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2 October 2005
by Mike Rozak
In previous articles, I mentioned that sub-games should vary slightly each time they're used. I thought I'd explain the idea a bit more using the combat sub-game from the Dungeons & Dragons pen-and-paper RPG as an example.
How does D&D vary combat? Take, for example, an encounter with orcs:
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Default - 1st level characters have their first battle against a prototypical monster, such as orcs. The player characters are attacked by a handful of orcs in a nondescript dungeon room. Players find this fun and exciting because they have never fought orcs (or anything) before.
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Geography - Future combats occur in more interesting geography. There are trees to act as barriers, perhaps elevated regions of the combat "arena", or even movable barriers like crates.
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Geographic complications - Combat could take place on muddy ground, where PCs and monsters might slip. Or maybe combat is in shallow water where movement is slowed and unconscious characters drown. Or, underwater, in the astral plane, etc.
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Other complications - The fight might occur in a crowded city street with innocent bystanders that need to be protected. If too much noise is made, other orcs might be pulled in. Or, the original orcs might call for help, creating time constraints to how long the combat can last before reinforcements arrive.
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Tactics - Monsters will use different tactics, like charging out all at once, or using barriers to hide behind, or continually running and regrouping.
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Weapons - Orcs can wield swords, maces, bows, or hurl stones. Each weapon has different properties that affect combat.
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Numbers - Instead of a handful of orcs, players might have to fight dozens. (By the way, as characters advance to higher levels, bringing in dozens of orcs shows the players how powerful they've become, and gives them a sense of accomplishment.)
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Bigger orcs - Instead of the standard 1 hit-die orc, use 2 hit-die orcs.
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Special abilities, resistances, and weaknesses - The orcs could be magically manipulated so they regenerate, breath fire, etc.
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Different shape - Of course, a bigger orc with special abilities is usually given a knew name, like an ogre, troll, or dragon.
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Combinations - Players might have to face combinations of monsters, such as a hoard of orcs that occupy the fighters while a vampire uses its hypnotism ability to knock off the party's magic users.
Meanwhile, the player characters are gaining new powers:
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Magic weapons and armour - As players find magic weapons and armour, they get new abilities, such as immunity to a ghoul's paralysing touch, or the ability to fly. These new abilities provide players new actions to use during combat. MMORPG magic weapons and armour just end up being more powerful versions of normal weapons/armour, and rarely introduce new abilities.
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Spells - D&D magic users are provided new spells every few levels. Again, this provides them with new abilities that they can use in combat. While higher-level MMORPG spells pretty much end up being "a more damaging version of the lower-level spell", D&D spells includes a large variety of offensive and defensive spells, each with special effects.
As an aside: The way D&D limits magic is pretty clever from a game design POV. It forces magic users to make choices about resource allocation, namely, which spells they wish to prepare for the day. Since players will inevitably chose spells that aren't appropriate for the day's situation, they often need to find creative uses for their remaining spells. How can Magic mouth or Tenser's floating disc be used creatively in combat? There are ways, and the limitation makes the game more fun than mana-based systems.
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New abilities - Other classes learn new abilities as they advance levels, like the ability to climb walls. These new abilities breath new variation into combat.
Basically, D&D starts off 1st level characters with a very simple combat sub-game, and gradually introduces more choices, strategy, and complications into the sub-game as characters advance levels. Since new players begin as 1st level characters and gradually advance, the combat sub-game's complexity rises in line with the player's mastery of the rules. This design ensures that new players aren't overwhelmed with choice and complexity, and that experienced players aren't bored.
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2 October 2005
by Mike Rozak
Imagine that you have an idea for a new invention and that you want to get people's feedback about the new invention. What will happen?
To make the abstract case more concrete, imagine that it's the 1940s and you figured out how to build a microwave oven. You haven't built one yet, since the R&D is pretty expensive. However, you get together a focus group of people and ask them if they think a microwave oven would be a good idea. In order to get the best responses, you select people that use conventional ovens for your focus group.
What kind of feedback will the give?
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50% of the people won't even understand your idea. Either they won't be paying attention to your description of a microwave oven, or they paid attention but just don't get it. They will provide sincere feedback, but it will be clear from their feedback that your presentation of a microwave oven just went over their heads. Their feedback will include nonsense such as, "That's great, but how long does it take to pre-heat the oven?"
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25% of the focus group will understand your idea, but they won't have spent much time thinking about it. (After all, you have spent years pondering the invention, while they only have 10 minutes to consider to the idea.) Their feedback is mostly useless too, "I want it to display the time of day using a red digital display, not a blue one, and I don't want the numbers to be too large."
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The remainder will understand what a microwave oven is, and will have spent enough time to provide reasonable feedback... However, most of the feedback they provide will be reasons why your microwave oven won't work for them, such as "It won't brown bread," or "I can't use my metal pans in the oven," or "That would be great, but a microwave oven is theoretically impossible."
You can spend years trying to convince members of the focus group (or the general population) that a microwave oven can be built, and that uses will exist for it. What you'll discover is:
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Some people cannot (or will not) be convinced no matter how hard you try.
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The more radical your invention, the less likely that people will believe it's possible.
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Corollary: If most people believe your invention is possible, it's not a new invention.
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If you do find a loyal band of believers, many/most of them will give you feedback that, if you listen to it, will cause you to reinvent the conventional oven, but call it a microwave.
You eventually give up trying to convince people that microwaves will work, and build a prototype yourself. You present the prototype to your focus group, only to discover:
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Most inventions are failures. They either cannot be created or they have so many flaws that people don't want to use them. Assuming that your newly-invented microwave works...
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New inventions aren't perfected. Conventional have been perfected over hundreds of years. Inevitably, the first microwave ovens will have problems too. Not to mention the high price tag attached to any new technology. These will turn off potential users. Opponents of your invention will point to the flaws and claim that microwaves will never work.
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Just about all the hypothetical problems that people pointed out in the first focus group turn out to be true. Microwave ovens won't brown bread. You can't put metal pans in them. Microwaved meat tastes awful. Etc.
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Most conventional oven users will still be negative about your microwave oven. The reasons for this are:
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Most people don't like change.
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Microwave ovens can't do everything that conventional ovens can (such as brown breads). People using conventional ovens often rely on those features; if the microwave oven doesn't have the feature they won't use it. To this day, bread is still baked in a conventional oven (or a bread maker).
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You may convert a few conventional-oven users to purchase your new invention. However, your best bet is to approach new markets, such as:
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People that eat lots of baked potatoes or corn on the cob.
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People reheating leftovers.
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People that buy prepared food and reheat it in the microwave. Of course, the prepared food market didn't really take off until microwaves became popular... a bit of a bootstrap problem.
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People that heat up water to make tea/coffee.
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Popcorn eaters.
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Unfortunately, if you had anticipated the new markets from the start and included them in your original focus group their feedback wouldn't be any better... "Why do I need my potato baked in 2 minutes?", "I can boil a cup of water on the oven just as easily", "I already have a popcorn maker."
Does this sound too cynical?
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