Description
One player selects an Action. Other players may then perform that Action or a modified version of it. This is closely related to Action Drafting (ACT-02) and Role Selection (TRN-10) and is often implemented alongside those systems.
Discussion
Follow mechanisms are a form of Action Selection that has a high degree of player involvement. Puerto Rico is a good example. On their turn, a player selects one of the available roles and executes the action associated with it. Ten, in turn, each player gets to execute the role. The player who selected the role also gets a bonus for their action. For example, the player who selects Builder gets a discount on the cost of construction and performs the action first. The other players then each perform the Builder action, paying the normal cost. This mechanism forces players to consider not just what they want to do but what will be good for their opponents. Does someone really need to build? Perhaps picking Builder is not the best choice. Can someone only build if they get the discount? Ten selecting Builder, even if it helps other players too, may be the best option. Players need to look holistically at everyone’s position, not just their own.
A variation on this mechanism can be found in Glory to Rome and SPQF. In these games, Actions are taken by playing a card from the hand, which are in certain suits. Other players may echo the action if they play one or more cards matching the suit. In this way, the players that are echoing may end up performing more powerful versions of the actions by discarding several cards. It also means that if players cannot match the action card’s suit, they may not echo it. Since players’ hands are hidden in these games, this makes determining the best option somewhat of a guessing game. But careful attention will show what may be useful to other players and what cards they may have collected. Follow systems of this sort introduce a cost to the follow action. In Eminent Domain, players may Follow by discarding cards of the same suit, which further powers the action. Because the game is a deck-builder, the cards spent from hand are only an opportunity cost, as they will eventually be shuffled back into the player’s deck. In Tiny Epic Galaxies, players must spend a Culture resource to follow, which is a more concrete cost. In Mottainai, players, on their turn, may perform the actions that the other players played on their prior turn. Unlike other Follow mechanism implementations, this one calls for a batch execution of the sequence of actions, rather than an Interleaved system. Generally, Follow systems are excellent at keeping players engaged on every turn, since players act, or have the potential to act, on every turn. However, they may also slow down play, since players have to decide on every single turn whether they wish to Follow and how. Designers are encouraged to include some physical tokens to keep track of who the active player is, too, since the interleaving of player actions inside each active player’s turn can lead to turn-order confusion.
Sample Games
Ceylon (Zinsli and Zinsli, 2018) Eminent Domain (Jaffee, 2011) Glory to Rome (Chudyk, 2005) Mottainai (Chudyk, 2015) Puerto Rico (Seyfarth, 2002) SPQF (Rodiek, 2018) Tiny Epic Galaxies (Almes, 2015)
描述
一名玩家选择一个动作。然后其他玩家可以执行该动作或其修改后的版本。这与动作轮抽（ACT-02）和角色选择（TRN-10）密切相关，通常与这些系统一起实施。
讨论
跟随机制（Follow mechanisms）是玩家参与度很高的一种动作选择形式。《波多黎各》（Puerto Rico）就是一个很好的例子。在他们的回合中，玩家选择一个可用的角色并执行与之关联的动作。然后，每个玩家轮流执行该角色。选择角色的玩家还会获得该动作的奖励。例如，选择建筑师的玩家在建造费用上获得折扣并首先执行动作。其他玩家随后各自执行建筑师动作，支付正常费用。这种机制迫使玩家不仅要考虑他们想做什么，还要考虑什么会对对手有利。真的有人需要建造吗？也许选择建筑师不是最好的选择。是否只有获得折扣才能建造？那么选择建筑师，即使它也帮助了其他玩家，也可能是最好的选择。玩家需要全面地看待每个人的立场，而不仅仅是自己的立场。
这种机制的一个变体可以在《罗马荣光》（Glory to Rome）和《SPQF》中找到。在这些游戏中，动作是通过从手中打出一张特定花色的牌来采取的。如果其他玩家打出一张或多张符合该花色的牌，他们可以回应（echo）该动作。这样，回应的玩家可能最终通过丢弃几张牌来执行更强大的动作版本。这也意味着如果玩家无法匹配动作卡的花色，他们可能无法回应。由于在这些游戏中玩家的手牌是隐藏的，这使得确定最佳选择有点像猜谜游戏。但是仔细观察会显示什么可能对其他玩家有用以及他们可能收集了什么卡牌。这种跟随系统为跟随动作引入了成本。在《皇舆争霸》（Eminent Domain）中，玩家可以通过丢弃同花色的牌来跟随，这会进一步增强动作。因为这是一款牌库构筑游戏，从手中花费的牌只是机会成本，因为它们最终会被重新洗入玩家的牌库。在《小小史诗银河》（Tiny Epic Galaxies）中，玩家必须花费文化资源来跟随，这是一个更具体的成本。在《Mottainai》中，玩家在他们的回合可以执行其他玩家在前一个回合打出的动作。与其他跟随机制实现不同，这个要求批量执行动作序列，而不是交错系统。通常，跟随系统非常适合让玩家在每一回合都保持参与，因为玩家在每一回合都行动，或者有潜力行动。然而，它们也可能会减慢游戏速度，因为玩家必须在每一回合决定是否希望跟随以及如何跟随。也鼓励设计师包含一些物理标记来跟踪谁是活跃玩家，因为在每个活跃玩家的回合内交错玩家动作可能会导致回合顺序混乱。
游戏范例
Ceylon (Zinsli and Zinsli, 2018) - 《锡兰》 Eminent Domain (Jaffee, 2011) - 《皇舆争霸》 Glory to Rome (Chudyk, 2005) - 《罗马荣光》 Mottainai (Chudyk, 2015) - 《Mottainai》 Puerto Rico (Seyfarth, 2002) - 《波多黎各》 SPQF (Rodiek, 2018) - 《SPQF：森林帝国》 Tiny Epic Galaxies (Almes, 2015) - 《小小史诗银河》