[MUD-Dev2] Specialization

[Sean Howard]

"Damion Schubert" <dschubert at gmail.com> wrote:

> Throwing away good gameplay design because it might get
> in the way of the social aspect of the game ignores the fact that the
> tactics that arise from such gameplay constraints often do more good than
> harm.

Does it? Exactly what are you comparing it to? Because based on the online
games with persistent worlds that I've seen, defined roles tend to have a
socially unbalancing aspect to them. Have you learned no lessons from
LucasFilms' Habitat?

> Removing specialization so that all people can become and do all things
> if they so desire ends up creating a quagmire of overwhelming choice to
> most players, where if they are being competitive, they don't understand
> why they are failing.  In these situations, tactics tend to gravitate
> towards 'superbuilds' - character templates that have a high percentage
> of success  in the most situations.  The net result is that choice
> actually begins to shrink.

What is business school except training for being a superbuild? The
difference is, in real life, not everyone wants to go into business. You
create a great enough variety of activities and you won't have to worry
about enforcing individuality. Enforcing individuality is like enforcing
breathing. All you have to do is give people air and it'll happen anyway.

> One of the lead designers of Magic: the Gathering first described this
> paradox to me.  When one possible card combination in that game
> becomes overwhelming, all other players who desire to have a meaningful
> seat at the table are forced to build decks that use that combo, or build
> decks specifically designed to beat that combo.  When this happens,
> the number of different deck builds actually shrinks, and interest in the
> game wanes as players cannot express their creativity.  The broken cards
> are often artifacts - colorless cards that defy specialization, which
> makes them harder to balance.

When I played Hearts in high school, I always aimed for gathering all the
hearts (a very difficult thing to do), but I tended to win more often than
not because the stigma of gaining hearts was so great that by the time
they realized that I wanted that suite, they had already given me their
highest valued cards. This was a strategy I could employ successfully,
simply because the people I was playing against were min-maxers. As soon
as they figured out that I did this every game, I resorted to a second,
slightly more sinister strategy when I appeared to be seeking hearts but
was setting up one of the other players for them instead.

When you have a dominant strategy like in Magic, this is because there is
no player individuality. You are assuming stranger versus stranger in
optimal gameplay situations. But what happens when they play sealed deck
tournaments? Or when they've played the same person multiple times? When
they play their girlfriend versus when they play their best friend? The
dominant strategy exists due to the simple fact that victory has been too
narrowly defined, and the roles one plays are too strict. A game that can
allow for different people to play it to their own satisfaction is, I
believe, a better game. Long story short, when the goal isn't to win, you
can't have a dominant strategy.

> What you are describing is not at all like saying that players must all
> play as bishops.  What you are describing is like saying that all players
> may choose to populate their own chess boards with whatever pieces
> they like.  The end result - 15 queens surrounding one king - would make
> for a crappy game, and would be so utterly uninteresting as to not allow
> a society to gel.

If the goal was to win, then yes, that would be a dominant strategy. But
what if the goal was to insult your opponent? Then winning with 15 pawns
would be a better solution. What if your goal was to teach another player
how to play? Then a mix of all components would be required. What about if
you simply want make a picture using the pieces on the chessboard? Then
you'd use whatever pieces were aesthetically most pleasing. How about if
you wanted to play checkers? Then you could use pawns to stand in for
checker pieces.

When there is only one way to win, there is only one way to win. When
winning isn't important, there are a thousand ways to win.


> Good gameplay creates good discussion. Abandon good tactical gameplay,
> and you are merely praying that serendipity causes a community to gel.

Good gameplay causes discussion only amongst a specific type of player -
usually one that, when dominant in a community, completely ruins the
experience for everybody else. Screw those guys.

> So your answer would be to only allow Magic players to play with common
> cards and chess players to play with pawns.  Big, interesting and scary
> game pieces might not combo well with something else, so we better keep
> all possible functionality as bland and safe as humanly possible.  If only
> more of my competitors took this point of view.

No, my solution is not to define victory as a socialist statement. Any
gameplay is fine as long as you don't bother anyone else. Don't give one
brand of gameplay the power to dominate other ones. For instance, how much
more interesting is crafting when you are allowed to create furniture than
when you are simply outfitting warriors? How much more interesting is
owning a home when you can decorate it to serve functions other than
storage for your warrior? How much better is combat when violence isn't
the only way to solve a problem? It's better to build a world and let
combat be part of it than to create a combat system and let the world be
part of that.

> If not, you probably have a pretty uninteresting game.

My games are never uninteresting.

> If so, you probably need some sort of gating mechanism that the designer
> can use to keep things under control.

Why? Why does the designer need to be in control? I'm against
authoritarian game design. Let the player have a say in his experience.

-- 
Sean Howard