Hidden victory conditions can be great at keeping players engaged until the winning player makes the reveal. Dead of Winter and Archipelago are great examples o

Hidden victory conditions can be great at keeping players engaged until the winning player makes the reveal. Dead of Winter and Archipelago are great examples of this at work. Your response reminded me of another theme common among designer boardgames: the manipulation of randomness. It's common to see non-replacement probabilities like drawing from a stack of cards or a bag of chits, and less common to see unmodifiable die rolls. Non-replacement randomness is an easy way to include a strategic component to what could otherwise be boring die rolls. If dice are used, often it's possible to manipulate the results post-roll a la The Castles of Burgundy and many other Stefan Feld games.