The following is a list of all board game mechanics I know in this category, and that aren’t too niche. Card game mechanics are also included. I’m posting this mainly for my own reference.

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Drawing: Players draw a picture and other players guess what the picture is intended to depict.

Flicking: A Physical Action needs to be performed by one or more players to determine the outcome of the action.

Ordering: The objective of the game is to rearrange a group of game elements from a disordered to an ordered state.

Paper-and-Pencil: The game is developed using paper and pen/pencil to mark and save responses or attributes that, at the end of the game, are used to score points and determine the winner.

A game that merely keeps track of score on a sheet of paper does not use a paper-and-pencil mechanism.

Physical Removal: Pieces are removed from a structure, and play is affected by things that fall (as in Ker Plunk), or a complete collapse of the structure (as in Jenga).

Speed Matching: A pattern is revealed, typically through a card flip, and players try to be the first to find a match with other game elements on the table, or see if a match exists.

Stacking and balancing: Players must physically stack and balance pieces. Junk Art and Bandu are examples.

Storytelling: In storytelling games, players are provided with conceptual, written, or pictorial stimuli which must be incorporated into a story of the players’ creation. Once Upon a Time uses a selection of words while Rory’s Story Cubes include ambiguous symbols. Some games like Snake Oil and Big Idea prompt players to pitch a product, which frequently takes the form of a brief story or vignette.

Other storytelling games include titles such as Tales of the Arabian Nights and Above and Below, game designs in which players don’t create their own stories, but instead experience a story from the inside as one of the participants. Games along those lines might present players with a particular narrative situation, after which the player will make a choice that affects which end to the narrative is told — with the results of this narrative affecting the player’s standing in the game.

The following is a list of all board game mechanics I know in this category, and that aren’t too niche. Card game mechanics are also included. I’m posting this mainly for my own reference.

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Dynamic Environment: The game board or environment changes independently of player actions, requiring adaptation to evolving circumstances. This may include weather patterns affecting movement, economic cycles changing the value of actions, or neutral elements that move according to predetermined rules. Players must anticipate these changes and incorporate them into their strategic planning.

Example Implementation: A farming game where climate patterns shift throughout play, requiring players to adapt crop selections and farming techniques to upcoming conditions rather than current ones.

Induction: Players are attempting to determine the rules governing a situation. In a typical induction games, a game master creates a hidden rule. Players then create patterns and are advised by the game master whether they match the rule or not.

Line Drawing: Games using the line drawing mechanic involve the drawing of lines in one way or another. Lines may be used to connect objects as in Sprouts, to isolate objects, or to create areas as in the classic Dots and Dashes, also known as Square-it.

Drawing of symbols or pictures is more properly classified as Drawing or Mechanism: Drawing

Mancala: In a typical Mancala mechanism, players pick up the tokens in one space, and then place them one-by-one in spaces in a specific direction around a circle, with the last space placed in having special significance.

In addition to its namesake game Kalah, this mechanism can be seen in modern games such as Finca and Theseus: The Dark Orbit.

Matching: Players must make their next play by matching a feature on the previous play. This is frequently used in shedding games like UNO or Crazy Eights, where number or color/suit need to be matched. In some implementations the next play needs to be in a number range based on the last. For example, in L.L.A.M.A. the play must be the same or one higher than the last. In Spit!, it must be one higher or lower.

Melding and Splaying: A set of cards in a specific relationship to one another that allows them to be played to a table or scored as a meld. When laying these cards down, the way the cards splay, or overlap one another, may sometimes reveal or conceal certain abilities or attributes. Rummy games have players placing combinations of cards or tiles on the table to score. Innovation is a good example of the Splaying side, where players can spread cards out to show particular sets of icons to empower abilities.

Pattern Building: Players must configure game components in sophisticated patterns in order to score or trigger actions, as would be typical for games in the Puzzle category. Azul is a modern classic designed around this mechanic. The common mechanism of Tile Placement can be considered as including pattern building via “feature completion” of connecting tiles. Sometimes the players cover a grid or fill a space using a variety of shapes, such as Components: Polyominoes. This includes the coverage of areas defined (by shape or color) on the board itself with pieces or tiles. Sometimes called a “Tetris mechanism”, this challenges players to use shapes efficiently. It can either be the primary point of the game, as in Ubongo, or as a secondary mechanism to force players to plan and restrict their options, as in The Princes of Florence.

Pattern Recognition: Players must recognize a known or emergent pattern created by the game components to gain objectives or win the game. This could for instance involve markers, typically with a color or symbol, placed to certain locations on a board, or relative to the other markers, forming an abstract or meaningful pattern, requiring deductive reasoning by players to determine its significance.

Spelling: Players arrange cards, tiles, or other components that represent an individual letter or small group of letters to create words. Examples include Scrabble and Boggle.

The following is a list of all board game mechanics I know in this category, and that aren’t too niche. Card game mechanics are also included. I’m posting this mainly for my own reference.

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Area Movement: The game board is divided into irregularly shaped areas to determine adjacency and movement. This can be contrasted to point to point movement (which may be isomorphic to area movement but does not have to be) and grid movement (which uses regular shapes). An example of point to point maps not being isomorphic to each other would be a map of Europe with air travel. France and Ireland share no borders and would not be adjacent on an area map but a point to point could easily contain an air route.

Bias: Pieces automatically move in a certain direction, or it is easier to move in a certain direction, or some directional/environmental vector has game play effects.

This is commonly used to simulate wind (Yacht Race), currents (Primordial Soup), gravity (Demon’s Run), conveyor belts (RoboRally), sun angle (Photosynthesis) or other environmental features.

Chaining: Pieces are stationary but are built out in chains. This can give a dynamic sense of motion to the game, even though the pieces do not move.

Connections: Players are trying to form connections between different points on the board. Essentially, this is a specialized kind of Set Collection in which the sets collected represent ties between nodes, often represented as routes between destinations.

This mechanism includes games like Hex, TransAmerica, and Ta Yü.

Grid Movement: Grid Movement occurs when pawns move on the grid in many directions. The grid may be square (like in Chess) or hexagonal (like in the classic wargames). In a game there can be many pawns (like in Chess or Checkers) or only one (like the bishop in Fresco).

Hexagon Grid: Previously this category was known as “hex and counter.” While the Hexagon Grid mechanic now covers a wider range of games, the original description highlights important facets of a large class of games that fall under this mechanic: Classic wargame mechanic, played with ‘counters’ on a map with a hexagonal grid. The hex grid allowed for equidistant movement of counters in more directions (6) than a square grid, and avoided the simulation issues caused by diagonal movement on a square grid (i.e. diagonal moves being further in distance than orthogonal moves). + Pieces are placed on a board tessellated with hexagons, which is used for adjacency and/or movement + Counters are commonly thick cardboard chits, with printed attributes and identification. + Many of these games include a concept called “zone of control” (now a separate mechanic) which hinders or stops movement when units move or start next to an opposing unit. The exact effects vary, depending upon the era being simulated and other design concerns.

Line of Sight: Units may only see certain areas. Mechanically this can be dealt with in a variety of ways, ranging from True Line of Sight, as measured by a string (as in Advanced Squad Leader) to color-coded regions showing what can be see what, as in Tannhäuser.

Map Addition: The map is added to as it is explored. Examples include Mississippi Queen and Eclipse: New Dawn for the Galaxy.

Map Deformation: The map is modified during the course of the game through rotation or shifts. Examples include Wiz-War and Dungeon Twister.

Map Reduction: Over the course of the game, the map shrinks.

Measurement Movement: Pieces may be moved up to a certain distance, measured by a ruler.

This is typically used in miniatures games such as Warhammer 40,000 (Third Edition). Because of precision issues it can sometimes lead to disagreements between players about true range.

Note that this mechanism differs from Movement Template, where players place templates and must move the length of the template, rather than the infinitely-variable placement noted here.

Minimap Resolution: When a conflict is initiated, pieces are moved to a separate board for resolution.

Moving Multiple Units: Actions may Move one or Multiple Units.

This mechanism was first introduced in Top Race. Players place wagers on cars in a race, and so have a vested interest in certain ones winning. However the cards they need to play move many cars, including those they want to lose. So they need to time the play of the cards when they will be most advantageous to the cars they control, and minimize the movement of the other cars.

This mechanism does not apply when players simply have the choice to move multiple units on their turn (for example, by dividing movement points among different units).

Movement Points: A piece is given a number of points to spend on movement. This is common in a variety of games, but particularly war games, where spaces can cost different amounts depending on the terrain. This is distinct from Action Points in that it is a property of the particular piece or terrain, rather than player options (which may ‘’include’’ movement).

Multiple Maps: The game takes place on Multiple Maps which are connected at defined points.

Several examples stand out. The fantasy rail game Iron Dragon has a surface and cavern map, and players can build and connect tracks in both.

Khronos has three boards representing the same space at different times. Building on the older board impacts history on the future boards.

Fische Fluppen Frikadellen allows up to 15 players to trade goods across three separate boards at different areas of the room. Players may leave and physically move between boards at defined times, taking their money and goods with them.

Network and Route Building: The game involves the development of connected routes and nodes, often represented as routes between destinations. This is differentiated from Connections in that it provides some in-game effect beyond merely scoring, such as the ability to trigger actions, or requiring maintenance costs.

There are a variety of implementations of this system, most prominently in train-themed games. 1830: Railways & Robber Barons uses tiles with pre-printed tracks. Empire Builder has players draw lines on the map with crayons or dry-erase markers. In Power Grid the development of your network has economic impacts. Hansa Teutonica generates bonus effects as you complete connections in your trading network.

Pattern Movement: Pieces move in a specific pattern relative to the board grid. Classic games like Chess and Shogi use this mechanism, as well as modern games like The Duke.

Pieces as Map: The Pieces themselves compose the Map. This is distinct from Tile Placement in that the map elements remain “pieces” after placement, and accordingly continue to have agency in the game mechanics.

Point To Point Movement: On a board of a game with point-to-point movement, there are certain spots that can be occupied by markers or figurines, e. g. cities on a map. These points are connected by lines, and movement can only happen along these lines. It is not enough that two points are next to or close to each other; if there is no connecting line between them, a player cannot move his or her piece from one to the other. Examples for point-to-point movement: Nine Men’s Morris, Kensington, Friedrich: Anniversary Edition. Non-intuitive example for point-to-point movement: Risk. While Risk is also an Area Movement game, like Axis & Allies, it encompasses point-to-point movement as well. This is due to the lines connecting various areas through the otherwise impassable water areas (e.g. Greenland, Japan, Iceland, Madagascar).

Portal Movement: Pieces can instantly move between non-adjacent spaces through designated portals, wormholes, or teleportation devices. This creates strategic opportunities for rapid redeployment and surprise actions. Portal placement may be fixed at game setup, or players may be able to create and destroy portals during play, adding a layer of strategic depth to spatial control.

Relative Movement: The precise location of units is not tracked. Only their Relative Position is important. This mechanism has been used in a variety of racing games, including Formula Motor Racing and RoadKill, and other themes, like escaping from shark in Get Bit!.

Roll / Spin and Move: Roll / Spin and move games are games where players roll dice or spin spinners and move playing pieces in accordance with the roll. This term is often used derogatorily to imply that there is no thought involved. Roll and move games like Backgammon, however, contain tactical elements.

Slide / Push: Players push or slide a token, and other tokens ahead of it are also pushed.

Square Grid: Pieces are placed on a board tessellated with squares, which is used for adjacency and/or movement.

Three Dimensional Movement: Position and movement of pieces is in three dimensions. This can either be represented by a multi-level play surface, or some token or indicator of the height above or below a two-dimensional play surface.

Examples include Chopper Strike, which physically has two layers for tanks and helicopters to move on, or Attack Vector: Tactical, which includes tiles to show height above or below the play surface.

Track Movement: Pieces are moved along a linear track (not necessarily straight – it may turn, curve or loop). This may include simple branches such as Tokaido or Jamaica, and tracks with limited width as is typical of racing games such as: Flamme Rouge, Downforce, or Monza. Examples include classic roll-and-move games of the Backgammon or Pachisi variety, or contemporary board games such as Lewis & Clark: The Expedition or Viva Topo!.

Zone of Control: Spaces adjacent to a unit impact the ability of opposing units to move or attack.

This is a very common mechanism in wargames, such as The Russian Campaign. There are many variations, including “Locking ZOCs”, where units are frozen and cannot leave, “Soft ZOCs”, where units can move from ZOC to ZOC, but at some penalty, and others.

The following is a list of all board game mechanics I know in this category, and that aren’t too niche. Card game mechanics are also included. I’m posting this mainly for my own reference.

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Bingo: Items are selected at random, and each player needs to use the items for their own player boards.

Other than Bingo, examples include Take it Easy!, Rise of Augustus, and Super-Skill Pinball: 4-Cade; it is often the basis for the game genres of Mechanism: Roll-and-Write and Mechanism: Flip-and-Write.

Chit-Pull System: Used in wargames to address the problem of simulating simultaneous action on the battlefield and issues of “Command and Control”. In such a system the current player randomly draws a chit or counter identifying a group of units which may now be moved. Schemes include moving any units commanded by a particular leader, moving units of a particular quality or activating units not for movement but for fighting.

Bolt Action is an example of such mechanics.

Cube Tower: Actions are resolved by dropping cubes of various colors into a tower and seeing which emerge out the bottom. Cubes that do not emerge may come out in future actions, and impact those. This is in essence a particular form of a shared Deck, Bag, and Pool Building as implemented by a Components: Drop Tower.

Wallenstein is an early example.

Events: Actions occur outside the control of players that cause an immediate effect, change the state of the game, or impact subsequent actions.

Ladder Climbing: Players play one card, or a set of related cards. Subsequently, players must play cards of an equal or higher value of the same set already played. The last player to successfully play wins the right to start a new round of Climbing. This mechanism originated in East Asia, and is represented by modern games such as Tichu and The Great Dalmuti.

Narrative Choice / Paragraph: Multiple action options are presented to the players via a narrative format. These can be presented in a book with numbered paragraphs as in Tales of the Arabian Nights or Above and Below, or via cards as in Dead of Winter: A Crossroads Game.

Player Judge: One player, the judge, decides the outcome of the Action. This is a common mechanism in party games, including Apples to Apples and Cards Against Humanity.

Predictive Bid: Players make a prediction about what they will do in a future part of the game, and may score points based on how well they match the prediction. This is most frequently seen in trick taking games like Bridge, Spades, and Sluff Off!. It is also notably seen in Dune, as the Bene Gesserit player may steal victory from another player by successfully predicting that they will win on a particular turn.

Rock-Paper-Scissors: There are three possible options, and they are cyclically superior (A beats B, B beats C, and C beats A).

The name derives from the well-known children’s game where
Scissors cuts Paper
Paper covers Rock
Rock crushes Scissors

But can refer to any game with non-transitive mechanisms.

Targeted Clues: A player gives clues that they want some, but not all, players to guess.

This is frequently used in party games, such as Barbarossa and Dixit.

Trick-Taking: Players play cards from their hand to the table in a series of rounds, or “tricks” which are each evaluated separately to determine a winner and to apply other potential effects.

The most common way to win a trick is by having the card with highest value of the suit that was led, but many classical card games use the “trump” system (where the certain cards, usually those of a designated suit, will win the trick if they are played.) Occasionally there is a round of bidding to determine this trump suit.

In many trick taking games (though not all), players are required to “follow suit”, i.e. play a card of the same suit as was led if they have one. If they do not have a matching card, they must play another card from their hand.

Cards are played sequentially, not simultaneously.

Tug of War: A marker is moved up and back on a track towards or away from a neutral position. Twilight Struggle implements this as a way of determining victory, and also acting as a Sudden Death mechanism if either player reaches the end of the track. Churchill implements a 3-player tug-of-war to resolve the issues being debated throughout the game.

Variable Player Powers: Variable Player Powers is a mechanic that grants different abilities and/or paths to victory to the players. To illustrate, here are some notable examples.

In Ogre, one player controls a single powerful piece, and the other plays many weaker units. The net effect is a balanced game.

In Cosmic Encounter, each player is assigned a random special ability at the beginning of the game. Although each player has the same victory goal (establish colonies on five planets in other players’ systems), their abilities enable differing means to the end.

In Here I Stand, each player controls a political power with unique ways to score victory points. Some focus on military conquest, some on religious influence, etc.

Player powers may change throughout the game, as in Small World or Sunrise City.

Voting: Players vote on whether a proposed action will occur or not.

In most games with this mechanism each player has one vote. However several, like Junta, give players different numbers of votes depending on their board position or the issue being voted on.

The following is a list of all board game mechanics I know in this category, and that aren’t too niche. Card game mechanics are also included. I’m posting this mainly for my own reference.

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Betting and Bluffing: Players commit a stake of currency or resources to purchase a chance of winning everyone’s stake, based on some random outcome like being dealt a superior set of cards or rolling a higher number. Players typically have partial information about the overall game state, and may “bluff,” by representing through their in-game actions that they hold a stronger position than they do. Conversely, players may “fold,” or quit the contest, and limit their losses to whatever they had already staked.

Dice Rolling: “Dice Rolling” is a game mechanism that can be used for many things, randomness being the most obvious. In wargames, “Dice Rolling” is used in conjunction with a variety of tables, notably a “Combat Results Table” (either as a Ratio or a Differential) which produces a result by strengths of both sides and a die roll (1D6, 2D6, and 1D10 are most commonly used). “Dice Rolling” can be a game in and of itself; see Yahtzee or Craps.

Die Icon Resolution: The player rolls a number of custom dice to resolve an event or conflict. Results must match specific symbols for success. This is not the same as Worker Placement with Dice Workers, as used for example in Roll for the Galaxy, where any result may be usable to accomplish actions selected after rolling.

Push Your Luck: Players must decide between settling for existing gains, or risking them all for further rewards, in a game with some amount output randomness or luck. Push-Your-Luck is also known as press-your-luck.

Here’s a description of the category by Bruno Faidutti:

“Double or Quits, Keep going or stop, cash your gains or bet them. The idea is not new. Many gambling games, such as Black Jack, make an intensive use of it, as well as some traditional dice game – and Pass the Pigs is only a modern version of those. This system is also used in many TV games, where the winner can either leave with his gains, either answer one more question at the risk of losing everything he won so far. Like in Luigi Comencini’s Scopone Scientifico, if you never stop, you always end losing. This system is also very efficient in board and cardgames, since it generates a high tension, and some anguish when rolling some more dice or drawing one more card. The best known “double or quits” game is probably Sid Sackson’s Can’t Stop, a clever dice game figuring, in the last edition, mountaineers so impatient to reach the summit that they usually end up falling down. It’s even trickier when all players are aboard the same ship, not knowing if, or when, it will sink. Time to leave or not? That’s what happen in Aaron Weissblum’s Cloud 9, as well as in Diamant, a game I designed together with Alan R. Moon.”

Here’s the introduction of the Jeopardy dice games from Reiner Knizia’s Dice Games Properly Explained:

“You focus on progessing and maximising your results. But the stakes are rising. If things go wrong, you lose it all. Great risks bring great rewards – or utter defeat!
Disaster strikes in many different ways. More than ever, you need to weigh up the potential gains and losses. Rolling specific numbers or reaching certain totals may catch you out. You see disaster looming – but can you escape? Other games allow you to continue throwing as long as you keep your options open. Know when to stop and secure your results. If you get greedy and your luck fails, you are out. You need to make the right decisions and be lucky, too.”

Random Production: Resources are generated from a random process and distributed to qualifying players. CATAN and Crude: The Oil Game are based on early examples of this mechanism.

Re-rolling and Locking: Dice may be rerolled, or may be locked, preventing rerolling. Yahtzee and Cosmic Wimpout are early examples of this mechanism. More recent games include the idea of “locking”, where certain dice are prevented from being re-rolled, as in Zombie Dice and Escape: The Curse of the Temple.

The following is a list of all board game mechanics I know in this category, and that aren’t too niche. Card game mechanics are also included. I’m posting this mainly for my own reference.

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Information Decay: Information revealed to players becomes less reliable or changes as the game progresses. What was once known becomes uncertain, forcing players to make decisions with intelligence that may be outdated. This could be implemented through markers that are removed after a certain number of turns, or “fog of war” that gradually returns to areas not actively monitored by players.

Multi-Use Cards: Multiple actions are shown on a card, but only one can be used.

Perceptual Landscape: The game board or state is not objectively defined but depends on how players perceive it. Players may have different “views” of the same situation based on their position, abilities, or previous actions. Success requires understanding how others perceive the game state, not just how you perceive it.

Tags: Game objects, typically cards, have icons or other identifiers that identify them as belonging to specific categories. These tags may trigger special effects and/or have values and meaning that can vary, even within the scope of a single play. Tags are additional parameters on top of the base meaning of the game element, so tags represent a means of coupling the game element with more mechanisms and systems. Tags are also bookmarks that can reference a variable set of possible rules that are encoded elsewhere, so tags are also a means to modularize, or uncouple, game triggers and game effects.

The following is a list of all board game mechanics I know in this category, and that aren’t too niche. Card game mechanics are also included. I’m posting this mainly for my own reference.

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Elapsed Real Time Ending: The game ends after a set amount of actual time has elapsed. During the game, individual players may have separate turns, or play may be simultaneous–in which all players play at the same time. This is sometimes mediated by a soundtrack, as in Space Alert, or can simply be elapsed time on a clock, as in Escape from Colditz.

Finale Ending: When the main game ends, a special mini-game is played to determine the victor.

Race: Games where the first player to achieve a key objective wins the game. Typically this is expressed as the winner being the first player to reach the end of a track, but any type of fixed goal also qualifies as a Race mechanism. CATAN is an example, where players race to reach 10 points. The Quest for El Dorado is an example, where players race to reach a goal on a map.

Single Loser Game: A game which concludes when a single player loses.

These are typically games designed for more than two players, although they may accommodate two players. At the two-player count, this game mechanism could apply if the loser is the one who due to their own actions is eliminated, moreso than due to the competitive play of the opponent. i.e. Chess would not be considered a “single loser game”. This is also not intended for games where the end of game trigger is due to a single player “busting” (as in Hearts). There will typically not be a winner rated among the remaining players, although some ranking system is possible, especially if played in multiple rounds.

Sudden Death Ending: There are two distinct types of Sudden Death Endings:

Special victory conditions which when met trigger an early and immediate end to game play (perhaps completing the current round), prior to the “normal” ending conditions for the game.

In the case of a tie at the end of regular play, ‘sudden death’ is triggered where play continues until the game ends immediately after a player achieves a certain condition (like scoring a point).

The following is a list of all board game mechanics I know in this category, and that aren’t too niche. Card game mechanics are also included. I’m posting this mainly for my own reference.

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Commodity Speculation: A subcategory of Investment in which players buy and sell commodities of various types and quantities as they change value throughout the game.

Commodity Speculation includes both Investment games in which players have some indirect control over asset values, but have a hard time hurting others without hurting themselves; and Collusion games, in which players have huge direct control in manipulating asset values, forcing players to help others and manage shifting alliances.

Compound Interest Mechanisms: Actions or investments grow in value over time based on compound growth principles. The timing of investments becomes critically important, with early small investments potentially outperforming later large ones. Players must balance immediate needs against exponential future returns.

Delayed Purchase: Items that are purchased do not enter play right away but arrive on a future turn.

This is a typical default characteristic of most Deck, Bag, and Pool Building games such as Dominion where purchased cards are placed into the discards.

Other examples of this mechanism include World in Flames, which uses a “Production Spiral” so purchased troops, planes and fleets come into the game several months (or years) in the future depending on how long they take to build.

Elastic Resource Valuation: The value of resources dynamically shifts based on scarcity, abundance, and patterns of use. Resources that become overused decrease in value, while neglected resources become more powerful. This creates natural balancing and encourages players to discover underutilized strategies rather than all pursuing the same optimal path.

Investment: Players purchase an interest in a game entity, in order to generate a monetary or VP benefit, the ultimate value of which is determined over the course of the game.

This differs from Ownership in that Investment does not grant special actions or other “game effect” privileges based on the investment.

Acquire is an early example of the Investment mechanism.

Market: Players may buy from or sell resources to Markets, where prices and quantities can vary. This is often a primary feature of Economic games, but sometimes only a secondary mechanism.

Many games use a “market” to price cards, tiles, etc available for permanent purchase by players, but this is a type of Open Drafting and should be classified as such.

Stock Holding: Stock Holding is a subcategory of Investment, in which players may buy and sell (or retain) defined interests in a shared asset, such as a company, commodity or nation. This will often grant certain privileges of Ownership.

Notable examples include Acquire, where players can purchase shares of companies, and benefit if those companies grow before being bought out, and Imperial, where players are purchasing bonds in European nations which grant not only a dividend and points at the end of the game but also the right to control that nation’s actions for as long as you are the majority bondholder.

The following is a list of all board game mechanics I know in this category, and that aren’t too niche. Card game mechanics are also included. I’m posting this mainly for my own reference.

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Closed Drafting: Closed Drafting (or ‘Card Drafting’) is a means of distributing cards or other game elements to players through an ordered, closed selection process – typically “select and pass”, sometimes called “pick and pass”. A typical implementation involves each player being dealt the same number of cards. Players then select one (or more) card(s) to keep, and pass the rest to their left. This continues until all cards are selected or discarded. 7 Wonders implements this type of draft. An alternative is that only one player is dealt cards, and they take one and pass it until all players have cards. This obviously is strongly biased towards the first player, and needs to be supported thematically and balance-wise. Citadels implements this type of draft.

Contracts: Players fulfill Contracts to earn rewards. These take the form of special goals requiring coordination and planning beyond simply being “first past the post”. These can be either public, where all players compete to be the first to complete them, or private, where only the owning player may fulfill them.

This often takes the form of a special type of Set Collection, such as in The Voyages of Marco Polo where Contracts defining an ad hoc set of resources may be claimed to obtain the corresponding reward. Pick-up and Deliver is a special case of Contracts common to train games such as Empire Builder which should be selected for those games.

I Cut, You Choose: A method of drafting where one player divides a set of resources into different groups; other players have first choice of which group to select.

San Marco, New York Slice, and Berrymandering implement versions of this mechanism.

This mechanism can also be used to divide more abstract resources, like turn order. Many games use the so-called “pie rule” or “swap rule” to minimize first player advantage, e.g. Hex. In this game, the first player makes the first move of the game, and then the second player can choose to switch sides (taking over the first player’s color as well as that first move), or to let the first player stay with that color and first move, and the second player then makes their first move in response to the first player’s move. After that, turns continue as usual.

Open Drafting: Open Drafting is used in games in which players pick (or purchase) cards (or tiles, resources, dice, etc) from a common pool, to gain some advantage or to assemble collections that are used to meet objectives within the game.

Saint Petersburg is a well-known game utilizing an open draft.
Azul utilizes a more complex draft, where tiles are selected from multiple constructed lots, with some reverting to the common pool.

Games where cards are simply drawn from a pile are not drafting games; drafting implies that players have some sort of choice and the ability to draft a card another player may want thereby denying them something they may have wanted. In Ticket to Ride, for instance, players may choose to draw cards from open display, so although most cards in a game are only drawn randomly, it still can be considered a drafting game.

This is distinct from Closed Drafting, the mechanic of “select and pass”.

Pick-up and Deliver: This mechanism usually requires players to pick up an item or good at one location on the playing board and bring it to another location on the playing board. Initial placement of the item can be either predetermined or random. The delivery of the good usually gives the player money to do more actions with. In most cases, there is a game rule or another mechanic that determines where the item needs to go.

Empire Builder is a classic pick-up-and-deliver game from 1982 that remains popular today. In this game, players build railroads between cities, and move trains around on the track. Players hold contracts specifying that specific cities demand specific types of goods. To fulfill a contract, a player must travel to a city where that good is available, pick it up, and deliver it to the destination city. When the player completes the contract, the player receives money as specified on the contract.

Set Collection: The value of items is dependent on being part of a set; for example, scoring according to groups of a certain quantity or variety.

Demonstrations:
A set of 3 of a particular item is worth points (but each item alone has no value).
A set of 3 different items is worth points (but each item alone has no value).
A particular item is worth 3 points, a set of 2 such items is worth 7 points, and a set of 3 of it is worth 13 points.

Example games:
Players collect and harvest different types of beans in Bohnanza, and they collect Monuments in Ra.

Contracts should be indicated when applicable, as a more sophisticated case where the items are defined by variable goals within the game which can be claimed, typically by only one player.

The following is a list of all board game mechanics I know in this category, and that aren’t too niche. Card game mechanics are also included. I’m posting this mainly for my own reference.

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Deduction: Players are trying to determine the identity of hidden information based on clues.

Hidden Movement: Movement occurs that is not visible to all players. Scotland Yard is a classic game implementing this mechanism. A key challenge for designers is determining how to make the movement rules simple enough that the players moving hidden units do not make mistakes, or that paths are traceable when the game concludes.

Hidden Roles: In games with hidden roles, one or more players are assigned differing roles that are not publicly revealed.

Hidden Victory Points: The number of Victory Points held by each player is private information.

Memory: Hidden, trackable information whose tracking gives players an advantage.

Questions and Answers: Players ask and answer questions in a manner constrained by rules. This mechanism is mostly found in deduction games. It generally does not apply to trivia games, where it is not the players that come up with the questions.

Roles With Asymmetric Information: One or more players are secretly assigned roles at the start of the game which have different win conditions, and receive different starting information about the game state.

This is a typically a subset of Hidden Roles, except that all players have incomplete information. In Werewolf all werewolves know the full game state. In contrast, in Spyfall most players know the location but not who the spy is, while the spy has the opposite information.

Examples of this mechanism include Insider and Spyfall.

Secret Unit Deployment: In Secret Unit Deployment games, some (or all) pieces enter the board in secret, and only the player controlling certain playing pieces has perfect information about the nature (or even the whereabouts) of those pieces. Other players will not know where those pieces are located on the board, or they may know where pieces are, but not know the details (such as strength or type) of these pieces. This mechanic is often used in wargames to simulate “fog of war”.