Intro to Hobby Board Gaming: Worker Placement

A mechanism that defines a game while telling you nothing about it

The Point of This Article

When asked about my hobbies, I tell people that like to play board games. I often receive a follow question to the effect of “what kind?” and I struggle to answer it. I know what sorts of games I enjoy: tile-laying, engine building, and worker placement, but these terms mean little to the uninitiated. I will therefore attempt to shed light on the hobby by explaining one popular mechanic. I don’t know if non-board gamers will find this article helpful, but I think it’s worth a try.

I can’t find the quote online, but I once heard it YouTube video, so it’s definitely real. Video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, the creator of Mario and Zelda, said that a good mechanism solves at least two problems. The YouTube video provided an example from Super Mario Odyssey. This game allows everyone’s favorite Chris Pratt character to throw his hat, providing two main benefits. First, the hat can “capture” an enemy and gain its ability. Mario can, for example, capture a cheep-cheep (i.e., a fish) and exploit its ability to swim underwater. Secondly, our heroic plumber can jump on his hat for extra air time. This single mechanism both increases gameplay variety and allows for levels to contain trickier jumps. With this framework in mind, I will discuss the problems that worker placement solves in board gaming.

Problem One: How to Select an Action?

In a video game like Super Mario Odyssey, players produce a constant stream of inputs. Board games, on the other hand, usually afford players a small, discrete number of actions on their turns. Thus, games need a system for selecting those actions, so let’s consider a few of them.

Roll to Move

Here, players roll a die¹ (or perform some form of randomization) and move their player piece around a board. The player then takes some action based on where his or her piece landed. This remains rare in the hobbyist sort, though, because it limits strategy.

Card Playing

You play a card, and then you do the thing that the card says. Even if you’ve never played a game like Magic: The Gathering, I bet you have a vague idea of how they work. Players maintain a relatively large deck, of which only a few cards are available at a given time. The same mechanism occurs in board games. It allows for a large number of actions over the course of a game while limiting the number of allowable ones in a given turn.

Dice Placement

You roll a die and perform an action associated with that roll. This might sound like a “roll to move,” but this does not involve moving a piece around the board. The classic Castle of Burgundy uses this mechanism to great effect. The dice rolls limit your decision space without (for the most part) making the game feel random.

Rondel

Players move around the board to perform an action in a non-randomized way, but the game limits this movement. For example, a game may feature a circular board with 10 spaces, each with its associated actions. On their turn, players may move between 1 and 3 spaces ahead. This mechanism can force players to find a sort of “rhythm” on the board, where actions feed into subsequent ones.

Action Selection

This one’s a bit complicated, so pay close attention. With action selection, users consider a set of possible actions, and then they select one. Like, you see the thing you want to do, and then you do it.

In all seriousness, this system lacks the limitations of many of the other ones. You just do the thing. That doesn’t mean there’s no creativity here. In Race to the Galaxy, the player can select one of five actions. Here’s the catch: if you select an action, everyone else may also perform that action. Maybe action C provides a large payoff only if someone else selects action B. Meanwhile, action A provides a moderate payoff no matter what. Do you take action C, and bet on someone else opting for action B? Or do you play it safe and choose A?

Worker placement fits the “action selection” archetype. It, therefore, chooses the easiest answer to the “how do you select actions?” questions. Let’s head to problem two.

Problem Two: Variety

Before digging into this one, it might be worth discussing what “worker placement” looks like. The “worker” generally refers to a “meeple,” a wooden or plastic piece that sort of looks like a person. That’s the most common one, but not all “workers” look like people. Instead of the traditional worker, Underwater Cities, uses a, uhh…, it uses an umm… rectangle thing. But it’s usually person-like.

In a worker placement game, players take this worker and, wait for it, place it on the board. That does not mean, however, that “placing workers” is the same as “worker placement.” A war game, for instance, might require everyone to place soldiers and support units on a board. That’s not worker placement, though. What makes worker placement special is that placing a worker on an action blocks another player from taking that action.

That’s where problem two comes in: gameplay variety. Imagine that you make a game where players can create cafes, pizzerias, or steakhouses. You might prefer for different players to specialize in different restaurants. Worker placement helps with this. If I place my worker on “get one pound of pizza dough action,” the person to my left can’t copy me.

Side note: games don’t need variety. There’s a genre called roll-and-writes (maybe I’ll write a different one for them) where different players could theoretically take the same actions and finish with the same scores. Nothing against them, but bigger games want players to utilize the whole decision space.

With one intuitive idea (take your guy, put him on the spot, do the thing the spot says), a game solves two problems: action selection and variety. Worker placement can solve other problems, too. It provides a degree of interaction between players. Maybe your opponent needs one wood, so you put your meeple on that “gain one wood” action, even if you can’t do anything with the wood. On some occasions, it can also help with counting turns. I loathe games that tell me “you may take four actions on your turn,” without any way of marking these actions. I just know the game night will eventually experience:

And then I build the pizzeria! Wait, was that my fourth action? Or my third? Does anybody know? Well, first I bought a delivery truck, then I… wait no Bob bought the delivery truck. My first action was picking the tomatoes… or did I pick them last turn? Well, the action space says “gain two tomatoes,” and I only have one. So I probably took it last turn. No, wait, maybe I just forgot to grab the second tomato…

In a classic worker placement space like Agricola, your workers are your actions. Do you have four workers? Cool, you have four turns. How many have you taken? Well, there are three on the board, so you’ve got one more.

One final note: since workers block spaces, games need some mechanism that removes them from the board. Most commonly, the game consists of a series of rounds, and workers return to the players’ supplies at the end of each round. Other times, players may return workers to their supply instead of placing one on the board.

Combinations

With one mechanism, I’ve explained a huge chunk of the modern board game hobby. Yet, I’ve also explained virtually nothing. Worker placement maintains its popularity because of its versatility. Mint Works, a ten-minute game that fits in a literal mint tray, uses worker placement. Your local Barnes & Noble or Target might sell worker placement games like Lords of Waterdeep or Viticulture. At the same time, many of the hobby’s more involved games: A Feast for Odin, Anachrony, or Tzolk’in also revolve around worker placement.

Worker placement fits well with almost any other type of gameplay. Do you like building decks and playing cards? You can play worker placement games where some of the spaces allow you to draw or discard cards. Do you like fitting Tetris-like pieces on a grid? That’s what many of the spaces permit you to do in A Feast for Odin. Do you like rolling dice to fight monsters? Place your workers well, and Champions of Midgard provides you with some of that. Heck, you could probably make a worker placement version of Chess. You place one worker to select which piece to move and, if the piece allows for it, you can place another worker to select how many spaces it moves. That doesn’t sound like much fun, but it exemplifies the mechanism’s versatility. One day, I expect to play a worker placement-worker placement game, where placing workers on one board allows me to place workers on another.

Next, I’ll discuss two elements that gel particularly well with worker placement: engine building and set collection.

Engine Building

Engine building refers to a mechanism where actions gain power as the game progresses. At the start of the game, a space may provide a single wood. Someone may then gain a boon that states “whenever an action provides a wood, take an additional wood.” The next time the player takes that action, he or she will gain two wood. Imagine that the player can spend their to buy the following boon: “whenever an action provides two of the same resource, take three coins.” With that ability, the single-wood action now provides two wood and three coins. These boons can stack on each other, creating an exhilarating sense of power by the game’s ultimate turns. In turn one, the space gave one wood. By round 6, the space produces 5 wood, 4 coins, and a sheep. By round 20, the player gets 17 wood, 8 coins, 3 sheep, and 2 intergalactic empires.

Set Collection

Let’s say you’re playing a game where you try to build out a library (shoutout to Ebla to E-books.) The player can obtain four types of books: speculative fiction, literary fiction, romance, and non-fiction, and you can get 10 points for each completed set. In other words, imagine you have 7 speculative, 3 literary, 3 romance, and 8 nonfiction. You would score three completed sets (i.e., one book of each type) for 30 points. This mechanism works for a couple of reasons. One, if produces distinct short-term goals. You, in this example, have your fill of non-fiction and speculative, so you should probably focus on gaining literary and romance. More importantly, it allows you to screw over your friends. Imagine that your opponent has 4 speculative, 4 literary, 4 romance, and 3 non-fiction. You don’t need any non-fiction books, but you can plop your worker on that “gain one non-fiction” space just to weaken your adversary.

Exceptions and Extensions

So far, I’ve explained worker placement in the following way:

• You can choose from a set of actions

• You place a worker to choose that action

• Other players can no longer choose that action

While I believe this represents the archetypal worker placement game, I must note that many games don’t quite follow this formula.

Specialty Workers

One common exception, if you’ll permit the oxymoron, is to grant special abilities to separate workers. Anachrony employs this mechanism, though I don’t feel like explaining that game here. Instead, let’s return to the idea of a café/pizzeria/steakhouse game. Maybe one worker represents a businessman while another represents a chef. Some of the spaces say something like “exchange 2 coins for a pound of coffee” or “exchange 3 coins for a pound of beef.” If you place the businessman on these spaces, the costs reduce by one. In other words, you could obtain a pound of coffee for 1 coin and a pound of beef for 2. The chef, meanwhile, may grant aditional bonuses on the spaces pertaining to cooking.

Ability to Place Multiple Workers

Sometimes, actions may require multiple workers. I’ll return to the popular example of A Feast for Odin. In that game, the board contains four columns of actions, where the second, third, and fourth columns require 2, 3, and 4 workers, respectively. These higher-worker-requirement spaces are more powerful, creating a tradeoff between the number of actions one takes and the value of those actions.

Workers Don’t Block Spaces

Instead of blocking a space, workers merely increase the cost of these spaces. In Century: New World, each spot costs a set number of workers when unoccupied. If that spot contains an opponent’s workers, a player may place one additional worker to take that action. In other words, you can still take the actions that another player took, but you have to pay extra.

In The Gallerist, players may always kick another player out of his or her space. Doing so, however, provides the kicked-out player with extra action.

And So On

Again, worker placement is versatile! Here are a few more scattered examples of twists to the genre:

• In Tzolk’in, the workers don’t produce an immediate benefit. Instead, you only obtain the goods when the workers return to your supply. Via a series of wheels, actions will gain power the longer you leave your workers on the board.

• In Raiders of the North Sea, a turn involves placing one worker, taking another, and gaining the benefit of both spaces.

• In Lost Ruins of Arnak, the game begins with a small number of actions. Players may “discover” a new space, gaining an associated bonus. Thereafter, anyone can use that space.

The Variety Problem Problem

I began this article by paraphrasing a translation of something that Miyamoto might have said: a good mechanism solves two problems. I must add one caveat to this idea: …unless it creates another one.

I’ve mentioned before that the number of workers doesn’t necessarily equate with the number of actions. Still, it’s usually better to have more workers in your supply. This can contradict the point about variety, though. Left to its own devices, the best strategy will involve obtaining more workers. Think of it as the “wish for more wishes” of board gaming.

Solution One: Feed Your Workers

So-called “tight” worker placement games contain the dreaded “feed your workers” mechanism. At the set points during the game, you’ll have to expend a number of resources for each worker in your possession. A layer with five workers must therefore pay 20% more than one with only four. More workers require more resources, and the resources that feed these workers usually differ from the ones that score the most points. This mechanism has fallen out of favor a bit, as it often removes the feeling of power and freedom that people desire from the genre.

Solution Two: Fixed Supply

Lost Ruins of Arnak provides the player with two workers², and the game lasts 5 rounds. Once you put that game on the table, you know that everyone gets to place a worker exactly 10 times. Other games provide a different number of workers each round. The Gallerist, on the other hand, gives each player a single worker that can never leave the board. This worker must move to a new space each turn.

Solution Three: All Workers Belong to Everyone

I mentioned Raiders of the North Sea’s unusual mechanic above. Since everyone places and takes workers, none of the workers belong to anyone. I can’t think of any more examples of this (besides its sister game: Raiders of Scythia), but I’d like to see more of it.

Reader Requests

If you don’t play board games, let me know if this clears anything up. If you do, let me know if you’ve seen some creative usages of worker placement that you think we should know about.

1. Am I going crazy? I feel like I’ve said “a dice” my entire life and this has only become an error (in prim-and-proper writing, I mean) in the past few years. “A dice” is the original, anyway. It’s not even common for English plurals to end in an /s/ sound unless preceded by an unvoiced consonant. “Dogmas,” for instance, ends with a /z/. If “die” were an original English word, the plural would be pronounced like the verb “dies.”

One more thing while we’re down here in the footnotes: I hate the idea that periods go in quotation marks. Periods should end the sentence! There shouldn’t be some orphan quotation mark standing around after one.

2. There’s an expansion where each player gets special powers, and one special power is a third worker. I’m discussing the base game here.