Interesting point, but I’m not sure any game would be much fun if it was just about drafting cards and then not doing anything with them!
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That’s what it is to me as well, but I’ve also seen “ladder-climbing” games (where players continue to play progressively higher cards or combinations of cards, where the leader usually determines the combination to be played that round, until all but one drop out) classed as “trick-taking”. I can just about accept that as a broad umbrella group but it isn’t what usually springs to my mind as trick-taking.
Mind you, despite being closer to the mark, I still don’t think that High Society meets that broad criteria either. There’s no concept of the winner of one round (“trick”) being rewarded with the chance to decide a characteristic of the next round that everyone else has to follow. That’s where For Sale falls down as well.
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I agree, I think drafting is more a mechanism than a game mechanic. If that makes any sense. Like rolling dice, for example. Or drawing cards.
Okay, I am not trying to be flippant in asking this. But what is the difference between a mechanism and a mechanic here?
I think I understand the division being made, but I’m not sure I agree with it. @Chewy77 maybe I can speak for you using my example, but would you consider “flicking” a mechanism vs. “flicking into different scoring zones in a rally format” the game mechanic?
Hoping to clarify too since I generally use the terms interchangeably (with some pedantry around the difference).
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A mechanism is a working part of a larger system.
A mechanic fixes your car.
You’re welcome.
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Thank you. I can rest a little easier knowing someone else has this distinction
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I think @VictorViper got my meaning. Worker placement, for example, is a lot more wholistic in describing a game than “drafting”. They are both parts of a game and how it functions, but if someone describe a game like worker placement, you get a bigger idea than if someone says a dice game, a cards game, or a drafting game.
Perhaps my choice of words comes from Spanish, and it is not so different in English, but one being more “complex” than the other, I thought they deserved different categories. Apologies if I caused confusion
AFAIK, it’s an American distinction that doesn’t exist for the rest of the world.
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Ooo… I wasn’t going to say anything, and then I just had to look it up.
I’m no expert, but it definitely seems like until the early 20th century, this sense was confined to the plural (“mechanics”). The citations given by the OED, for instance, seem to be very much in this vein. And then there’s a quote from 1990, referring to a mechanism in a game.
Language is daft.
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Given the impending age of robots and automation, it probably won’t be long before it’s a mechanism rather than a mechanic that fixes your car…
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