for playing the game. You want your game to play well at every player count.
Finally, not every game needs to go beyond 4 players. If your game is not meant for more than 4, don’t push it. Players can get very unhappy if your game lists a higher player count than it should, as there are a number of people that buy games strictly to play at the higher player count.
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