GAME MECHANICS HOARD

RESERVE ROSTER

A bench of units beyond the active deployment — the barracks of unfielded soldiers, boxed monsters, reserve heroes resting between dungeon runs — managed as depth against injury, fatigue, and specialization needs.

Darkest Dungeon makes the roster its central economy (stressed heroes rotate out, the stagecoach restocks, and the wise player runs a deep bench of leveled alternates), XCOM's barracks exists because wounds and death demand next-soldiers-up, Pokémon's box system is reserve management as collection infrastructure, and sports management sims are the mechanic as genre. Designers force reserve management because it insures against their own consequence systems: permadeath, injuries, fatigue, and mission-specific requirements only have teeth if losing a unit means fielding a lesser one — the bench is what makes those systems survivable without save-scumming, and building it is the strategic skill the tactical layer quietly demands. Reserves also unlock composition play (the anti-armor specialist benched until the armored mission) and pace attachment: the B-team mission where rookies prove themselves is the genre's most reliable story generator, and today's bench-warmer becoming tomorrow's veteran is a narrative arc made of pure mechanics. Key decisions: roster size caps and their economics (unlimited benches remove the cut-list anguish that makes rosters emotional), how reserves progress — the bench-rot question (no XP means falling permanently behind; shared XP means the bench is just a menu) — and upkeep costs that make hoarding forty heroes a real choice rather than a default. Pitfall: designing missions for the A-team only — if nothing (wounds, fatigue, parallel missions, specializations) ever forces rotation, the bench is a graveyard of never-used units and the entire roster layer is UI overhead; the reserve only lives if the game regularly, structurally makes the best squad unavailable.

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