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Description
Players strive to rid themselves of an item that will incur a massive penalty when it is triggered but can only dispose of the item by passing it to other players.
Discussion
Most gamers are introduced to this mechanism through the namesake childhood game Hot Potato or the card game Old Maid. Hot Potato involves the players sitting in a circle with an object (the “hot potato”) being passed around as music plays. When the music stops, the player holding the object is eliminated. In Old Maid, players try to avoid being left with the Old Maid card at the end of the game. The Old Maid is the only card without a pair in the deck. These two games illustrate the two main types of implementation of the mechanism. Hot Potato is a Player Elimination game (VIC-08), where the trigger is used to eliminate players one at a time until one remains. Old Maid is a Single Loser game (STR-07), where all players except the Old Maid holder win the game. Game loss is not a required feature of this mechanism so long as the penalty is comparatively quite large. This mechanism gives a very clear focus to the players, although the means of achieving that goal may not necessarily be clear. For example, in Exploding Kittens, at the end of each turn, players must draw a card, and if they draw an
Exploding Kitten, they are eliminated unless they hold a Defuse. This gives the players a clear loss condition and basic tactics—try to avoid drawing cards if you can or get a defuse card—but it is vague enough to allow players to determine combos and timing within that framework. Traditional Hot Potato-style games like Exploding Kittens and Electronic Catch Phrase focus the action on a single player and perhaps the player after them (see Neighbor Scope, RES-26)—but usually for a brief moment. Electronic Catch Phrase (now just “Catch Phrase”) takes advantage of this feature for an easy-to-play part game. In this game, there is an electronic “puck” that passes around a circle. The player holding it must give clues to their team to guess the phrase shown on the screen. If they guess it correctly, the puck is passed to a player on the other team. The team that is holding the puck when the built-in timer goes off is penalized. Unlike Charades and similar team party games, in Catch Phrase, the teams rapidly switch turns as the puck moves around the circle and players avoid being stuck with it. Preserving this sense of momentum and looming disaster is a key feature of the “round the circle” version of this mechanism. In Old Maid-style implementations of Hot Potato, one of the players has the losing item, but nobody except that player knows who has it. This allows the game to incorporate bluffing and feelings of paranoia as players know when the card moves to other players. Dread Curse is a modern game that incorporates this idea, as a player that ends the game with the “black spot” coin cannot win, but stealing from and trading with other players is a key mechanism, which makes stealing have a Push-Your-Luck edge (UNC-02). This highlights a potential weakness of the Old Maid style, since if the Old Maid is drawn from you, you are traditionally not supposed to show emotion or gloat, as the other players will not draw from that player for fear of gaining that card. This makes it more challenging for children to play but also opens the door for bluffing as players may pretend that the Old Maid was drawn from them when it has not. Hot Potato can be used as a submechanism. In Civilization, there are disaster cards mixed in with trade goods. Players may trade these to other players during the trade phase, who may then trade them on. Whoever is left with the disasters at the end of the trade phase suffers their effect. As in Old Maid, most groups adopt an unwritten rule that you keep it secret when you trade a disaster away to another player, so they have the opportunity to pass it on.
A more subtle implementation of Hot Potato is an End Game Elimination condition, where a player is eliminated from contention not because of a specific element they have (like the Black Spot Coin in Dread Curse) but due to some characteristic of their position. For example, in High Society, players spend money to earn prizes that ultimately determine victory. However, the player with the least money cannot win the game, regardless of the value of their prizes. Cleopatra and the Society of Architects does a similar thing with corruption, which players may earn by doing more powerful actions. The state of having the least money or most corruption in these games is a form of Hot Potato in that it is something that may change players and causes the loss of the game.
Sample Games
Catch Phrase! (Williamson, 1994) Civilization (Tresham, 1980) Cleopatra and the Society of Architects (Cathala and Maublanc, 2006) Exploding Kittens (Inman, Lee, Small, 2015) Falling (Ernest, 1998) High Society (Knizia, 1995) Hot Potato (public domain) Old Maid (unknown, 1874)
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描述
玩家努力摆脱一件物品，如果触发该物品将招致巨额惩罚，但只能通过将其传递给其他玩家来处置该物品（Hot Potato）。
讨论
大多数游戏玩家通过同名的童年游戏《烫手山芋》（Hot Potato）或卡牌游戏《抽鬼牌》（Old Maid）接触到这种机制。《烫手山芋》涉及玩家坐成一圈，随着音乐播放传递一个物体（“热土豆”）。当音乐停止时，持有该物体的玩家被淘汰。在《抽鬼牌》中，玩家试图避免在游戏结束时持有鬼牌（Old Maid）。鬼牌是牌组中唯一没有配对的牌。这两个游戏说明了该机制实施的两种主要类型。《烫手山芋》是一种玩家淘汰游戏（VIC-08），触发器用于一次淘汰一名玩家，直到剩下一名。而《抽鬼牌》是一种单一输家游戏（STR-07），除鬼牌持有者外的所有玩家都赢得游戏。只要惩罚相对较大，游戏失败并不是该机制的必要特征。这种机制给玩家一个非常明确的焦点，尽管实现该目标的手段并不一定明确。例如，在《爆炸猫》（Exploding Kittens）中，每回合结束时，玩家必须抽一张牌，如果他们抽到
爆炸猫，除非他们持有拆除卡，否则将被淘汰。这给了玩家一个明确的失败条件和基本战术——如果可以的话尽量避免抽牌或获得拆除卡——但这足够模糊，允许玩家在该框架内确定组合和时机。传统的烫手山芋式游戏，如《爆炸猫》和《电子词汇接龙》（Electronic Catch Phrase），将行动集中在一个玩家身上，或许还有他们之后的玩家（见邻居范围，RES-26）——但通常时间很短。《电子词汇接龙》（现在简称“词汇接龙”）利用这一特征制作了一款易于上手的派对游戏。在这个游戏中，有一个在圆圈中传递的电子“圆盘”。持有它的玩家必须给他们的团队提供线索，让他们猜屏幕上显示的短语。如果他们猜对了，圆盘就会传递给另一队的玩家。当内置计时器响起时持有圆盘的队伍将受到惩罚。与《猜谜游戏》（Charades）和类似的团队派对游戏不同，在《词汇接龙》中，随着圆盘在圆圈中移动并且玩家避免被困住，队伍迅速切换回合。保留这种势头和迫在眉睫的灾难感是该机制“绕圈”版本的关键特征。在《抽鬼牌》式的烫手山芋实现中，其中一名玩家拥有失败物品，但除了该玩家外，没人知道谁有它。这允许游戏融入虚张声势和偏执感，因为玩家知道卡牌何时移动到其他玩家手中。《Dread Curse》是一款包含这一理念的现代游戏，因为以“黑斑”硬币结束游戏的玩家无法获胜，但从其他玩家那里偷窃和交易是关键机制，这使得偷窃具有运气推送的优势（UNC-02）。这突显了《抽鬼牌》风格的潜在弱点，因为如果从你那里抽走了鬼牌，传统上你不应该表现出情绪或幸灾乐祸，因为其他玩家会因为害怕获得那张牌而不会从那个玩家那里抽牌。这对孩子来说更具挑战性，但也为虚张声势打开了大门，因为玩家可能会假装鬼牌被从他们那里抽走，而实际上并没有。烫手山芋可以用作子机制。在《文明》中，灾难卡混合在贸易商品中。玩家可以在贸易阶段将这些交易给其他玩家，其他玩家然后再将其交易出去。在贸易阶段结束时留下灾难的人将遭受其影响。就像在《抽鬼牌》中一样，大多数群体都采用不成文的规定，当你把灾难交易给另一个玩家时，你会保守秘密，这样他们就有机会将其传递下去。
烫手山芋的一个更微妙的实现是游戏结束淘汰条件，即玩家被淘汰出局不是因为他们拥有的特定元素（如《Dread Curse》中的黑斑硬币），而是因为他们位置的某些特征。例如，在《上流社会》（High Society）中，玩家花钱赚取最终决定胜利的奖品。然而，钱最少的玩家不能赢得游戏，无论其奖品的价值如何。《埃及艳后与建筑师协会》（Cleopatra and the Society of Architects）在腐败方面做了类似的事情，玩家可以通过做更强大的行动来赚取腐败。在这些游戏中拥有最少金钱或最多腐败的状态是一种烫手山芋形式，因为它是可能改变玩家并导致游戏失败的东西。
游戏范例
Catch Phrase! (Williamson, 1994) - 《词汇接龙》 Civilization (Tresham, 1980) - 《文明》 Cleopatra and the Society of Architects (Cathala and Maublanc, 2006) - 《埃及艳后与建筑师协会》 Exploding Kittens (Inman, Lee, Small, 2015) - 《爆炸猫》 Falling (Ernest, 1998) - 《Falling》 High Society (Knizia, 1995) - 《上流社会》 Hot Potato (public domain) Old Maid (unknown, 1874) - 《烫手山芋》/《抽鬼牌》