I love kill-stealing mechanisms. The most recent example I can think of from personal play was in Terraforming Mars. You build the heat level, but someone waits to raise it so they can reach the threshold benefit. It adds a fun layer of maximizing resource use and timing. I'm not a huge fan of TM, but that aspect is certainly interesting.
While not exactly a kill-steal, I find an adjacent mechanism in Grifters (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/168054/grifters), where you're competing for the same contract as someone else and they eke out the exact resources to claim the contract right before you can. It leads to you keeping your hand close to the chest to avoid tipping off your intentions.
I wonder if there's a correlation between enjoying kill stealing in board games and liking social deduction games. There's a similar thrill there in keeping your intentions hidden until the perfect moment.
I think there is some overlap between kill stealing and shared contract fulfillment. You could almost think of the Beneficial Deeds board as shared contracts that require character tokens as resources to fulfill.
Something to consider if I ever go back to work on the contract fulfillment game I have in a notebook somewhere.
I was also thinking of Terraforming Mars, and the funding of awards by one player to be stolen by another. I certainly feel the tension when seeing another player working on stealing my kill, as it were.
The TM awards are very similar! I guess it's just a two step kill because you fund them, and then the next step is to claim it. But there is a race to meet the requirements.
I ranked it as tolerable, because in some circumstances it can reinforce the themes of the game. The first time I came across it was in the RGP Bushido - where all of the experience (‘Budo’) went to the person who performed the killing blow, regardless of how much damage anyone else did. This felt OK because it was genre-appropriate. None of my players would have liked to see that in D&D though!
Agree! I'll stop short of calling it "game breaking" but I think this mechanism would be rough in a TTRPG is granted for combat kills. It would have to be implemented in a much different (non-combat) way to work well.
Want to skip all the details and go right to the TUMULUS subscription page?
You got it: https://www.exeunt.press/shop/p/tumulus
I love kill-stealing mechanisms. The most recent example I can think of from personal play was in Terraforming Mars. You build the heat level, but someone waits to raise it so they can reach the threshold benefit. It adds a fun layer of maximizing resource use and timing. I'm not a huge fan of TM, but that aspect is certainly interesting.
While not exactly a kill-steal, I find an adjacent mechanism in Grifters (https://boardgamegeek.com/boardgame/168054/grifters), where you're competing for the same contract as someone else and they eke out the exact resources to claim the contract right before you can. It leads to you keeping your hand close to the chest to avoid tipping off your intentions.
I wonder if there's a correlation between enjoying kill stealing in board games and liking social deduction games. There's a similar thrill there in keeping your intentions hidden until the perfect moment.
I think there is some overlap between kill stealing and shared contract fulfillment. You could almost think of the Beneficial Deeds board as shared contracts that require character tokens as resources to fulfill.
Something to consider if I ever go back to work on the contract fulfillment game I have in a notebook somewhere.
Great comment! Thank you!
I was also thinking of Terraforming Mars, and the funding of awards by one player to be stolen by another. I certainly feel the tension when seeing another player working on stealing my kill, as it were.
Great article as usual. Thanks.
The TM awards are very similar! I guess it's just a two step kill because you fund them, and then the next step is to claim it. But there is a race to meet the requirements.
I ranked it as tolerable, because in some circumstances it can reinforce the themes of the game. The first time I came across it was in the RGP Bushido - where all of the experience (‘Budo’) went to the person who performed the killing blow, regardless of how much damage anyone else did. This felt OK because it was genre-appropriate. None of my players would have liked to see that in D&D though!
Agree! I'll stop short of calling it "game breaking" but I think this mechanism would be rough in a TTRPG is granted for combat kills. It would have to be implemented in a much different (non-combat) way to work well.