A kingmaker scenario, in a game of three or more players, is an endgame situation where a player unable to win has the capacity to determine which player among others is the winner. Said player is referred to as the kingmaker or spoiler. No longer playing for him- or herself, he or she may make game decisions to favor a player who played more favorably (to him or her) earlier in the game. Except in games where interpersonal politics, by design, play a decisive role, this is undesirable.
In the context of a democratic election, this scenario is termed the spoiler effect.
Read more about Kingmaker Scenario: Gladiator Example, Kingmaker Scenarios in Practice
Famous quotes containing the word scenario:
“This is the essential distinction—even opposition—between the painting and the film: the painting is composed subjectively, the film objectively. However highly we rate the function of the scenario writer—in actual practice it is rated very low—we must recognize that the film is not transposed directly and freely from the mind by means of a docile medium like paint, but must be cut piece-meal out of the lumbering material of the actual visible world.”
—Sir Herbert Read (1893–1968)