Cooperative board game

In a cooperative board game, players work together in order to achieve a goal, either winning or losing as a group. As the name suggests, cooperative games stress cooperation over competition.

Participants typically play against the game. In Pandemic, for example, players work together to stop and cure different strains of diseases. In some cooperative games, one or two players take on the role of traitor. Traitors typically win if the other players lose. In Battlestar Galactica: The Board Game, players who receive a “You Are a Cylon” card when loyalty cards are handed out work in secret to undermine humanity. Some cooperative games might have an added layer of intrigue by giving players personal win conditions. In Dead of Winter: A Cross Roads Game, a zombie apocalypse game, in order to win players must achieve the communal victory condition and a personal objective.

In many contemporary cooperative games, cards are drawn each turn from a deck of random events. These provide the conflict or challenge in the game, and make it progressively more difficult for the players.

Cooperative board games should not be confused with noncompetitive games, such as The Ungame, which simply do not have victory conditions or any way to compete. Furthermore, team or partnership games in which players compete together in two or more groups (such as Axis & Allies, and card games like Bridge and Spades) usually fall outside of this definition, even though there is cooperation between some of the players. Multiplayer conflict games like Diplomacy may also feature cooperation during the course of the game. These are not considered cooperative though, because ultimately only one individual will win. Games like Descent: Journeys in the Dark have similarities to roleplaying games and could be considered cooperative because players tend to work together.

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Wikipedia