Something that confuses me a bit about Figgie, is that not only is it a zero-sum game (which is fine), but every individual exchange is also zero-sum (which seems not fine). If I imagine a group of 4 people playing it, and two of them just say “I won’t do any trading at all, just take my dealt hand (without looking at it) to the end of the round”, and the other two players engage in trade, then (on average) the score of the two trading players will be the same as those of the two players who don’t trade. This, seems like its a problem. If your assessment is that the other players are more skilled than you, then it is optimal to just not engage.
I haven’t played it, so this idea might be very silly, but it feels like the scoring should be rewarding players who have made their hand very strongly contain one particular suit (even if its not the goal suit). Then in the example above the two players engaging in trade can help one another to end up with lopsided hands (eg. one has lots of hearts, the other lots of spades), so that the group that trades has a relative advantage over a group that doesn’t.
As a candidate rule it would be something like: At round end every spade you have makes you pay 1 chip out to the person with the most spades (for all suits except the goal suit).
Notice your confusion! It isn’t zero-sum at the level of each individual exchange. If you’d like the challenge of figuring out why not (which I think you can probably do if you load in a 4-minute bot game, don’t make any trades yourself, double-check the scoring, and think about what is happening), then I think it would be a useful exercise!
If you want the spoiler:
The player with the most of the goal suit gets paid a bonus of 100 or 120; this is the portion of the pot not paid out as ten chips per card. When two players trade a particular card from A who has less of that suit to B who has more of that suit, it’s zero-sum for them in terms of the per-card payout but positive-sum for them in terms of the bonus (at the expense of the players not participating), since it makes it more likely that the buyer will beat a non-participating player for the bonus (but not less likely that the seller will win it).
I forgot that their were leftover chips rewarded to the player with the most goal suit cards (I now remember seeing that in the rules, but wrote it off as a way of fixing the fact that the number of goal suit cards and players could both vary so their would be rounding errors, and didn’t keep it in mind). That achieves the same kind of thing I was gesturing at (most of a suit), but much more elegantly.
The real heart of this game is that the trades are not zero sum between the two parties. If you have 5 of a suit and your counterparty has 1, there are huge gains from trade to be had by interacting. This is a totally necessary condition for the game to be interesting.
Something that confuses me a bit about Figgie, is that not only is it a zero-sum game (which is fine), but every individual exchange is also zero-sum (which seems not fine). If I imagine a group of 4 people playing it, and two of them just say “I won’t do any trading at all, just take my dealt hand (without looking at it) to the end of the round”, and the other two players engage in trade, then (on average) the score of the two trading players will be the same as those of the two players who don’t trade. This, seems like its a problem. If your assessment is that the other players are more skilled than you, then it is optimal to just not engage.
I haven’t played it, so this idea might be very silly, but it feels like the scoring should be rewarding players who have made their hand very strongly contain one particular suit (even if its not the goal suit). Then in the example above the two players engaging in trade can help one another to end up with lopsided hands (eg. one has lots of hearts, the other lots of spades), so that the group that trades has a relative advantage over a group that doesn’t.
As a candidate rule it would be something like: At round end every spade you have makes you pay 1 chip out to the person with the most spades (for all suits except the goal suit).
Notice your confusion! It isn’t zero-sum at the level of each individual exchange. If you’d like the challenge of figuring out why not (which I think you can probably do if you load in a 4-minute bot game, don’t make any trades yourself, double-check the scoring, and think about what is happening), then I think it would be a useful exercise!
If you want the spoiler:
The player with the most of the goal suit gets paid a bonus of 100 or 120; this is the portion of the pot not paid out as ten chips per card. When two players trade a particular card from A who has less of that suit to B who has more of that suit, it’s zero-sum for them in terms of the per-card payout but positive-sum for them in terms of the bonus (at the expense of the players not participating), since it makes it more likely that the buyer will beat a non-participating player for the bonus (but not less likely that the seller will win it).
Confusion slain!
I forgot that their were leftover chips rewarded to the player with the most goal suit cards (I now remember seeing that in the rules, but wrote it off as a way of fixing the fact that the number of goal suit cards and players could both vary so their would be rounding errors, and didn’t keep it in mind). That achieves the same kind of thing I was gesturing at (most of a suit), but much more elegantly.
Thank you for clarifying that.
The real heart of this game is that the trades are not zero sum between the two parties. If you have 5 of a suit and your counterparty has 1, there are huge gains from trade to be had by interacting. This is a totally necessary condition for the game to be interesting.