I've been struggling with the endowment effect since around July 2018, but I didn't know what it was until a few months ago. Spoiler alert: I'm going to talk a lot about one of my designs in this post.
Endowment effect is related to loss aversion. When you give a player something that is 'theirs' they will not want to give it up, even for something of greater value. You can deal with endowment effect in two ways: you can make it easier for players to progress by reducing the feeling of loss (by not taking their stuff or by not giving them stuff to begin with) OR you can ramp up the feeling of loss to create tension. Geoff Engelstein breaks these options down mechanically in Achievement Relocked. In his examples, the options above are presented to make a game feel more forgiving or less forgiving and that seems to correspond to lighter or heavier games. Which is a good starting place for understanding endowment effect. But I want to look at a third option: embracing endowment effect in lighter (or any) games as a way to drive home the theme. And I can really only do that by taking a close look at my upcoming game, Deadly Dowagers (signed and in development; not yet announced).
Deadly Dowagers is a pick-and-pass drafting and tableau-building game for 2-6 players that plays in 45 minutes. Players take on the roles of Victorian women who would kill to marry a Duke.
When I invite players to join a game of Deadly Dowagers, the ones who agree are typically excited at the prospect of the theme: Victorian women killing their husbands to marry richer ones (rinse and repeat). But once they start playing they seem to have a change of heart. Why can't they just get a divorce, they ask. Or, they will stay married long after they should have 'ended things' in order to win the game. The second and third (and so on) husbands are usually dispatched much more quickly. What makes the first husbands special? Well, for one they are the first, but, more importantly, the first husbands are 'purchased' as a part of set up. They are your starting gear. And unlike items in digital RPGs, you have to get rid of one before you can upgrade to the next one. That by itself creates some feelings. But then you layer on the cultural context of the theme. You are married to that portrait on that card. That is your husband. Players already wouldn't want to give up starting gear that they are still actively using. Starting husbands are that much more emotionally charged.
I think at this point I need to make clear that this is a light, fun game. This moment of tension in the early game isn't there for every player and doesn't seem to ruin the experience (for people who are willing to play a game with this theme to begin with). Still, some designers would try to avoid that negative feeling in a light game. Not me. I wish that feeling happened with every husband in the game. However, as it stands, the fact that the first murder is the hardest feels metaphoric of a descent into a life of crime. The player psychology and rhythm of gameplay feed into and reinforce the theme. Which is always my goal in game design.
So, if you wanted to leverage endowment effect for emotional effect, how should you go about it? First you must give the players (or let them choose from a selection) something of value. This needs to be the only task occurring. In Deadly Dowagers, players make two choices during set up: which portrait represents them and which husband they want to marry. (Husbands cost a certain amount of your starting money. It's a dowry system.) Later husbands are married while players are juggling tableaus of property, larger amounts of cash, and other players who are at a different phase of the game. (Play is mostly simultaneous.) I would have to slow the game down a lot to recreate the first husband feeling.
Layering value deepens the emotional experience. Importantly, husbands are of mechanical value but also thematic value as mentioned above. Scarcity is another way to add perceived value, even if the item doesn't have the largest intrinsic value. Making players pay for the item adds another layer of value. (Creating loss around something of cultural value also creates the sense of violating a taboo. I'd be careful about making that the goal of the game, but it works in Deadly Dowagers.)
Once players have something of value, that item must be pitted against an opportunity loss. Husbands have special powers while they are alive, but leave you fortunes when they die. Do you need the power more or the money? If you run out of money, you may have a dead turn because you will be unable to build your tableau. This tension is what makes the negative feelings about loss worth it.
If you really want to ramp up the feeling, make the loss permanent and have consequences. Obviously, death is permanent in Deadly Dowagers and creates an emotional response. But players also have to juggle the infamy of having buried their husbands under "mysterious" circumstances. To drive this home, not only is there an infamy track, but players place dead husbands in a personal husband graveyard that generates infamy for the rest of the game. The husband cards don't return to the 'market' but are left in the tableau as a momento mori. This system creates immediate and delayed consequences which is both thematic and adds tension.
Make the loss player-driven. Every round in Deadly Dowagers has a husband phase during which players can get married to or murder a husband. Or they could pass. The decision to advance is on the players. Making the choice deepens the emotion. Forcing the loss thru a regular event feels scripted which decreases the tension. Forcing the loss thru a random event feels arbitrary and bad. If you give players an out by forcing the loss or avoiding the loss, they will take it to avoid mechanics that make them even slightly uncomfortable. On the other hand, you can give your players the hope of a way out. There is one single card in all of Deadly Dowagers that kills your husband by natural causes. Players feel better knowing there is a chance that they could avoid the decision that makes them feel bad, even though they would see that card at most twice in a game (you need to kill four husbands on average).
Be aware of the goal gradient effect. Players' motivation to achieve a goal increases as players near the goal. What this means for Deadly Dowagers is that the closer players get to the end of the game, the more murder-for-profit takes precedence over any other consideration. Again, this plays into the narrative arc of a descent into a life of crime. It also means that endowment effect would be even harder to implement past the halfway or two-thirds point in the game. "This thing is mine" becomes increasingly less important over time compared to "reaching the goal."
I didn't have a language for any of this when I designed my game. I stumbled into a dynamic that worked the way I wanted it to and leaned into it. If I had known about endowment effect, I would have spent less time banging my head against a wall trying to make every husband feel valuable and would have embraced the arc present in the game sooner. You don't need to know every design term to design a good game, but knowing why something works the way it does can prevent you from wandering down too many rabbit trails during the design process.
ShippBoard Games is a board game design blog that updates most Mondays.
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