Friday Night Shots – Hidden Information

The title of this post is obviously about hidden information in games and not hidden information about me, because I am an open book!

Just…don’t open that door over there, please.

And ignore the sounds coming from behind it.

Thank you.

Anyway, many games have some information that is hidden from other players and the debate always becomes: should that information be hidden or available to everybody?

Of course, I’m not talking about secret role games, or those games where everybody has a secret goal they are trying to achieve.

I’m talking about games where resources are hidden.

Whenever this topic comes up in our group, the inevitable first (or early, anyway) thing mentioned is money in Power Grid.

According to the rules of the game, how much money each player has is actually hidden information.

If you’ve watched people collect money and spend it, you could track it.

But apparently one of the ideas behind the game is you don’t know whether your opponent is going to be able to afford placing in that city before you do, or how much they are going to be able to spend on that power plant during the auction phase.

Which actually made me stop and think as I was typing that.

Auction games often have hidden money, because knowing how much money other players have may affect how much you’re willing to bid on something.

Like Modern Art, all of your money is hidden for exactly that reason.

So maybe that’s why money is hidden in Power Grid?

Some would say that hidden money in a game like Power Grid just slows the game down where it’s already slow because people are savagely min-maxing their final couple of turns, trying to decide which cities to build in for maximum profit.

In this case, I think hidden money for auctions is less important than open money to increase the game speed just a little.

But what about in other games?

If it’s trackable, should it be hidden?

First, it depends on the definition of “trackable,” or at least how hard-core you want to be about it.

Sure, anything is trackable when you see a person spend and gain everything, and know how much it was every time.

It’s not like somebody takes a random bit of money from the bank when they gain money.

They gain $2, or $10, or a share in some company.

If money is changing hands rapidly during a game, that is technically “trackable,” but realistically?

Sure, if you were writing down everything, but nobody does that (and keeps playing at my table, anyway).

Yes, I understand that some people are better at remembering things than others, and so the common response to that is having hidden money rewards those with better memories.

I can kind of see that, but I think the extent of any advantage it gives other players is pretty negligible.

However, if there is no real purpose to having hidden money and resources, I have to wonder why have it in the first place?

Perfect example of that point is No Thanks.

This game, players are collecting numbered cards but trying to collect them in sequence because then only the lowest number scores, and you don’t want points.

When a card comes up, you can take it or place a chip on it to say “no thanks”.

It then goes around the table until somebody takes it (and all of the chips that were on it).

Chips are negative points at the end of the game, which is good!

The number of chips you have is hidden information, though, and that is one of the cool things about the game.

If you have no chips, you have to take the card.

If that really high card will benefit you (because it negates one of your other high cards) but nobody else will want it, you can decline it for a couple of rounds at least, then take it. You gain the card and the chips.

But maybe you’re not sure how many chips James has left? He’s been spending a lot of chips over there and not getting many cards.

Maybe if you push it too far, he’ll have to take it and you won’t get the benefit?

That’s one of the juicy decisions in this otherwise really light card game.

In this game, hidden information is essential.

Empire’s End has the same idea, where all of your resources are hidden because you have to bid on not taking the disasters that are coming out.

It doesn’t have the “do I keep things going for my benefit or do I take it now” idea that No Thanks has, so you’re really not wondering whether your opponent(s) can keep avoiding the disaster or not.

I don’t think it’s quite as imperative to have the resources hidden in this game, but it doesn’t harm anything and it does make people stop and think a little bit.

You might want the benefit that the disaster gives you, so you could still hope it gets back around to you (since you do collect the resources other players bid).

It’s just not quite as big of a deal.

Essentially the whole issue comes down to the following question: Is there a good in-game reason these resources are hidden?

If so, then great!

But if things are trackable somehow (even if tracking them would be hideous) and there’s no other inherent reason to hide resources, why bother?

I might even go so far as to say that if you’re going to have hidden resources, there should be some way to get those resources where the other players don’t know how much you gained.

It doesn’t have to be the sole mechanism, but there should be some way.

“Hmmm…James gave Vicki 5 dollars for that tile, and she also went to the space that gave her 6 dollars. But she ended up drawing a card and taking money from that as well, so I’m just not sure how much money she has available. I’d better do this now, just in case.”

That would be good!

Or just make the fucking money public.

Geez, it’s not that hard.

Agree? Disagree?

Let me know what you think in the comments.