Limited Time Only: Scarcity

Few things make a human want something more than telling them that they can’t have it.

This is a concept we call scarcity, and it’s a very powerful tool.  It’s used by politicians, advertisers, economists, and- last but not least, though certainly least maliciously- game designers.  So what does scarcity look like in a tabletop game?  

Going, Going, Gone!

Most commonly, it appears in a form I’ll call Traditional scarcity.  In essence, games with Traditional scarcity tend to have a certain resource- sometimes several- that is very limited in quantity, but also very important to gameplay.  Importantly, both players are drawing from the same pool.  You need it to properly function, but once it’s gone, it’s gone.

A famous game that involves this form is scarcity is Settlers of Catan.  Most of you have probably played Catan, or at least heard of it, but for those who haven’t, here’s how it goes;  The board is built of tiles which give certain resources when you have buildings near them.  You use these resources to build more building, and thus gain more resources.  The catch, however, is that there are only so many places to build stuff, and everyone else is trying to build there, too.

Pick A Card

There are, however, other forms of scarcity.  They’re a bit rarer, but that also means more untouched design space.  The ones I’ll be talking about are Cherrypicking, Reverse Scarcity, Rationing, and Flipping, but there are many more.  If you want to read about others, comment below or send me an email.

The first of these, Cherrypicking, is a bit different from Traditional scarcity.  Instead of a limited number of total cards, there’s a limited number of good cards.  You won’t run out, but you might have a bad hand.

This is most common in deck building games such as Ascension.  In that game, players take turns buying cards out of the center row, which is constantly refilled.  There’s almost no limit on the quantity cards you can get, but the quality of your cards is of utmost important.

Take It or Leave It

The next form of scarcity is Reverse Scarcity, which is almost solely found in co-ops, most commonly RPGs.  This form of scarcity, as the name implies, has the exact opposite effect;  Instead of trying to grab ‘em all as fast as you can, players are super hesitant to expend the group’s resources-  Maybe you want to make sure this attack hits, but you want to leave a few dice for when your buddy is trying not to fall off a cliff.

Choose Wisely

Another breed of the scarcity beast is Rationing, though it is somewhat rare.  Rationing is different from Traditional scarcity in that players usually draw from their own pools, though these are often identical.  In Rationing games, you have a range of possibilities, but once you use one, it’s gone forever.

A good example of this is my own game, No Quarter.  In this game, players make moves in order to knock each other out.  One of the variables of a move is how much force you use, represented by a number, one through five, with higher numbers being better.  However, you can only use each number a few times, then it’s gone.

Split Descision

The final member of the scarcity family I’m going to discuss today is Flipping, perhaps the rarest mechanic on this list.  In a Flipping game, you have a pool of cards with two sides.  You can choose either one, but only one.  Once one side is used, the other is lost.

This is a mechanic that, as I said, is super rare, almost unheard of.  I’ve never seen a game that uses Flipping as a main mechanic, and a fair few that use it at all.  The closest thing I’ve seen to Flipping in a game is Magic: The Gathering’s split card mechanic, where some cards have two spells printed on the face, only one of which can be cast.

We’re Out of Time!

Well, that’s about all that I have to say about scarcity, but I’d love to know what you guys have to share.  Do you have any other examples of scarcity that might be interesting to discuss?  Some more examples of games that execute scarcity well?  Or maybe you just want to chat about the topic?  If so, please feel free to post in the comment section, and as always, keep on geekin’ on!