More Reactive Design, 4e August 24, 2007
Posted by Ian in Applied, Game Design, Methodological, Theory.trackback
I realize that a lot of how I came to game design had to do with thinking about ways to make my 3.x D&D game better. I did a lot of tinkering with implied social rules more than mechanical ones, though it was definitely the mechanical twiddling that was most obvious to my players.
Which is part of what this announcement of 4e has me thinking about. What sort of social things can be done that are also mechanical, would I like done to a fantasy-esque game?
One thing is pretty simple: making NPC goals a mechanical feature of the game. As soon as an NPC becomes more than window dressing, the GM should assign them a goal that relates to the current players’ goals.
It can be small but specific and pointed toward the story the players’ characters are in. We can imagine the barkeep in the cliched bar having the simple goal, “I want to help these people by providing them hearty meals” or “I want to get my share of this group’s wealth.”
There should be rules for how those can change. One option: a goal can only change when it has been explicitly thwarted or resolved by the players’ actions. That fuzziness should be deliberate, giving the GM flexibility.
Having more than one goal should be a rare situation for an NPC, only occurring when they become essential to the plot. Something simple might work again: for every three encounters the players have with the NPC, they get an additional goal based upon the content of those encounters.
Again, flexibility is deliberate. Also, it makes complexity dependent upon the interactions players have with NPC’s. It helps cut down on mary sue-ism.
This becomes more effective if the NPC’s conflict resources are partially dependent on those motives. Even moreso if the restrictions on acquiring motives is more stringent—maybe new ones only arising when the NPC engages in conflicts with the PC’s.
That option is pretty attractive. The mysterious all-powerful NPC just can’t happen. They have to begin as minor characters that get thwarted or get one-up on the players, becoming more potent over the course of those interactions.
They have to be embedded in the story being told about the PC’s.
Interesting post. I really do like the idea of mechanics that support social/behavioural aspects in-game. Most RPGs are pretty primitive in this respect, probably as a result of such things being complex and difficult to model, but it’s a bit of a cop-out. Social/character interaction should be one of the most entertaining bits. So why don’t the rules better support it?
I’d certainly love to see this aspect of RPGs expanded, and would be interested to hear any development of your ideas. Do you have any other thoughts along similar lines?
What you’ve said puts me in mind of various games, like Ganakagok and (I think) Weapons of the Gods, that utilise Relationship Maps to orient NPCs and indicate their motivations. Also I would say the town creation process from Dogs in the Vineyard performs a similar function. To my mind, such innovation isn’t a complete answer though and also it has yet to make it into mainstream games such as D&D
I still haven’t looked at Ganakagok, though it’s a game I continue to be curious about…hmmm.
Your post does put me in mind of something else, that might be interesting to toy with, though.
So, how did you tinker with us socially, then?
Well, the most obvious piece of social tinkering was taking death of off the table for player characters and a select set of NPC’s. That was all about rewriting what was at stake at the table, what sort of resources were available.
It’s unfortunate, though, because as a whole the old habits of resource management remained firmly in place, making it more difficult to get some of those sides of the game rolling. There were plenty of cases where, as a whole, players were unwilling to take risks because they were sure there were ‘traps’ in social opportunities.
Still, with the development of personal domains, of followers (all that which accompanied the whole give characters immortality bit), there were some quite juicy emergent bits. Players (not just their characters;) began to develop ‘world historical’ goals that were, if not in conflict with each other, definitely at variance with each other, making social negotiations more prominent.
Of course, some of that social tinkering, just like some of the mechanical tinkering, had decidedly lackluster results. The creation of the new world, for example. While it did angle a few conflicts between characters, facilitate some negotiations, it never really quite took off.
I had angled it all wrong, not giving you guys enough stake in that process, so interactions tended to be fairly abstract. Eh, win some, lose some.