I don’t play golf, but the idea of “handicap” is a part of at least pop-culture renditions of the game. In my boardgame and videogame groups, explicit in-game support for varying player skill levels is pretty well absent and not really considered. Competitive sports tend to have “divisions” rather than individual compensations.
It’s pretty obvious why it’s not common in money games like poker or betting pools.
In my experience for casual games, the expectation of equality of outcome just isn’t there, and isn’t all that important. People still have fun in the optimization and game decisions, even when some of us are really known to be more likely to win. Having a formal handicap system would BOTH be too much effort, AND make some players have less fun because it feels like they’re not “really” playing the same game. Maybe. Maybe it’s just the effort thing.
Also, for many multiplayer games, there are social dynamics that make current leaders have a bit of a disadvantage in trading or interactions.
I don’t play golf, but the idea of “handicap” is a part of at least pop-culture renditions of the game. In my boardgame and videogame groups, explicit in-game support for varying player skill levels is pretty well absent and not really considered. Competitive sports tend to have “divisions” rather than individual compensations.
It’s pretty obvious why it’s not common in money games like poker or betting pools.
In my experience for casual games, the expectation of equality of outcome just isn’t there, and isn’t all that important. People still have fun in the optimization and game decisions, even when some of us are really known to be more likely to win. Having a formal handicap system would BOTH be too much effort, AND make some players have less fun because it feels like they’re not “really” playing the same game. Maybe. Maybe it’s just the effort thing.
Also, for many multiplayer games, there are social dynamics that make current leaders have a bit of a disadvantage in trading or interactions.