0:02 Hi everyone, Sam Pearson here. I love
0:04 narrative play for tabletop war games,
0:06 especially a game like Warhammer 40,000.
0:09 For me, nothing beats weaving an epic
0:10 tale as two armies clash on the
0:12 battlefield. And even better if it's
0:14 part of a campaign or a wider ongoing
0:17 story. While I worked in the Warhammer
0:18 Design Studio at Games Workshop, I had
0:21 the pleasure of designing many different
0:23 narrative books and rule sections. For
0:25 example, one book I led the design on
0:27 was this one, Vigilous Defiant, which
0:30 was the first big campaign book for
0:32 Warhammer 40,000 8th edition. I also did
0:34 a lot of narrative work for Age of
0:36 Sigmar. For example, I designed the
0:38 original Anvils of Apotheiois and I
0:40 designed Path to Glory both in third
0:43 edition and its most recent iteration,
0:45 fourth edition. So, I love narrative
0:49 play, and I think it gets a bad rep, but
0:51 maybe not undeservedly. So, you heard
0:54 that right. Maybe narrative play
0:56 deserves the bad rep it gets, at least
0:58 sometimes. I imagine we've all played
1:01 games of narrative play where it boils
1:03 down to rolling dice on a table that
1:05 results in some unit somewhere on the
1:07 battlefield, either yours or your
1:09 opponents, taking D3 mortal wounds. And
1:10 if you think that can be pretty
1:13 uninspiring at times, well, I agree with
1:15 you. So, this video is going to be the
1:17 first in a three-part series where we
1:20 dive into what makes narrative design
1:22 good or bad. And I'm going to be arguing
1:25 that at its core, good narrative design
1:28 is about enabling meaningful player
1:30 choice. Narrative play should not just
1:33 be about rolling on tables. It should be
1:35 about empowering players to make fun,
1:38 immersive, impactful choices that are
1:40 derived from the world building. I want
1:42 there to be a system that incorporates
1:45 exterminatis and I as the player want to
1:47 be the one who pushes the big red button
1:49 and has to live with the consequences.
1:52 And to put this to the test, we're going
1:54 to take an area of narrative games
1:56 design, one that is very, very tired and
1:59 stagnant. And that is the two-player
2:01 narrative campaigns. You know the drill.
2:03 Tree campaigns, linear sequences. You've
2:05 seen it all a thousand times before.
2:07 We're going to take that area of
2:09 narrative games design and see if we can
2:11 design something new and fresh and
2:14 exciting by making meaningful choice
2:17 central to its core design. And you guys
2:20 are all invited along for the ride. I
2:21 encourage you all to design along with
2:24 me. So that's the scope of the series.
2:25 And when I say we're going to design
2:27 something, I mean that in the fullest
2:29 sense. We're going to take the design
2:31 from the very very beginning right
2:33 through to the very end. If you follow
2:34 the steps, you will have a fully
2:37 finished PDF at the end that will look
2:39 something like this. Fancy graphics and
2:41 all. But it won't be my design. It will
2:43 be your design and it will be ready to
2:45 share with the world. But I'm jumping
2:47 ahead of myself a little. This first
2:49 video starts right at the ground level
2:51 and it is going to be about how to
2:53 design meaningful choice for your
2:55 players. This is not just going to be
2:57 crucial for us making narrative systems
2:59 in the later videos. It is also one of
3:01 the key fundamentals of games design.
3:03 Meaningful player choice is something
3:06 that underpins every game there is. War
3:08 games, role- playinging games, video
3:10 games, you name it. So, the applications
3:12 of this video are going to stretch far,
3:15 far beyond just narrative games design.
3:17 After all, legendary games designer Sid
3:20 Meer famously said, "A game is a series
3:22 of interesting choices." Well, how do we
3:24 design a choice that is interesting
3:27 then? The answer is surprisingly simple.
3:30 I'll see you after the jump. [Music]
3:43 So, my argument is that good narrative
3:45 games design is all about giving players
3:48 fun, meaningful choices to make,
3:50 especially those that feel in world,
3:52 ones that put you into the shoes of a
3:54 commander, say, of a Warhammer 40,000
3:56 faction or an Age of Sigmar faction. And
3:58 in the later videos, once we've learned
4:00 how to design meaningful choice, we're
4:02 going to cook up some of our own systems
4:04 to show the strength of putting that
4:06 right at the heart of its design. As
4:07 we're going to be designing a two-player
4:09 narrative campaign, and more
4:11 importantly, trying to improve on this
4:13 area of design, which is very old and
4:15 very tired, a good starting point is to
4:17 look at what's already there and to
4:19 critique it. Critiquing is one of the
4:22 most powerful skills a game designer can
4:24 develop because being able to identify
4:26 the problems in a design is the first
4:28 step to improving the design. So, you
4:30 should always be critical of every
4:32 game's design, even your favorites. Not
4:34 you, Outlanders. You're perfect the way
4:36 you are. So, let's talk about two-player
4:38 narrative campaigns first and see the
4:40 cause of this stagnation that they're
4:42 suffering from and how they can be
4:44 improved. So, the two-player narrative
4:46 campaign probably needs no introduction.
4:48 They have been in games like Warhammer
4:50 40,000 since the very beginning. They
4:52 usually comprise of three to five
4:54 battles that are connected in some way.
4:56 Underpinning them, there will often be a
4:58 story thread that slowly plays out. And
5:00 also, there might be some rules
5:01 mechanics that connect the battles, too,
5:04 such as gaining a reward in one battle
5:06 that you can use in a later battle. Here
5:08 is a page taken from the third edition
5:10 Warma 40,000 rule book released back in
5:13 1998. And we can see some structures for
5:15 two-player campaigns that I'm sure you
5:17 will be familiar with. Things like the
5:19 tree campaign that we'll go through in
5:21 just a moment. And here is a page from
5:23 the 8th edition 40k rule book released
5:27 almost 20 years later in 2017 with
5:29 almost the exact same advice. This is
5:31 what I mean by the stagnation of design.
5:34 We see the same frameworks rolled out
5:36 again and again. The linear sequence
5:39 here. Battle A leads into battle B and
5:41 then battle C and so on. a tree
5:43 campaign. This is similar to the
5:45 sequence, but the exact path taken will
5:47 vary due to who wins and who loses. And
5:49 then the matrix campaigns where the
5:51 scenario is determined by the players
5:54 each essentially picking rock, paper,
5:55 scissors, lizard, spock, and the
5:58 combination determining the scenario. I
5:59 want to quickly add while I've got this
6:02 up on my screen, this tree campaign has
6:04 always bugged me ever since I was
6:06 younger. Andy Chambers, he's my boy. He
6:09 was my hero growing up. But this tree
6:11 campaign is so bad. Take a look at this.
6:13 You play two battles and the outcome of
6:15 the campaign is wholly decided by the
6:17 first. If the defender wins the first
6:20 battle and the attacker wins the second
6:22 is still an overall win to the defender.
6:24 These two outcomes here should really be
6:26 flipped around so that the second battle
6:27 decides the campaign, not the first.
6:29 Two-player campaigns should always be
6:31 decided by the final battle. Otherwise,
6:34 why continue playing? But I digress.
6:36 These campaign frameworks, they're not
6:37 necessarily bad, and in many ways,
6:40 they're timehonored traditions, but they
6:42 could be so so much better. And my
6:44 biggest critique of them is they lack
6:46 any meaningful decision on the part of
6:48 the player. If I was to imagine my
6:50 hypothetical dream campaign for a
6:52 moment, it would be one that puts me
6:53 into the shoes of the commanding
6:55 officer, especially for a game like
6:58 Warhammer 40,000, where the law is one
7:01 of its biggest draws. I want to live and
7:03 breathe in that world, even if just for
7:05 a few moments, cuz it's a scary place.
7:07 But I want to be put into the same
7:09 positions that the characters in the
7:11 stories are. And I want to make the same
7:13 decisions that they do. I want to be the
7:15 Imperial Inquisitor who has to make the
7:17 near impossible task to abandon a world
7:20 and cool down exterminatis. I want to be
7:22 the Nekron Tomb Lord who triggers the
7:24 awakening of a long dormant tomb world.
7:27 And I want to be the Eldar Corsair
7:29 captain who finds a new path through the
7:32 webway to discover a long-lost maiden
7:33 world. And when I talk about these
7:35 things, I don't just mean I want to read
7:37 about them. I don't want the events to
7:39 happen in the background of a linear
7:41 sequence, nor do I want them to be one
7:44 of the outcomes of a tree campaign. As I
7:46 said before, I want to be the one as the
7:48 player who gets to push the big red
7:50 button and has to live with the
7:52 consequences. So these systems
7:54 incorporate no meaningful
7:56 decision-making and that's why I think
7:58 this is an area ripe for some innovation
8:00 and some fun new designs. Now let's look
8:03 quickly at the last of these frameworks,
8:05 the matrix campaign. To explain how this
8:07 one works quickly, both players choose
8:09 one of the different options and their
8:11 two choices combined determines the
8:13 scenario. So for example, if warlord A
8:15 chooses to advance and warlord B to
8:17 reinforce, the no mercy scenario is
8:19 played. You might be thinking, "This
8:21 system gives players a choice, right?
8:23 They get to choose to hold, to advance,
8:25 to flank, or one of the other options.
8:28 That's a narrative choice, isn't it?"
8:31 And I would say yes, it is a choice, but
8:33 it's not a meaningful one. And here's
8:35 why. Firstly, the player's choice here
8:37 influences the outcome very, very
8:39 little. You pick the option you want,
8:40 but that only gives you a one in five
8:42 chance at actually getting the scenario
8:45 you want. Terrible odds. And maybe more
8:47 importantly, do I really care enough
8:48 about playing one of these scenarios
8:51 over the other? No, I don't think so.
8:53 The No Mercy scenario is just a regular
8:56 scenario. It's not really this big aha
8:58 if another player is forced to play it.
9:00 I've got no particular desire to play,
9:03 say, Patrol over Cloak and Shadows, nor
9:06 would I gain myself an advantage doing
9:09 so. So, this is a choice, but it's not a
9:11 meaningful one. I the player lack agency
9:14 and that's because my choice is very
9:16 unlikely to affect the final outcome and
9:18 I also lack motivation because I don't
9:20 really care which scenario we play over
9:23 the other anyway. I would say this is
9:26 really a random scenario generator
9:28 masquerading as player's choice. It
9:30 might as well be one big table that you
9:33 just roll a dice on. So, if this choice
9:36 isn't meaningful, how do we design a
9:39 choice that is?
9:41 The band of heroes descend the steps
9:43 deeper into the dungeon. They walk
9:45 forward, torch light illuminating the
9:47 corridor in front. Then, they are
9:49 confronted by two branching paths, one
9:52 left, one right. Which do they pick? If
9:54 you've ever acted as a games master in a
9:55 role playing game, you've probably
9:57 presented your players with a choice
9:59 like this. And if you have, you'll know
10:01 that this is never enough for them to
10:03 make a decision. They'll stand around
10:05 for a few moments scratching their head,
10:06 and then they're going to start asking
10:08 you some questions. Can my character use
10:11 their perception to see if they smell or
10:13 hear anything from either path? My
10:15 character is a dwarf. Can he detect if
10:18 the floor slants up or down slightly in
10:20 either direction? My character searches
10:22 the walls for any markings or clues. Do
10:24 they find any hints at what lies ahead?
10:26 There is a lesson here and this is the
10:28 first thing to cover when it comes to
10:30 meaningful choice. Players need
10:33 information. They crave information and
10:35 without it, the choice is akin to
10:37 rolling a dice or flipping a coin. It's
10:39 a choice made blind, which is arguably
10:41 not a choice at all. But information
10:43 isn't the only ingredient. There's a
10:45 second and third one required, too.
10:47 Let's say that with our dungeon
10:49 exploring example, the game master tells
10:51 the players the following. Down the
10:52 corridor on the left, you see the glint
10:55 of gold in the darkness and hear the
10:57 growling of beasts. Down the corridor to
10:59 the right, you feel a light gust of wind
11:02 and can smell trees and grass. They are
11:04 hinting that the left path holds a horde
11:06 of treasure being guarded by a monster,
11:09 whilst the right leads to outside,
11:10 somewhere where they could rest and camp
11:13 for the night. In a situation like this,
11:15 what will the players decide? Well,
11:16 there's nothing stopping them from
11:19 picking both options. And seasoned
11:20 players will likely choose the right
11:22 path first. They'll go outside, they'll
11:24 camp, recuperate for the night, and then
11:26 they'll go down the left path
11:28 afterwards, taking on the monster at
11:30 full health. And that's because this
11:32 choice is still missing the second
11:34 ingredient, which is the most important
11:37 overall, the dilemma. For a choice to be
11:38 meaningful to a player, you need to
11:40 present them with some sort of dilemma,
11:42 something for them to figure out. And
11:44 the dilemma, it can take many different
11:46 forms, but they're all quite simple when
11:48 you boil them down to its core. And I'm
11:50 going to categorize them into three
11:52 types. The scarcity dilemma, the
11:54 trade-off dilemma, and the prediction
11:55 dilemma. You can think of these as
11:57 forming a triangle. And any given
11:59 dilemma will fall either at the points
12:01 or somewhere in the middle. The scarcity
12:02 dilemma is when the game gives the
12:05 player a limited resource to manage. You
12:07 see that in many OSR role playing games
12:09 where things like the number of torches
12:10 the adventuring party can take with them
12:13 is limited. We could apply that straight
12:15 away to our example with the two paths
12:17 here. The players can do both options,
12:19 but resting for the night will expend
12:21 the torch they currently have kindled,
12:22 meaning they'll have one less torch for
12:24 the rest of the dungeon delve and are
12:26 not going to be able to get as deep into
12:27 the dungeon as they could if they just
12:30 press forward without camping. Already,
12:31 you should be able to see that we're
12:32 getting to a choice that feels
12:34 meaningful and interesting. Push on and
12:36 take on the monster now, or spend some
12:38 of your precious resources camping the
12:41 night first and recuperating. This is a
12:42 dilemma. But when it comes to the
12:45 scarcity dilemma, you needn't think of
12:47 resources so literally. Most common
12:49 resource is having a limited number of
12:52 choices or picks. Let's move over to
12:54 video games quickly. In the game Hades,
12:56 you're presented with multiple paths at
12:59 the end of every stage, but you can only
13:01 pick one of them. So here the resource
13:03 is picks. It's just impossible to pick
13:06 both paths. And remember to make it a
13:07 meaningful choice, it needs some
13:10 information, too. So, in Hades, to help
13:11 you pick the path, the game will tell
13:13 you what sort of reward you will find
13:15 down each of them. Moving on to another
13:17 rogike, Slay the Spire. Here, you will
13:19 see the same dilemma, but played out
13:22 with the rewards. After every battle,
13:24 you are rewarded with three cards to add
13:25 to your ever growing deck, but you can
13:27 only pick one of them, no matter how
13:30 many you desire. A dilemma. I would say
13:32 this is the scarcity dilemma in its
13:35 purest form. Three cards, all exciting
13:37 upgrades for your deck, but you can only
13:39 pick one. So, which do you choose? A
13:41 second form a dilemma can take is the
13:43 trade-off dilemma. This is a choice that
13:45 comes with both an upside and a
13:47 downside. I'll stick with Slay the Spire
13:49 as it also has examples of this sort of
13:51 choice and is an allaround excellent
13:53 game. Except for you, except for this
13:54 guy, I hate you. But other than that
13:56 guy, it is a great game to study from a
13:58 game's design perspective. If you travel
14:00 to one of the unknown sites on the map
14:03 indicated by the question mark node, the
14:04 game will often present you with a
14:06 choice. Obtain a random relic. relics
14:09 being powerful magic items with passive
14:12 abilities, but if you do so, also obtain
14:14 a random curse. Curses being bad cards
14:16 placed into your deck that have negative
14:18 effects when drawn. So, here the dilemma
14:20 is take it or leave it. Do you want
14:22 something that gives you an advantage
14:24 and a disadvantage? Well, you need to
14:26 weigh up both sides and make a call, a
14:28 dilemma. The last type of dilemma I'm
14:30 going to cover is the prediction
14:32 dilemma. This one is best for PvP games
14:34 because here both players are making
14:36 decisions to leverage an advantage over
14:38 their opponent and trying to guess what
14:40 their opponent will do in an attempt to
14:42 outsmart and outmaneuver them. Now, in
14:44 any PvP game, you are constantly making
14:46 lots of micro decisions on how to outwit
14:48 your opponent, say as you take your
14:50 turns in a game like Warhammer 40,000 or
14:52 when you leave some of your lands
14:53 untapped in Magic the Gathering going
14:55 into your opponent's turn so that you
14:57 can counter their cards. But I think the
14:59 prediction dilemma is best presented in
15:01 cases where both players are making
15:03 decisions simultaneously. Take for
15:06 example the setting of maneuver dials in
15:08 the X-wing miniatures game. Here both
15:10 players have access to shared
15:12 information that is the board state and
15:14 they are using that information to try
15:16 and glean an advantage over their
15:18 opponent when choosing their ship's
15:20 maneuvers. What I love about this sort
15:22 of decision-making is it leads to lots
15:25 and lots of mind games. bluffing,
15:26 calling your opponent's bluff, double
15:28 bluffing, and all of that jazz. So,
15:30 these are the three simple forms that a
15:32 dilemma can take. And I said that you
15:34 might find dilemas that are actually
15:35 somewhere in the middle of the triangle
15:37 rather than one of the points. Often,
15:39 these blend into each other, and that's
15:41 not a bad thing. That's a good thing.
15:43 For example, you could imagine a choice
15:45 using the scarcity dilemma. So, say
15:47 three cards and you can only pick one,
15:49 but then one of those cards having both
15:51 an upside and a downside to it. So it's
15:53 the trade-off dilemma nested within the
15:55 scarcity dilemma. So you can do lots of
15:57 fun and creative things by combining
15:59 these different sorts of dilemas in
16:01 creative ways. Now there is one final
16:04 ingredient and that is excitement. No
16:06 matter which form the dilemma takes. The
16:08 outcomes need to have repercussions big
16:09 enough to motivate the players to make
16:11 the choice. That doesn't necessarily
16:13 mean all choices have to be to receive
16:15 something good. Even choosing the best
16:18 of three curses is an exciting decision
16:20 to make. What we are trying to avoid is
16:22 player apathy where a player simply
16:24 doesn't care to make the choice. This
16:26 was my big criticism of the matrix
16:28 campaign presented earlier. It is an
16:29 elaborate mechanic for choosing a
16:31 scenario, but I don't think a player
16:33 really cares that much over which
16:35 scenario they play to make the decision
16:37 an exciting one. In summary, the three
16:39 key ingredients for creating meaningful
16:42 choice in games are information,
16:44 dilemma, and excitement. And you can
16:46 think of these as providing the
16:48 following. The information gives players
16:51 clarity. What will your decision lead
16:53 to? The dilemma gives players tension.
16:55 You can't have your cake and eat it.
16:56 You're going to need to decide one way
16:58 or the other. And the excitement gives
17:01 players motivation. I really want this
17:03 or I really don't want this. So, that
17:06 was a bit of a games design 101, which I
17:08 hope you found interesting because as
17:11 mentioned, designing meaningful choice
17:14 is really one of the key fundamentals of
17:16 games design. It underpins every type of
17:19 game out there and its applications are
17:21 as farreaching as they can be. This is
17:23 not just about narrative play. This is
17:26 about all aspects of games design. For
17:28 example, Spearhead utilizes the
17:30 trade-off dilemma in two different ways.
17:32 The first is with the battle tactic
17:34 cards. Each can be played in one of two
17:36 ways to score victory points or as a
17:37 powerful command ability. But using one
17:40 foregoes the other, creating a dilemma
17:42 for the player. Secondly, the way the
17:44 double turn works in Spearhead has a
17:45 trade-off introduced that wasn't present
17:47 in previous editions of Age of Sigmar.
17:49 If you go second in one round, win the
17:51 roll off, and elect to go first in the
17:54 next round, i.e. take a double turn, you
17:56 forgo drawing new battle tactic cards
17:58 altogether. Another dilemma revolving
18:00 around a trade-off. You can also use
18:01 this knowledge of how to craft
18:03 meaningful choices to critique bits of
18:05 games design that you don't like. For
18:07 example, I am against the complete
18:09 removal of war gear points that was
18:12 introduced in 10th edition 40k. And the
18:14 reason is it has made choices such as
18:16 should I equip a space marine sergeant
18:18 with a plasma pistol or a bolt pistol a
18:20 meaningless choice. The plasma pistol is
18:22 better in every regard. There's no
18:23 reason to take the bolt pistol. So
18:25 presenting that as a choice to the
18:26 players is only one that's going to
18:28 frustrate them. In the next video, we're
18:30 going to be using the things that we
18:31 have discussed in this video to build
18:34 our own narrative frameworks from
18:35 scratch. But in the final part of this
18:37 video, I thought it would be fun to go
18:39 back to those existing two-player
18:41 campaigns, the linear sequence, the tree
18:43 campaign, and the Matrix campaign, and
18:45 let's see if we can improve upon their
18:48 designs by injecting some meaningful
18:50 decisions made by the player into them.
18:51 First up, let's look at the Matrix
18:54 system again. It feels so close as it
18:56 has a player choice at its core, but as
18:58 we've already examined, that player
19:01 choice is a hollow one. So, let's remedy
19:03 that. If we look at the dilemma it is
19:05 presenting, it appears to be the
19:07 prediction dilemma. Two players vying
19:09 against each other. But you never get
19:10 that feeling because there's no
19:13 advantage to glean. If I choose to flank
19:16 and my opponent chooses to uh this one
19:18 and we get the scouring. Is that good or
19:21 bad for me? Did I win or lose? I don't
19:23 know. So that's the first thing to fix
19:25 here. Let's color these as red for a
19:28 warlord A victory and blue for a warlord
19:30 B victory. And if both players choose
19:32 the same option, we'll just leave that
19:34 as is as a standoff. Then let's give the
19:37 winning warlord a boost of some sort.
19:39 For the sake of this example, let's say
19:41 they get to give a unit in their army a
19:43 new battle honor from the crusade rules.
19:44 That sounds like a pretty cool prize to
19:46 put on the line for me. Now, I'm
19:48 motivated to make this choice at least,
19:50 but it does still feel very random. It
19:52 still really is just a game of rock,
19:54 paper, scissors, lizard, spock, which is
19:56 fundamentally a game of pure chance. To
19:58 fix that, we could incorporate some
20:00 aspects of other dilemas. Let's say, for
20:02 example, the campaign is now a fixed
20:04 four battles. And for the campaign, you
20:07 can only choose each maneuver once, as
20:09 in each option is now a scarce resource
20:11 that you must spend. Now, as the
20:13 campaign progresses, there will be more
20:15 and more chance to double guess and
20:17 bluff your opponent as the pool of
20:18 options for them narrows, and you can
20:20 start to predict their actions. So
20:22 hopefully you can see how quickly we can
20:24 improve these systems by adding in some
20:26 excitement and a dilemma. Moving on to
20:28 the tree campaign, the first thing that
20:30 strikes me is it could be the winner who
20:31 picks which of the two branching paths
20:33 the campaign progresses down. Rather
20:35 than having one fix to either player if
20:37 we were to do so, we need to add a
20:39 dilemma for them too. Perhaps there is a
20:41 trade-off down one path. It comes with a
20:43 big payoff but also the risk of a
20:45 setback of sorts, whereas the other is a
20:47 safer route. Lastly, for the linear
20:49 sequence, we could add in some limited
20:51 resources to manage. Perhaps players
20:54 each pick one of the battles to gain a
20:55 boost in command points. Remember, we
20:57 need to give them some information to
20:58 make that decision. So, we assign a
21:00 different reward to each battle and
21:02 present it up front to inform their
21:04 decision. So, just like that, very
21:06 quickly, we're starting to improve on
21:08 these systems. And hopefully, you can
21:10 see how easy it is to do. We still don't
21:12 have any of those really, really big
21:14 narrative decisions yet. There is no
21:16 exterminatist being unleashed in the
21:18 middle of the tree campaign. But don't
21:19 worry, that's what we're going to be
21:21 adding into our own frameworks that
21:23 we're going to build up from scratch in
21:25 the next video. Okay, that brings us to
21:27 the end of today's video. I hope you
21:28 enjoyed it. I'm sorry for the little
21:30 break that we had in videos over the
21:32 past few weeks. I've got some exciting
21:33 things in the works that I can't wait to
21:35 share with you. Let me know what you
21:36 thought of the video down in the
21:38 comments below. We're so close to 10,000
21:40 subscribers. I cannot believe it. Thank
21:42 you all for your support. It really
21:45 means so so much to me. Well, until next
21:47 time. Bye for now. [Music]
