The biggest problem with cooperative game design is the issue of the controlling player — or if you prefer, the alpha player. It’s such a big problem that some players won’t play co-ops because of bad past experiences with controlling players. Meeples Together, my upcoming book on cooperative game design, offers eight game-design solutions to this problem: play patterns that designers can include in games to deflate or deemphasize alphas.

However, there’s a flip side to this. Few co-op designers with perfectly resolve the controlling-player problem, and some with accept it as the price of creating the sort of game that interests them. In fact, some of my favorite co-ops like Pandemic (2008) and The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Games (2017) have styles of play where alpha players can rise to power. And I know, because I’m one of them. When I play these games I end up fighting not just against the challenges of the game system, but also about my own urges to tell everyone else what to do.

And fighting is the perfect word, because I believe that if you’re a cooperative gamer who suffers from alphaplayeritis, it’s your duty to make the game more enjoyable for everyone else by avoiding controlling the game as much as possible.

Here’s how you do so in 10 easy steps. (And if you’re not an controlling player, this really doesn’t apply to you!)

Be a Hear-O

Sometimes, the best way to avoid being that (controlling) guy is to use your supervillain powers for good: make it your priority to draw out the quiet players in the game, to help give them a chance to have some fun too.

1. Take a Breath. Whenever a decision point comes up in a co-op, you probably want to dive right in and start offering your opinions about the best strategies. Don’t. Instead, take a breath and see if someone else pipes up first. Allowing someone else to put ideas into the communal pool will help to make sure that you’re not the one calling all of the shots, because there will suddenly be other possibilities to discuss. (And if no one else offers up anything, then yeah, dive right in: you may be a super-villain, but you’re not superhuman!)

2. Shut Up. Similarly, if you’ve been happily discussing the possibilities of what everyone should do and someone steps up, then shut up for a bit. Don’t try and talk over them; there will be plenty of time to make sure your ideas are included in the discussions too (and if you’re a controlling player, you’ll probably make sure they are!).

Pandemic is one of the games where I really have to fight being a controlling player. That’s probably because there’s a lot of interconnectivity in the game, where players can use cards and research stations to quickly jet around the board. This makes it possible for anyone to do anything (at a cost), which seductively encourages a master planner to try and orchestrate everything.

Let the Wookie Win

So now that you’ve successfully gotten other ideas to the table, your group needs to decide what to do. This is where a controlling player will do his best to ensure that it’s his ideas to win out — which means that you’re also going to need to do your best to control that instinct!

3. Accept That You Might Be Wrong. Good cooperative games introduce choices that are both uncertain and difficult. In other words they ensure either that there’s no right answer or that the right answer is really hard to discern. You need to accept this as a controlling player and realize that other players’ ideas might have equal validity to your own — that the random card draws and die rolls of an uncertain challenge system can produce a variety of results, and that what one of your gaming partners is arguing for actually could be a right answer too.

4. Step Back from Disagreements. Sometimes you’ll really dig in because you’re certain you’re right, or at the least that your idea is addressing a more likely problem than those put forth by your fellows. But those fellows might be fighting like hell for those ideas. If so, you sometimes need to just step back. A controlling player often overvalues his own ideas; even if he’s not actively aware of that, he can acknowledge that it’s probably the case and give the other players some control by conceding even when he thinks he’s more right.

There’s No “I” in Cooperation

After a decision has been made, there are repercussions. The way those repercussions are handled can color how the cooperation works for the rest of the game.

5. Take the Good & Take The Bad. When someone suggested a choice that turned out to be good, make a point of complementing it. When someone suggested a choice that turned out to be bad, but it was bad just because of random bad luck that could have come out otherwise, don’t make a big deal about it, and if someone else does, point out that it was a valid option. This is all about enabling other people, so that they feel good about being part of the conversation, and so that they’re more likely to stand up to you if you try to become a controller in the future. (There’s one other possibility, which is that things went bad when the Wookie insisted on something that you knew was stupid. Here, it’s fair enough to talk about why it was a bad choice, but don’t rub it in or anything.)

6. Don’t Be Condescending. In fact, generally, you need to make a point of being really honest in all of the interactions where you’re trying to give other people more control in the game. If you come off as false, then you’ll sound condescending, and that’s as bad of a look as being an alpha player. So, try your best to see how other choices are good and how other people really contributed to the success of the group, especially when they did sp in opposition to you, and if you can’t, well … it’s better to say nothing.

Be All Individuals

A game can work against controlling players is by including strong specialization, where different players can do dramatically different things. A repentant alpha player can also take advantage of these special abilities to sow some player empowerment of his own.

7. Ask About Special Powers. One way to avoid being a controlling player is to highlight the things that you don’t know and that other players do. That notably includes special powers: those things that are unique to a specific character. (Yeah, you may actually know what every special power in the game is, but you need to presume that a player will have been thinking the most about his own power, and will thus have the best ideas for how to use it.) So, if you’re feeling that you’re controlling things too much, if you take a breath and no one jumps in, try asking a quiet player if they have any ideas about how to use their power to the group’s advantage.

8. Concentrate On Your Own Game for A While. Here’s the flipside: you can concentrate solely on your own game for a while. Concentrate on using your special power, and let the group know what you’re planning to do. You should get plenty of fulfillment out of that. But resolutely refuse to initiate conversations on the game’s wider strategy Hopefully someone else will jump in …

Pathfinder is much kinder to recovering alpha players. Players tend to head off in their own directions, draw their own cards, and have their own adventures. The need to control is lessened because there is less opportunity.

Be a Hero Too

Yes, all of this advice to date is about how you can step back and let other people have more fulfilling roles in the game … but that’s because you have a problem (you’re a controlling player). It doesn’t mean that you should never offer great ideas to the group, because that’s the whole point in co-op games. So make sure you also step up when it’s appropriate to do so.

9. Point Out Mistakes. Here’s the place where you should stand the firmest: when other players want to do something that is unquestioningly a mistake. This shouldn’t be a question of probabilities or different opinions, it should only be about actual factual mistakes, when other players don’t understand the rules or are making some mistake about the state of the game board. For example, if you know that Lagos will be in the next two cards because you’ve been counting the deck, and another player really thinks that Lagos won’t get hit by disease after his turn … you should fight against that assertion.

10. Reveal Your Revelations. Finally, you might be able to connect the dots in a way that the other players can’t: to see a pattern of cause and effect, possibly spread out over several turns that could lead to great (or terrible) results. It’s quite possible that this sort of long-term puzzling is why you became a controlling player in the first place. You should really try to point out these insights to other players … but if they’re not buying it, see above.

If you’re a controlling player, you ultimately need to take a step back and make it your personal goal to not just win the game, but to make sure that everyone else is having fun … and then still win the game if it’s possible.

Appendix: The Competitive Correlation

This article is all about a classic cooperative conundrum, but you should think about how not to be a controlling player when you’re playing competitive games too. It usually comes up when you’re introducing a newcomer to a game, or when you feel like you’re much more experienced that other players, even if they’ve played the game before. If you’re not a win-at-all-costs gamer (and that’s a whole other question of etiquette), then your temptation will be to offer advice, to suggest moves, and even to propose strategies.

Don’t do it. Or rather, do it only at a very minimal level where you might improve the other players’ experience by helping them feel more in control of the game without taking that control away from them.

It’s great to give advice before a game begins, particularly if you’re offering a few different options that the players can decide between. But then you should bite your tongue when the game actually begins, unless you’re explicitly asked. There’s one notable exception: if new players seem to be making a move that doesn’t make sense given the rules of the game, then try to figure out what they might be getting wrong, and remind them of how the game actually works. (“You do realize that ….” often results in a “NO!?”)

Beyond that, let them play their own competitive game, for better or for worse.

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