I had an amazing time at Tabletop Network '22. I came away with new ways of looking at design topics and several ideas for posts. This post expands on several points made by the group I was in during the conference.
The Ludology episode GameTek 213.5—The Incan Gold Experiment discusses an experiment to see whether players would disengage with a theme over time. Having just re-listened to the episode, I have to say that the experiment didn't find anything definitive in this respect. However, most of us know by experience that it doesn't take very many plays of a game for us to stop engaging with the theme and instead focus on efficiency.
The question then is: is this progression away from thematic engagement inevitable? Can this progression be slowed?
I think that there is a trap we could fall into if we try to make every play of a game as surprising and engaging thematically as a first play. The first time you view a piece of art or watch a movie or read a book will be a much different experience than subsequent exposures. The question should not be "how do I replicate this experience infinitely?" but "how do I make subsequent experiences also engaging?" I regularly reread novels; most people rewatch movies. Any given radio station only plays about 20 songs. Clearly humans have a capacity for repeated engagement with content. And if I asked you to name a song that always makes you cry you probably could, showing that we can repeatedly engage with emotional content as well.
So what then is going on with our disengagement with theme in board games? I would posit that in early plays of a game we are more likely to engage with opt-in thematic elements and in later plays we ignore that content. Also, any emotions we experience will feel stronger because they are unexpected. In subsequent plays, we will expect the arc of the game and thus our emotional experience may be more muted. If the majority of the thematic experience relies on surface level theme and novelty, the theme likely will fade faster in subsequent plays.
There are many other reasons for why thematic disengagement happens. However, as I am not a psychologist, I can only speak to processes that are within a designer's control. So, let us look at ways to improve the lifespan of thematic engagement rather than trying to settle the exact mechanisms of disengagement.
Make the efficient play thematic. The main axiom of disengagement seems to be that players who are engaged with theme will play suboptimally and as they become disengaged will shift to more optimal play. On the one hand, I think that suboptimal game play should always be fun and theme can be a source of that fun. On the other hand, why can't the efficient play be thematic as well? If optimal play causes total disengagement with the theme, I have to wonder how well-knitted the theme is with gameplay to begin with. There are some games where it seems like it would be difficult to totally disengage with the theme, such as racing games like Flamme Rouge, where the efficient play (making use of slipstreams and only pulling ahead at the end) is the thematic play. My axiom for board games is that the win condition is the theme, and the rest of the fluff needs to align with that.
Get players to speak in thematic terms. Speaking of thematic alignment, the words players speak while playing will drive engagement with the theme. In a race game, players will probably use terms like 'finish line' automatically. Your product design will affect whether players refer to the components by their color or a more thematic term. Board game design is all about crafting how players will use and experience your game. One aspect to pay attention to is how players speak and describe what they are doing during gameplay. If the language isn't thematic, the game experience likely isn't either.
Continuing our focus on thematic alignment, player emotions should fit with the experience the theme provides. This is often touted as a way to avoid ludonarrative dissonance, but there is another reason. When you watch a horror movie, feeling scared deepens your experience of the movie. When players feel emotions that make sense for their avatar in the game, that deepens their experience of the game. These emotions feed back into the theme and can serve as a thematic reminder to experienced players of why they should care about the theme.
Provide a clear narrative framework. Of course, the easiest way (I think it's cheating) to maintain thematic engagement is to make a narrative driven game. Forcing players to engage with a written narrative keeps their focus on the theme, even when the mechanics are unthematic. However, we can do similar things by providing a clear narrative framework with our mechanics and win conditions. By telling players who they are and what they want we allow them to become invested in the game world. If we then give them mechanics that flow logically from the game world we have established, we can co-create a narrative with our players.
Lastly, pay attention to the amount of calculation in the game. When players are spending a lot of time analyzing all possible moves, they are likely less engaged with the theme. While certain amounts of calculation will not detract from theme (and certain themes can align with calculation), narrative and calculation tend to be one or the other for our brains. When I am doing math I cannot also think about my avatar's desires and struggles. One solution is to alternate moments of math with narrative or to provide narrative check points during game pauses. Another solution is to make the calculation 'in character' for the avatar. Or to minimize calculation, which has a side benefit of speeding up gameplay.
By integrating theme at all levels of gameplay, designers can offer players richer experiences that unfold over multiple plays, where surface theme gives way to deeper mechanical theming. This allows players to explore the theme, perhaps moving back and forth between optimal and suboptimal strategies from play to play.
ShippBoard Games is a board game design blog that updates most Mondays.
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