Beware! This blog post is so asymmetrical it might fall on your foot and hurt you.
Still here? Good.
Being normal or like-everyone-else is a thing of the past. Today many people thrive for and make a living out of being different. Reality inside board games is no different. We look for the things that will make us different from other players. We want to have different powers and different benefits, chase after different goals and sometimes just play two completely different games within the same game.
Asymmetry can come in many shapes and forms. It can also come at different times throughout the game, are we all the same when the game starts or are we already different when setup is done? Here are the main ones I think can include most of the asymmetry one encounters in a game:
Different powers
I can dig faster while you build better, you can fly over terrain while I am able to move between tunnels. The best example here is Small World that has this type asymmetry in the heart of what the game is, when players choose their races throughout the game. On the other side players can be equal and get tiny advantages over others like some of the yellow hexes in Castles of Burgundy that dish out all types of advantages. But this means I can do something you can't or at least can do something we both can, but better.
Different goals / scoring
One of the ways to make games competitive is to give players different goals. This way of creating an uneven but balanced playground can be found in many games of many levels of sophistication, starting from the basic Ticket to Ride and reaching up to the COIN series (that has many kinds of asymmetry). If everyone has something they thrive for but it is a bit different for every player, all players are engaged. Now you need to decide if the different goals are hidden (less analysis paralysis (AP)) or known to everyone (room for more AP).
Difference in actions
Some games give you a completely new game playing with every different faction / side / role. Games like Stronghold are practically a different game from each side (attacker or defender) and the same goes for Raptor. A similar but very different thing is playing the syndicate in Cuba Libre and just trying to make enough money to win, while others are fighting it out. In games like Twilight Struggle, the basic actions are the same, but the event actions are radically different and the struggle feels different from each side.
One example I that think should be mentioned here is Terra Mystica. It shows not only a great variety of asymmetrical powers and scorings, it also shows you how delicate the balance is. In Terra Mystica the developers kind of failed to balance it well and so the expansion came out with a new bidding mechanism at the beginning of the game. Basically a player starts with less points when he plays a more desirable race (that fits the setup better or is just better). That way the developer tells the players: "YOU balance it out!". It works well when advanced players are sitting down to play, but beginners will be lost completely (as if the game is not complicated enough for a first time player...).
You can give your player asymmetries or let them build it themselves throughout the game, but remember, a game where everyone stays the same from beginning to end might make players uninterested after a short play time. So the way I see it, a game should be short or asymmetrical.
Go make asymmetrical games, at least like this crab!
