After my daughter was born, I have not had many opportunities to attend gaming events, so my life is now centered on two player games. This made me rediscover some old games and look at them in a new light. It might not be the same experience with two, but they can be fine games in their own right.
This past week I drafted a conceptual toolkit for retrofitting multiplayer games to play well for two players. Not all the examples are super successful, but they were all successful enough for someone to propose on a forum, if not publish in the rulebooks.
The toolkit can be broadly divided into two categories, SETUP CHANGES and MECHANICAL REVISIONS.
SETUP CHANGES
One Less Chair: This most basic of this category, almost not worth mentioning, is to just deal one less hand, such as in Poker…or Glory to Rome, Dominion, Hanabi, etc.
Setup Mechanical Twist: Sometimes a game uses the same components and plays the same as the original game but includes a slight mechanical twist in the setup, for example, Spades for two which adds a drafting mechanism. Another example (though not for two) is in three player Tien Len where the last card dealt is thrown face up on the table and the player with the lowest card may trade for it.
More or Less: Some games pretty much use the same components but deal out a slightly different amount of goodies, such as money in Caylus or the amount of available goods in Puerto Rico. Pandemic:OTB reduces the quantity of event cards. Hanabi changes the quantity of hand cards between 4/5P games and 2/3P games.
Reduce Components: Sometimes you take out specific items from the multiplayer games as in Agricola, or in Hansa where you remove some colors of goods altogether.
Add Components: And sometimes you add something totally new, such as in China: Das Duell. The original Mamma Mia! plays fine for two, but I’ve found the game greatly improved by playing Mamma Mia Plus, where the the expanded card mix compensates for the reduction of players.
Modify the Map: And sometimes you change the board. Ticket to Ride does this by disallowing parallel track lays. Ra reduces the Ra Slot, TransAmerica only deals out the cards with the border. Power Grid reduces regions. Only one of each violet building is available in Puerto Rico.
MECHANICAL REVISIONS
Dummy Player: Though much reviled in general, it seems to work fairly well in some games. Dirk in Alhambra with is a primary example. Its also been proposed with positive reactions for Trias. And its been way too long since I played Nefertiti to comment knowledgably, but the official 2P rules in the expansion include a Dummy player. This unofficial Niagara variant proposes adding a third paddle (along with reducing the gems in the setup).
Play Two!: This is the other obvious drastic mechanical revision fro 2P games. There are some strong proponents of playing Puerto Rico with two boards and its even been tried in Chudyk’s new game Impulse. The official Hare and Tortoise variant also does this (in my opinion it is brilliant, but it is not liked on BGG). This was also proposed for Trias, as well as High Society with a slight twist when a bad card comes up. I guess you could say this is also the way you would modify the number of players in Scotland Yard, though its core essence is a two player game that was designed to accommodate multiple players.
Remove Mechanisms: Sometimes a mechanism is just unnecessary, Caylus dumps the turn order Mechanism.
Add Mechanisms: I don’t think its particularly successful in Bohnanza, Uwe essentially added a new phase in the game to simulate trading. Also not particularly successful is the variant of Acquire where you draw a tile during a merger to simulate a dummy banker (this differs the main “Dummy Player” tool because it is random and is an instant non-permanent effect). I haven’t played it myself, but a promising Dixit Variant has the storyteller selecting a card, drawing five more off the top of the deck and adding three to the tableau along with throwing in a random card. And I’ve heard two player Niagara is playable by merely adding the Beaver Mechanism that comes with the Spirits of the Niagara expansion.
Tweak Existing Mechanism: Fairy Tale has a billion variants proposed because the base two player game is unsatisfying. Most of them tweak the number of cards drawn and almost all of them involve discarding a card during each phase of the draft before giving the hand to your opponent. The most recently proposed Fairy Tale Variant involves drawing cards off the top of the deck each round. This unofficial variant for Basari (along with modifying the length of each round) does this by conflating the Jewels and Points actions to force more bartering.
Action Quantities: The official rules for Trias reduces the number of actions a player may take from four to three. And Puerto Rico gives each player multiple actions before the round ends (and the official variant is structured to create a particularly significant change by removing the craftsman angst).
Modify the Game Length: This was a simple variant proposed for Fairy Tale. And is also the source behind some of different variants for Puerto Rico, since the quantity of Colonists and VP’s affect the length and thus balance of the game. Love Letter changes the number of hearts you needs to capture before victory. And Troyes does this very neatly with their event card reveals.
Change the nature of the game: Dixit isn’t really that competitive so someone decided to make it fully cooperative.
I’m not particularly versed in boardgame theory so I’m certain there is a lot rough edges and maybe even a complete conceptual realignment in order before everything is said and done.
If I’m going to be playing primarily two player for the next few years, this might be fun to explore. I know there is a good two player game in the Bohnanza deck, just waiting to be designed.