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