Worker placement has been around for a long time. May 1st is by far the best day to talk about it! Sure you know what worker placement is, it's when you take your worker and place it in an action spot and then something happens. Simple. Or is it?!
In the picture May 1st meeple propaganda
One way you can divide worker placement games is by when the magic happens. In some worker placement games, and I believe that's most of them, the moment you place your worker the action spot activates and you carry out that action. The other type of games have a delayed activation. The action space you are on only gives you its benefits later, mostly in a separate phase.
But that's not the best way to categorize those games. There are many types of worker placement mechanisms out there. In one way or another, they all revolve around blocking. The way you block action spaces makes the game different:
Block everyone
This is the simplest one. Once an action space is taken, it is taken. No player can take that action. Lords of Waterdeep does just that. Play that game only with the expansion, do yourself a favor.
I just blocked myself...
Some games let all players take all actions on the board, like The Pursuit of Happiness. In such games once a player takes an action they can either not take it anymore or pay a penalty for taking that action.
Now it's more expensive
Some games don't let any action be really blocked. The best example for this is Coal Baron. Once a player took an action and used 1 worker, the next time any player wants to use that same action space they would have to pay 2 workers, then 3 and so on.
I was there first
That just means that the first to arrive at the scene, aka the action spot, will be the first to be served. It can be getting the first choice of whatever you are fighting for. In Dominant Species there are a few action spaces that basically do the same, but are only different in priority.
Happy worker placement day!