The Most Underused Board Game Mechanism

I love this mechanism! I was watching this video out of interest in the mechanism, and so it was a fun surprise to hear that I was mentioned at the end--thank you. :) I still have yet to figure out how to get I-cut-you-choose in one of our games while retaining the flow, but I look forward to playing Philosophia to see how you did it!

Reminds me of a Brazilian card game named Nessos. It's a 3-6 player game and each player takes turns giving out cards to other players that they can accept or not because the card your firned gave you could be worth some points or could be the Charon card, which can take you out of the game.The game consists of cards numbered 1-10 (4 copies of each) and Charon cards (10 copies of it) And a round tipically go like this:
P1 offers a card faced down, declaring it is a 5. He could either be telling the truth or lie and give a Charon (you can't lie and give another value). P2 then has to decide if they whether accept the card, give it back (which P1 has to take it) or if he passes it to the next person, adding their own card and declaring it's value. P3 then has the same choices P2 has, but now has to consider whether P1 AND P2 were lying. If they pass again, adding their own card, P4 can only accept or decline, as you can only have 3 cards be given to a player. Each numbered card is worth itself in points, and the winner is the one that gets 30 points. If you get 3 Charons, you're out.
So it's kinda like I Cut You Choose. P1 gives a card, P2 decides if either one take it or if he should be the new Cutter.

Thanks a lot for the video :) it gave a ton of ideas for making game with this mecanism.

Clearly I'm super late to this, but i think the math oriented channel, numberphile, did a video on the maths behind this very topic, especially when it comes to a cutting with more than 2 parties involved. Also, i really enjoy new york slice as a pretty great example of 'I cut you choose'

It's mechanism, not mechanic

In the end I pick you choose is a glorified way to play rock paper scissors

…ABRAHAM STARTED IT ALL‼️… YES 👍🏻 ‼️
GONNA GO LOOK IT UP IN
THE GOOD BOOK 📖 📕
NOW THANK YOU FOR
MENTIONING THAT .
BEAUTIFULLY DONE ✅ ✔️ ☑️

There is Destinies from Hand im Glück or the great Split.

I definitely wouldn't mind more games with this mechanism!

However, to me, the most underused is the "fishing-cards-with-your-cards" type of gameplay in Koi-Koi and Scopa which has no mechanism category on BGG and is under "game type" as "Card Game: Fishing," but many of the games in that list are just about fishing and don't have that mechanism. So researching games that have this mechanism has been frustrating.... It's really an excellent mechanism.

I use this in one of my game designs!

An expansion for Candy Land to turn it into an actual game, rather than an exercise in moving pieces. It's not fun yet, but I'm confident I can find the fun in it at some point.

I like this idea, and I am choosing to employ it in my game, with a slight variation. Draw 5 cards without looking at them, choose an opponent, and the opponent sorts the 5 cards into 2 piles: one pile of cards with 2 cards, and another pile with 3 cards. The opponent (who sorted) then puts the 2 piles of cards in front of the player, with one pile face up, and the other face down. The player chooses one pile, and receives all cards in the chosen pile; the opponent (who sorted) then goes through the unchosen pile of cards and chooses one for the opponent themselves to receive. I liked the idea you put forth, but for balancing my game, I wanted the opponent to receive some benefit, but receiving multiple cards was too much of a benefit, and needed to be reserved for the person playing the card; giving the entire unchosen pile to an opponent as a penalty was too strong. I figured that having them choose the best card in the unchosen pile is still a decent bonus for the opponent (and penalty for the player to balance the powerful boon), without making it so that the bonus was equal to both the player and their opponent.
I often find myself doing little tweaks on ideas I pick up from videos, and changing them to fit my game. That said, I really appreciate the inspiration and great video. This is my first video for this channel (gave it a like), but I think I will be watching many more, and possibly even subscribing, since this channel seems right up my alley. Best of luck, and thanks again for the inspiration.
P.S. In case it was unclear, my board game is modular, where the board changes to accommodate 2-4 players, so there may be games with only one opponent, and other games with multiple opponents. Hence me clarifying about the opponent who was chosen to sort the piles.

This mechanism is also used in chess we just call it a fork

San Marco is a great game featuring this.

i like how you reference the dummies I the bible and the dummies in the world government.

I love this video, but "the Last Diminisher" made no sense to me. I had to find a dumbed-down explanation.

I had a pretty good idea which mechanic you were going to identify, before you mentioned it. There are multiple reasons for it not being more popular. For one, it isn't entirely appropriate when attempting to model a game after what happens in reality, or what is thematic to the game. (Yes, you could build a game around that mechanic, but such designs usually seem contrived.) For another, implementing it for more than two players is problematic. Third, it isn't enjoyed by most gamers, in my experience. Fourth, implementing it in a thoughtful way can be time-consuming in terms of game length - it's a decision point that can cause players to equivocate or suffer from AP.

Bible shout out. Love it.

One of the most popular card games, Munchkin, kind of has an "I cut you choose" mechanic, it's just not hard-coded into the game. When a player helps you in combat, you usually have to work out some kind of repayment. Maybe that's a blind cut of the treasure, maybe that's a chosen cut of the treasure, maybe you keep all the treasure for that battle but give helper something from your hand or already in play in front of you. Players can choose an "I cut you choose" arrangement, but nothing in the rules says they have to.

I am shocked you didn't mention animals on board. As 1 it ties in with your Bible inspired intro and 2 it's a great functional multi player I cut you choose game. Where they also get around the issue of the cutter not getting potentially first dibs by using the rule any player that cuts gets a food token. Which are used for claiming a chosen group of animals.

this higly overused zoom in and zoom out effect makes it hard ro watch the video

I like your video, but wish you hadn't had to hide the topic behind a clickbait title.

I thought this channel had something like 100K subs when I was watching because of how informative the video was
surprised with the 1.85K subs :/ you got a +1

That site you referenced with all the board game mechanics. Is there a videogame version?

Saw Hanamikoji in the thumbnail and am assuming the mechanic is I split, you choose.

Edit - I was correct, but did mislabelled it as 'I split,' instead of 'I cut.'

Really Fantastic to see the new design Games,We are Board Game Manufacture,Good at produce printed nice box,board,rules,brochures,wooden pawns,dice...

The mathematical term for this mechanic is “fair division”.

I highly recommend Thief's market, my favorite I split you choose mechanic that solves the 3+ players issue elegantly.

A+ for the Bible refrance.

Ah the story of Sodom and Gomorrah, the bibles secret fetish

So can someone explain exactly what’s”I cut you choose” mechanics mean?

Great news: there's already a game which uses a last diminisher variant!

Thief's Market's dice drafting rule might count, since you must return/reroll a die to the center pool everytime you steal, thus 'diminishing' your 'slice'. It's even faster since players without a "slice" can directly advance to taking the next "slice" from the center, instead of waiting for the previous one to resolve

You also draft the first player marker, which might mitigate the cutter's disadvantage(since first player in market-buying phase is also the first cutter in drafting phase)

There are several MTG cards use this mechanic, I've always enjoyed it

I'm good at making creative board game I'm from Pakistan and has been making since I was in 2nd grade now I'm in doing PHD my IQ🗡️ has increased more as my talent is but in my country people and market is least interested in such stuff maybe I can be able to use it at some point in my life

Sounds like drafting in a sense. There's "cube" drafting with Pokemon where you get a large collection of cards to build two decks, and each turn alternate between dividing the cards into stacks and picking who gets the stacks.

Also if the objective to make for fair play where you are intened to cut evenly.... Then what is the point in having a machic? When you can have a rule where "you must divde it in two and have them pick their favoite"? Whould it make for better gameplay if they have to be tactical like "you take you deck and divide it in half picking whaat cards go it what pile and you must have a balance of card type and power in each pile. "Or forget the last bit and ensure both players only get bad/good cards? Might work best with more then 2 people and a tactily deep game.

It's much more common then it's stat would let on as Their is an entire genre dedcated to it and an eniter segment where it is common... The genre is deck building card games and the segment Wargames mostly for objectives placement and getting and map building also revealing and placeing models on the map.

Wow! You've convinced me! it is important to include mechanics that are easy to balance like this one. Variable player powers would be the hardest to balance.

The cake part instantly got me thinking about how to put this into a game and especially how to put this mechanic into a game with more than 2 players. Video was done in a nice clear way so Ill be checking out other videos on your channel now :) good look with your gaming endeavors

"Particularly for his poor salty wife"

I like the I cut you choose mechanic but I have some reservations. Fact or fiction is one of the most agonizing cards to have to deal with in magic because of the incomplete information you have. I think when you have sets of four or more cars it can create some analysis paralysis and slow the game down. Also if it's a main mechanic in the game there isn't an easy way of having it sort of ramp up as a game goes along. Players want to have that sense of progression over time.
I think it's possible if you start where cars are being passed left around the table the player before you will take two cards put one face up and one face down and you choose which one you want. Later in the game maybe players could upgrade so that maybe three cards need to be passed instead of two maybe with the cards coming from a central display or a central deck. Maybe you could upgrade yourself so that your opponents had to put all the cars face up. Maybe you could upgrade so that when passing cards you get to choose one of the cards your opponent didn't take. I think there are lots of interesting ideas the only issue being I'm not sure how this could be used thematically.

The other issue with the mechanic is that it's difficult for new players to accurately assess the value of cards or sets of cards especially if there's lots of text on them. By the time I was playing against fact or fiction I already had an encyclopedic knowledge of magic cards and had a pretty good idea of how to split piles and even that and sometimes it was very difficult. If the strategy is not yet clear or the card synergies are not clear it can create an issue where if you're being past cards from a newer player you can have a significant advantage even if the cards passing in the opposite direction alternative between rounds that could still create some issues. Either way going to continue watching the video

Oh God I would die trying to set the prices for tiles and mad king Ludwig. The eye price you choose mechanic and I love sky it's interesting but I can't seem to find a way to get my hands on the game and don't know how it would fit into my collection anyways. Sorry my speech to text is giving some interesting spellings

Great video. Thanks! Subscribed!

Great video. I was quite pleased with myself when I guessed it might be “I cut, you choose’. Fact or Fiction is a pretty iconic Magic The Gathering card that uses the same mechanic. Thanks for the new ideas.

Mammut did this quite nicely. You should have a look at this game!

It immediatly come to mind the recent: its a wonderfull kingdom.
Instead of drafting cards like its predecessor, now it use this mechanism with a nice gimmick.
You can spend a token to hide a card and even create unbalanced pile of cards.
This way you really have to read your opponent.

it was very useful

A very good video about a highly interesting mechanic. 👍

Thanks for the video! Your channel is so unique and underrated. Like, from every video, I get some interesting information about board game designing, history, etc. For me, as a beginner board game designer, this is very useful. Keep up great work)

This video made me subscriber 266!

Thanks for the video. It was very interesting and well thought out. Your game was already on my radar, and so I'm delighted to learn that it uses this game mechanic. I'm very much looking forward to its arrival.

This game looks awesome!