Board Game Arena

By the way, many games have solo version/rules too. Does it mean that if your opponent quits in a 2-player game you should continue playing in solo mode, and only get the victory if you beat that?

ChiefPointThief wrote: ↑07 September 2026, 12:26 Care to give examples? Obviously I know this is true. Especially on a site with 1400 games. I just want actual examples so I can understand what games people feel fall under this category.

The one I always think of is 7 Wonders, which has different cards in play at all different player counts, but there's also

Board/Board Size:
Small World
Oracle of Delphi

Available Spaces:
Agricola
Caverna
Viticulture
Architects of the West Kingdom

Then there's the subset where the game is quite different for 2p:
Race for the Galaxy (also the victory point pool depends on number of players I think)
Puerto Rico used to have this, though not sure if that's changed

And like Jellby, I'm certain there are more, but it's hard to recall, especially as I mostly play on BGA these days, which means I often avoid 2p where 3p/4p is available (due to a LOT of time spend playing 2p only IRL with my partner - which was fine, I just wanted a different experience initially on BGA, and am still kind of sticking to that). So the variable setup is done for me, and I don't often notice.

I'm sure there's also games where the number of workers/action points/etc. change depending on your player count. I can't think of any off the top of my head, but I'm certain they exist.

There are also games where the minimum player count is 3p, which would have to be voided by a player leaving a 3p game.

I don't disagree on the general idea, and would happily see it rolled out across games where it makes sense, but it won't apply everywhere and people need to understand why that is (because people will complain that it should be so in games where it isn't appropriate).

Jellby wrote: ↑07 September 2026, 14:09 Definitely not, but possibly imbalanced and not much fun.

Whether it's better to continue in such "broken" state or to call it quits and proceed with some random/arbitrary choice, is probably a matter of personal taste, and something that mostly affects only tournaments. The current state is that in general games cannot continue when a player is removed, but as proved by Heat, a game developer can implement the option to do so. It seems to me then that if you think a particular game could continue after a player leaves, you should file a suggestion for that particular game.

Sure, but we're talking about something that will rarely happen, not something that will happen every game.

It being a matter of taste is why it would then be up to the tournament creator to decide.

The point I think is often misunderstood is that how a game handles a player leaving the game is already written for every game. The only difference Heat has is it coded so this doesn't void the result of the game, how the game is coded to handle the gameplay for it happening I believe is already coded for every game.

I already said it would be a problem in team games but I would argue if my is fine for bang. Bang is an elimination game in which ppl will die one by one anyway. Them dying from being shot or from timing out of the game is the same result.

Ticket to ride is actually easier in 4p. Being blocked isn’t a thing unless you are playing very poorly. The 4p rules about double routes would still apply and just play on.

You’ve seen games in which 2vs2 in 4p (team game) disqualified from discussion. Solo in other counts. Ok. Trio fits this example. In a 3p game of trio player three can opt to look at the same two cards all game. They don’t have to play normally/well. So you can place them in last and the o other two players continue. Once again not ideal. But still better than giving the victory to someone who has more time on the clock but found zero sets all game.

An example of different cards being removed for different player counts applies to point salad. I own this irl and have accidentally put the wrong number of cards in. Game was still played. Everyone had fun. There was a legit winner. In other words it can stil be played.

@nik
Any game in which players can pass their turns without doing anything can most certainly play on. So referring to viticulture. Players can pass whole seasons without placing meeples. So that’s what the Timed out player will do. Just pass. Play carries on. This sort of game is the same as the already discussed list ruins of arnak.

It’s been awhile. Don’t remember if Agricola has ability to pass. And caverna is just Agricola 2.0. But even if not now there are just more available spaces and the player who plays best under these conditions wins. Rather than who just plays the fastest.

But also note that y’all play tons of games and can only think of a handful. Meaning that for the majority my proposed system does work. So why not entertain it for those. And yes I agree that can be an option made available by the creator of the game/tournament.

ChiefPointThief wrote: ↑07 September 2026, 12:48 Now this is where we disagree (harmonies). This sort of falls under the draft category that I mentioned but not quite because the available piles remain in the middle and it isn’t like each player must take a pile and then there’s a new round. It’s just one turn/pile at a time.

The counter argument is that “well if the expelled player is seeking a specific resource and they are no longer present then now there is more of that resource for the rest. Therefore ruining the game”. But under bga bylaws a player cannot be forced to play in a particular way. And also you don’t know if that player would even take water (I’ll use this resource). They may be a player that opts for a different strategy.

But if a strategy of yours doesn't work because the player did something unexpected, that's normal, that's part of the game. But the unexpected thing shouldn't be that the player quits. That's not a move, that's just leaving the game.

Also, my point about Harmonies was more about the "type" of game it feels like. Would your strategies be ruined if a player drops out in that game? Maybe not as much as in some games. But the experience would be, because that's a type of game where seeing a player disappear would feel off.

ChiefPointThief wrote: ↑07 September 2026, 12:48 If I’m not mistaken every thing stays the same with higher player counts in harmonies right? So whether it’s 2p or 4p there are still 4 piles of available resources. There are still 4 scoring cards to choose from. There are still 10 rds. Correct?

Well the game could end up going for more rounds since there's one less player emptying the bag. Could be a problem if you plan for a board that wins at 9 turns, but with 10 turns others can catch up to you.

There could also be fatal issues like not taking a card or resource that would be dangerous in an opponent's hands because you suppose another player will take it before them. But then if that player ends up being skipped, all that strategy crumbles.

Multiplayer is often about analyzing things and making choices based on what you think other players will do. People who say games like Harmonies don't offer much interaction just because it doesn't have as obvious a fight for resources (for example) as some other games do are I believe mistaken in their assessment. If they think the interaction is not satisfying, it's probably that they aren't putting enough thought into it. They aren't doing all the work that the top players do when they think about everything to give themselves the best chances to win.

It's common when people start out the game that they see it as a game where both players are kind of building their thing in isolation from each other. But the better you get at the game, the more you understand that this is really a duel of wits. The whole mindset of "let's see how I can make a nice landscape in my own backyard" is really just the learning phase. The phase when you start understanding the game more becomes "okay, so here is a yard filled with resources, I need to make something out of it and at the same time also make sure my opponent doesn't come up with something better".

RazorOz wrote: ↑07 September 2026, 13:30 I mean Heat technically has differing rules for certain player counts, and I think of a game like Lost Ruins of Arnak, this has different setup of the board depending on the players, yet I would still far rather play on as a 3 play game on a 4 player board if someone leaves the game, than have it void the result, because gameplay wise it's fair, there's no major changes, you're just playing 3 player on a more open board.

That's not possible. The game was written with certain rules, the site has to follow those rules. This is not a discussion about what you think is fair in that example. It would be straight up unethical and illegal for the site to allow players to keep going with a version of the game that doesn't actually exist.

It's like if a football pitch was flooded with water, and someone said "okay there's a garden over there, it doesn't fit the size and specifications of the game whatsoever but let's just keep playing the game on there". In this case the game would just be postponed or cancelled.

The unique challenges that this site faces compared to real sports is that 1) the players are not famous or professionals, you can't just make sure they'll show up at a postponed date and 2) there is no real sport that I know of that has three teams or three players facing each other.

For those reasons, we encounter dilemmas that don't have an exact equivalent in the real world. But the solution is not to say "let's ignore the rules and keep playing on the wrong board".