A Game Invention - 3
Getting your cards into the game
The initial stage of play is usually characterised by deals being offered and accepted, as there is space for new deals on the table and dealing opportunities move round from one player to another. The more cards a player plays into the game, the more likelihood of a high payoff. A tactical consideration is therefore whether to enter a deal - which means that both parties get to play a card - or to ride someone else's deal - in some ways a more selfish option because only the rider plays a card but with a downside that the final outome depends on others.
When a player offers a deal it pays the other players to put their own case forward for acceptance. There is no restriction of what is open to negotiation. For example on blue's turn to play he/she may offer a deal to orange, but red might offer to enter a deal with blue on red's next turn if blue will enter this deal with red. Purple might say to blue that orange and red are not to be trusted, whilst at the same time yellow might suggest that orange should not trust blue and should wait until yellow's turn to enter a deal with yellow.
The middle stages of play
As play progresses and deals become established and ridden by other players, the situation becomes increasingly complex. The players are trying to maximise their opportunities to get cards onto the table, whilst at the same time wary of the risk investing too much in a deal with another player. But testing a deal partner's true intentions comes at a price - redeeming a deal on your turn means that you forgo a chance to play a card, so you will tend to offer a redemption agreement on the turn of your deal partner, costing them a card-playing opportunity instead of yourself.
If the maximum number of permitted deals is on the table, redeeming a deal makes space for a new one. It can therefore be an advantage to deal reciprocally with the player next to you, so that if you agree to redeem you can then straightaway set up a new deal with him/her before other players grab the space. But of course everything is up for negotiation at all times.
Nobody wants to be caught cheating too early in the game because this will reduce the chance of further deals with other players, and also of persuading a deal partner to redeem. And your deal partner will be looking carefully at the potential outcome of a redemption - if you or a rider stands to gain too much, your deal partner may decide to leave the deal unredeemed. It is vital to bear in mind that no matter how many cards one has on the table, the payoff only comes with redemption.
Towards the conclusion of play
The later stages are characterised by the players making careful calculations before taking action. Now, the cost of being revealed as a cheat is less, as is the payoff of late cheating all the greater. The players will be aware of how much payoff other players have already accrued, a factor that will increasingly influence personal decisions on whether to agree on the redemption deals or not. Negotiations obviously continue.
When any player has played all twelve cards, no further cards may be played. Play continues only with opportunities to redeem deals, in the same order of play, until no further agreements to redeem can be reached. The game is then ended. The winner is the player with the highest payoff. I have not explained here what happens to the cards when a deal is redeemed, nor how the payoff for each player is signified. Suffice to say that the system works perfectly.
Who tends to win at 'Plots'?
An interesting observation after having played countless games of Plots is that certain people become good players. It is possible to develop skill, and to win more regularly than others. The basic dealing and redeeming is characteristic of the well-known Prisoners' Dilemma, which apparently no game-theoretic analysis has yet resolved. In other words (I assume) it is not possible to become good at playing the Prisoners' Dilemma, whereas an interesting point is that there are good and bad Plots players.
I imagine Prisoners' Dilemma game theorists are looking for a winning strategy that can be demonstrated as such by mathematics. In the Prisoners' Dilemma there is no contact between the participants, whereas in Plots human interaction is the order of the day - therefore it would be impossible to calculate any sort of strategy at all.
My brother-in-law John Allen (who helped me test the playing system over several months and who went with me to try to sell the idea at the National Games Exhibition at Earls Court in London in 1988 - as well as sharing the cost of making the prototype) seemed to win very often - against other experienced players, so it didn't seem to be his knowledge of the game that lent him an advantage. He just became a good player!
Experience shows that one can get away with a certain amount cheating as long as one does not become branded as a 'cheat'. In fact it is necessary to cheat occasionally to be a consistent winner. Someone who is invariably straight does not make a good player once their straightness is relied upon. And of course there is no fun in being thought of as 100% reliable or 100% dishonest, nor any fun in being a consistent loser.
A set of 'Plots'
Here, left, is a set of Plots. It contains 72 coloured cards 65 mm square, plus a set of rules and playing tips. The cards are in the six colours on black, as illustrated on these pages. I drew the box design on a drawing board - 1988 was before the age of the PC/Mac - and had it printed on card, then cut, folded, and glued the parts together, taking half an hour per box.
