TBM: Ep 18 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.

Events

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 in-game events. 

Building Blocks of Tabletop Game Design defines events as: actions [which] occur outside the control of players that cause an immediate effect, change the state of the game, or impact subsequent actions. 

While events are a mechanism, they are fairly unique in that a significant reason for their continued use in board games is to add theme to gameplay. The other primary reason is to add variety via the randomness of when certain events will occur. 

Event decks have been criticized for introducing too much randomness or being overused when a more elegant mechanic would make a game more interesting. Fundamentally, events take the focus off of player actions when they occur. Events have remained more popular in co-op or solo games, where the game intruding on the players’ strategies is more common and less disrupting to the expected flow. 

However, as more attention is paid to game arcs and narrative structure in games, events are perhaps due a carefully curated renaissance. Events inject thematic moments into a game by offering a window into the wider world beyond player actions via one-off mechanisms and flavor text. By aligning events to certain moments in a game arc, the events could serve as chapter breaks, reminders of the thematic stakes, or offer semi-random plot twists. 

The simplest method is to think of events as chapter breaks. If every time a season ends in a farming game an event card comes out, then those events should be used to thematically drive the passage time and change of seasons. 

In games that have a sense of urgency to the theme, events can remind players that time is running out and success is not assured. Games with a historical theme already use event decks and similar mechanisms in this way. However, we don’t have to rely on history to build tension via event decks. For instance, a horror game might have a deck of increasingly dangerous ghostly encounters.

If a game uses events as chapter breaks, the next natural step is to introduce rule changes or new obstacles in the form of plot twists. Goals and obstacles are fundamental to both game design and storytelling. It stands to reason then that adding new obstacles mid-game is an ideal moment to add a new plot point. I don’t recommend starting here when designing event decks, however. While I think events have interesting plot possibilities, putting major plot points into a random or semi-random deck is also potentially a recipe for a confused story arc. 

There are a number of considerations to make before adding events to a game. If your goal is to increase theme and variety while maintaining the player’s sense of strategic control over their actions, I have a few suggestions. First, consider events that add obstacles rather than penalties. Penalties remove something that players already have whereas obstacles add something to be overcome. A penalty in a zombie fighting game would remove a players food stash but an obstacle would add more zombies to an area or degrade a neutral safe house. 

The second thing to consider when using events for full thematic effect is if events can be organized in a graduated deck. The siege deck in Siege of Runedar is a simplistic example, in that the deck has five levels that incrementally increase the number of enemy attacks over the course of the game. For fewer events that are still semi-random, pulling a single card from each tier and keeping it facedown until the event occurs is an option. 

Lastly, I would consider events that have a global effect on players. Oftentimes, the perceived unfairness of an event deck arises from when only some players are targeted by an event. Moving away from penalty-based to obstacle-based events helps with this, but events that change the effectiveness of actions can also add challenge without feeling unfair. 

Much like take that mechanics or roll-and-move, events can easily be used poorly. However, that doesn’t mean we should disregard the mechanism entirely. We may just need to rethink how we use it.  

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.