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<LI><em>To</em>: <A HREF="mailto:mud-dev#null,net">mud-dev#null,net</A></LI>
<LI><em>Subject</em>: Re: [MUD-Dev] I have no words and I must design</LI>
<LI><em>From</em>: Adam Wiggins <<A HREF="mailto:nightfall#user1,inficad.com">nightfall#user1,inficad.com</A>></LI>
<LI><em>Date</em>: Wed, 11 Jun 1997 07:55:58 -0700 (MST)</LI>
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<PRE>
>
> <A HREF="http://www.crossover.com/~costik/nowords.html">http://www.crossover.com/~costik/nowords.html</A>
>
> Some of you may already know this document. Its well worth reading,
> both from the viewpoint of game design and the recept RP vs GOP
> discussions. Enjoy and discuss:
>
> --<cut>--
>
> I Have No Words & I Must Design
>
> This article was published in 1994 in Interactive Fantasy #2, a
> British roleplaying journal. Page down to read, or click on the links
> below to jump to a particular section.
>
> What Is a Game, Anyhow?
> It's Not a Puzzle
> It's Not a Toy
> It's Not a Story
> It Demands Participation
> So What Is a Game?
> Decision Making
> Goals
> Opposition
> Managing Resources
> Game Tokens
> Information
> Other Things That Strengthen Games
> Diplomacy
> Color
> Simulation
> Variety of Encounter
> Position Identification
> Roleplaying
> Socializing
> Narrative Tension
> They're All Alike Under the Dice.
>
> There's a lotta different kinds of games out there. A helluva lot.
> Cart-based, computer, CD-ROM, network, arcade, PBM, PBEM, mass-market
> adult, wargames, card games, tabletop RPGs, LARPs, freeforms. And,
> hell, don't forget paintball, virtual reality, sports, and the
> horses. It's all gaming.
>
> But do these things have anything at all in common? What is a game?
> And how can you tell a good one from a bad one?
>
> Well, we can all do the latter: "Good game, Joe," you say, as you
> leap the net. Or put away the counters. Or reluctantly hand over your
> Earth Elemental card. Or divvy up the treasure. But that's no better
> than saying, "Good book," as you turn the last page. It may be true,
> but it doesn't help you write a better one.
>
> As game designers, we need a way to analyze games, to try to
> understand them, and to understand what works and what makes them
> interesting.
>
> We need a critical language. And since this is basically a new form,
> despite its tremendous growth and staggering diversity, we need to
> invent one.
>
> What Is a Game, Anyhow?
>
> It's Not a Puzzle.
>
> In The Art of Computer Game Design, Chris Crawford contrasts what he
> call "games" with "puzzles." Puzzles are static; they present the
> "player" with a logic structure to be solved with the assistance of
> clues. "Games," by contrast, are not static, but change with the
> player's actions.
>
> Some puzzles are obviously so; no one would call a crossword a
> "game." But, according to Crawford, some "games" a really just
> puzzles -- Lebling & Blank's Zork, for instance. The game's sole
> objective is the solution of puzzles: finding objects and using them
> in particular ways to cause desired changes in the game-state. There
> is no opposition, there is no roleplaying, and there are no resources
> to manage; victory is solely a
> consequence of puzzle solving.
>
> To be sure, Zork is not entirely static; the character moves from
> setting to setting, allowable actions vary by setting, and inventory
> changes with action. We must think of a continuum, rather than a
> dichotomy; if a crossword is 100% puzzle, Zork is 90% puzzle and 10%
> game.
>
> Almost every game has some degree of puzzle-solving; even a pure
> military strategy game requires players to, e.g., solve the puzzle of
> making an optimum attack at this point with these units. To eliminate
> puzzle-solving entirely, you need a game that's almost entirely
> exploration: Just Grandma and Me, a CD-ROM interactive storybook with
> game-like elements of
> decision-making and exploration, is a good example. Clicking on
> screen objects causes entertaining sounds and animations, but there's
> nothing to 'solve,' in fact, no strategy whatsoever.
>
> A puzzle is static. A game is interactive.
>
> It's Not a Toy.
>
> According to Will Wright, his Sim City is not a game at all, but a
> toy. Wright offers a ball as an illuminating comparison: It offers
> many interesting behaviors, which you may explore. You can bounce it,
> twirl it, throw it, dribble it. And, if you wish, you may use it in a
> game: soccer, or basketball, or whatever. But the game is not
> intrinsic in the toy; it is a set of player-defined objectives
> overlaid on the toy.
>
> Just so Sim City. Like many computer games, it creates a world which
> the player may manipulate, but unlike a real game, it provides no
> objective. Oh, you may choose one: to see if you can build a city
> without slums, perhaps. But Sim City itself has no victory
> conditions, no goals; it is a software toy.
>
> A toy is interactive. But a game has goals.
>
> It's Not a Story.
>
> Again and again, we hear about story. Interactive literature.
> Creating a story through roleplay. The idea that games have something
> to do with stories has such a hold on designers' imagination that it
> probably can't be expunged. It deserves at least to be challenged.
>
> Stories are inherently linear. However much characters may agonize
> over the decisions they make, they make them the same way every time
> we reread the story, and the outcome is always the same. Indeed, this
> is a strength; the author chose precisely those characters, those
> events, those decisions, and that outcome, because it made for the
> strongest story. If the characters did something else, the story
> wouldn't be as interesting.
>
> Games are inherently non-linear. They depend on decision making.
> Decisions have to pose real, plausible alternatives, or they aren't
> real decisions. It must be entirely reasonable for a player to make a
> decision one way in one game, and a different way in the next. To the
> degree that you make a game more like a story -- more linear, fewer
> real options -- you make it less like a game.
>
> Consider: you buy a book, or see a movie, because it has a great
> story. But how would you react if your gamemaster were to tell you,
> "I don't want you players to do that, because it will ruin the
> story"? He may well be right, but that's beside the point. Gaming is
> NOT about telling stories.
>
> That said, games often, and fruitfully, borrow elements of fiction.
> Roleplaying games depend on characters; computer adventures and LARPs
> are often drive by plots. The notion of increasing narrative tension
> is a useful one for any game that comes to a definite conclusion. But
> to try to hew too closely to a storyline is to limit players' freedom
> of action and their ability to make meaningful decisions.
>
> The hypertext fiction movement is interesting, here. Hypertext is
> inherently non-linear, so that the traditional narrative is wholly
> inappropriate to hypertext work. Writers of hypertext fiction are
> trying to explore the nature of human existence, as does the
> traditional story, but in a way that permits multiple viewpoints,
> temporal leaps, and reader construction of the experience. Something
> -- more than hypertext writers know -- is shared with game design
> here, and something with traditional narrative; but if hypertext
> fiction ever becomes artistically successful (nothing I've read is),
> it will be through the creation of a new narrative form, something
> that we will be hard-pressed to call "story."
>
> Stories are linear. Games are not.
>
> It Demands Participation.
>
> In a traditional artform, the audience is passive. When you look at a
> painting, you may imagine things in it, you may see something other
> than what the artist intended, but your role in constructing the
> experience is slight: The artist painted. You see. You are passive.
>
> When you go to the movies, or watch TV, or visit the theater, you sit
> and watch and listen. Again, you do interpret, to a degree; but you
> are the audience. You are passive. The art is created by others.
>
> When you read a book, most of it goes on in your head, and not on the
> page; but still. You're receiving the author's words. You're passive.
>
>
> It's all too, too autocratic: the mighty artist condescends to share
> his genius with lesser mortals. How can it be that, two hundred years
> after the Revolution, we still have such
> aristocratic forms? Surely we need forms in spirit with the times;
> forms which permit the common man to create his own artistic
> experience.
>
> Enter the game. Games provide a set of rules; but the players use
> them to create their own consequences. It's something like the music
> of John Cage: he wrote themes about which the musicians were expected
> to improvise. Games are like that; the designer provides the theme,
> the players the music.
>
> A democratic artform for a democratic age.
>
> Traditional artforms play to a passive audience. Games require active
> participation.
>
> So What Is a Game?
>
> A game is a form of art in which participants, termed players, make
> decisions in order to manage resources through game tokens in the
> pursuit of a goal.
>
> Decision Making
>
> I offer this term in an effort to destroy the inane, and overhyped,
> word "interactive." The future, we are told, will be interactive. You
> might as well say, "The future will be
> fnurglewitz." It would be about as enlightening.
>
> A light switch is interactive. You flick it up, the light turns on.
> You flick it down, the light turns off. That's interaction. But it's
> not a lot of fun.
>
> All games are interactive: The game state changes with the players'
> actions. If it didn't, it wouldn't be a game: It would be a puzzle.
>
> But interaction has no value in itself. Interaction must have
> purpose.
>
> Suppose we have a product that's interactive. At some point, you are
> faced with a choice: You may choose to do A, or to do B.
>
> But what makes A better than B? Or is B better than A at some times
> but not at others? What factors go into the decision? What resources
> are to be managed? What's the eventual goal?
>
> Aha! Now we're not talking about "interaction." Now we're talking
> about decision making.
>
> The thing that makes a game a game is the need to make decisions.
> Consider Chess: it has few of the aspects that make games appealing
> -- no simulation elements, no roleplaying, and damn little color.
> What it's got is the need to make decisions. The rules are tightly
> constrained, the objectives clear, and victory requires you to think
> several moves ahead. Excellence in decision making is what brings
> success.
>
> What does a player do in any game? Some things depend on the medium.
> In some games, he rolls dice. In some games, he chats with his
> friends. In some games, he whacks at a keyboard. But in every game,
> he makes decisions.
>
> At every point, he considers the game state. That might be what he
> sees on the screen. Or it might be what the gamemaster has just told
> him. Or it might be the arrangement on the pieces on the board. Then,
> he considers his objectives, and the game tokens and resources
> available to him. And he considers his opposition, the forces he must
> struggle against. He tries to decide on the best course of action.
>
> And he makes a decision.
>
> What's key here? Goals. Opposition. Resource management. Information.
> Well talk about them in half a mo.
>
> What decisions do players make in this game?
>
> Goals
>
> Sim City has no goals. Is it not a game?
>
> No, as it's own designer willingly maintains. It is a toy.
>
> And the only way to stay interested in it for very long is to turn it
> into a game -- by setting goals, by defining objectives for yourself.
> Build the grandest possible megalopolis; maximize how much your
> people love you; build a city that relies solely on mass transit.
> Whatever goal you've chosen, you've turned it into a game.
>
> Even so, the software doesn't support your goal. It wasn't designed
> with your goal in mind. And trying to do something with a piece of
> software that it wasn't intended to do can be awfully frustrating.
>
> Since there's no goal, Sim City soon palls. By contrast, Sid Meier
> and Bruce Shelley's Civilization, an obviously derivative product,
> has explicit goals -- and is far more involving and addictive.
>
> "But what about roleplaying games?" you may say. "They have no
> victory conditions."
>
> No victory conditions, true. But certainly they have goals; lots of
> them, you get to pick. Rack up the old experience points. Or fulfill
> the quest your friendly GM has just inflicted on you. Or rebuild the
> Imperium and stave off civilization's final collapse. Or strive
> toward spiritual perfection. Whatever.
>
> If, for some reason, your player characters don't have a goal,
> they'll find one right quick. Otherwise, they'll have nothing better
> to do but sit around the tavern and grouse about how boring the game
> is. Until you get pissed off and have a bunch of orcs show up and try
> to beat their heads in.
>
> Hey, now they've got a goal. Personal survival is a good goal. One of
> the best.
>
> If you have no goal, your decisions are meaningless. Choice A is as
> good as Choice B; pick a card, any card. Who cares? What does it
> matter?
>
> For it to matter, for the game to be meaningful, you need something
> to strive toward. You need goals.
>
> What are the players' goals? Can the game support a variety of
> different goals? What facilities exist to allow players to strive
> toward their various goals?
>
> Opposition
>
> Oh, say the politically correct. Those bad, icky games. They're so
> competitive. Why can't we have cooperative games?
>
> "Cooperative games" generally seem to be variants of "let's all throw
> a ball around." Oh golly, how fascinating, I'll stop playing Mortal
> Kombat for that, you betcha.
>
> But are we really talking about competition?
>
> Yes and no; many players do get a kick out of beating others with
> their naked minds alone, which is at least better than naked fists.
> Chess players are particularly obnoxious in this regard. But the real
> interest is in struggling toward a goal.
>
> The most important word in that sentence is: struggling.
>
> Here's a game. It's called Plucky Little England, and it simulates
> the situation faced by the United Kingdom after the fall of France in
> World War II. Your goal: preserve liberty and democracy and defeat
> the forces of darkness and oppression. You have a choice: A.
> Surrender. B. Spit in Hitler's eye! Rule Britannia! England never
> never never shall be slaves!
>
> You chose B? Congratulations! You won!
>
> Now, wasn't that satisfying? Ah, the thrill of victory.
>
> There is no thrill of victory, of course; it was all too easy, wasn't
> it? There wasn't any struggle.
>
> In a two-player, head-to-head game, your opponent is the opposition,
> your struggle against him; the game is direct competition. And this
> is a first-rate way of providing opposition. Nothing is as sneaky and
> as hard to overcome as a determined human opponent. But direct
> competition isn't the only way to do it.
>
> Think of fiction. The ur-story, the Standard Model Narrative, works
> like this: character A has a goal. He faces obstacles B, C, D, and E.
> He struggles with each, in turn, growing as a person as he does.
> Ultimately, he overcomes the last and greatest obstacle.
>
> Do these obstacles all need to be The Villain, The Bad Guy, The
> Opponent, The Foe? No, though a good villain makes for a first rate
> obstacle. The forces of nature, cantankerous
> mothers-in-law, crashing hard-drives, and the hero's own feelings of
> inadequacy can make for good obstacles, too.
>
> Just so in games.
>
> In most RPGs, the "opposition" consists of non-player characters, and
> you are expected to cooperate with your fellow players. In many
> computer games, the "opposition" consists of puzzles you must solve.
> In LARPs, the "opposition" is often the sheer difficulty of finding
> the player who has the clue or the widget or the special power you
> need. In most solitaire games, your "opposition" is really a random
> element, or a set of semi-random algorithms you are pitted against.
>
> Whatever goals you set your players, you must make the players work
> to achieve their goals. Setting them against each other is one way to
> do that, but not the only one. And even when a player has an
> opponent, putting other obstacles in the game can increase its
> richness and emotional appeal.
>
> The desire for "cooperative games" is the desire for an end to
> strife. But there can be none. Life is the struggle for survival and
> growth. There is no end to strife, not this side of the grave. A game
> without struggle is a game that's dead.
>
> What provides opposition? What makes the game a struggle?
>
> Managing Resources
>
> Trivial decisions aren't any fun. Remember Plucky Little England?
>
> There wasn't any real decision, was there?
>
> Or consider Robert Harris's Talisman. Each turn, you roll the die.
> The result is the number of spaces you can move. You may move to the
> left, or to the right, around the track.
>
> Well, this is a little better than a traditional track game; I've got
> a choice. But 99 times out of a 100, either there's no difference
> between the two spaces, or one is obviously better than the other.
> The choice is bogus.
>
> The way to make choices meaningful is to give players resources to
> manage. "Resources" can be anything: Panzer divisions. Supply points.
> Cards. Experience points. Knowledge of spells. Ownership of fiefs.
> The love of a good woman. Favors from the boss. The good will of an
> NPC. Money. Food. Sex. Fame. Information.
>
> If the game has more than one 'resource,' decisions suddenly become
> more complex. If I do this, I get money and experience, but will Lisa
> still love me? If I steal the food, I get to eat, but I might get
> caught and have my hand cut off. If I declare against the Valois,
> Edward Plantagenet will grant me the Duchy of Gascony, but the Pope
> may excommunicate me, imperilling my immortal soul.
>
> These are not just complex decisions; these are interesting ones.
> Interesting decisions make for interesting games.
>
> The resources in question have to have a game role; if 'your immortal
> soul' has no meaning, neither does excommunication. (Unless it
> reduces the loyalty of your peasants, or makes it difficult to
> recruit armies, or... but these are game roles, n'est-ce pas?)
> Ultimately, 'managing resources' means managing game elements in
> pursuit of your goal. A 'resource' that has no game role has nothing
> to contribute to success or failure, and is ultimately void.
>
> What resources does the player manage? Is there enough diversity in
> them to require tradeoffs in making decisions? Do they make those
> decisions interesting?
>
> Game Tokens
>
> You effect actions in the game through your game tokens. A game token
> is any entity you may manipulate directly.
>
> In a boardgame, it is your pieces. In a cardgame, it is your cards.
> In a roleplaying game, it is your character. In a sports game, it is
> you yourself.
>
> What is the difference between "resources" and "tokens?" Resources
> are things you must manage efficiently to achieve your goals; tokens
> are your means of managing them. In a board wargame, combat strength
> is a resource; your counters are tokens. In a roleplaying game, money
> is a resource; you use it through your character.
>
> Why is this important? Because if you don't have game tokens, you
> wind up with a system that operates without much player input. Will
> Wright and Fred Haslam's Sim Earth is a good example. In Sim Earth,
> you set some parameters, and sit back to watch the game play out
> itself. You've got very little to do, no tokens to manipulate, no
> resources to manage. Just a few parameters to twiddle with. This is
> mildly interesting, but not very.
>
> To give a player a sense that he controls his destiny, that he is
> playing a game, you need game tokens. The fewer the tokens, the more
> detailed they must be; it is no cooincidence that
> roleplaying games, which give the player a single token, also have
> exceptionally detailed rules for what that token can do.
>
> What are the players' tokens? What are these tokens' abilities? What
> resources do they use? What makes them interesting?
>
> Information
>
> I've had more than one conversation with a computer game designer in
> which he tells me about all the fascinating things his game simulates
> -- while I sit there saying, "Really? What do you know. I didn't
> realize that."
>
> Say you've got a computer wargame in which weather affects movement
> and defense. If you don't tell the player that weather has an effect,
> what good is it? It won't affect the player's behavior; it won't
> affect his decisions.
>
> Or maybe you tell him weather has an effect, but the player has no
> way of telling whether it's raining or snowing or what at any given
> time. Again, what good is that?
>
> Or maybe he can tell, and he does know, but he has no idea what
> effect weather has -- maybe it cuts everyone's movement in half, or
> maybe it slows movement across fields to a crawl but does nothing to
> units moving along roads. This is better, but not a whole lot.
>
> The interface must provide the player with relevant information. And
> he must have enough information to be able to make a sensible
> decision.
>
> That isn't to say a player must know everything; hiding
> information can be very useful. It's quite reasonable to say, "you
> don't know just how strong your units are until they enter combat,"
> but in this case, the player must have some idea of the range of
> possibilities. It's reasonable to say, "you don't know what card
> you'll get if you draw to an inside straight," but only if the player
> has some idea what the odds are. If I might draw the Queen of Hearts
> and might draw Death and might draw the Battleship Potemkin, I have
> absoutely no basis on which to make a decision.
>
> More than that, the interface must not provide too much
> information, especially in a time-dependent game. If weather, supply
> state, the mood of my commanders, the fatigue of the troops, and what
> Tokyo Rose said on the radio last night can all affect the outcome of
> my next decision, and I have to decide some time in the next five
> seconds, and it would take me five minutes to find all the relevant
> information by pulling down menus and looking at screens, the
> information is still irrelevant. I may have access to it, but I can't
> reasonably act on it.
>
> Or let's talk about computer adventures; they often display
> information failure. "Oh, to get through the Gate of Thanatos, you
> need a hatpin to pick the lock. You can find the hatpin on the floor
> of the Library. It's about three pixels by two pixels, and you can
> see it, if your vision is good, between the twelfth and thirteenth
> floorboards, about three inches from the top of the screen. What, you
> missed it?"
>
> Yeah, I missed it. In an adventure, it shouldn't be ridiculously
> difficult to find what you need, nor should victory be impossible
> just because you made a wrong decision three hours and thirty-eight
> decision points ago. Nor should the solutions to puzzles be arbitrary
> or absurd.
>
> Or consider freeforms. In a freeform, a player is often given a goal,
> and achieving it requires him to find out several things -- call them
> Facts A, B, and C. The freeform's designer had better make damn sure
> that A, B, and C are out there somewhere -- known to other
> characters, or on a card that's circulating in the game -- whatever,
> they have to be there. Otherwise, the player has no chance of
> achieving his goal, and that's no fun.
>
> Given the decisions players are required to make, what
> information do they need? Does the game provide the information as
> and when needed? Will reasonable players be able to figure out what
> information they need, and how to find it?
>
> Other Things That Strengthen Games
>
> Diplomacy
>
> Achieving a goal is meaningless if it comes without work, if there is
> no opposition; but that doesn't mean all decisions must be zero-sum.
> Whenever multiple players are involved, games are strengthened if
> they permit, and encourage, diplomacy.
>
> Games permit diplomacy if players can assist each other --
> perhaps directly, perhaps by combining against a mutual foe. Not
> all multiplayer games do this; in Charles B. Darrow sMonopoly,
> for instance, there's no effective way either to help or hinder
> anyone else. There's no point in saying, "Let's all get Joe," or
> "Here, you're a novice, I'll help you out, you can scratch my
> back later," because there's no way to do it.
>
> Some games permit diplomacy, but not much. In Lawrence Harris's
> Axis & Allies, players can help each other to a limited degree,
> but everyone is permanently Axis or permanently Allied, so
> diplomacy is never a key element to the game.
>
> One way to encourage diplomacy is by providing non-exclusive
> goals. If you're looking for the Ark of the Covenant, and I want
> to kill Nazis, and the Nazis have got the Ark, we can work
> something out. Maybe our alliance will end when the French
> Resistance gets the Ark, and we wind up on opposite sides, but
> actually, such twists are what make games fun.
>
> But games can encourage diplomacy even when players are directly
> opposed. The diplomatic game par excellence is, of course,
> Calhammer's Diplomacy, in which victory more often goes to the
> best diplomat than to the best strategist. The key to the game is
> the Support order, which allows one player's armies to assist
> another in an attack, encouraging alliance.
>
> Alliances never last, to be sure; Russia and Austria may ally to
> wipe out Turkey, but only one of them can win. Eventually, one
> will stab the other in the back.
>
> Fine. It's the need to find allies, retain them, and persuade
> your enemies to change their stripes that makes sure you'll keep
> on talking. If alliances get set in stone, diplomacy comes to an
> end.
>
> Computer games are almost inherently solitaire, and to the degree
> they permit diplomacy with NPC computer opponents, they
> generally don't make it interesting. Network games are, or ought
> to be, inherently diplomatic; and as network games become more
> prevalent, we can expect most developers from the computer
> design community to miss this point entirely. As an example,
> when the planners of interactive TV networks talk about games,
> they almost exclusively talk about the possibility of
> downloading cart-based (Nintendo, Sega) games over cable. They're
> doing so for a business reason: billions are spent annually on
> cart-based games, and they'd like a piece of the action. They
> don't seem to realize that networks permit a wholly different
> kind of gaming, which has the potential to make billions in its
> own right -- and that this is the real business opportunity.
>
> How can players help or hinder each other? What incentives do
> they have to do so? What resources can they trade?
>
> Color
>
> Monopoly is a game about real estate development. Right?
>
> Well, no, obviously not. A real estate developer would laugh at
> the notion. A game about real estate development needs rules for
> construction loans and real estate syndication and union work
> rules and the bribery of municipal inspectors. Monopoly has
> nothing to do with real estate development. You could take the
> same rules and change the board and pieces and cards and make it
> into a game about space exploration, say. Except that your game
> would have as much to do with space exploration as Monopoly has
> to do with real estate development.
>
> Monopoly isn't really about anything. But it has the color of a
> real estate game: named properties, little plastic houses and
> hotels, play money. And that's a big part of its appeal.
>
> Color counts for a lot: as a simulation of World War II, Lawrence
> Harris's Axis & Allies is a pathetic effort. Ah, but the color!
> Millions of little plastic airplanes and battleships and tanks!
> Thundering dice! The world at war! The game works almost solely
> because of its color.
>
> Or consider Chadwick's Space 1899. The rules do nothing to evoke
> the Burroughsian wonders, the pulp action thrills, the
> Kiplingesque Victorian charms to be gained from the game's
> setting. Despite a clean system and a detailed world, it is
> curiously colorless, and suffers for it.
>
> Pageantry and detail and sense of place can greatly add to a
> game's emotional appeal.
>
> This has almost nothing to do with the game qua game; the
> original Nova edition of Axis & Allies was virtually identical
> to the Milton Bradley edition. Except that it had a godawful
> garish paper map, some of the ugliest counters I've ever seen,
> and a truly amateurish box. I looked at it once, put it away,
> and never looked at it again.
>
> Yet the Milton Bradley edition, with all the little plastic
> pieces, still gets pulled out now and again... Same game. Far
> better color.
>
> How does the game evoke the ethos and atmosphere and pageantry of
> its setting? What can you do to make it more colorful?
>
> Simulation
>
> Many games simulate nothing. The oriental folk-game Go, say;
> little stones on a grid. It's abstract to perfection. Or John
> Horton Conway's Life; despite the evocative name, it's merely an
> exploration of a mathematical space.
>
> Nothing wrong with that. But.
>
> But color adds to a game's appeal. And simulation is a way of
> providing color.
>
> Suppose I think, for some reason, that a game on Waterloo would
> have great commercial appeal. I could, if I wanted, take
> Monopoly, change "Park Place" to "Quatre Bras" and the hotels to
> plastic soldiers, and call it Waterloo. It would work.
>
> But wouldn't it be better to simulate the battle? To have little
> battalions maneuvering over the field? To hear the thunder of
> guns?
>
> Or take Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, which I designed. I
> could have taken Gygax & Arneson's Dungeons & Dragons and changed
> it around, calling swords blasters and the like. But instead, I
> set out to simulate the movies, to encourage the players to
> attempt far-fetched cinematic stunts, to use the system itself
> to reflect something about the atmosphere and ethos of the
> films.
>
> Simulation has other value, too. For one, it improves character
> identification. A Waterloo based on Monopoly would do nothing to
> make players think like Wellington and Napoleon; Kevin Zucker's
> Napoleon's Last Battles does much better, forcing players to
> think about the strategic problems those men faced.
>
> And it can allow insight into a situation that mere narrative
> cannot. It allows players to explore different outcomes -- in
> the fashion of a software toy -- and thereby come to a gut
> understanding of the simulation's subject. Having played at
> least a dozen different games on Waterloo, I understand the
> battle, and why things happened the way they did, and the nature
> of Napoleonic warfare, far better than if I had merely read a
> dozen books on the subject.
>
> Simulating something almost always is more complicated that
> simply exploiting a theme for color. And it is not, therefore,
> for every game. But when the technique is used, it can be quite
> powerful.
>
> How can elements of simulation strengthen the game?
>
> Variety of Encounter
>
> "You just got lucky."
>
> Words of contempt; you won through the vagaries of chance. A game
> that permits this is obviously inferior to ones where victory
> goes to the skilled and smart and strong. Right?
>
> Not necessarily.
>
> "Random elements" in a game are never wholly random. They are
> random within a range of possibilities. When, in a board
> wargame, I make an attack, I can look at the Combat Results
> Table. I know what outcomes are possible, and my chances of
> achieving what I want to achieve. I take a calculated risk. And
> over the whole game, I make dozens or hundreds of die-rolls;
> given so much reliance on randomness, the "random element"
> regresses to a mean. Except in rare cases, my victory or defeat
> will be based on my excellence as a strategist, not on my luck
> with the dice.
>
> Randomness can be useful. It's one way of providing variety of
> encounter.
>
> And what does that mean?
>
> It means that the same old thing all over again is fucking
> boring. It means that players like to encounter the unexpected.
> It means that the game has to allow lots of different things to
> happen, so there's always something a little different for the
> players to encounter.
>
> In a game like Chess, that "something different" is the
> ever-changing implications of the positions of the pieces. In a
> game like Richard Garfield's Magic: The Gathering, it's the
> sheer variety of cards, and the random order in which they
> appear, and the interesting ways in which they can be combined.
> In Arneson & Gygax's Dungeons & Dragons, it's the staggering
> variety of monsters, spells, etc., etc., coupled with the
> gamemaster's ingenuity in throwing new situations at his
> players.
>
> If a game has inadequate variety, it rapidly palls. That's why no
> one plays graphic adventures more than once; there's enough
> variety for a single game, but it's the same thing all over
> again the next time you play. That's why Patience, the solitaire
> cardgame, becomes dull pretty fast; you're doing the same things
> over and over, and reshuffling the cards isn't enough to
> rekindle your interest, after a time.
>
> What things do the players encounter in this game? Are there
> enough things for them to explore and discover? What provides
> variety? How can we increase the variety of encounter?
>
> Position Identification
>
> "Character identification" is a common theme of fiction. Writers
> want readers to like their protagonists, to identify with them,
> to care what happens to them. Character identification lends
> emotional power to a story.
>
> The same is true in games. To the degree you encourage playes to
> care about "the side," to identify with their position in the
> game, you increase the game's emotional impact.
>
> The extreme case is sports; in sports, your "position" is you.
> You're out there on the baseball diamond, and winning or losing
> matters, and you feel it deeply when you strike out, or smash
> the ball out of the park. It's important to you.
>
> So important that fistfights and bitter words are not uncommon,
> in every sport. So important that we've invented a whole cultural
> tradition of "sportsmanship" to try to prevent these unpleasant
> feelings from coming to the fore.
>
> Roleplaying games are one step abstracted; your character isn't
> you, but you invest a lot of time and energy in it. It's your
> sole token and the sum total of your position in the game.
> Bitter words, and even fistfights, are not unknown among
> roleplayers, though rather rarer than in sports.
>
> Getting players to identify with their game position is
> straightforward when a player has a single token; it's harder
> when he controls many. Few people feel much sadness at the loss
> of a knight in Chess or an infantry division in a wargame. But
> even here, a game's emotional power is improved if the player
> can be made to feel identification with "the side."
>
> One way to do that is to make clear the player's point of view.
> Point of view confusion is a common failing of boardgame
> designers. For instance, Richard Berg's Campaigns for North
> Africa claims to be an extraordinary realistic simulation of the
> Axis campaign in Africa. Yet you, as player, spend a great deal
> of time worrying about the locations of individual pilots and
> how much water is available to individual batallions. Rommel's
> staff might worry about such things, but Rommel assuredly did
> not. Who are you supposed to be? The accuracy of the simulation
> is, in a sense, undermined, not supported, by the level of
> detail.
>
> What can you do to make the player care about his position? Is
> there a single game token that's more important than others to
> the player, and what can be done to strengthen identification
> with it? If not, what is the overall emotional appeal of the
> position, and what can be done to strengthen that appeal? Who
> "is" the player in the game? What is his point of view?
>
> Roleplaying
>
> HeroQuest has been termed a "roleplaying boardgame." And, as in a
> roleplaying game, each player controls a single character which,
> in HeroQuest's case, is a single plastic figure on the board. If
> you are a single character, are you not "playing a role?" And is
> the characterization of this game as a "roleplaying" game
> therefore justified?
>
> No, to both questions.
>
> The questions belie confusion between "position identification"
> and "roleplaying." I may identify closely with a game token
> without feeling that I am playing a role.
>
> Roleplaying occurs when, in some sense, you take on the persona
> of your position. Different players, and different games, may do
> this in different ways: perhaps you try to speak in the language
> and rhythm of your character. Perhaps you talk as if you are
> feeling the emotions your character talks. Perhaps you talk as
> you normally do, but you give serious consideration to "what my
> character would do in this case" as opposed to "what I want to
> do next."
>
> Roleplaying is most common in, naturally, roleplaying games. But
> it can occur in other environments, as well; I, for one, can't
> get through a game of Vincent Tsao's Junta without talking in a
> phony Spanish accent somewhere along the line. The game makes me
> think enough like a big man in a corrupt banana republic that I
> start to play the role.
>
> Roleplaying is a powerful technique for a whole slew of reasons.
> It improves position identification; if you think like your
> character, you're identifying with him closely. It improves the
> game's color, because the players become partly responsible for
> maintaining the willing suspense of disbelief, the feeling that
> the game world is alive and colorful and consistent. And it is
> an excellent method of socialization.
>
> Indeed, the connection with socialization is key: roleplaying is
> a form of performance. In a roleplaying game, roleplayers
> perform for the amusement of their friends. If there aren't any
> friends, there's no point to it.
>
> Which is why "computer roleplaying games", so-called, are nothing
> of the kind. They have no more connection with roleplaying than
> does HeroQuest. That is, they have the trappings of roleplaying:
> characters, equipment, stories. But there is no mechanism for
> players to ham it up, to characterize themselves by their
> actions, to roleplay in any meaningful sense.
>
> This is intrinsic in the technology. Computer games are
> solitaire; solitaire gamers have, by definition, no audience.
> Therefore, computer games cannot involve roleplaying.
>
> Add a network, and you can have a roleplaying game. Hence the
> popularity of MUDs.
>
> How can players be induced to roleplay? What sorts of roles does
> the system permit or encourage?
>
> Socializing
>
> Historically, games have mainly been used as a way to socialize.
> For players of Bridge, Poker, and Charades, the game is
> secondary to the socialization that goes on over the table.
>
> One oddity of the present is that the most commercially
> successful games are all solitary in nature: cart games,
> disk-based computer games, CD- ROM games. Once upon a time, our
> image of gamers was some people sitting around a table and
> playing cards; now, it's a solitary adolescent, twitching a
> joystick before a flickering screen.
>
> Yet, at the same time, we see the development of roleplaying, in
> both tabletop and live-action form, which depend utterly on
> socialization. And we see that the most successful mass-market
> boardgames, like Trivial Pursuit and Pictionary are played
> almost exclusively in social settings.
>
> I have to believe that the solitary nature of most computer games
> is a temporary aberration, a consequence of the technology, and
> that as networks spread and their bandwidth increases, the
> historical norm will reassert itself.
>
> When designing any game, it is worthwhile to think about the
> game's social uses, and how the system encourages or discourages
> socialization. For instance, almost every network has online
> versions of classic games like poker and bridge. And in almost
> every case, those games have failed to attract much useage.
>
> The exception: America Online, which permits real-time chat
> between players. Their version of network bridge allows for
> table talk. And it has been quite popular.
>
> Or as another example, many tabletop roleplaying games spend far
> too much effort worrying about "realism" and far too little
> about the game's use by players. Of what use is a combat system
> that is extraordinarily realistic, if playing out a single
> combat round takes fifteen minutes, and a whole battle takes
> four hours? They're not spending their time socializing and
> talking and hamming it up; they're spending time rolling dice
> and looking things up on charts. What's the point in that?
>
> How can the game better encourage socialization?
>
> Narrative Tension
>
> Nebula-award winning author Pat Murphy says that the key element
> of plot is "rising tension." That is, a story should become more
> gripping as it proceeds, until its ultimate climactic
> resolution.
>
> Suppose you're a Yankees fan. Of course, you want to see the
> Yankees win. But if you go to a game at the ballpark, do you
> really want to see them develop a 7 point lead in the first
> inning and wind up winning 21 to 2? Yes, you want them to win,
> but this doesn't make for a very interesting game. What would
> make you rise from your seat in excitement and joy is to see
> them pull out from behind in the last few seconds of the game
> with a smash homerun with bases loaded. Tension makes for fun
> games.
>
> Ideally, a game should be tense all the way through, but
> especially so at the end. The toughest problems, the greatest
> obstacles, should be saved for last. You can't always ensure
> this, especially in directly-competitive games: a chess game
> between a grandmaster and a rank beginner is not going to
> involve much tension. But, especially in solitaire computer
> games, it should be possible to ensure that every stage of the
> game involves a set of challenges, and that the player's job is
> done only at the end.
>
> In fact, one of the most common game failures is anticlimax. The
> period of maximum tension is not the resolution, but somewhere
> mid-way through the game. After a while, the opposition is on the
> run, or the player's position is unassailable. In most cases,
> this is because the designer never considered the need for
> narrative tension.
>
> What can be done to make the game tense?
>
> They're All Alike Under the Dice. Or Phosphors. Or What Have You.
>
> We're now equipped to answer the questions I posed at the
> beginning of this article.
>
> Do all the myriad forms of gaming have anything in common? Most
> assuredly. All involve decision making, managing resources in
> pursuit of a goal; that's true whether we're talking about Chess
> or Seventh Guest, Mario Brothers or Vampire, Roulette or Magic:
> The Gathering. It's a universal; it's what defines a game.
>
> How can you tell a good game from a bad one? The test is still in
> the playing; but we now have some terms to use to analyze a
> game's appeal. Chess involves complex and difficult decisions;
> Magic has enormous variety of encounter; Roulette has an
> extremely compelling goal (money--the real stuff). More detailed
> analysis is possible, to be sure, and is left as an exercise for
> the reader.
>
> Is the analytical theory presented here hermetic and complete?
> Assuredly not; there are games that defy many, though not all, of
> its conclusions (e.g., Candyland, which inolves no decision
> making whatsoever). And no doubt there are aspects to the appeal
> of games it overlooks.
>
> It is to be considered a work in progress: a first stab at
> codifying the intellectual analysis of the art of game design.
> Others are welcome, even encouraged, to build on its structure
> -- or to propound alternative theories in its defiance.
>
> If we are to produce works worthy to be termed "art," we must
> start to think about what it takes to do so, to set ourselves
> goals beyond the merely commercial. For we are embarked on a
> voyage of revolutionary import: the democrative transformation
> of the arts. Properly addressed, the voyage will lend granduer
> to our civilization; improperly, it will create merely another
> mediocrity of the TV age, another form wholly devoid of
> intellectual merit.
>
>
> The author wishes to acknowledge the contributions of Chris
> Crawford, Will Wright, Eric Goldberg, Ken Rolston, Doug Kaufman,
> Jim Dunnigan, Tappan King, Sandy Peterson, and Walt Freitag,
> whose ideas he has liberally stolen.
>
>
> Orthographical Note: In normal practice, the names of traditional
> games, e.g., chess, go, poker, are uncapitalized, as is usual
> with common nouns. The names of proprietary games are written
> with Initial Caps. This usage is inconsistent with the thesis
> that games are an artform, and that each game, regardless of its
> origins, must be viewed as an ouevre. I capitalize all game
> names, throughout the article.
>
> We capitalize Beowulf, though it is the product of folk tradition
> rather than a definite author, just as we capitalize One Hundred
> Years of Solitude. In the same fashion, I capitalize Chess,
> though it is the product of folk tradition rather than a
> definite designer, just as I capitalize Dungeons & Dragons. It
> may seem odd, at first, to see Chess treated as a title, but I
> have done so for particular reasons.
>
> I have also, whenever possible, attempted to mention a game's
> designer upon its first mention. When I have omitted a name, it
> is because I do not know it.
>
>
> Copyright 1994 by Greg Costikyan. All Rights Reserved. Comments
> may be directed to costik#crossover,com . For more information
> about Interactive Fantasy, contact journal#aslan,demon.co.uk or
> write Hogshead Publishing Ltd., 29a Abbeville Rd, London, SW4
> 9LA.
>
> --<cut>--
>
> --
> J C Lawrence Internet: claw#null,net
> (Contractor) Internet: coder#ibm,net
> ---------------(*) Internet: clawrenc#cup,hp.com
> ...Honorary Member Clan McFUD -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...
>
>
>
</PRE>
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<LI><STRONG><A NAME="01216" HREF="msg01216.html">I have no words and I must design</A></STRONG>
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<ul><li>Thread context:
<BLOCKQUOTE><UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="01218" HREF="msg01218.html">Re: DESIGN: The Physics of Magic</A></strong>,
coder <a href="mailto:coder#ibm,net">coder#ibm,net</a>, Fri 06 Jun 1997, 11:29 GMT
<UL>
<li><Possible follow-up(s)><br>
<LI><strong><A NAME="01219" HREF="msg01219.html">Re: DESIGN: The Physics of Magic</A></strong>,
coder <a href="mailto:coder#ibm,net">coder#ibm,net</a>, Fri 06 Jun 1997, 11:45 GMT
</LI>
</UL>
</LI>
<LI><strong><A NAME="01217" HREF="msg01217.html">TSR has been bought.</A></strong>,
Jeff Kesselman <a href="mailto:jeffk#tenetwork,com">jeffk#tenetwork,com</a>, Fri 06 Jun 1997, 07:47 GMT
<LI><strong><A NAME="01216" HREF="msg01216.html">I have no words and I must design</A></strong>,
clawrenc <a href="mailto:clawrenc#cup,hp.com">clawrenc#cup,hp.com</a>, Fri 06 Jun 1997, 07:28 GMT
<UL>
<LI><strong><A NAME="01292" HREF="msg01292.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] I have no words and I must design</A></strong>,
Adam Wiggins <a href="mailto:nightfall#user1,inficad.com">nightfall#user1,inficad.com</a>, Wed 11 Jun 1997, 21:49 GMT
</LI>
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<LI><strong><A NAME="01194" HREF="msg01194.html">Message problems with this list</A></strong>,
coder <a href="mailto:coder#ibm,net">coder#ibm,net</a>, Thu 05 Jun 1997, 22:34 GMT
<LI><strong><A NAME="01193" HREF="msg01193.html">Greetings</A></strong>,
Koster, Raph <a href="mailto:rkoster#origin,ea.com">rkoster#origin,ea.com</a>, Thu 05 Jun 1997, 22:16 GMT
<LI><strong><A NAME="01188" HREF="msg01188.html">Re: [MUD-Dev] Computers can't....</A></strong>,
Jeff Kesselman <a href="mailto:jeffk#tenetwork,com">jeffk#tenetwork,com</a>, Thu 05 Jun 1997, 12:47 GMT
<LI><strong><A NAME="01172" HREF="msg01172.html">Re: (fwd) DESIGN: The Physics of Magic</A></strong>,
coder <a href="mailto:coder#ibm,net">coder#ibm,net</a>, Thu 05 Jun 1997, 11:36 GMT
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