Game State vs. Game World

There is a core disambiguation you have to make when trying to integrate your mechanics with your theme: that of the game state and the game world. To understand the difference, we should first look at Gil Hova's player/avatar/agent model. The model proposes three representatives of self in a game: the player, the avatar, and the agent. The player is the person playing the game; the avatar is the thematic representation of the player in the game; the agent is the mechanical representation of the player in the game. Game state refers to the mechanical progression of gameplay and thus interacts with the player through the agent. The game world interacts with the player through the avatar. Hova asserts that high overlap between agent and avatar results in a deeply thematic experience. However, sometimes actions must be mechanical for simplicity's sake, so full overlap is rare. 

Knowing where to focus on theme and where not to is an important skill for a designer to have. When an element will affect the game world it should be thematic. When an element only interacts with the agential side of play, trying to force a theme can feel unnatural. Let's look at some common cases. In card drafting games, the drafting phase is typically agential and separated from the theme. In order to make a drafting phase feel thematic, a game would have to relate the physical actions and mental decisions of selecting cards to the theme in a simulative way to overcome the strong agential decisions being made. Since cards, especially in the hand, are inherently abstract, this has proven difficult to do. The best example of thematic drafting is Sushi Roll, a dice drafting game where the dice slide around on conveyor belt tiles. The action of selecting something chunky and placing it in front of you is the same action you take at an actual sushi restaurant. Sushi Go! cannot express the same level of theme because passing a hand of cards doesn't feel close enough to a conveyor belt sliding by. The mechanics of Sushi Go! are inspired by the theme but the theme does not feel as present. Deck builders have the same problems and for the same reasons: cards and the acts of acquiring them and shuffling them are too abstract (or too tied to our sense memory of playing card games) to feel thematic. 

These mechanisms primarily affect the game state and have little affect on the game world. If you take into account a player's emotional state throughout gameplay, you can turn agential play back into avatar play through what I call 'reverse bleed,' but often you are better off letting purely agential mechanisms remain somewhat abstract. You can still use thematic icons and art but there is danger in pushing the theme too hard. Audiences want to watch movies that make them feel sad, not movies that claim to be sad without earning any real emotional payoff. Games that try too hard to be thematic (in the wrong ways) will feel weaker than games that understand where the emotional payoff of the theme comes from. Usually in a multi-board game you will have a board where the characters interact with locations and a board or section of board that exists purely to track game state. The Quacks of Quedlinburg is an excellent example of this. The score board tracks rounds and scores (and rat tails and ingredient unlocks). It is purely agential. The art is there but players interact with it as players, not as alchemists. The player boards (and the ingredient market) exist in the game world. Players are placing ingredients in a pot hoping it will not explode. The theme is not simulative or transportive, but it is still present and actions in the game world affect the narrative of the alchemists in the game world (however thin that narrative may be). 

Strong thematic choices in elements that affect the game world are always a good idea. Pushing too much theme into primarily agential elements can be a mistake. However, the trickiest pieces of thematic design are the elements that aren't clearly one or the other. Many euro games have upgrade boards or action selection boards that mix agential play with avatar play. The act of selecting from a menu of mechanical choices is abstract, but the choices are often thematic or a mix of thematic and abstract. I would recommend trying to keep all the actions offered on such a menu at the same level of thematic expression. Flipping back and forth between thematic and abstract choices feels messy and confusing as a player. 

By identifying which elements of your game take place outside of the game world, you can also take steps to minimize the breaks in immersion. Anyone who has taken an acting class should be able to tell you that audiences don't find actors pausing for laughter to be unrealistic. For an audience member, laughing effectively stopped their perception of time. An entire agential phase can occur without disrupting immersion if players are using the phase as a pause and not an interrupt. Interruptions are unexpected and unwelcome breaks in the flow of the game. Pauses can be used for pacing, to catch your breath, or to whet your imagination. Setting up a new scenario in a campaign, for instance, can prime players for the action that is to come by teasing the sorts of obstacles they might encounter, such as the terrain. Action selection menus can function the same way in a euro game, teasing options for how the game world can develop based on the choices made by the agent. Learning how to pause rather than interrupt the flow of play creates integrated experiences that will feel more thematic even when they technically aren't, they're just better executed.  

Knowing which parts of your game affect the game world and which only affect the game state leads to better thematic design. Understanding pauses and interruptions leads to better experience design. 

ShippBoard Games is a board game design blog that updates most Mondays.