Player Investment Through Thematic Motivation

I'm going to lead into this topic by saying, yet again, that I am not qualified to discuss psychology or neuroscience. In fact, I've been too intimidated by the psychology of emotions as a topic to do more than gesture vaguely at it in the past. (Except when I lean heavily on the work of others.) But I think I've found an angle that will allow me to grapple with emotional resonance and not get myself in trouble. 

Often, when we talk about designing for player experience we focus on how we want the players to feel. However, emotional responses are the end result of our design choices, not a starting point. There are many different ways of crafting experience depending on what type of game you are designing. It is possible to guess at the emotional experiences your players will have based on how your game is structured. (I have covered that here.) In this post, I'm going to look at one approach to crafting experiences for thematic games. 

When attempting to create emotional resonance within a theme, my design goal is to create player investment in their in-game actions. Player investment gives me wiggle room with regards to particular emotions rather than attempting to design for a specific set of emotions. If players are invested, the game actions will take on an importance beyond what is needed to win the game. In other words, they will be motivated by their investment to play in the game world. All I need to do is supply the motivation. 

On the surface, motivation is as sticky a topic as emotion, but I'll explain why I think it is more actionable. Emotion is the end result of an action; it is responsive. Motivation is the trigger to take an action. I can playtest my way to desired emotions in a design, but that doesn't help guide my initial game idea. Different people will react to stimuli in different ways, and not everyone finds the same emotional experiences enjoyable. However, there is some evidence that we all operate with similar motivations. 

Steven Reiss, an American psychologist, developed a list of sixteen basic human desires that make up human motivation. Those motivations are romance, curiosity, honor, acceptance, order, family, independence, power, social contact, physical activity, status, saving (desire to collect), eating, vengeance, tranquility, and idealism. We can also add some of Maslow's needs to round out this list for our purposes: physiological needs (such as breathing and sleep) and safety (protection from elements or injury). How does this list help with theme crafting?

We all experience similar drives. If the characters we play also exhibit those drives, we will become invested in the action. We become invested because the action is comprehensible to us; we know why someone would want to act and what drives them to action. This is true even if we don't agree with the actions taken by the characters. To be believable, it is enough that we understand the motivation. We would not declare war on our neighbor, but the desire for more power is comprehensible to us, which allows us to become invested in a combat game. 

In order to be effective, motivation must spring from the game itself. We cannot simply tell players their motivation and assume that will be enough. But how do we show motivation to players? Motivation is a more nebulous version of the overall game goals. And as a type of goal it should be paired with an obstacle. The desire for independence springs from my autonomy being threatened. The desire for order becomes stronger when there are restrictions on how I can create order. Ex Libris presents the desire for order to great effect by putting restrictions to how you can order cards then making the characters librarians. Many games have tableau building with restrictions on where you can place cards; this is not innovative. Ex Libris makes its tableau building both comprehensible and emotionally resonant by providing player characters whose job is keeping books in order. Players can get upset when a card they need to fill out a shelf is taken by another player, even if the points that card would confer wouldn't help the player that much. This is because players become invested in the alphabetizing aspect of the theme as it is the most thematically accessible to players who have been in libraries but are not librarians,  but also because filling in a row fulfills our innate desire for order. I imagine that professional librarians would find the curation of types of books to be equally thematic, but this mechanism puts less pressure on our intrinsic motivation. It is the combination of motivation based in the universal human desire for order and a rationale for that motivation (you are a librarian) that produces the investment in the theme. 

How do we build motivation into our characters? First, we must ask what type of action and goals are present in the game. Then we have to identify what drives a character to seek those goals and take those actions. We must apply obstacles to the goals which will reinforce the motivation. (Conversely, we could select a motivation that is reinforced by the obstacles already in our design, and build out the theme from there.) Finally, we can signify our characters' motivations by labeling the actions, goals, obstacles, and characters in a way that further reinforces the theme established by the design itself. Ex Libris would have a less accessible theme if the characters were not librarians. 

When I play or design a thematic game, I am quick to ask, "Why should I care?" What is appealing about the action of the characters? Would I find that action satisfying in play? Does that action make sense in the world of the theme? You don't need to do a lot of world building to create player investment in theme. You just need to align character motivation with action in a way that resonates with players.

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

Thematic Reframing Practicum

I haven't done a practicum post for this blog in a loooong time. Here, practicum means an in depth look a a published game or games in order to see how thematic theory plays out in practice. This post will be specifically looking at how narrative framing could have been shifted to make certain games more thematic. In other words, how can I make the game more thematic while not changing a single mechanism. I want to be clear that these suggestions are not to necessarily make a game better, as more theme does not always make a game a better product.

Let's start with an easy one. King of Tokyo is a game of monsters battling for dominance in Tokyo. In King of Tokyo, the only thing I would change to make the game feel more thematic is to make the victory points represent devastation, and thus the title of king of Tokyo would go to the monster who has created the most devastation. Specifically, the numbers on the dice could represent buildings or bystanders, which would provide thematic incentive for players to pursue a VP victory. I enjoy this bit of theming but it does add a layer of information between the player and the victory points that might not be desirable for a gateway game. 

Fistful of Meeples is a mancala worker placement game set in an old west town. Fistful of Meeples is delightfully thematic in every way except for the players role. The most fitting role would be corrupt land developers or business investors who take bribes from both the criminals and the law. This makes the monetary transactions make thematic sense, but adds a much darker layer to the theme. The alternative, no  specified role, leads the game to feel somewhat like multi-player Sims. I really wish there was a middle ground between players-are-corrupt-baddies and players-are-gods, because of how good the theming is otherwise. (Well, I would change one other thing, but that doesn't affect the total amount of theme.)

Now let's look at a more difficult game. I own the AEG version of Love Letter. Love Letter makes no thematic sense. The princess shouldn't be able to carry letters to herself. The narrative of gameplay does not line up with the theme at all. Players are trying to suss out and eliminate other players. There is no mechanical sense of 'delivering something'. Instead, players receive tokens of affection if they are successful. The setting of a masquerade could fit with the mechanism of secret roles. Spies infiltrating the castle might work as a theme. Here's one attempt to reframe the theme: the princess is planning a coup. She must get messages out to various supporters. The player who gets the most of her messages out of the castle will become her chief advisor. Or another possibility: the player who can best navigate cutthroat court politics will receive the princesses hand in marriage as measured by the tokens of affection they receive from her. That one sticks the closest to the current theme but disposes of the 'delivering letters' aspect. It also accounts for the player elimination and the competitive nature of the game world. If you reframe the tokens of affection to love notes you might not even need to change the name of the game (maybe make it Love Letters). 

Reframing a theme can create greater narrative investment in a game by increasing the thematic logic of the mechanics. Increasing thematic logic makes rules easier to learn and to remember. It also strengthens the thematic hook, because players don't have to rely on your description of the theme but can describe the game using their own thematic language. Finding themes or thematic elements that better frame mechanics allows designers to better signal what kind of game experience is to be had through play. 

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

Motivational Exchange in Player Characters

I've been reading Games: Agency as Art and it has me thinking about the levels of submersion players can have when playing a character. It's a really good book, so check it out, but the only thing I will directly reference is the claim that players take on temporary motivations when they play games which end when the game is over. And that has me thinking about the various ways this is expressed in board games through different types of player characters. I haven't finished reading the book yet, so I don't know if Dr. Nguyen gets into this level of thematic territory or not. 

When you sit down to play a game, there are a number of ways you might interact with it on a thematic level. I have addressed some of the avatar roles common in board games, which overlaps somewhat with this topic but that post more directly theme focused. Levels of motivational exchange are more player focused. Which is to say that the same role category could fall into different levels of motivational exchange. 

As is discussed in Games, when a player plays a board game, they exchange their daily, ongoing motivations for the temporary goals of the game. As always, I like to look a step further at how players interact with theme. When playing a thematic game, players may take on not only the mechanical goals but also the game world goals. One result is that players may become more emotionally invested in the fate of their characters beyond just what is needed to win the game.

I don't want to dwell too much on whether you, as a designer, have control over whether a player engages in role-playing or not. Rather, I think it is useful to ask what level of motivational exchange does a game encourage in players, whether or not all players engage. With that said, let's discuss the various levels of motivational exchange. 

Agential: In abstract games and games with layered-on themes that don't interact with the mechanics, players will assume the motivation of the mechanical game objectives only. Players may also assume agential motivation if they are highly competitive, if they dislike the theme, or if they have played the game enough that the theme recedes into the background. (Read more about that phenomenon here.) 

Unseen Operator: In thematic games with players controlling multiple characters, especially if the players have 'unspecified' roles, the players may assume the motivations of the characters in a very surface level way. The players act as puppet masters of the characters and may sacrifice the goals of one character in order to secure the overall goal of the game. This level of exchange could also occur when a player is controlling a single character, but that is less common (and more easily avoided if your goal is 'immersion'). 

Self-Insert Character: 'Self-insert' is a loaded term in the creative writing world, but in board games it is frequently the ideal level of motivational exchange. As in the previous two levels, players still act as themselves, but they act within the thematic bounds of the game. At this level, a player becomes 'player+' a motivationally enhanced version of themself. In Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes, you don't just care about winning the game. You take on the temporary motivation of diffusing a bomb. You, yourself, become the avatar. This is often the maximum level of thematic engagement a certain type of player will tolerate in board games. Many people play board games because they don't like role-play or acting or having to pretend to be someone else. But you can skip that step and still transport them just as thoroughly into the theme with self-insert characters, depending on other factors such as how expressive the game requires you to be.  

Avatar Identification/Embodiment: This may be two or more categories, but I'm putting them together as a single spectrum. When a player identifies with a character they may begin to make game decisions that are not conducive to the player to win the game. Or if the character goals closely align with the player goals, they may gradually 'become' the character, increasingly engaging in role-play over the course of the game. The deepest level of motivational exchange is adopting a temporary personality that aligns with the temporary goals of the player, which is expressed through role-play. I believe that this is best handled by giving players hints at characters' personalities through mechanisms and art, then letting the players decide in the game how their characters would act. In order to achieve this level of motivational exchange, players must be clear on what character they are, what that character wants, and what it might mean to them to achieve that goal. 

How is this relevant to designers? If you want your players to have a certain experience, for example thematic 'immersion,' one element to look at is how players interface with their avatars. Controlling multiple units as a player may hinder thematic transportation, unless players also have a single leader character with comprehensible goals and desires. Self-insert characters have thematic limits that an avatar character does not: the limits of what we can imagine ourselves doing as opposed to a fictional character. There is also the possibility of moving between levels as players learn more about who they are playing as, although that is more challenging to achieve in a board game. Certainly, the agential level is always present when the game world pauses for moments of gameplay upkeep. 

Hopefully, the next time a playtester asks you, "Who are we in this game?" you will have a better understanding of the answer (although you should give them the more straightforward answer). 

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