TBM: Ep 14 EXTRAS

Feeding your family in Agricola may be the earliest popular example of a mechanism whose thematic weight hits above its mechanical class. It brings a surprising amount of emotion to what is generally considered a fairly dry euro game. 

The Grizzled is good at keeping players heads up, communicating around the table. Great trait for a co-op to have. 

I could have delved further into Flash Point: Fire Rescue, because there is a whole divide between players whose only goal is to save the pet and players who would rather get all the humans before the pet. 

I don't want designers to get too hung up on failure as a concept, but it's something to think about. 

I am really passionate about a game telling what I should care about (in the game) and why. 

TBM: Ep 14 script

In an attempt to transition out of hiatus, I will be posting the scripts of my Thinking Beyond Mechanisms segment. I don't plan to edit them, so there may be some differences between the audio and written versions. Take the audio as the correct version.

Welcome to Thinking Beyond Mechanisms, an in depth look at the other aspects of game design, the segment that looks at some of the theory of board game design that goes beyond what typically gets covered when we learn how to design games. My name is Sarah Shipp and today I want to talk about the narrative implications of failure. 

In board games as in literature, goals and obstacles drive narratives. Goals and obstacles determine the actions that drive the game. If the goal of the game is to win a footrace, the actions will like include forward movement on a board. If the goal is to win a demolition derby, the actions will reflect that. The obstacles in a game present the challenges to the goals. This could be running out of stamina in a race or needing to collect certain resources before you can unlock a technology. 

Succeeding in overcoming obstacles means achieving a goal, whether a major game altering goal or a minor goal that aids progress thru the game’s systems. Failure means not achieving a goal. In game terms, failure means not progressing or sometimes losing progress. Players may fail forward by receiving minor compensation that offers a different sort of progress than achieving the goal would have. 

In narrative terms, failure offers moments of drama. The possibility of failure raises the stakes around the importance of a goal. This is true even if the game’s systems are less punishing than the theme implies. Feeding your family in Agricola is important because failing to feed your family in real life is important. There is an element of emotional importance from the theme that resonates with players regardless of whether the strategic play is to take the negative points or avoid the penalty. 

When games thematically offer emotional stakes around failure, they can elevate mechanisms players might otherwise complain about. The Grizzled has a card that takes away a player’s ability to speak, which is the sort of rule that seems silly in a non-party game, but is thematically framed around surviving the trauma of war. 

Failure in The Grizzled leads to negative psychological effects. Most war themed games couch failure in units losses. However, in the Undaunted series, the units are given names and faces, humanizing the cost of warfare. Thematically framing failure elevates how players experience both of these game systems. 

Assigning narrative implications to failure may encourage you to add mechanisms that penalize players for failure, however that isn’t necessary. In Flash Point Fire rescue, you are not penalized for failing to save up to three victims, but players still want to try to save everyone because of the narrative implications. 

Failure doesn’t have to be only in life and death situations. Games with tug-of-war mechanics frame failure as success for your opponent. Failure in a route-building or pick up and deliver game might mean that goods don’t reach the people that need them. Considering the thematic cost of failure could lead to additional thematic flourishes or mechanical tweaks both of which would raise the emotional narrative stakes by focusing on failure. 

If theme is the why behind actions, the cost of failure is the stakes of the theme. What is at stake if the players succeed or fail? How does the world change based on the outcome of the game? If the stakes are low thematically, penalizing players mechanically doesn’t make much sense. Conversely, a game that has high thematic stakes and cozy mechanics will feel anticlimactic. Often, only minor adjustments are needed to effectively raise the emotional stakes of a game. 

Legacy games are good at getting players to think beyond the confines of a single game. However, players are capable of understanding why goals are important to game characters in less dynamic games. We understand goals and obstacles both as game and story devices. In a saturated market, telling players why they should care can make them care- about the story and by extension the game. Even something as simple as the broken tiles in Azul cues players into an important obstacle and also helps them remember the rules of tile acquisition. 

So, consider failure thematically in your design. It’s a good way to get players invested in your game. For more ways of thinking beyond mechanisms, you can visit my blog at shipp board games dot blog spot dot com or catch future episodes of thinking beyond mechanisms on ludology.

TBM: Ep 13 EXTRAS

Obligatory "I wrote a book" episode. 

I've been thinking about the house model of experience design recently. Maybe more to come on that topic?

The number of posts on this blog that were direct responses to someone in a forum who was doubling down on being incurious about design theory is surely in the double digits. I even started to seek out posts to disagree with in order to have something to refute when brainstorming post ideas. The potential downside of this is that I now approach idea transmission from a forum-discussion level of discourse. 

Anything would be an improvement on the sheer lack of discussion around principles of thematic design.  <- There are occasional easter eggs in the scripts of things I thought better of saying out loud. 

The actual conversation with Geoff was more along the lines of "I accidentally wrote a book. Help?" 

I understand that books from textbook publishers are expensive. But all the reasons that I don't want to self-publish games also apply here. Besides, most of the information is free here on this blog, so at least where my book is concerned, I don't feel bad. 

TBM: Ep 13 script

In an attempt to transition out of hiatus, I will be posting the scripts of my Thinking Beyond Mechanisms segment. I don't plan to edit them, so there may be some differences between the audio and written versions. Take the audio as the correct version.

Design Theory 

Welcome to Thinking Beyond Mechanisms, an in depth look at some of the other aspects of game design, the segment that looks at some of the theory of board game design that goes beyond what typically gets covered when we learn how to design games. My name is Sarah Shipp and today I want to talk about design theory. 

When I first entered the board game design space, I spent 6 months reading every blog post on the topic as indexed by board game design lab. Not only did I learn the commonly used design terms, but I developed a feel for the current design debates. This was six years ago. It seemed at the time that there was a lot of debate around theme and mechanics, which is a better place to start from and which should be the greater focus to the core experience. Also emerging was the discussion of experience design, claiming that the designer’s focus should be on the experience players have while playing a game. 

In early discussions with several designers I respect, experience design was to be the design philosophy that moved board game design forward. Sen Foong Lim uses a house image to model how theme and mechanics support the overall experience of a game. And as someone who really likes learning the theory behind creative fields, I was excited to be jumping into a field where design philosophies are still in their infancy. 

I did, however, notice what I thought was a problem. When you look at books on board game design, there’s a decent amount of literature on mechanisms and the basics of design. You will also find books about player psychology. But for all it gets discussed daily among designers, there wasn’t very much substantive out there about theme. Don’t get me wrong, I think we still need more literature about every aspect of game design. But how can we talk about theme as a pillar of game design or a design approach in its own right, when designers can’t even agree what theme is. 

 

One fun thing about studying theatre is that you get exposed to a lot of sub-fields and learn how they synthesize. Theatre as a craft combines engineering and art, physics and narrative. Studying theatrical design is training to design experiences. But to study design in theatre is to study one or more design field, each with its own technical aspects and design philosophies. I can easily find books on costume design or lighting design or sound design. 

Getting back to board game design, something that irked me while learning a bunch of new terms is the assumption that other people know what you mean when you use a term. I usually hold up the term immersion as an example, because it is used in two distinctly different ways, as absorption or as narrative transportation. However, another term that I saw crop up time and again as I was learning game design was ‘integrating theme with mechanics.’ 

Thematic integration seems like something to aspire to for sure, but what does it even mean? How does one go about doing that? It seemed to me that not only was this term not obvious in its design implications, but that it wasn’t a simple lever, one size fits all solution. Visual art and design communicate with viewers in complex ways. Surely game design is no different. 

For instance, what makes an action ‘thematic’? Geoff Engelstein has described thematic actions as metaphors, but are they always? Is drawing in Monsdrawsity metaphorical when the theme is drawing police sketches? That’s not really how metaphors work. 

I identified 5 action types based on level of theming. Mechanical actions contain no theme. Associated actions are labeled thematically but do not function thematically. Metaphorical actions feel thematic but may not look thematic. Simulative actions look and feel thematic. Literal actions have you literally acting out the theme, such as in Monsdrawsity. 

So, I started focusing my blog towards theme design and what that meant. My intent was, and is, to start a conversation around theme in board games. My hope has been that by putting my thoughts on theme out into the world, they could be refined, built upon, or refuted. Anything would be an improvement on the sheer lack of discussion around principles of thematic design. 

About a year into this endeavor I realized that I had the rough draft of a book. I approached Geoff Engelstein, asking for advice about what to do with the book I had written. As luck would have it, he was in the process of soliciting manuscripts for board game design books on a variety of topics. Thematic Integration in Board Game Design was the first book to be released from this series, entirely due to the fact that I had a head start by writing a book I wasn’t sure anyone wanted. 

The book covers what theme is, ways theme can be implemented throughout a design, and ways designs can tell stories without a written narrative. My intention for the book is that it is to be a handbook of useful information to help assist in the process of designing games, while also encouraging designers to expand their concept of what theme is and what it can do. 

I am very excited about the books being written, in this book series and otherwise. Board game design cannot progress without a written record of the lessons learned along the way. We need more people thinking, discussing, and writing about the various aspects of board game design. The benefit of books is that, by definition, they have been subjected to more consideration and rigor than blogs or podcasts. 

For more ways of thinking beyond mechanisms, you can visit my blog at shipp board games dot blog spot dot com or catch future episodes of thinking beyond mechanisms on ludology.

TBM: Ep 12 EXTRAS

Take that does feel like a natural extension of talking about player investment in episode 10. 

My main take away from thinking about this topic was that take that should be considered a family of mechanisms, not a single mechanism. Within that family, I think the next best division between mechanisms is ones that trigger loss aversion and those that don't. 

Obviously, some people really like Unstable Unicorns, etc. I don't want to denigrate that style of game. My positions is that 'the hobby' is the better incubator for rapid development and progress within mechanics (see mass market and video games borrowing ideas from hobby games). And this audience is hobby. So, I'm going to act like our sensibilities are superior, but only because it is expeditious to do so. 

TBM: Ep 12 script

In an attempt to transition out of hiatus, I will be posting the scripts of my Thinking Beyond Mechanisms segment. I don't plan to edit them, so there may be some differences between the audio and written versions. Take the audio as the correct version.

Take That

Welcome to Thinking Beyond Mechanisms, an in depth look at some of the other aspects of game design, the segment that looks at some of the theory of board game design that goes beyond what typically gets covered when we learn how to design games. My name is Sarah Shipp and today I want to talk about take that and emotional investment. 

There are two types of player investment, broadly speaking. The investment a player feels about a game’s existence, possibly due to owning a copy or having fond memories surrounding a game session. The other type of player investment occurs during gameplay, when players assume the goals of the game until a winner is declared. As a designer, I am mostly concerned with the emotional investment that occurs during gameplay. 

Theme can have great affect on emotional investment, but the lion’s share of investment rises from the mechanics. Geoff Engelstein’s book, Achievement relocked details how players are driven by loss aversion. Generally speaking, players dislike losing progress or rewards. What interests me most is how this isn’t always the case and how you frame the loss thematically makes a difference. 

For example, war games inherently involve loss of units and ground. When a game is thematically about loss mechanical loss becomes more palatable. Any two player head to head game is likely to entail significant losses during gameplay. These types of games do tend to frame their themes around the conflict found in play. 

Another thing 2-player games do well is forcing the players into conflict from the very beginning of the game, so the losses don’t come as a surprise to the players. However, it is important to note that direct conflict style games do tend to be less welcoming to casual players because of how defeating they can feel mechanically. 

Conversely, take that games have a wide audience because of the approachable rules and general silliness of many of these types of games. However, hobbyists and designers rightly point out that as a collection of mechanisms, we can do better than skip a turn or steal a card. 

I’ve come to the conclusion that the problem with take that mechanisms- mechanisms by which a player can target and damage another player- is one of violating player investment. And by extension, if you design take that mechanics with emotional investment in mind, you can avoid a lot of the criticism that surrounds this family of mechanics. 

There’s a simple way to determine how take that mechanics are interacting with player investment. Ask yourself, does this mechanism take a player’s resources? Does it remove their progress? Or does it remove their ability to play? The answer to these questions can all be ‘no’ and the mechanism still be take that. However, if the answer is yes to all these questions, the mechanism is almost certainly violating player investment. 

The most important question to ask is: does this mechanism remove a player’s ability to play on their turn? If a player can no longer play at various points in a game, they will lose their investment in the outcome of the game. Think of this style of mechanism as temporary player elimination, without the benefit of being able to jump into a new game. This can include ‘lose a turn’ mechanisms but also any mechanism that prevents players from taking actions that allow progress toward winning. A rule of thumb to follow is to let players do the fun actions and have those actions matter to the outcome of the game. 

Mechanisms that remove player progress have similar results to those that prevent player actions, but add the frustration of players seeing themselves losing ground and moving away from their goal, sometimes literally in the case of race games. The issue of removing player progress is that it can stretch out the gameplay time without meaningfully adding to the arc of the experience. A rule of thumb here is to give other players positive progress toward the endgame for a similar function without hampering the rhythm of play. 

Removing a player’s resources acts to remove progress and can hamper ability to execute turns, but the unique issue here is that players have an emotional attachment to the stuff they collect during the game. This is a smaller emotional impact than removing the ability to take any actions on their turn, but can still degrade emotional investment over the course of gameplay. If removal of resources is viewed as paying a tax or similar thematic framing, this style of take that is less fraught than the other two. 

There are other ways to incorporate take that mechanisms that don’t involve players losing something. As I mentioned earlier, giving all other players progress or resources has a similar effect with fewer downsides. However, giving targeted players negative items is another way to circumvent loss aversion. Instead of removing resources, try giving players negative resources, like blight tokens or neutral resources that nonetheless occupy limited inventory space. Then players can use everything they’ve accumulated to overcome the new obstacles rather than working to regain the resources or abilities they’ve lost. A simple rule of thumb here is to ask yourself, are players losing progress or gaining obstacles?

Of course, there are games that use loss-focused take that mechanics to good effect, such as troops on a map games. These games tend to have thematic framing that puts players in the right mood and also carefully manage players’ frustration level by mitigating randomness. Player loss of progress feels worse when players feel they were at the mercy of random card draws as opposed to clever play by their opponent. 

Completely random take that still has a place in gaming, but that market is flooded with games that could have leveraged their mechanics in more clever ways. Take that can be an interesting design challenge that requires insight into player psychology or it can be a way to make a player lose a turn. 

For more ways of thinking beyond mechanisms, you can visit my blog at shipp board games dot blog spot dot com or catch future episodes of thinking beyond mechanisms on ludology.

TBM: Ep 11 EXTRAS

Is this topic super relevant to design? Not really. But it's interesting and develops a skill that is helpful to have as a designer and a human. 

I really did try to find the/a source for the idea of developing your perception of taste. Couldn't find it. 

Becoming better a rules teacher and game facilitator is an important skill for a designer. 

It's wild to look at reviews for a published game that come out literal years after a game is published that find new perceived shortcomings of a game. The thing is, after years of developing appreciation for playtesters having varied opinions (because it would be bad if they all felt the same way about a game) I see reviews as an extension of that process. It's just more data.

I may be the only person still talking about Untitled Goose Game, but can I take a moment to gush about the sound design? The music changes tempo in response to player action and the sound effects are material dependent. Yes, I did take a sound design class in grad school, and all I use it for now is appreciation. You should hear me talk about the gobos used in the lighting of sci-fi shows. 

I am exactly as insufferable about wine as you would expect, with the exception that I will only talk about wine if asked. "Red or white is too reductionistic a question" is a sample conversation starter. To be fair, every board gamer has similar conversations about our hobby. 

TBM: Ep 11 script

In an attempt to transition out of hiatus, I will be posting the scripts of my Thinking Beyond Mechanisms segment. I don't plan to edit them, so there may be some differences between the audio and written versions. Take the audio as the correct version.

Perception

Welcome to Thinking Beyond Mechanisms, an in depth look at some of the other aspects of game design, the segment that looks at some of the theory of board game design that goes beyond what typically gets covered when we learn how to design games. My name is Sarah Shipp and today I want to talk about developing perception.

I remember taking my husband to an olive oil and vinegar store when we were dating, If you’ve never been inside one, these types of stores have metal dispensers where you can try different types of oil, some infused with different flavors, some just different types of olive. Plain olive oil can have pretty nuanced flavor differences across olive varieties. My husband could differentiate between infused flavors but could only tell the difference between the most opposite styles of plain olive oil: the more peppery flavored oil and the grassy vegetal flavored oil. If you’re wondering, I thought they all tasted different. 

One thing I’ve learned when reading about food and wine specifically is that a while your senses cannot improve from their base line, your perception of them can. Basically, your brain can get better at interpreting the signals. The fact is that we cannot improve our taste buds, but we can improve our perception of taste by improving our attention to what we are tasting.

On the YouTube channel, How to Drink, the host Greg has mentioned the method he used to get better at describing tasting notes of cocktails. Greg’s method was to listen to classical music. He would listen to a piece and focus on a single instrument throughout the piece. In doing so, he trained his brain to notice individual elements among a whole. And yes, his ability to identify flavors improved. My husband has been developing his perception of taste through learning to cook over the past decade, so I should probably take him back to an olive oil store to see how he’s improved.

Perception is an important skill for game designers, but instead of flavor what we need to perceive is the emotions in our players. Most people have a difficult time articulating why they like or dislike a game, especially if the game in question is made up of a lot of elements. As designers, we often have to interpret if what a player dislikes is a mechanic, the difficulty level, the rules overhead, or any number of other things. We need to be able to interpret the player’s reaction with more nuance than the player can. 

There are a number of ways to develop this skill. There’s an entire industry of advice online around building emotional intelligence or interpreting body language. I think a more targeted approach for game designers is to regularly host a game night. Select and teach games you already know how to play. If you already know the game and ARE NOT TESTING IT, you will have more attention for the other players. 

Play or observe with a goal of perceiving the reaction of the other players. Discover if your games fall outside someone’s comfort zone. Some people simply will not play a game involving lying, which I have discovered while trying to introduce friends to Sheriff of Nottingham. Other people will be bad at math-y games or spatial puzzle games. But some people will love games for those exact traits. 

Discovering all the ways players can like or dislike a published game will expand your internal encyclopedia of player reactions. You will be better able to ask questions of those who don’t know why a game left them unsatisfied. You can also watch live plays online to observe player reactions. For awhile, I took up the hobby of watching people play Untitled Goose Game, a relatively short puzzle-y video game. It was remarkable how differently various streamers approached and solved each level. I didn’t even know it was possible to go over the garden wall until I saw someone do it. 

And yet, it was equally remarkable how many of the player reactions were the same from game to game. Put a bow on your goose and every player suddenly exclaims “I’m a fancy goose!”  I find that while play testing my games, players do tend to all have different issues with what they don’t like but sometimes you will stumble across something that just resonates with nearly all of your players. Try to lean into those elements. 

When I started drinking wine in my mid twenties, I didn’t know the full scope of what wine could taste like. Is this wine sweet or fruity? Compared to what? The more different wines I tried, the better I could contextualize the flavor of an individual wine. My perception of wine’s taste expanded as my experience with wine grew. But that experience only grew because of my focus on flavor while drinking. By focusing on player experience while playing games, you will develop a better sense for how players react to games and can more easily identify those nuances when play testing your own games. 

So, play games with lots of people. And if you want, listen to classical music and go olive oil tasting. For more ways of thinking beyond mechanisms, you can visit my blog at shipp board games dot blog spot dot com or catch future episodes of thinking beyond mechanisms on ludology.

TBM: Ep 10 EXTRAS

The fine arts educational tradition I hale from essentially states "There is no time to explain the origin of why something is true. You must simply learn the rules quickly so you can get to work implementing and/or breaking them." All of which to say, if somebody else wrote a book about something that I want to riff on, I'm not gonna spend a lot of time restating their points when you can just go read their book. That said, goal gradient effect is very important and under-discussed. 

One way you can view my posts and segments is "What is one thing Sarah thinks designers don't consider enough in their designs/design philosophy?" A big one I've been exploring throughout my deep dive into design theory is player investment. Not as consumers of products, but as participatory audience members to experiences. And when I first started writing, the aspect of player investment most ignored, at least as far as in depth discussion, was theme. 

I think it bears repeating: goals and obstacles, in addition to being where the game is found are also where the emotion is found. I should probably unpack this idea more at some point. 

TBM: Ep 10 script

In an attempt to transition out of hiatus, I will be posting the scripts of my Thinking Beyond Mechanisms segment. I don't plan to edit them, so there may be some differences between the audio and written versions. Take the audio as the correct version.

Win Conditions

Welcome to Thinking Beyond Mechanisms, an in depth look at some of the other aspects of game design, the segment that looks at some of the theory of board game design that goes beyond what typically gets covered when we learn how to design games. My name is Sarah Shipp and today I want to talk about thematic win conditions. 

I have long advocated for the win condition of a game to align with the theme. This is one of the strongest ways to integrate the theme and mechanics. When the win condition makes sense thematically, the players have a sense of why they want to win. This helps the players remember the rules around winning but also invests the players in the theme. I believe that thematic win conditions are the best way to create player investment into theme. 

When we sit down to play a game, we become invested in the outcome. C. Thi Nguyen describes this phenomenon in his book Games: Agency as Art as players adopting disposable ends or temporary agencies that we then abandon after the game is over. For the span of gameplay we care, sometimes deeply, about who is generating the most resources or occupying the most territory in a curated cardboard experience. Once the game is over, we return to our normal priorities and values. 

This striving to win lasts the entire game. Players may be invested in other goals than winning, but those are typically less enduring or reliable. For example, the endowment effect, which creates loss aversion, typically gets weaker as players approach the end of a game. At a certain point, a player’s desire to win overtakes other motivations. This shift in motivation is referred to as the goal gradient effect, which you can explore in more detail in the book Achievement ReLocked. 

Win conditions shape how the game is played, but they do that by shaping what the player becomes invested in. Goals speak to us as humans. As I have stated, players become invested in the goals that surround winning the game. Audiences of all types become invested in character goals, whether in movies, books, games, or other media. Aligning both the mechanical goals and the thematic goals of a game allows for greater thematic investment. 

If the theme has no impact on how players win, they are less likely to care about the theme. The mechanical goals will as a rule take precedent because those goals are active and involve the player. Thematic justification that is disconnected from the win condition is passive and cannot create the same level of investment. 

However, when the goals of gameplay align with the goals of the theme, players can translate the emotions of gameplay into the imagined world of the theme. A critical hit becomes an exciting moment for both the player and the character. 

It is impossible to over stress the importance of goals when it comes to crafting an experience. People tend not to respond well to being told how to feel. Goals create desires and how near or far a character is from a goal can inspire corresponding emotions. The cliche phrase in acting is “what’s my motivation?” Actors are not trained to merely express one emotion after another. Rather, they are trained to look at the goal of a scene then attempt to overcome their character’s obstacles in pursuit of that goal. The emotions come from the obstacles and desires related to the goal. 

Likewise, players are presented with goals and obstacles that create the emotional experience of the game. If the theme has corresponding goals and obstacles, then players will transfer some of their investment in the game to the world of the theme. At times, this investment can arise to something similar to an acting exercise. Sheriff of Nottingham instructs players to essentially improvise dialogue between two characters with opposing goals: the sheriff and the  merchant. 

Not every game needs elements of roleplaying in order to create thematic investment. As long as the player goals align with the character goals, players will be invested in the theme—provided the other thematic trappings attempt make a similar amount of sense. Thematic investment is additive to the overall game experience. It adds to the reasons someone will become a fan of the game. Greater player investment in a game is the ultimate goal. 

Thematic win conditions are only one part of creating player investment in the theme. In recent episodes, I’ve mentioned gates and loss aversion. Intrinsic motivation and agency can also be leveraged thematically. And, yes, content such as missions in campaign games also leads to thematic investment. However, the foundation of theme should be goals, with the overall goal aligning with the win condition. So, if you are looking at the theme of your game, your first question should be “who are the characters and what do they want?”

For more ways of thinking beyond mechanisms, you can visit my blog at shipp board games dot blog spot dot com or catch future episodes of thinking beyond mechanisms on ludology.