Playing second place to the win.

Let's play a 5-player game - first person to 10 points wins. In the game, you add 1 point to your score every round, and you nominate one person to take a -1 to their score. The -1 only happens if two or more give the same victim a negative (which is secret). Scores are secret, except each person knows his or her own score, and after the 5th round everyone knows who is in first if they are in first by themselves. It becomes more interesting when you don't assign someone a negative, you get +1/2 point. If two or more people sacrifice a half-point from their own score to the same victim, it's a -2 instead of a -1.

There's some social discussion that takes place. In the beginning, people are tossing around who should get the negative. Over time, people start knowing who is in first - negatives start flowing more accurately to the top players. First place will get hammered the most. If it drops down to a tie with someone, people still know that first place WAS first place, and may not know who else is tied.

This represents classic game playing - gang up on the winner. Some games can abstract the winner a bit, by tucking away bonus points for the end of the game, or by adding layers of gameplay allowing multiple routes to score...it makes it more of a climb-to-the-top race, as opposed to a zero-sum game where a person loses something for another one to gain.

Ganging up on the person in first place, you can slow them down long enough, for whoever was in second to catch them - you're trading one king for another. If you want to win, you have to have some exit strategy that lets you ALSO top the players ahead of you.

Let's say that you're *sure* that you're in second place on the 4th round. You have 6 more rounds of +1 point. If you're only a point or two behind first, you'll catch them early, and people will know that your points are high....first place will take the hits for you!

This kind of thing comes up in board games like Munchkin, where you can have a more direct influence on other players. Other games are similar - Citadels, Settlers of Catan...any game that relishes the table-talk aspect of games. No one usually picks on second place, unless there is revenge or king-making going on.

So second place WANTS first place to go down the most. But only at the right time, when second can move up for the win. If you hit 3rd or 4th, it'd be nice - less competitors nearby. You want them thinking they might be soon in the running - more likely to hit 1st place, instead of revenge for an earlier strike.

Yes, this is my suggestion - 2nd place hates the last place player. You toss negatives at them, and early on you convince others to as well. 1st place starts pulling away, and you have a Public Enemy #1, and you mostly back off.

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This hypothetical game stems from an actual game of Caylus tonight - if you allow table-talk, one of the more interesting periods of the game is moving the provost. The players can pay game money move the provost to mess up the plans of other players, but it works best if you can align your interests for the turn with others. You can motivate people to contribute into hitting first place, if it's easy enough to describe.

The abstractness of the scoring benefits players with the most experience in the game, followed by strong analytics. For example, when playing Le Havre - I'd fear Guy A with 8 Steel, more than Guy B who has triple A's points in buildings. I could explain it better to new players. 60% of the Settlers of Catan development cards are Soldiers - important when you need to highlight the dangers of people trading the guy with 2 Soldiers in play some rock. As that's another topic, consider this a teaser!