StopTheLeader

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A term to describe those BoardGames (and CardGames) which boil down to "we all gradually use up our ways to stop someone winning. Then once we've all run out, the player who gets the next turn wins".

Munchkin?, Illuminati, CheapAss/SaveDoctorLucky, and a number of other games suffer from this affliction.

It is viewed as a BadThing by some game players, AlexChurchill included, because the eventual winner will often not be the player who played the best, just simply he who plays after everyone's hands get emptied of tricks.

: Some might say that the Babylon5 CCG falls into this category too. It used to really, really get on my nerves. So I traded my deck away... --Jumlian

Limited StopTheLeader possibilities tend to help games early on because they stop RunAwayLeaders. --Angoel

True. I suppose the challenge is to either make the game mechanics not lead to exponential growth and RunAwayLeaders, or to make the StopTheLeader possibilities either less effective at the endgame, or less attractive at the endgame. [This article] (linked from TheGamesJournal) goes into this in more detail, and neatly proves that I'm not being original at all. Ah well. --AlexChurchill

CategoryGames