Board Game Arena

Why are discards shown face-up? That seems odd.

Aren't discard piles always face up? So that they are clearly different to face down draw piles?

Jontia wrote: ↑12 March 2025, 12:31 Aren't discard piles always face up? So that they are clearly different to face down draw piles?

Not in any other game I have played. And not in the rulebook for Wingspan. Discards do not need to be faceup to differentiate between the two piles. The draw pile is a neat stack; the discard pile is scattered and messy.

FrankJones wrote: ↑12 March 2025, 12:55

Jontia wrote: ↑12 March 2025, 12:31 Aren't discard piles always face up? So that they are clearly different to face down draw piles?

Not in any other game I have played. And not in the rulebook for Wingspan. Discards do not need to be faceup to differentiate between the two piles. The draw pile is a neat stack; the discard pile is scattered and messy.

So many games are discard face up, that face down is an exception, in my experience. (Mainly referencing in person games, not digital)

Suoivax wrote: ↑12 March 2025, 13:10

FrankJones wrote: ↑12 March 2025, 12:55

Jontia wrote: ↑12 March 2025, 12:31 Aren't discard piles always face up? So that they are clearly different to face down draw piles?

Not in any other game I have played. And not in the rulebook for Wingspan. Discards do not need to be faceup to differentiate between the two piles. The draw pile is a neat stack; the discard pile is scattered and messy.

So many games are discard face up, that face down is an exception, in my experience. (Mainly referencing in person games, not digital)

Interesting. I suppose it depends on which games people play.

Games I have played with face-down discards:
7-Wonders
Terraforming Mars
Wingspan
Earth
Evenfall
Scythe
Race for the Galaxy
Blood Rage.

I do not appear to have any games in my collection with face-up discards.
I don't doubt they exist - I haven't played hundreds of different games, so my experience is somewhat limited.

To be fair, I consider TfM and 7 wonders to be "tossed into the box" rather than discarded into a discard pile.

But you are right, some games need the unused cards to be unknown information. Never played Wingspan seriously enough for that to even be thought about.

I can sometimes be useful to know what birds have been discarded, because then you know those birds aren't going to turn up from the deck later in the game. You can just memorize every discarded bird, but why should you have to go by memorization alone when you can just look at the discard pile? Nothing in the Wingspan rules says you _can't_ look at what's been discarded, does it? If the rules don't prohibit it, then the BGA version should also allow it.

Cos- wrote: ↑12 March 2025, 22:20 I can sometimes be useful to know what birds have been discarded, because then you know those birds aren't going to turn up from the deck later in the game. You can just memorize every discarded bird, but why should you have to go by memorization alone when you can just look at the discard pile? Nothing in the Wingspan rules says you _can't_ look at what's been discarded, does it? If the rules don't prohibit it, then the BGA version should also allow it.

There is no need to memorize what has been discarded because the discards are not supposed to be discarded faceup in the first place. There should be nothing to memorize.

Rule books say what we CAN do, not what you CAN'T do. A rulebook that lists everything you CAN'T do would be a very long rule book. I have never heard of anyone (until this thread) interpreting discards to be face-up just because the rulebook does not specify that they should be face-down. And yes, part of discarding cards in a card game is that they are no longer in the deck, and only one person knows that information.

In the game "Earth", for example, my opponent may well have decarded cards I need. I do not expect my opponent to say, "stop trying to draw cards to get the card(s) you need; I already discarded them."

Or, in Scythe, as Crimea faction: "Hey, just so you all know, my last discard was a 5, and there are only 6 of them in the deck, so adjust your combat strategies accordingly".

When someone has to take the "sell card" action in 7 Wonders, surely that card is not shown to everyone? OR when burning a card to build one of the stages of the wonder?

In Terraforming Mars, after drawing a card the opponent would probably want, and selling it for 1 credit, is that card shown to the opponent? No.

In Race for the Galaxy, there is only one of each 6-cost development, and sometimes that development is crucial to one player. These cards are discarded facedown. (In RFTG, a LOT of cards are discarded. It would be really bizarre if they were all shown to all players).

Wingspan is the only card game I've played with discards where for some reason it shows the discards. Also, on the steam/ios/switch/ version, the cards are discarded facedown, and not one person has ever written a bug report about it (And people are never shy about writing bugs reports for those platforms if something is wrong.

Regarding the prior comment, I am not sure what the difference is between "discard" and "place in the box."

I believe BGA simply got this one wrong.

The last sentence on page 9 of the Wingspan rulebook, in the section on "Managing the Bird Deck", is "The discard pile is kept face-up."

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fo/cfbnrvnw ... brl3a5wl7b

ETA: And in my experience, face up discards are more common than face down. Some good examples of exceptions have been mentioned in this thread, but going back to card games with a standard 52 card Poker deck, plenty of games like Gin Rummy, etc have face up discard piles.

FrankJones wrote: ↑12 March 2025, 22:50
There is no need to memorize what has been discarded because the discards are not supposed to be discarded faceup in the first place. There should be nothing to memorize.



Wingspan is the only card game I've played with discards where for some reason it shows the discards. Also, on the steam/ios/switch/ version, the cards are discarded facedown, and not one person has ever written a bug report about it (And people are never shy about writing bugs reports for those platforms if something is wrong.

Regarding the prior comment, I am not sure what the difference is between "discard" and "place in the box."

I believe BGA simply got this one wrong.

Wingspan rulebook, discard face up

Heat, face up

GWT face up

Not all games have the "all information is priveledged" aspect like TfM does.

And "back in the box" i guess is just my playgroup. In 7 wonders, that last card in the round is indeed hidden (NONE of us pitch a card for money), but it doesnt go into a discard, it literally gets chucked into the box, same with TfM