Stonemaier Games Mechanisms I Want Others to Iterate

Jamey discusses mechanisms in Stonemaier Games products that he'd love for other designers to iterate and innovate (as well as some examples of games that already do).

Games mentioned in this video include: Viticulture, Euphoria, Between Two Cities, Scythe, Charterstone, My Little Scythe, Between Two Castles of Mad King Ludwig, Wingspan, Tapestry, Everdell, Villainous, Brass, Fresco, Century: A New World, Tzolk'in, Feelinks, Gizmos.

[SlyTrashPanda]

The bottom action in Scythe is extremely satisfying. It makes the game so immersive when you are planning 2-3 turns ahead to try and get things to line up perfectly. The enlistment mechanism is also a favourite, keeping an eye on what your neighbours are up to for a bonus.

[Bassishify]

I think it’s fantastic that you’re actually encouraging other people to borrow your ideas and try to make new things with them. Your commitment to improving the hobby continually impresses me.

[thomasm]

I love that you challenge other designers to iterate your ideas and openly acknowledge that you get inspired too. It show how the hobby from its best side when creative people are not competitive in the protective way.

A challenge for you: combine the wake up track/variable turn order with place or take!

I love worker placement games and particularly the ones with dynamic turn order. But I have yet to see one that got rid of the rounds/phases. No idea how this could work out, but something with a worker spot to modify the turn order I guess. Then turns are taken in a loop of the order. The interesting part being that going first, or last, may not mean a thing when spots are not vacated at the same time. What it would do is add an element of trying to sneak your way to a specific player sequence where the player in front of you have to open up the spots you need. Making the sequence more important than who goes first or last (design idea: circular player order track on the board).
It could work very well if instead of a reset you had to take one and place one (move one). This way your strategy could be challenged if another player gets in your slipstream and you have to decide if you want to allow it or give up optimal turns to foils their plan. It may be too heavy if it was added to an engine builder game, so might work better in a set collection game. It cannot be a simple point salad as there has to be situations where you really want to make a specific move, but also really do not want to leave a specific opening for your opponent.

[OnceUponAnIsland]

07:23 Gloomhaven was my first foray into this top and bottom action idea and now I love it.

[srhall]

What I thought of as the really elegant mechanism for Scythe was the Upgrade action (and to a degree the worker production and the buildings). Take the upgrade action, take a cube from up top, which reveals a new bonus (you can move 3 units instead of 2, gain 3 power instead of 2) and place it below which covers a cost (Build only costs 3 wood). So simple, but the result of your upgrade is right there on your board.

[rootbeer]

Also I love how in the rule book of scythe it specifically tells you that the original factions special ability break the core rules of the game as a reminder that you cant normally do those things

[scyldscefing]

These mechanics are all the reasons I love your games.

[musikkimies]

Another one that I really liked:
Chartstone: being able to place your worker in a place already occupied by another player's meeple, gaining that benefit yourself while also giving the other player a benefit. So, no blocker - instead, benefiting both players. This creates a much different feel in the worker placement.

[diggidydiggidy]

Charterstone's sticker cards are wonderful, one of my favourite parts of that fantastic game. 👍

[ianblackburn]

My first intro to your games was scythe. I was relatively new t these medium/heavy weight games so actually having a player board was a new thing. I’ve educated myself a lot since and built up a nice library. However, the double action mechanism ‘and’ the multi routes to victory were the main stand out aspects that I loved with scythe. It also felt like every decision meant something...and you’re right, being able to do 2 actions just felt great!

[jaradical]

I think Jamey and Stonemaier games is one of the best interweavers of game mechanisms in the industry. There is an obvious passion for mechanisms and how they work together in the midst of an overall game. I, myself am fascinated by game mechanics and how they are cleverly combined to make an amazing gaming experience!! Jamey....PLEASE keep up the ground breaking work, and challenging others in the industry to push the threshold.

[studleygamer]

Similar to BtC, Tigris and Euphrates has player competing to have the highest lowest score. It's a brilliant way to make sure players are focusing on all aspects of the game.

[EzequielGenender]

When partnerships were mentioned in competitive games I couldn't help but thinking in La Boca

[leninsyngel]

To me the most interesting thing in Scythe is the way that you chose your actions, and have to take a different one each turn. It's an interesting puzzle and forces you to plan a bit ahead.

Considering the double engine building in wingspan, I believe Deus did that pretty well too.

[tullnfloyd]

Thanks Jamey!! Great video... I am going to check out Fresco now.

[TorIverWilhelmsen]

Two other civ games with "player-affected round endings":
1) The Golden Ages, where you can say "I am done with this age" by flipping your capitol piece to its coin side. The game continues until the rest of the players are done too, but each time your turns come you get a coin (which are hard to get otherwise).
2) Historia: Each turn you play a card, and the round lasts until at least one player plays their Revolution card. That ends the round for all players, but the player(s) who played Revolution get(s) to pick up a bonus card of those played to use in the next round.

[dylangajewski]

Great video.
Architects of the west kingdom and Raiders of the north sea are two worker placement games by the same designer that have eliminated rounds.

[therealBocaStudios]

Vinyl presented us with worker bumping and when you get bumped you gain a separate action different from the first. 😊

[rickadam]

Great video Mr. Stegmaier! It was nice to hear your thoughts about Stonemaier games as they're usually excluded. SInce you've made it to 9 releases, I hope we get to see your Top 10 Stonemaier games after the release of the next one!

Games that had similar mechanisms to the Stonemaier games (I haven't read the other comments so please forgive me if I repeat anything!) For Scythe, I got a few similar vibes in the game Lords of Hellas. The action selection was a bit different and didn't utilize the top and bottom of the board, but it did have a "you can't use the same action twice in a row mechanism." If I remember correctly though, you can only use each of the actions once until you do something to wipe the choices clean again. Anyways, it reminded me of Scythe more in that there are multiple win conditions, (I have friends who refuse to fight each other in Scythe, and have played Lords of Hellas with them where they never engaged in pvp combat) there are things you can build and put on the board that if another player takes over that spot, they take over the benefit.

The place a worker or take a worker thing is in Architects of the West Kingdom, you have to place a worker on a spot in order to retrieve your workers back from a number of locations, but you can do this before other players round them up to put them in jail. It lacks the bump mechanism from Euphoria however.

For bumping pieces to take an action, which then gives the bumped player a benefit, Dice Forge comes to mind. If a player takes your space, your pawn returns to you but you get to roll your dice. You can freely move your pawn so it doesn't save you from losing a turn, but it does get you extra resources and possibly victory points from the die roll.

For the "working with someone but still being competitive" Nemesis comes to mind for me. You can work together to wipe out aliens and help keep each other alive, but you each have a specific goal you have to accomplish in order to win the game. So you're encouraged to work together, but often times won't win together and that's if you survive at all.

Nocturion almost reminds me of the Wingspan mechanism, you have 4 cages that you can keep beasts in that get you points as soon as they play them and can have effects in other areas of the game, (due to what icon they have on them) but they can also be exhausted (or some discarded) to use an action they have printed on the card. But some of them are reactions to what other players do which can make things quite interesting.

Anyways that's all I got! I don't know that any of these were exactly the same, but I feel like that's probably the point. I can't imagine most designers would want to copy a mechanism exactly, they'd want to put their own spin on it? At least I would think so. Anyways, great video! Like everyone who doesn't have it yet, I'm looking forward to playing Tapestry!

[davekoehnlein]

In aeons end legacy you’re placing stickers on enemies to “evolve” them and then when they have the max amount of stickers you pull an evolved version of the minion out of a deck and replace it. It’s a little similar to your charterstone mechanism. Yours takes the sticker off and keeps shuffling the cards, aeons end adds stickers and keeps shuffling them through the deck. Pretty cool!