Games where trailing players get an advantage

[tbhp]

Could you clarify what you mean exactly?

"Trailing" could mean different things. In Patchwork, the person who is farther behind on the progress track gets to make the next move, although trailing on the progress track doesn't mean "being behind in the game". That person could actually be way ahead in terms of likelihood to win.

If you simply mean "the player who has fewer points gets to do something that the other player cannot do", I cannot think of any games that I am aware of.

The second one is what I meant- the player who has fewer points/is farther from winning the game.

The problem is, in very few games is it the case that that player with fewer point is definitely "behind".

Some games have rounds that are totally independent from each other. The points for each round are added and the winner is the one with the most points overall. So the person who has accumulated the most points so far is the one who is the most statistically likely to win the game.

In this case, if an advantage was given at the beginning of each round to the player ahead or the player behind in points, then it would be a good example of a game giving a player an advantage based on how well they are doing.

[FrankJones]

True, but most "point-salad" points have implied points that are not yet shown on the actual scorecard.

Azul, Splendor, Wingspan, Terraforming Mars, Earth, Aquatica, Ark Nova, Carcassonne, Viticulture. Just to name a few.

[tbhp]

True, but most "point-salad" points have implied points that are not yet shown on the actual scorecard.

Azul, Splendor, Wingspan, Terraforming Mars, Earth, Aquatica, Ark Nova, Carcassonne, Viticulture. Just to name a few.

I don't think that's what I'm talking about. I mean games where everything starts over on each round. Stella is a good example of that.

[Meeplelowda]

The problem is, in very few games is it the case that that player with fewer point is definitely "behind".

I'm not understanding the pushback here. They clarified that they meant fewer points. There are games that give an advantage, or at least a perk, to the player that has fewer points. It seems a little pedantic to turn this into a semantic argument about whether you should call having fewer points being "behind," when all they asked about was games with a catch-up mechanic. If you don't like those kinds of games fine, but there was nothing unreasonable about the question.

[tbhp]

The problem is, in very few games is it the case that that player with fewer point is definitely "behind".

I'm not understanding the pushback here. They clarified that they meant fewer points. There are games that give an advantage, or at least a perk, to the player that has fewer points. It seems a little pedantic to turn this into a semantic argument about whether you should call having fewer points being "behind," when all they asked about was games with a catch-up mechanic. If you don't like those kinds of games fine, but there was nothing unreasonable about the question.

But the OP was written in the spirit of wanting to know about games where the player who is losing is given an advantage, to help them get back on track (in contrast to the more common trend where players who are winning tend to be advantaged).

Answers to the question only make sense if the player with fewer points who is being given an advantage also corresponds to the player who is the least likely to win. In most of the games I play, the player who currently has less points is often times the one who is actually winning, so giving that player an advantage would have the opposite effect of what OP is asking about.

FrankJones isn't saying the question is bad, he is saying that to answer it you have to think about things more deeply than simply who has more points, because in many games that's not a real indicator of what we want to know.