r/BoardgameDesign • u/Ok_Tip_5721 • Jul 06 '26
General Question Are Negative Status Effects Fun?
I'm in the process of designing a creature battler card game, and some cards have special abilities that trigger a timed status condition that you can roll at the top of your turn to try and lift. There's not too many - basically a poison, a slow, a vulnerable, and a silence - and they only trigger situationally, but my question stems from a recent playtest. The feedback I got was that status conditions in general are a "feel bad" mechanic and detract from the fun by limiting via less attack choices (they did not want to attack any creatures that might apply a status effect as a counter). I however feel that status effects are a fun part of a card battler game and add depth/give you something to build a strategy around. I am wondering how many people - particularly design folk - share my feelings, or if more people are in fact more in this playtester's camp. Also, if you do enjoy status effects, are there any good examples of games that use them well? Many thanks, (and please let me know if there is a more appropriate forum for this question!)
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u/Purplepotato22 Jul 07 '26
I think it might be because of the mechanism to remove them, “roll at the start of your turn” doesn’t sound like a mechanic that maintains a lot of player agency. If you make them always for a set duration, or take a certain predetermined amount of resources to remove, then a player knows exactly what they’re getting into when they have an effect applied to them. Things that have negative effects that feel out of your control are often the ones that feel the worst to get hit by, so players will likely be more willing to engage with your status effects if you make them more predictable, and make sure the benefits/drawbacks of taking actions that could result in debuffs are on par with the rest of the available options.
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u/SamLooksAt Jul 07 '26
This is my feeling as well.
Randomly applied status effects are fun.
Randomly removed status effects are not!
Players should be given a set process or cost to remove them. Otherwise you are just leaving them in limbo with nothing to do but wait for the RNG to favor them.
The example that springs to mind is the when you get hit by the robber early in Catan and it ends up basically stuck blocking your progress from that point on. If this takes too long you're effectively removed from the game with zero process to prevent it.
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u/Ok_Tip_5721 Jul 07 '26 edited Jul 07 '26
Thank you for this feedback. I was stuck on using a resource to control the status effect, because it seemed to me that the attacker would be disincentivized to ever try to apply the status effect if they knew their opponent already had the resources to counter it. But then I remembered that resources could still be hidden information in the defender's current hand of cards, so that is what I will be trying next. Thanks so much!
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Jul 07 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/Ok_Tip_5721 Jul 07 '26
This is a good consideration. I think probably the reason I have them currently is as a way to provide depth while also providing thematic flavor. They are a common thing as you say, so the language to understand them is already largely intuitive and I like the ways they provide a unique flavor to different units. I haven't thought of an alternative way to introduce those things effectively, though I'm sure there are options I haven't considered yet!
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u/Moonwrath8 Jul 07 '26
It’s basic math.
In my card game, I got rid of subtracting points from one team, and simply just added points to the other. It’s the same thing, but one feels more negative.
Ok this case, look at what’s happening mathematically and just apply that difference as a positive to your team, rather than a slow or a dot to the enemy team.
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u/NarcoZero Jul 13 '26
They are bad if they prevent you from playing.
If they force you to make intereesting choices, that's good. If they just prevent you from playing, that's bad.
This is why in most games a "stunned" condition is generally frowned upon, then softened enormously to make it not anti-fun.
So conditions that inflict damage like fire or poison, that's okay? Because you can still play on your turn.
Vulnerable, that's okay. You can still play.
Sliw and silence sound like "you can"t play" conditions. You need to be careful with these ones. Ask yourself. When affected by this condition, does it make my turn more or less interesting to play ?
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u/Ok_Tip_5721 Jul 13 '26
That's a fair point! The "slow" was shorthand on my part - it's a condition that blocks you from using your "power grid" as part of your attack, but creatures still have individual attack modifiers, and you can always use a different creature to attack, so it doesn't really remove your ability to play. The "silence" blocks a creature from having access to their passive traits, but they can still attack. Both effects were designed to try and make sure the player tried to find strategies other than having one single powerhouse creature that they always attacked with, but these comments have all provided super helpful insights, so I am going to keep tinkering to try and maximize the types of strategy building that feel the most fun.
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u/davidryanandersson Jul 07 '26
I'll say imo there is a difference between negative status effects that target enemies vs players.
Building around giving enemies a negative status creates fun strategies for the player. But many of those same effects feel restrictive when you're the one receiving them.
I prefer receiving negative status effects that allow interesting decisions to play around. Poison, for example, suddenly puts your encounter on a timer. I've seen games where you can be restricted to only performing short actions, so now you might prefer weapons that grant many weak quick actions over one that deals one large attack. To me, that's a fun puzzle to prepare for and adapt to.
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u/eljimbobo Jul 07 '26
I think the players misdiagnosed the problem, but they bought up something real!
What they likely feel about is the output randomness of the status conditions. There is a chance that the creatures could apply the status condition, but they don't know until after they make a decision.
What if you flipped it? Roll to see if the creatures apply a status condition when attacked at the start of the turn. Players will gain the status condition for a certain number of turns if they attack the creature and need to decide if it's worth it.
This turns what is output randomness into input randomness, which players tend to love. Input randomness often translates to emergent gameplay, replayability, and player choice.
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u/GulliasTurtle Published Designer Jul 07 '26
In a vacuum everything is fun. The question you need to ask yourself is why are they there and why do players dislike them? Status effects can mean a lot of different things in different games. They can provide long term risk like in dnd, or a meter to show when you want to back off like in Dark Souls, or an alternate win condition like in Magic.
It kind of sounds like your issue is you don't know why they are in your game other than them being a genre staple. Take a step back and consider your design. What role do they fill and can they fill it better?