Not Equal At All
Not Equal At All
Not Equal At All
Game Design Essay
Introduction
Many game systems offer a variety of choices or options during character creation; the general thinking among these options is that they are, in theory, “equal” to one another. In other words, while there may be specific reasons to pick one or another for certain purposes, they can all be chosen without fear of one choice being clearly superior to the others, or at least close enough to not hinder gameplay and player enjoyment. But this isn’t always the case, and in some games where very coarse-grained choices are part of the process, a wrong choice can have a heavy impact on character capabilities. Let’s look over some examples.
(For the purposes of this essay, I’m NOT looking at comparative resource costs to get the same result, which is the bane of certain more-complex character creation systems, but instead circumstances where players may have a handful of choices to make. The topics are similar, however.)
Broadness of Application
One area that this will often matter is broadness of application; if a character has a trait that can only be used in limited circumstances, they may feel very limited in play compared to a character with traits that can be used in a variety of ways. Extremely freeform traits, such as Aspects in FATE, are susceptible to this problem. (The FATE rulebook does provide guidelines, but it can still take experience to see the difference in application between Can Make Machines Purr and “Okay, I’m going for it!” One is good for technological challenges, but the other could be used for almost anything.)
But sometimes, these issues with broad application are actually built into the system. One example of this is the Sentinel Comics RPG. PCs built in this game have two Principles in their Abilities list; without getting into game mechanics and probability too heavily, these are actually a very important resource for characters, because they allow characters to use the Overcome action with a dramatically improved success rate. (The odds of complete success jump from extremely roughly 2% to 43%; PCs should rely on them a lot!) Principles are selected off a list (and the full range of choices is sharply curtailed depending on character type), and everybody will always have precisely and only two of them, so they should, in theory, always be comparable.
But they aren’t. An Overcome in SCRPG is, roughly speaking, beating a challenge that is not an opponent, whether it’s persuading an official, solving a puzzle, rescuing a drowning victim, or infiltrating a warehouse. The Principles, among other things, have a triggering circumstance in which they can be used. For example, the Principle of Lab says “Overcome while in a familiar workspace or when you have ample research time.” That’s good when those very specific things are involved, but it becomes a very hard stretch to rescue a drowning victim or shift a boulder out of your way. For contrast, the Principle of the Tactician says “Overcome when you can flashback to how you prepared for this exact situation.” For that one, it becomes almost impossible for the GM to deny its use, and fairly simple for a player to justify it. Shift a boulder? Studied leverage just in case. Drowning victim? Took lifeguarding classes to know what to do, anticipating trouble. Persuade an official? Did research on the profiles of all of them. One is much more broadly useful than the other, period. A player who plans ahead and picks at least one Principle that they can use in a wide range of situations will have a distinct advantage, but a random choice might find a character who is great at knowing locals and their own business and at situations where being small and young is an advantage and nothing more.
(And yes, very creative and/or persuasive players may be able to somehow stretch and distort their Principle to fit anything, but there’s a point where it just goes outside rational use.)
Scenario Specific
During a scenario at a gaming convention I attended last year, one of the pregen PCs had their one-and-only special trait be a bonus at piloting extraterrestrial spacecraft. In the course of the scenario, our characters wound up on a spacecraft that we couldn’t control or pilot in any way, arriving at another spacecraft that we then took over-- and that wrapped the game. That player never had a chance to use their specialty; it was irrelevant to the game. Now, that’s not good design, since it was a convention game with pregen PCs, but it showcases another kind of problem with unequal choices-- scenarios where some of the options for characters don’t matter. A classic one is a character built for social encounters who finds the group frequently in deadly combat, but there are countless other examples that are possible. (At the same convention, I wound up with a character whose major resources were related to hacking and communications, which was fine, but the only conflict involved very dangerous enemies attacking us while we were on a highway in the middle of nowhere, and it was set in the 80s, so there wasn’t much I could do with that.) This is at least easier to solve if the GM is involved with the characters during the creation process, and can guide them into roles relevant to the scenario, but if that doesn’t happen, it’s all too easy for a character whose focus is not relevant for the game to simply be unable to participate in the way they wanted to, and that feels like a serious loss.
Combat and Noncombat
One key area where this matters in games is, of course, combat; woe betide the player whose character lags behind others in this arena, it is known, lest they simply die! And that’s certainly a concern-- many RPGs involve a lot of combat, combat almost always involves the entire group, often takes up a lot of table time, and inability to participate meaningfully can get somebody killed.
But that’s actually not the only consideration here. Being combat-capable is so ingrained into game design and character design that it’s almost not the largest concern compared to noncombat application in a number of game systems.
One of the classic examples of this is the most popular game in the US and probably worldwide-- Dungeons and Dragons, notably the current edition. In D&D, one class is “Fighter”; Fighters… fight. They are good in specific aspects of combat; otherwise, they have skills. But everyone gets skills; likewise, everyone can participate in combat, often challenging Fighters in their specific area of greatest strength (Single-target combat), and utterly triumphing over them in other aspects of combat (Crowd control, for example.) It’s doubtlessly necessary for gameplay-- it wouldn’t do to have other classes be helpless in combat, which is a large part of D&D-- but outside of combat, things change. Fighters can have Skills, as can all classes. But spellcasting classes gain abilities that let them bypass Skill challenges, or let them do things that no Skill could ever accomplish, and this gap grows larger and larger even as the combat abilities of spellcasters grows with it.
But this can also impact other systems! In a relatively freeform system like Cortex, creativity can let a trait like Senses outperform Super Strength. It’s easy enough to justify using Senses in combat-- analyzing a foe’s movement, spotting their weaknesses and strengths, and so on. But Senses can also be used to solve puzzles, track enemies, potentially even have application in social settings. Likewise, in some games, it’s very possible to even use social or psychological skills in combat, perhaps by creating “Good morale” assets for other to use. However, conversely, it’s often much, much harder to apply combat skills to noncombat situations as broadly. Being a master archer is much harder to apply to debate than it is to find a justification for a master of persuasion being able to distract a foe or boost an ally. In this regard, it’s a serious issue if combat-themed characters can’t do anything out of combat, but the reverse isn’t true, and it’s something that needs to be considered, either in game design or in campaign design.
Does it even matter?
Does it actually matter if characters are unequal? This is a delicate question, and depends in part on the group and the specific players. If the differences aren’t great, of course, it surely matters less no matter what. But sometimes it’s easy to see where one character has noteworthy advantages over the other… and I think that it does matter, broadly, and it’s worth addressing. Some players, for example, can become frustrated with their inability to contribute, or to act effectively, and that frustration isn’t fun, the more so when it’s not obvious that some choices aren’t as good. Likewise, even if one player doesn’t mind being less capable, other players may become frustrated with that player’s weakness and having to cover for them; the GM, in turn, may find it more challenging to balance encounters and challenges while still allowing that player spotlight time. Overall, the less inequality between equivalent choices, the more desirable the results will be, even if it’s fine with certain players.
Solutions
When making characters, of course, one should look at options and choose carefully, but that’s not always very satisfactory. What if one’s character concept depends on certain choices, or if it’s not obvious that there’s a problem? Another good place to work on this problem is at the design phase of a game, of course, but that’s not an option the majority of the time; most of us play games other people have already made. (I’m a game designer, but for a variety of reasons, mostly play other people’s systems.)
Sadly, this means that a certain amount of work on the part of the GM becomes necessary; it is, however, worthwhile. It’s good to see what choices players make, and then play to them. Is the player immune to something? Make sure it shows up so that they can have their moment! Do they have a Principle that’s great at stealth? Give them lots of chances to sneak in places! Make sure to give players a chance to shine by adjusting scenarios to their characters, rather than making the players adjust to the scenario. Sometimes, it’s the only solution, but I think that it’s the best one.
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Okay, but on a standard keyboard, that H is nowhere near the P, C, S or E for that matter... meaning that the drunken slurring of "respect" was done *deliberately.*
Absolutely this! Shutting down art because people don't like it is a problem, period.
it's true and you should say it.
This one is always worth sharing.
This weekend I was told a story which, although I’m kind of ashamed to admit it, because holy shit is it ever obvious, is kind of blowing my mind.
A friend of a friend won a free consultation with Clinton Kelly of What Not To Wear, and she was very excited, because she has a plus-size body, and wanted some tips on how to make the most of her wardrobe in a fashion culture which deliberately puts her body at a disadvantage.
Her first question for him was this: how do celebrities make a plain white t-shirt and a pair of weekend jeans look chic? She always assumed it was because so many celebrities have, by nature or by design, very slender frames, and because they can afford very expensive clothing. But when she watched What Not To Wear, she noticed that women of all sizes ended up in cute clothes that really fit their bodies and looked great. She had tried to apply some guidelines from the show into her own wardrobe, but with only mixed success. So - what gives?
His answer was that everything you will ever see on a celebrity’s body, including their outfits when they’re out and about and they just get caught by a paparazzo, has been tailored, and the same goes for everything on What Not To Wear. Jeans, blazers, dresses - everything right down to plain t-shirts and camisoles. He pointed out that historically, up until the last few generations, the vast majority of people either made their own clothing or had their clothing made by tailors and seamstresses. You had your clothing made to accommodate the measurements of your individual body, and then you moved the fuck on. Nothing on the show or in People magazine is off the rack and unaltered. He said that what they do is ignore the actual size numbers on the tags, find something that fits an individual’s widest place, and then have it completely altered to fit. That’s how celebrities have jeans that magically fit them all over, and the rest of us chumps can’t ever find a pair that doesn’t gape here or ride up or slouch down or have about four yards of extra fabric here and there.
I knew that having dresses and blazers altered was probably something they were doing, but to me, having alterations done generally means having my jeans hemmed and then simply living with the fact that I will always be adjusting my clothing while I’m wearing it because I have curves from here to ya-ya, some things don’t fit right, and the world is just unfair that way. I didn’t think that having everything tailored was something that people did.
It’s so obvious, I can’t believe I didn’t know this. But no one ever told me. I was told about bikini season and dieting and targeting your “problem areas” and avoiding horizontal stripes. No one told me that Jennifer Aniston is out there wearing a bigger size of Ralph Lauren t-shirt and having it altered to fit her.
I sat there after I was told this story, and I really thought about how hard I have worked not to care about the number or the letter on the tag of my clothes, how hard I have tried to just love my body the way it is, and where I’ve succeeded and failed. I thought about all the times I’ve stood in a fitting room and stared up at the lights and bit my lip so hard it bled, just to keep myself from crying about how nothing fits the way it’s supposed to. No one told me that it wasn’t supposed to. I guess I just didn’t know. I was too busy thinking that I was the one that didn’t fit.
I thought about that, and about all the other girls and women out there whose proportions are “wrong,” who can’t find a good pair of work trousers, who can’t fill a sweater, who feel excluded and freakish and sad and frustrated because they have to go up a size, when really the size doesn’t mean anything and it never, ever did, and this is just another bullshit thing thrown in your path to make you feel shitty about yourself.
I thought about all of that, and then I thought that in elementary school, there should be a class for girls where they sit you down and tell you this stuff before you waste years of your life feeling like someone put you together wrong.
So, I have to take that and sit with it for a while. But in the meantime, I thought perhaps I should post this, because maybe my friend, her friend, and I are the only clueless people who did not realise this, but maybe we’re not. Maybe some of you have tried to embrace the arbitrary size you are, but still couldn’t find a cute pair of jeans, and didn’t know why.
I'll take anything I can get at this point.
Yyyyyyep.
Feel free to print and distribute this image
How could I not preserve and share such beautiful sarcasm?
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I mean, yeah. Too true.
I would so PAY TO SEE THIS AS A WEBCOMIC OR ANIMATION
The goblin looked at the orc. The orc looked at the goblin. They both looked down at the crumpled shape of the Overlord, His Unholy Majesty, in his obsidian armor.
His final spasms had been mesmerizingly acrobatic. The fall down the steps leading up to his iron throne had pretzelled his body quite impressively, both arms folded behind his back and one leg bent at a jaunty angle.
The goblin looked at the orc. The orc looked at the goblin.
"Shit," said the goblin.
"Shit," said the orc.
"We're likely to get blamed for this," the goblin said. She walked over to the head of the glittering mangled heap and started pulling the helmet off.
"It's not our fault," the orc said. "It's hard to help someone choking when they wear two-hundred pounds of spiked armor at all times."
"Yeah, well," the goblin grunted. The helmet came free, and the bald head of the Overlord bounced on the stone with a hollow, coconut noise. "You know how it is in this bloody country - thieves get their heads cut off so they can't think about thieving, and all that." She fished in the Overlord's mouth with a finger and pulled out the obstructing olive on the end of her claw.
She popped it into her mouth and chewed. "What do you reckon they do for a regicide?" she said.
"We should run," the orc said. She had started bouncing her leg. "I hear that there's some places in the Alliance where they just kill you and let you stay dead. That's got to be nicer than what'll happen if we stay here."
The goblin started to nod - and then her gaze fell on the helmet.
It looked like a pineapple designed by a deranged blacksmith. It was all thorns and spikes and hard edges, as though the maker had been very determined to not let pigeons roost on it. The only bits that weren't solid iron were eyeholes. Nobody had ever seen the Overlord's face.
She held up the helmet and squinted from it to the orc. One of the thorns had been bent badly in the fall.
Nobody had ever seen the Overlord's face...
"Right," she muttered. "Right. Could work - or."
The orc had a sudden vision of the immediate future. "No," she said.
"I mean you're about his height-"
"No."
"It would just be for a-"
"Absolutely not."
"Just hear me out," the goblin said. "Outside of this room are two-thousand men and orcs and goblins who are absolutely gonzo about this man, and there's a whole country of them outside of the castle, and at any moment someone's going to walk in that door and see one dead tit in black armor and two unbelievably dead idiots next to him.
"Or." She tossed the helmet up like a basketball to the orc, who fumbled and tried to find somewhere to hold it that wasn't a knife's edge. "We chuck him out the window now, walk out the door in the armor, and ditch the armor as soon as nobody sees us."
The orc had started bouncing her leg again. "They'll know something's up the second I walk out of the room."
"No worries," said the goblin. "Leave that to me."
---
It had been a very strange year for the Empire.
Change had rolled across the land as slow and inevitable as a glacier. Roads and bridges carved the gray, blasted wildlands, and a number of social reforms had made the country a place where you could be miserable, yes, but miserable in comfort and safety, and that was an improvement.
Barely anyone got boiled alive in molten metal, and even if the disgusted sun never rose to light the Empire, at least you had a roof over your head to protect yourself from the acid rain.
"Your empire flourishes, Your Unholy Majesty," the magician said over her wine glass. She looked down from the tower's balcony over the gleaming stone battlements. Some work had been done to line the castle and surrounding city with sizzling, crackling alchemical lights at night. The whole thing glowed like something dangerously radioactive.
The suit of armor waved a languid, glittering gauntlet over to the goblin, who bowed.
"His Abominable Gloriousness Thanks You," the goblin recited. "The Prosperity Of His Empire Can Only Be Achieved Through The Prosperity Of His People."
"If I may be so bold, I am quite pleased that you had chosen to take my counsel under consideration," said the magician. "We have accomplished many things together."
Another wave. Another bow. "The Overlord, May His Presence Swallow The Sun And Stars, Thanks You As Well."
"It was quite gratifying to see you change your mind, after so many centuries of denial." The wine was swirled. "Tell me, what was it that finally gave you cause to listen to me?"
There was the slightest hesitation. The goblin's eyes flicked to the armor, then to the magician. She puffed out her chest. "Do you question the wisdom of His Austere Lugubriousness?" she asked.
The magician looked at the goblin. She looked at the armor. She tipped her head back and drank the wine too quickly.
She looked back at the armor. "I know you're the orc, you moron," she said.
The room went deathly still. An alchemical light fizzled.
The orc pulled off the helmet, sending long, untied hair down tangling, and said: "How could you possibly-"
"Because you're both idiots!" the magician said. The goblin jumped. The orc jumped with a noise like a dropped stove. "What kind of a plan was this?! If it wasn't for me, you would have been turned into fertilizer months ago."
She closed her eyes. She took a long, dramatic breath. She set the wine glass down on the balcony rail.
"How did the Overlord die?" she asked when she seemed like she had gotten a hold over herself.
"Choked on an olive," said the goblin.
"Threw his body out the window," said the orc.
"You don't have to mention the window," said the goblin.
"Right," said the orc. "Sorry."
The magician looked out over the city, hand curled thoughtfully under her nose. "Who knows about this?"
"Just us. And, uh. You. Apparently."
"And why did you accept my counsel?"
The orc blinked. "Sorry?"
"Why did you accept my counsel?" the magician repeated.
"Well," the orc said. "Well - you seemed like you had good ideas-"
"Great ideas!" the goblin said with an edge of desperation. "Don't know why the old bastard didn't listen to you!"
"Right - right," said the orc. "And when we figured we were stuck doing this - well, it just made sense, really."
The magician seemed to absorb this. She nodded. "All right," she said, striding between the two and grabbing the crystal decanter.
"Um," said the orc. "Sorry. What happens now?"
"What happens is that you two will continue to serve as Overlord," said the magician. "You will continue to take my counsel. We will continue to reform this bloody country, and gods willing, we will turn it into the crown jewel of the world by next Midwinter."
The orc looked at the goblin. The goblin looked at the orc.
"Really?" the goblin asked.
"Oh yes," said the magician. "I've worked hard to be counsel to the Overlord, and I have no reason to stop now. And besides-"
She looked the orc up and down with a deliberate slowness, poring over every microscopic detail, eyes tracing over every jagged line, and grinned like a panther.
"You look much better in the armor than he ever did," she said. Dark robes swirled like a becleavaged thundercloud, and she strode out through the high iron doors, decanter in hand.
The goblin looked at the orc. The orc looked at the goblin.
"Shit," said the goblin.
"Shit," said the orc.
Yeah, this is me. Current events? DAMNIT BLUE RINGS TIME
Reading about current events ;3
Enough is enough. Really.
Democrats we cannot let Mike Johnson support legislation based on his religious beliefs. We have to win the House of Representatives, keep the Senate and the White House.
I pray enough Democrats vote to make this happen
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