Menu
News
All News
Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
Pathfinder
Starfinder
Warhammer
2d20 System
Year Zero Engine
Industry News
Reviews
Dragon Reflections
Columns
Weekly Digests
Weekly News Digest
Freebies, Sales & Bundles
RPG Print News
RPG Crowdfunding News
Game Content
ENterplanetary DimENsions
Mythological Figures
Opinion
Worlds of Design
Peregrine's Next
RPG Evolution
Other Columns
From the Freelancing Frontline
Monster ENcyclopedia
WotC/TSR Alumni Look Back
4 Hours w/RSD (Ryan Dancey)
The Road to 3E (Jonathan Tweet)
Greenwood's Realms (Ed Greenwood)
Drawmij's TSR (Jim Ward)
Community
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Resources
Wiki
Pages
Latest activity
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Downloads
Latest reviews
Search resources
EN Publishing
Store
EN5ider
Adventures in ZEITGEIST
Awfully Cheerful Engine
What's OLD is NEW
Judge Dredd & The Worlds Of 2000AD
War of the Burning Sky
Level Up: Advanced 5E
Events & Releases
Upcoming Events
Private Events
Featured Events
Socials!
Twitch
YouTube
Facebook (EN Publishing)
Facebook (EN World)
Twitter
Instagram
TikTok
Podcast
Features
Top 5 RPGs Compiled Charts 2004-Present
Adventure Game Industry Market Research Summary (RPGs) V1.0
Ryan Dancey: Acquiring TSR
Q&A With Gary Gygax
D&D Rules FAQs
TSR, WotC, & Paizo: A Comparative History
D&D Pronunciation Guide
Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarters
Tabletop RPG Podcast Hall of Fame
Eric Noah's Unofficial D&D 3rd Edition News
D&D in the Mainstream
D&D & RPG History
About Morrus
Log in
Register
What's new
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
Forums & Topics
Forum List
Latest Posts
Forum list
*Dungeons & Dragons
Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition
D&D Older Editions
*TTRPGs General
*Pathfinder & Starfinder
EN Publishing
*Geek Talk & Media
Search forums
Chat/Discord
Menu
Log in
Register
Install the app
Install
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
The importance to RPGing of *engaging* situations
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Reply to thread
Message
<blockquote data-quote="Pedantic" data-source="post: 8922032" data-attributes="member: 6690965"><p>Just to clarify, parasitic design is a specific flavor of mechanic, where the play space deteriorates over time, or as the player acts. A classic example is Tetris, where each block placed speeds up future blocks, until the game is forced to end, or an example that has a specific end state is something like Ghost Stories (or the modern implementation Last Bastion) where each player turn spawns another ghost, and each player action removes on average less than 1 ghost, thus that players need to force the game to trigger the victory condition before they're overwhelmed.</p><p></p><p>It's a term of art in game design that you use to produce specific gameplay pressures, not a flaw or a criticism of the design of Blades specifically. My experience of Blades is mostly that as a player trying to optimize outcomes, I would prefer to roll as little as possible, because the upside of taking an action is generally smaller than the downside, a hallmark of a parasitic design.</p><p></p><p></p><p>I don't disagree, but I'd contend this kind of design has a negative impact to engagement on the level of gameplay. I would put the dramatic needs of the situation at the level of goal setting, where character choices, worldbuilding and the interaction between the two create the victory conditions players then pursue, and then players can play optimally to try and succeed at those outcomes. Failure to succeed is absolutely an interesting and possible result of that, which will likely to lead to new goal prioritization.</p><p></p><p>The drive to "win" achieves the same outcome in the cooperative and competitive games I play (and I play them often with the same people for that reason): it creates interesting board states, from which we can make interesting decisions, and put forth different arguments about how best to proceed. My choice to specialize in grey oil production in Pipeline is not internally different from my choice to propose a stealth approach in a TTRPG; in both cases I'm putting forward an argument that this course of action will best achieve my goals, and then I have to react as the situation unfolds, to see if my choice was correct and/or what other choices need to be made to support it. It does not actually matter if I win (I lost to an orange/grey oil hybrid engine in that game of Pipeline), winning just provides context for me to try and forge a path through a complex system, and test my decisions against an unfolding scenario.</p><p></p><p>That can, but not does not have to be, a kind of engagement offered in an RPG, but it has implications for the rest of the rules, and rules design that prioritizes other forms of engagement can easily damage it. Really, I'm just saying that Challenge is a viable aesthetic for TTRPG design, and can live comfortable alongside other aesthetics of play, but has a warping element on your design if you want it to be viable. You can't serve all masters with one resolution mechanic, and like everything in game design, there's tradeoffs.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Very much my people. It's probably important to note this kind of engagement through optimization isn't about success, it's about the pursuit of success. Try to minimize challenges and maximize efficiencies is only interesting in environments with meaningful obstacles to push against. You see similar playloops in roguelikes, for example, where the player will often repeatedly fail as they try and find the best use of randomized, limited resources against a challenge they slowly build up more knowledge of on repeated attempts.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Pedantic, post: 8922032, member: 6690965"] Just to clarify, parasitic design is a specific flavor of mechanic, where the play space deteriorates over time, or as the player acts. A classic example is Tetris, where each block placed speeds up future blocks, until the game is forced to end, or an example that has a specific end state is something like Ghost Stories (or the modern implementation Last Bastion) where each player turn spawns another ghost, and each player action removes on average less than 1 ghost, thus that players need to force the game to trigger the victory condition before they're overwhelmed. It's a term of art in game design that you use to produce specific gameplay pressures, not a flaw or a criticism of the design of Blades specifically. My experience of Blades is mostly that as a player trying to optimize outcomes, I would prefer to roll as little as possible, because the upside of taking an action is generally smaller than the downside, a hallmark of a parasitic design. I don't disagree, but I'd contend this kind of design has a negative impact to engagement on the level of gameplay. I would put the dramatic needs of the situation at the level of goal setting, where character choices, worldbuilding and the interaction between the two create the victory conditions players then pursue, and then players can play optimally to try and succeed at those outcomes. Failure to succeed is absolutely an interesting and possible result of that, which will likely to lead to new goal prioritization. The drive to "win" achieves the same outcome in the cooperative and competitive games I play (and I play them often with the same people for that reason): it creates interesting board states, from which we can make interesting decisions, and put forth different arguments about how best to proceed. My choice to specialize in grey oil production in Pipeline is not internally different from my choice to propose a stealth approach in a TTRPG; in both cases I'm putting forward an argument that this course of action will best achieve my goals, and then I have to react as the situation unfolds, to see if my choice was correct and/or what other choices need to be made to support it. It does not actually matter if I win (I lost to an orange/grey oil hybrid engine in that game of Pipeline), winning just provides context for me to try and forge a path through a complex system, and test my decisions against an unfolding scenario. That can, but not does not have to be, a kind of engagement offered in an RPG, but it has implications for the rest of the rules, and rules design that prioritizes other forms of engagement can easily damage it. Really, I'm just saying that Challenge is a viable aesthetic for TTRPG design, and can live comfortable alongside other aesthetics of play, but has a warping element on your design if you want it to be viable. You can't serve all masters with one resolution mechanic, and like everything in game design, there's tradeoffs. Very much my people. It's probably important to note this kind of engagement through optimization isn't about success, it's about the pursuit of success. Try to minimize challenges and maximize efficiencies is only interesting in environments with meaningful obstacles to push against. You see similar playloops in roguelikes, for example, where the player will often repeatedly fail as they try and find the best use of randomized, limited resources against a challenge they slowly build up more knowledge of on repeated attempts. [/QUOTE]
Insert quotes…
Verification
Post reply
Community
General Tabletop Discussion
*TTRPGs General
The importance to RPGing of *engaging* situations
Top