Rules Discussion: Multi-use Cards

Multi-use cards in games are fascinating to me because they challenge our preconceived notions of resource and hand management. To explain, multi-use cards are cards that serve more than one purpose in a game. For example, Twilight Struggle employs cards as events that are favorable to a player, events that happen despite the active player's wishes, or for influence points; as a result, a player has to weigh the consequences of playing an opponent's event just to use the influence points, or ponder whether playing a favorable event card for the event or for points is best. Many of GMT's card-driven strategy games work on this premise of using your or your opponent's events.

Another example I've experienced recently is Oh My Goods, in which cards serve as either resources, processing buildings, or as raw materials and/or goods if played face-down on a building. This dynamic introduces many uncertainties into the game, such as which resources/buildings are face-down as goods on a building (which affects the distribution of certain resources and/or buildings in the deck), or how many resources of a certain type are left in the draw pile, or what the heck does your opponent really have, even if you can see the discard pile and there's only one or two cards left in the draw pile...

A third example is a guilty pleasure game: Monopoly Deal. In this game, almost every card can be played for its primary purpose as a property or event card, or played as money to be pooled in your personal bank. By playing properties as money, they permanently become money cards and are thus removed from circulation, which in turn affects the distribution of certain property colors in the deck.

I'm sure that there are other examples of this dynamic in gaming, but multi-use cards complicate the finite nature of in-game resources and introduces some uncomfortable uncertainty into any game. No longer are cards just played straight; you have to consider that you are, say, reducing the number of a particular resource in a game, or you have to absorb the negative effect of playing an opponent's card to take advantage of a card's other purpose. Anything that monkeys with card or resource distribution in a game appeals to me, so when I find a game that features multi-use cards, my eyes widen. Sometimes, I like a bit of the unknown in a game.