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”.

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-Impulse: Players subdivide turns into impulses alternating between players which repeat until both players pass (or in some cases a sunset die roll ends the impulses catching one or both players off guard). In those impulses a group of units is once activated or gets to act collectively before being marked spent. However instead of the activated units being grouped by a certain radius from a leader the units activated are in an area (and thus the need for the impulse system to have areas, not hexes). The areas exist to define scope of activation on an impulse (as well as restrict what can be done on that impulse with respect to attack and movement range). Thus each of a players groups of units each acts once by means of small alternating impulses instead of the traditional all my units then all your units. Finally, before the next turn of impulses, spent units are reset and regain the ability to act.

Campaign / Battle Card Driven: The Campaign/Battle Card Driven mechanic is a relatively recent development in wargames that focuses the players’ actions on cards they have in their hand. Performing a single action uses a single card; cards will often be multi-purpose.

Action / Event is a similar but more distinctive mechanic. Games where the cards are used to deploy specific units are considered to be using Command Cards. Games where cards are used to affect the outcome of battles are considered to be using Card Play Conflict Resolution.

Card Play Conflict Resolution: Each player simultaneously or sequentially plays one or more cards. These modify the base outcome of a conflict and allow various special abilities to apply. This can function similarly to Area Majority / Influence, but with a discrete resolution or award of the conflict target, rather than by dynamic/shifting control of a fixed asset. It is also similar to Force Commitment, but that mechanic presupposes a more liquid resource where the quantity can be chosen.

Critical Hits and Failures: Dice are rolled, and those exceeding a target number generate a success. Certain rolls (typically the highest and/or lowest on the die) generate additional success or extreme failure.

Force Commitment: The players select how many of their forces they will commit to the battle to different categories. This can be simultaneous (hidden) or incrementally, prior to resolution. Frequently players must lose all forces that they commit. Arguably this is a form of auction/bidding, but distinctive when applied to war or area control games for multiple/parallel contests.

Dune is an early example of this mechanism.

Ratio / Combat Results Table: In many Board Wargames to resolve a combat between units, the Attacker and Defender total the strength of the units involved in that combat. This is then expressed as a “Ratio” (Attacker versus Defender) which is used to index into a “Combat Results Table (CRT)”. A dice roll then determines the final result of the combat.

Stat Check Resolution: There is a target number required to succeed at some test. A random number is generated (by card draw, die roll, etc.), which is compared to the target. If it meets or exceeds the target, the action succeeds.

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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Auction / Bidding: This mechanic requires you to place a bid, usually monetary, on items in an auction of goods in order to enhance your position in the game. These goods allow players future actions or improve a position. The auction consists of taking turns placing bids on a given item until one winner is established, allowing the winner to take control of the item being bid on. Usually there is a game rule that helps drop the price of the items being bid on if no players are interested in the item at its current price. In most games, once a winner for one item is done, if there are more items to be bid upon, another auction is held for those items. The process repeats until a game condition is met or items are exhausted in the auction phase of the game. This is similar to Worker Placement, but workers can be kicked off spots by bidding higher.

In Power Grid, for example, you start with no power plants and must win bids to be able to produce power. Winning a bid on a given power plant allows that player to add it to their current inventory of power plants and also allows for more power to be made in a given turn. In Vegas Showdown, players bid on rooms. such as a slot machine or a restaurant, in order to build a larger hotel with more prestige and value. Winning players pay for the room based on their bid and place it in their hotel. In both examples, bidding is done in a turn format and players have the option of passing on bids.

Auction Compensation: Losing bidders in an auction receive a lesser award in place of the lot they bid on.

Bids as Wagers: Players bid that they can achieve some outcome in the ensuing gameplay phase. Scoring is based on whether and how well players achieve their bids. Examples would be Spades or Contract Bridge.

Closed Economy Auction: Closed-Economy is a meta-mechanism that can modify any auction type. In a Closed-Economy Auction, all the money spent in the auction is paid out to the auction participants themselves.

For example, in Nightmare Productions, the winning bid is distributed evenly between the non-winning players, and losing bids is the only way to gain more money.

Constrained Bidding: This is a meta-mechanism that can modify other auction techniques. Players may not bid any number that they wish. They may only bid based on increments and/or combinations of certain resources. Examples of this are Ra, which forces players to select one of three bid tiles for their bid, and High Society, where players must increase bids by adding money cards from their hand and are not allowed to make change.

Dutch Priority: A Dutch Priority Auction is a multiple-lot auction in which prices for the lots are determined based on the number of bids placed on the lots up for bid. The winning bidder is the first player, in bid priority, who chooses to pay the current price for a lot, which is equal to the number of bidding tokens there. Priority may be determined by a variety of factors, including global turn order or turn order for each lot based on order of bid placement. Players may typically pass on the purchase when they are the priority bidder by removing their bidding token. This has the effect of reducing the price for the lot by one. The Speicherstadt introduced this mechanism. In that, players place meeples one at a time on different lots to be bid on. After all meeples are placed, each lot is evaluated. The player with the first meeple placed on a lot may purchase it, but must pay a price equal to the total number of meeples. If they cannot or will not purchase it, they take their meeple back, and the next meeple in line may purchase, now at $1 less. This opens up lots of opportunity for counterplay and brinkmanship in a relatively simple system.

English: An auctioneer asks for bids of a certain amount and players indicate their willingness to bid at that amount, usually by holding up a hand or paddle, or by calling out. Players are permitted to adjust the increment of the bid, usually by shouting out their actual bid, though this is done infrequently, and usually either to indicate a smaller increment than the auctioneer requests, or a much larger one. When a certain amount of time with no increases occurs, or it is clear that no one wishes to raise the current bid, the auctioneer declares that the high bidder is the winner.

Fixed Placement: a meta-mechanism that modifies a multiple-lot auction by creating rules about which lots players may bid on, and representing bids visually on a board or cards. It is often combined with constrained-value bids. A Fixed-Placement auction ends when every player passes and/or no player has the right to bid further. The highest bidder for each lot wins the lot. Good examples of this mechanism are in Amun-Re and Vegas Showdown. In these games, there is a track below each lot up for auction. Each player places a marker on the lot they are interested in, at the value they want to pay. If another player wants to bid on that lot they do it by placing their bid marker on a space higher than the current bidder. The outbid player retrieves their bid token, and may place it on the same lot at a higher price, or another lot. When all players have placed their token, the bids are resolved.

Multiple Lots: An auction in which players simultaneously bid on Multiple Lots in parallel, instead of bidding for one lot at a time serially. The actual format of the auction can follow any of the auction mechanisms. For example, in Revolution! players perform a simultaneous Sealed Bid Auction on 12 different actions.

Once Around: The players each have one opportunity to bid, either passing or raising the prior bidder. The order of bids is determined by one of the Turn Order structures. After the last player has their opportunity to bid, the high bidder wins. Although this helps shorten the auction (as increasing game length is a pitfall of including auctions), it strongly favors the last player to bid, as they know what their winning bid needs to be, so the designer needs to take care to balance properly.

Sealed Bid: Players secretly make a bid. All bids are revealed simultaneously, and the high bidder wins. Typically some tie breaker mechanism is required. Common ones include closest to start player or using a secondary currency for a tie-breaking bid. A variation on this is called Sealed Bid with Cancellation. In this case, if two or more players have the same high bid, they are eliminated from contention. The highest non-duplicated bid is the winner. This is best used with Constrained Bidding to make ties more likely, and was first used in What the Heck? (originally called Hol’s Der Geier, so it is sometimes referred to as “the Hol’s Der Geier mechanism”).

Selection Order Bid: Selection Order Bid is a form of multiple-lot auction in which players are not directly bidding on the lots themselves, but the order in which they’ll draft the lots. As the bid increases, players may pass and accept a later place in the order. In some cases, players must pay their entire current bid (an all-pay mechanism), and in others they may recover some of their bid.

An early example of this mechanism is in For Sale.

Turn Order Until Pass: Starting with one player and going in turn order, players may raise the current bid or pass. When all players but one have passed, the player remaining in the auction is the winner. Normally players that pass may not re-enter the auction. However, allowing re-entry is a variation that is not uncommon.