Concepts in Game Mechanics

An approach to designing game

mechanics
 
By Amir Arad

Solmukohta 2008, all rights reserved to Amir Arad

 Overview
●Preface
●Background concepts
●general game concepts
●Core mechanics concepts
●How to put it to practice

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 Preface
Meta
● Who I am
○ Resume
■ Big larps
■ Computers
○ Bad english
● Where do I come from
○ Israeli larping (games)
○ A game has to be interesting for itself.
● Background to this lecture
○ Concept-oriented point of view
○ Israeli LarpCon 2007
○ AWiF 2008

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 Preface
Game Mechanics
●Mechanics as a toy
●Mechanics as a tool
●Mechanics – definition?
○ A set of systems used to influence players’ behavior
and approach.
●Mechanics – goal
○ Encourage role-playing? Be interesting?
●Mechanics – hardly mandatory

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 Background concepts
Freedom vs Railroading
●We prefer our own ideas.
●We are open to influences.
●Indirect manipulation is better.
●Is a repeated dilemma.
●There’s no right answer.

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 Background concepts
Players own the game
●A game is a mini-society.
●The society has to have an inner tension.
●The society has to be believable.
●The players needs to understand the inner-logic
of the game world.

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 Background concepts
Unlawfulness
●Over-motivation
●Sudden unrelated disaster
●Draconic rules
●Limited concentration
●Norm
●Drama

●Meta-gaming

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 Background concepts
“Time-space continuum paradox”
●Description
●Reasons
○ Slow conflict resolution
○ Fast-forwarding
○ Waiting for a GM
●What’s to be done
○ Less symbolic rules
○ A less GM-dependant system
○ Cover it up with the story

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 general game concepts
Game status
●In-game status (formal + relationships)
●Persona
●Costume
●Ownership of (and desire to use) information
●Ownership of (and desire to use) objects
●Off-game status

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 general game concepts
Game influence
● Player’s ability to influence other player (P2P)
○ Roleplay (game status)
○ Powers (system)
● Player’s ability to influence the world (P2W).
● Mechanic centered influence.
● Players want to influence (or do they?).
● Each player deserves the ability to influence each other.

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 general game concepts
Powers
●An ability to influence.
●Division by target of influence
○ external powers: affect other players.
■ More interesting (encourages RP)
○ Internal powers: affect self or the world.
■ Easier resolution (no consent required)
●Balance P2P influence – high status roles
should get less external powers.

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 general game concepts
Role
●A “job” within a game. Not a persona.
●Has game-scope goals (=motivations)
●A role can be assigned to many players.
●Player may have more than one role.
●Might be possible to acquire or lose in-game.

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 general game concepts
Motivation
●It’s basically a game goal
●A role can have one or many motivations.
●At least one motivation per player at all times.
●A player must relate to his motivation
○ If he doesn’t, he’ll invent one or leave the game.
●The sum of all motivations should create
conflicts.

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 general game concepts
Conflict
●This is mainly a story-related area
●But there are some mechanics insights
○ Conflict is a sum of opposing game motivations.
○ Conflict should be resolved by interaction.
○ A game is what happens when conflicts are being
resolved.

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 general game concepts
game RCM table

Conflict Conflict Conflict

Role Motivation Motivation

Role Motivation

Role Motivation Motivation

Role Motivation

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 Core mechanics concepts
system
●A set of definitions surrounding a game concept.
●A tool to answer questions regarding it’s
concept.
○ What can be done
○ How can it be done
○ How to advance
○ Etc.
●Might be very short and simple.
●It’s an algorithm that runs on human!

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 Core mechanics concepts
inner score
●The measurement to everything that is part of
the system.
●Examples:
○ HP in combat
○ Mana in magic
○ Money in economy
●A useful tool for resolution.

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 Core mechanics concepts
a system with an inner score
●A system can allow players to:
○ Know the other player’s score
○ Change the other player’s score
○ Transfer score between players
○ Fake their score
○ Raise their score
○ Spend their score to gain something else
●One can compare two players’ strength in the
system by their inner score.

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 Core mechanics concepts
the primary game concept
●The subject of the players’ game experience.
●Can be referred to as “game theme”
●Should be well-defined and concise.
●Has a system (“theme system”)
○ should define the player’s view of the game.
○ Should encourage a variety of situations and solutions
○ Should have an inner score

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 Core mechanics concepts
the inner score of the theme system
●It’s a McGuffin.
○ Attracts attention
○ Drives the game
○ Players are constantly in contact with it
●Should be represented well in the game
○ The way it is represented will directly affect game’s
quality

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 Core mechanics concepts
secondary game concepts
●Concepts that demand answers but are not part
of the game theme.
○ Including off-game matters (safety etc.)
○ Including setting-realism concepts (death etc.)
●Also have systems (“secondary systems”)
○ should serve the game’s needs, no more.
○ Should be simple.
○ Should be resolution-oriented.
○ Might have an inner score, preferably not.

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 Core mechanics concepts
rules
●Rules are the parts of the system that players
should know and act upon.
●Two types of rules:
○ Reaction rules
■ Should cover the reactions to all external powers
○ Action rules
■ Should cover usage of all powers in the game
●The list of rules should be as short and simple
as possible.
○ Maximum possibilities, minimum size and complexity.

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 How to put it to practice
combining systems into one mechanic
●Secondary systems should interact with the
theme’s inner score
○ Use it as their own inner score
○ Affect it
●Get rid of practically unnecessary powers
●Overall look
○ Does the system handle every question that might
arise?

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 How to put it to practice
limitation - player’s attention span
●Rules that require attention are to be avoided.
●In an ideal game the players should pay
attention to roleplaying and to the game, not to
the rules.
●Sometimes it is better to let go of cool ideas in
order to keep the rules simple.

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 How to put it to practice
shortening the rules list
●Replacing rules with in-game solution
○ Guards
●One reaction rule for many action rules
○ Battle calls
●“Need to know basis” rules
○ notes
●Game masters

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 How to put it to practice
the magic hour
● At the beginning of the game, the players are busy trying
to understand how the game really runs.
○ Most of the time, the pre-game information that the players have
is different than what is really going on.
● This is the best time for impression management.
○ All game resources should be directed to give a good
representation of how the game society usually behaves.
○ No additional game information should be available to the players
at this time.
○ By the end of this hour(s) the player’s approach to the game will
be determined.

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