Wednesday, November 04, 2009
Game Design: Overwhelmed By Choice?
As a player, I'm a guy who loves open-endedness in my games. In role-playing games, I may as much of a goal-oriented player (the "Dungeon Upwardly Mobile Professional," as author / designer Tracy Hickman once called it) as any hardcore gamer, but I love to approach a goal my own way.
In dice-and-paper RPGs, I can be every game master's worst nightmare as I deviate from the script and start asking questions and manipulating parts of the GM's world that were never fleshed out beyond being the flat cardboard background setting. Consequently, my efforts frequently come to naught, as the players who take the conventional, predictable, and prepared-in-advance approach get rewarded.
I really loved the magic system in White Wolf's Mage: The Ascension. Apparently, we're a weird, strange animal. The magic system in that game was apparently incomprehensible and subjective for many players. While there were "rotes" - predefined spells - for the most part magic was something you created on-the-fly within broad guidelines. It was a very goal-oriented, open-ended kind of thing. Instead of looking over a menu of options and picking the one that might be most effective in this situation, you really had to think outside of the box, come up with a plan of action based upon some very broad powers, and then custom-build a spell that would both meet your objective and (preferably) appear to be nothing but a coincidence to any observer. It was very fun for those who got into it. Practically impossible for anybody else. It has little to to do with intelligence, and a lot to do with preference for style.
Not everybody likes to play that way. And frankly, a "sky is the limit" approach can be frustrating to players regardless of style. Especially without being provided concrete sub-goals, as I learned to my detriment running a recent pen & paper campaign. An infinite number of choices often results in no choice, and players will simply drift, feeling rudderless, overwhelmed, confused, and frustrated.
I wouldn't exactly call that "fun."
In general, I've always been of the opinion that more choices means more fun. But even for me, I do have my limits. The Elder Scrolls series is perhaps the best known for being open-ended games. While I am apparently one of the few players to ever actually complete the storyline in the second game, Daggerfall, I admit I got lost in the open-ended world of the follow-up, Morrowind. The open world led me further and further from anything resembling the games' goal (and I never really understood what that was), and so I just played until I got bored.
How could I possibly get bored? There was so much game left for me - so many more choices and opportunities! But I did. I, too, found myself rudderless and confused, and not entirely certain what my end-goal was for the entire game. At least Oblivion solved this last problem, making the end-goal almost TOO obvious throughout the game.
I'm a fan of open-endedness and having plenty of choices, but it seems there's a limit. In my pen-and-paper games, it seems that - as a group - more than two or three major options to select from causes the group to get bogged down with indecision. I think with individuals, the number might go up a bit more, depending on style. But there seems to be a "magic number" after which the number of options becomes a detriment, not a benefit. Or players adapt by ignoring many options.
Hmmm - maybe that's why I keep ordering the same thing when I go out to favorite restaurants.
There is a tendency - especially by less experienced game sesigners, to try to include everything (even the kitchen sink) - in their game. While the increased breadth sounds cool and fun and all, it's important to note that besides the obvious difficulties of increased development and balancing work, the end result may actually be less than the sum of the parts for many players.
Labels: Game Design
- posted by The Rampant Coyote @ 7:10 AM (Permalink)
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More options might mean that the player is going to be less comfortable with the choices he or she makes.
How so? Let's say that you've been buying the same type of jeans since you were 12. They were never perfect, but it's the only choice you got so yeah, you couldn't complain because you didn't know better. Then, 30 years later you move to a foreign country and to your surprise, there are shops especially designed to let you pick and choose every single thing about your jeans. You go from only one option to a hundred trillion.
.... And you don't know what to do. Is this one better? I think I like this one but this other has a different feel and oh yeah this other one really is impresive but I don't know maybe I should go with this other one because it reminds me of my childhood.
At the end, you go with the best one you could pick. Indeed, these are best pair of jeans you've ever had in your life.... but you don't seem pleased. There were all those other options in the store, how could you know that I picked the best one? Is there a best one?
How so? Let's say that you've been buying the same type of jeans since you were 12. They were never perfect, but it's the only choice you got so yeah, you couldn't complain because you didn't know better. Then, 30 years later you move to a foreign country and to your surprise, there are shops especially designed to let you pick and choose every single thing about your jeans. You go from only one option to a hundred trillion.
.... And you don't know what to do. Is this one better? I think I like this one but this other has a different feel and oh yeah this other one really is impresive but I don't know maybe I should go with this other one because it reminds me of my childhood.
At the end, you go with the best one you could pick. Indeed, these are best pair of jeans you've ever had in your life.... but you don't seem pleased. There were all those other options in the store, how could you know that I picked the best one? Is there a best one?
I do Daggerfall and MorrowWind about the same as you did MorrowWind. Daggerfall is monotinous, as the dungeons were just massive and frustrating. I got a long way into it, but just wasn't having any fun after about 30 hours. Morrowind was more of an average frustration, there was little story and content was spread out, and long walks with nothing to do but skip around improving my athletic skill. Once again, fun for about 20 hours, but I couldn't stick with it.
I can think of two perfect RPG's and it is rarely based on how open ended it was, but rather the fact that I was given "fun choices". I even have RPG's I like better, but these two really stand out.
Chronotrigger is a gem, a jewel that I continue to play even now. There is a lot of handholding, sure, but there are also a lot of option left up to me, and enough well placed content that even when locked in the story fence I still have some choices before deciding to continue on.
Fallout (1, not 3) is the other perfect RPG. This is where open ended game play feels fun. Once again there is handholding, but its more of an guide rather than a parent. And I think Fallout really illustrates that a fun game is going to have some amount of locked doors for any kind of good story to flow. And yes, the story is good, the atmosphere is perfect, and the fact that I can shoot anybody I want and have to face the consequences just put the icing on the cake.
I can think of two perfect RPG's and it is rarely based on how open ended it was, but rather the fact that I was given "fun choices". I even have RPG's I like better, but these two really stand out.
Chronotrigger is a gem, a jewel that I continue to play even now. There is a lot of handholding, sure, but there are also a lot of option left up to me, and enough well placed content that even when locked in the story fence I still have some choices before deciding to continue on.
Fallout (1, not 3) is the other perfect RPG. This is where open ended game play feels fun. Once again there is handholding, but its more of an guide rather than a parent. And I think Fallout really illustrates that a fun game is going to have some amount of locked doors for any kind of good story to flow. And yes, the story is good, the atmosphere is perfect, and the fact that I can shoot anybody I want and have to face the consequences just put the icing on the cake.
In my experience, it's much more fun to go off the tracks when there are tracks to go off of. I learned that from writing essays in school: when I was given a topic I thought of lots of other topics I wanted to write about instead, but when I was given freedom I couldn't think of anything to write about. For me, game plots work the same way.
NOOOOOOOO!
*sigh* Well, maybe. This is probably my favorite design conundrum these days.
My first response is a bit of frustration, simply because I never got a chance to really play Daggerfall but the world size makes me drool. Morrowind has such a hold on me that I've NEVER stopped playing it, and it's so bad that I've gotten my jaded, graphics loving 11 year old stepson to prefer it over Oblivion (which I believe to be my gift to posterity :P).
I think the "too much choice" argument rankles because it seems we're getting so much less choice or mindless choice these days. Everywhere I surf I hear about how games have to be shorter, or more casual or less offensive to the gaming sensibilities of the mass majority. That ticks me off because it means no hard choices, no moral / strategic tradeoffs, just let everyone win. As Heinlein once wrote, "Pablum for all, because the baby can't eat steak."
As I've written on your site before games like Fallout and Starflight are my design touchstones. Both feature sprawling worlds yet allow the player the creative freedom (to an extent) of where to go and what to do. This is the sort of essence I'm trying to capture in my planet-hopping retro space RPG.
All that said, I'm forced to agree with you in a big way. Psychologically we seem to tune out the familiar / repetitive in favor of novelty. Even folks like us, who love choice, are not immune.
Recently I got to chew on this fact first hand. After 6 months worth of coding random solar systems and planet surfaces I sat back and really played my build to assess all this choice I wanted to give players. Procedural generation can give you literally THOUSANDS of systems and planets. Yet how many iceballs, airless rocks and infernos can you pass before it all starts running together into meaninglessness?
Granted there are no enemies, missions or loot so I know this will change somewhat, but I had to admit that when *I* started ignoring and bypassing chunks of my own universe that I had a problem.
So yeah, I fully agree with you. Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.
It's a shame, btw, that I never got to run through some of your RPG campaigns or vice versa. I used to be infamous among our gaming band for running pure open-ended campaigns with nothing more than interesting initial setups. Couldn't do three act story structure to save my life, but I could swear that if I had a player like you who started fiddling with the world and peeking behind the curtain, no matter the action, the world would somehow react. It made for sometimes meandering campaigns, but people kept playing because everything they did was validated.
*sigh* Well, maybe. This is probably my favorite design conundrum these days.
My first response is a bit of frustration, simply because I never got a chance to really play Daggerfall but the world size makes me drool. Morrowind has such a hold on me that I've NEVER stopped playing it, and it's so bad that I've gotten my jaded, graphics loving 11 year old stepson to prefer it over Oblivion (which I believe to be my gift to posterity :P).
I think the "too much choice" argument rankles because it seems we're getting so much less choice or mindless choice these days. Everywhere I surf I hear about how games have to be shorter, or more casual or less offensive to the gaming sensibilities of the mass majority. That ticks me off because it means no hard choices, no moral / strategic tradeoffs, just let everyone win. As Heinlein once wrote, "Pablum for all, because the baby can't eat steak."
As I've written on your site before games like Fallout and Starflight are my design touchstones. Both feature sprawling worlds yet allow the player the creative freedom (to an extent) of where to go and what to do. This is the sort of essence I'm trying to capture in my planet-hopping retro space RPG.
All that said, I'm forced to agree with you in a big way. Psychologically we seem to tune out the familiar / repetitive in favor of novelty. Even folks like us, who love choice, are not immune.
Recently I got to chew on this fact first hand. After 6 months worth of coding random solar systems and planet surfaces I sat back and really played my build to assess all this choice I wanted to give players. Procedural generation can give you literally THOUSANDS of systems and planets. Yet how many iceballs, airless rocks and infernos can you pass before it all starts running together into meaninglessness?
Granted there are no enemies, missions or loot so I know this will change somewhat, but I had to admit that when *I* started ignoring and bypassing chunks of my own universe that I had a problem.
So yeah, I fully agree with you. Sometimes you can have too much of a good thing.
It's a shame, btw, that I never got to run through some of your RPG campaigns or vice versa. I used to be infamous among our gaming band for running pure open-ended campaigns with nothing more than interesting initial setups. Couldn't do three act story structure to save my life, but I could swear that if I had a player like you who started fiddling with the world and peeking behind the curtain, no matter the action, the world would somehow react. It made for sometimes meandering campaigns, but people kept playing because everything they did was validated.
I don't know. The thing is, I don't care about jeans. Not in the slightest. Give me choices in jeans and I'll just get frustrated. As it is, I find something that fits OK, and I buy the exact same kind of jean as long as I can find them.
But I love games, and so I love choices in games. I love having a huge number of skills, provided they're all actually useful in the game, I love discovering different ways to solve problems, and I love having a huge gameworld.
Of course, I very rarely finish an RPG. I get bored rather quickly, even with the best games. But in the Elder Scrolls games, when I started to get bored, I could still spend many hours just wandering around. Exploration and discovery (and gather loot) is so important to me in an RPG that I hardly need any other goal.
I loved Daggerfall, just wandering in that huge, seamless world and finding towns, people, caves, etc. Yes, the random dungeons were all nearly identical, but the experience was still great fun. I didn't even bother with the main storyline, because the combat in those dungeons was too tough for me (I'm hopeless with "real-time" combat). But I still loved the game.
And Morrowind was even better. I suppose there was a goal in that game, but I never got that far. But I sure explored the island! Despite the "real-time" combat, it's one of my very favorite games. (Oblivion was fun, but it seemed like I'd already played that game. It was too much like Morrowind to hold my attention long. But it was still fun to explore such a wide-open world - just not as much fun as the previous two games.)
Wavinator, I'm glad you mentioned Starflight. I never played the first game, but I loved Starflight 2, despite the "real-time" space combat. The neat thing for me was arriving at a brand new star system, wondering what planets I'd find, and what wonderful things I'd discover while exploring them. Did the game even have a story? I can't remember one, but I can sure remember orbiting planets, examining them from space and then flying down to explore them on the ground (finding valuable loot - plants, animals, minerals, etc. - to fill the holds of my ship). What a great time!
PS. I must say, too, that the whole idea of having an RPG team as the crew of a starship is something that has been sadly neglected in the genre. We get dogfighting in space (which I can't handle at all), but why not a party-based RPG, where each person has a different role in running a complex spaceship? Is that anything like your "planet-hopping retro space RPG"? Where can we keep an eye on its development?)
But I love games, and so I love choices in games. I love having a huge number of skills, provided they're all actually useful in the game, I love discovering different ways to solve problems, and I love having a huge gameworld.
Of course, I very rarely finish an RPG. I get bored rather quickly, even with the best games. But in the Elder Scrolls games, when I started to get bored, I could still spend many hours just wandering around. Exploration and discovery (and gather loot) is so important to me in an RPG that I hardly need any other goal.
I loved Daggerfall, just wandering in that huge, seamless world and finding towns, people, caves, etc. Yes, the random dungeons were all nearly identical, but the experience was still great fun. I didn't even bother with the main storyline, because the combat in those dungeons was too tough for me (I'm hopeless with "real-time" combat). But I still loved the game.
And Morrowind was even better. I suppose there was a goal in that game, but I never got that far. But I sure explored the island! Despite the "real-time" combat, it's one of my very favorite games. (Oblivion was fun, but it seemed like I'd already played that game. It was too much like Morrowind to hold my attention long. But it was still fun to explore such a wide-open world - just not as much fun as the previous two games.)
Wavinator, I'm glad you mentioned Starflight. I never played the first game, but I loved Starflight 2, despite the "real-time" space combat. The neat thing for me was arriving at a brand new star system, wondering what planets I'd find, and what wonderful things I'd discover while exploring them. Did the game even have a story? I can't remember one, but I can sure remember orbiting planets, examining them from space and then flying down to explore them on the ground (finding valuable loot - plants, animals, minerals, etc. - to fill the holds of my ship). What a great time!
PS. I must say, too, that the whole idea of having an RPG team as the crew of a starship is something that has been sadly neglected in the genre. We get dogfighting in space (which I can't handle at all), but why not a party-based RPG, where each person has a different role in running a complex spaceship? Is that anything like your "planet-hopping retro space RPG"? Where can we keep an eye on its development?)
I broke a Star Wars table top game once...killed the jedi we were escorting.
I broke an impromptu space bounty hunter game in physics class during lunch because I shot through the hull at a bad guy and decompressed the crew to dead.
I a D&D game once because we brought pack horses with us and got rich before we killed the "boss' and left town and didn't come back.
I broke another D&D game because I decided to be evil and got possessed by some statue and killed the entire party of neutral and good characters.
I broke a GURPs western game by shooting the sheriff (another player) in the back instead of going along and not counterfeiting cattle brands anymore and "mending" my ways.
Sure, those options were devastating to the game. Yes, more than GM hates me now. And yes, I live for those options in computer games...but really, I enjoyed those games so much more because I had options.
I love options. Not everyone does. But then, I don't want to have my hand held at all. I don't get "indecisive". I play the mission if I want, if not...I move on. Kinda like life I suppose.
But then, games designers don't make games for me anymore...if really ever. Nope...I don't like linear games, not on a table top, not as a CRPG, and not as an MMO.
I like to determine my own role, not play the one I have been given. I don't like classes. Archetypes. Or any thing that makes no realistic sense. If there is a wall, I should be able to climb it. If there is a fence, I should be able to hope over it.
And if I have to go save the princess, I should be able to choose how to save her...
cl
P.S. Sorry for the long rant.
P.P.S I also kinda broke UO, at least I give myself credit for it, they had to have a reason to start doing access list for houses...I want to say I caused that...but that is a story for another time.
I broke an impromptu space bounty hunter game in physics class during lunch because I shot through the hull at a bad guy and decompressed the crew to dead.
I a D&D game once because we brought pack horses with us and got rich before we killed the "boss' and left town and didn't come back.
I broke another D&D game because I decided to be evil and got possessed by some statue and killed the entire party of neutral and good characters.
I broke a GURPs western game by shooting the sheriff (another player) in the back instead of going along and not counterfeiting cattle brands anymore and "mending" my ways.
Sure, those options were devastating to the game. Yes, more than GM hates me now. And yes, I live for those options in computer games...but really, I enjoyed those games so much more because I had options.
I love options. Not everyone does. But then, I don't want to have my hand held at all. I don't get "indecisive". I play the mission if I want, if not...I move on. Kinda like life I suppose.
But then, games designers don't make games for me anymore...if really ever. Nope...I don't like linear games, not on a table top, not as a CRPG, and not as an MMO.
I like to determine my own role, not play the one I have been given. I don't like classes. Archetypes. Or any thing that makes no realistic sense. If there is a wall, I should be able to climb it. If there is a fence, I should be able to hope over it.
And if I have to go save the princess, I should be able to choose how to save her...
cl
P.S. Sorry for the long rant.
P.P.S I also kinda broke UO, at least I give myself credit for it, they had to have a reason to start doing access list for houses...I want to say I caused that...but that is a story for another time.
Quote: '...there seems to be a "magic number" after which the number of options becomes a detriment...'
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