choices

I've been playing Fallout 3 recently, and it strikes me how often missions and characters relate. A character from one city wants me to kill or capture a character in another city. I'm already on a mission from the second person, and I won't be able to finish it if I accept the new mission. I can only choose one mission or the other, one person or the other.

In that scenario, I can see the choice and at least vaguely know the possible consequences. That's different from choices in other games.

In this interview with Daniel Erickson and James Ohlen from Bioware's Star Wars: The Old Republic team, there's one point in which Erickson says this:

So you killed the captain. If you had spared the captain, you know the pods that come ripping through the walls? He knows about those. He’s not some junior officer. You don’t go down that path at all if you spare the captain.

As soon as those pods come, he’s like, “Oh those are terrible, get away from those, we’re going to do this…” the whole adventure goes on a different track.

But you can’t reload and find that out.

In that scenario, the player doesn't know the possible consequences of a choice. In fact, the player might not even realize a choice with significant consequences has been made. You might kill the captain, get hurt by the pods, and never consider that the captain could have been aware of the danger and warned you.

Is that a problem? If the player doesn't know a significant choice has been made, is there any thrill to be had from making that choice? Yes and no.

An invisible choice still acts as a dynamic... as a variable which improves replayability and offers the player a unique, personal adventure. And by not presenting possible consequences with a choice, that choice is more likely to be a natural act of personality (real or pretend) than a calculated attempt by the player to direct events. Think of it like acting versus directing in a film; you can either experience and respond to events or you can script them.

But there's certainly a thrill in knowing the choice you're about to make is important or realizing a past choice had a significant effect.

Of course, in online multiplayer games, a player might be made aware of any or all possible consequences by fellow players. It's important to recognize that such spoilers needn't be solicited to be received. MMO players are always dropping spoilers in public chat channels. Friends often drop spoilers in private conversations without realizing they've done so or realizing you didn't want them to. This, I believe, will be one of Bioware's major hurdles in their work on SW:TOR.

Anyway, what are your thoughts on choice in games? Do you prefer invisible choices, overt choices, or a mix? Is one type more appropriate in some games than others?

fear and power

To be honest, I have mixed feelings about the upcoming Dante's Inferno:

It's made by a lot of the same guys who made Dead Space, now called Visceral Games, so I have little doubt that they're aiming for high quality and they have the skills and drive to achieve it. Actual gameplay hasn't been shown yet, but the general idea of melee action through monsters and areas fashioned after Dante's dream of Hell is definitely exciting. My guess is it's going to be pretty sweet.

But, though I'm sure the game will be creepy, Visceral seems to be inherently dampening fear of Dante's demons by making them all mortal. When you give a character power over a threat, that threat is less intimidating.

Of course, perception is everything. Perceived power is more important than actual power when trying to instill fear. A perfect example is the fight between Sam and Shelob, the giant spider, in LOTR: The Return of the King. It seems as though Sam is hopelessly outmatched, and that is what makes the encounter frightening.



If Sam immediately demonstrated some success, the scene would be less thrilling. If his success was predictable, if it was more the result of careful planning than of impulsive decisions and quick reflexes, we would fear less for Sam.

The biggest hurdle for a game designer trying to instill fear is certainty of victory. If a player knows he must defeat an enemy to progress in the game, then he immediately knows that victory is possible.

Books and movies have been killing off supernatural foes like demons and spirits for millennia. But I've always thought the ghostly tales predating the French Revolution and its cultural aftershocks are the better frights. Authors often played with the Christian understanding of demons, angels and souls; a perception that spirits could not be killed and human beings have no physical capacity to oppose them. People could only mentally resist and call upon God's effortless protection. Folktales preceding Christianity also involved struggles between humans and spirits in which humans used only their wits to escape, capture, or banish the spirits... rather than to destroy them.


Anyway, so here are some recommendations I would make to the Dante's Inferno team.

Don't make every enemy effectively mortal. Instead, provide non-lethal ways for the player to defeat the most terrifying beings. For example: a particular demon might be bound to a certain area, so the player could escape the demon by crossing some threshold (with that demon, and others, actively impeding progress and giving chase).

Satan in particular should not be killed. If it were my choice, I'd end the game by letting the player seemingly make headway in a battle against Satan, then proving the devil to be far superior in might and, in the end, apparently victorious. When the player seems defeated, that's when God reaches into Hell to deliver him. This ensures Satan, the game's final enemy, is as terrifying as possible. It also respects Dante Alighieri's belief, clearly represented in his tale, that he is saved by God and not himself. It would be a fresh game experience for most players. And finally, it could make for an exceptionally powerful story experience. In fact, I would have the player rescued by cherubs or children. In Christian theology (Dante's theology), the youngest and most innocent child could not be touched by Satan himself so long as God protects the child. That's a powerful image: a fearless, smiling young child ignores the demonic ruler of Hell as he or she takes the hand of the player's character and leads the player up a white stairway to Heaven.

For those epic enemies which are mortal, ensure the player must make use of more than strategy to win. Obviously, you don't want to stack the deck too heavily against the player, but ensure that the encounter retains some unpredictability even after the player gains an understanding of what that particular enemy's strengths and habits are.

Introduce "enemies" which can neither harm nor be harmed by the player. A malicious ghost beyond one's ability to affect is a frightening experience.

Remember that Satan is known as The Deceiver. Undermine the player's trust in dialog, in companions, and even in basic senses. For example: spiders might suddenly spill out from Dante's armor and crawl across his body, causing Dante to react in panic... and then the spiders are suddenly gone (they were just an illusion). Or a damned soul might rest still while calling out to the player in a pathetic tone with words of remorse and a plea for aid, then transform and attack the player if he gets too close.

Obviously, I could go on for days, so I'll stop here. :)

Borderlands preview

If there's one game I was hoping to hear more about at E3, it's Borderlands. Gearbox is combining so many things I love: First-Person Shooter combat, Diablo-style loot, a vast open world, vehicles, monsters, dynamic enemies, RPG classes with skill customization, choice in story, etc. This gives every indication of being an awesome, long-lasting game that offers players surprising and personal experiences.

I strongly recommend this site called E3 Feed for finding E3 news on the games you're interested in. I've used it to comb through all the previews and interviews I could find on Borderlands, and I'm going to try to consolidate that information here so that you can see why I'm excited about this one.

The game's tone is both serious and silly. There can be spiders leaping at your face, and then there's fishing by grenade. The revamped art style has apparently helped to allow more lighthearted gameplay.

Borderlands is set on a planet called Pandora, where a massive treasure hold called The Vault has long been rumored to exist. The player chooses between one of four mercenaries who have just arrived on Pandora to find this treasure. The locals don't like you, and neither does the wildlife. Gameplay is mostly about going around killing stuff with unique weapons and chosen skills in search of more unique weapons and new encounters.

The characters you can choose between are Brick the bruiser, Roland the soldier, Lilith the siren, and Mordecai the hunter. Brick is a brawler. Gearbox's Randy Pitchford compares Roland to the Master Chief from Halo, and says he can deploy a shield with a turret on it. Lilith can "phase walk", making her invisible until she appears in the heart of enemies to release an explosion. And Mordecai is a "master sniper" with a big falcon-like creature he can send at enemies. Whichever character you select, you will level that character up RPG-style, selecting skills to develop him or her as you wish. Though I'm not 100% certain, it seems aiming is unaffected by statistics and is entirely based on player skill.

Weapons variation is similar to that in Diablo 2, with the game generating items on the fly. Even the developers are surprised by some of the weapons the players will use (that video is from January, by the way). You'll see things in this game you've never seen, like healing turrets and even healing sniper shots. Imagine your group's medic healing from far outside the firefight.

Gearbox is trying to make enemies dynamic as well. For example, that ShackNews article points out that some spiders will leap at you while others will roll toward you. There will be especially powerful versions of creatures, like the "hero" mobs of Diablo 2. From the Gamespot preview:

Groups of enemies, like loot drops, are procedurally generated, so you never know quite what you're going to get. You could get a timid pack of pup skags with a few adults escorting them. Or you could run afoul of a fierce pack of adults with a spitter thrown in for good measure. The pack we saw was headed up by a "Badass Fire Skag." Yes, that is what it is actually called.

The game also includes vehicles, which can be customized. And yes, you can fight in those vehicles:

This game is as much about exploration as it is about action and achievement. And, like Oblivion, the world repopulates itself with creatures and other enemies as you kill them. From GameSpy:

One mission we saw involved a team of players cooperatively taking over a factory yard filled with bandits in order to detonate a pipeline, with frantic gunfire flying everywhere. In a nod to one of Borderlands' other inspirations, World of Warcraft, raid scenarios like this can be replayed infinitely as a nice diversion from the main story's progression.

Borderlands will supposedly offer the sort of co-op gamers had hoped to find in games like Fable 2. You will be able to take your single-player mode character into another player's campaign. That's the complete open world with all of your character customizations and loot. And because the action is FPS, a level 1 character can group with a level 20 and still have fun. Up to four players can play together online, and two offline. You'll decide for yourself how to divide loot.

Borderlands is coming to the Xbox 360, PC, and PS3... this year, the devs expect. I think you understand now why this game is so high on my list. Not many games offer many months' worth of fresh gameplay, but Borderlands looks like it might do just that. Here's hoping Gearbox succeeds.

player dynamics vs scenario dynamics

After reading GameInformer's preview of Assassin's Creed 2 and other tidbits, I'm excited about the game. The first game provided gameplay that was excellent but redundant. Ubisoft seems to be tackling the redundancy problem.

That said, I hope they don't focus on player dynamics to the exclusion of scenario dynamics. Player dynamics are the various methods of interaction offered to the player. Scenario dynamics are variations in all that exists with or without the player, like the setting and fixed events. One sort of dynamics is initiated by the player, the other by the gameworld.

In my gaming experience, the latter is more vital. Both should be present, but gameplay is better refreshed by environmental dynamics.

Bioshock offers players many choices in character development, weapons and strategy. But how eager were you to watch the same cutscenes, hear the same dialog, follow the same path, encounter the same enemies, etc? Scenario dynamics certainly existed, but player dynamics clearly received much more emphasis.

Oblivion is another example. Though the game had perhaps the best terrain variety ever, and dynamic weather to boot, too many things were static and predictable: enemy types and behaviors, NPC dialog, quests, gear, etc. I could approach the same adventure in a different way, but that's a mediocre, half-hearted thrill.

Scenario dynamics can include neutral factions/characters/beasts (will attack anything, the player or the player's enemies), visual events (like a flock a birds flying by or a piece of driftwood moving along a shoreline), variation in enemy AI, dialog variation, and gear variation. This is the adventure aspect, the unpredictable elements which the player must respond to.

It's not enough for a dynamic to create a new experience. It must be a meaningful and memorable experience. Wood that splinters under pressure from the player's bullets, for example, is a dynamic, but not necessarily a meaningful dynamic. A few crates falling apart or boards snapping in two as the player trades bullets with one enemy probably isn't going to leave a big impression. However, a huge battle with many enemies all around and splinters flying everywhere might be a fight to remember. If the player is able to shoot some support beams to drop enemies from a collapsing balcony, that's even better.

Anyway, I'm just saying, don't forget the environment and events out of the player's control when you're looking for possible dynamics to include. The unpredictable is usually more affective than the predictable.


Let me repeat an old point: replayability is what prevents gamers from trading in their games and forcing you to compete with used copies. And it increases value for gamers, because our games have lasting value. It's nice when we can revisit old games the same way we revisit old movies on DVD.

The games that earn my loyalty to a series or brand are the games that last for months.

chance

I have a great appreciation for chance/luck in games. I played a lot of boardgames and poker growing up, and those games tend to involve as much or more chance than skill. Monopoly, Sorry!, Chutes and Ladders, Scrabble, Life... countless boardgames have proven that there's a massive market for games in which the roll or the draw is king.

Complete randomness is not good. Spinnerbox, one of Fable 2's three pub games, is a terrible game. It's basically a slot machine. Slot machines can probably be found in nearly every casino in America, if not the world. The game is certainly popular, but I don't think that's because it's fun. It's addictive -- that's not the same as fun. If the reward was not monetary, I doubt anyone would play the game. It's the concept of money for nothing that's attractive. The anxious anticipation of winning quickly fades for most as the game is replayed. People stay for the money, not the game. I could be wrong, though.

So anyway, 100% chance is bad. But chance doesn't have to be a small part of gameplay. Luck can be the heart of a very popular (profitable) game.

And chance doesn't exclude choice. One thing Monopoly and Diablo 2 have in common is that player choice occurs mostly in reaction to uncontrolled events (dice rolls and loot "rolls"). The same happens in epic literary adventures; characters respond to, rather than cause, major events.

contextual powers

One of the great movements in design right now is contextual powers.

Assassin's Creed is a great example. A single player-command during combat (block + timed prevention strike = counterattack) can result in one of at least half-a-dozen moves. Which counterattack is seen depends on the relative position of defender-to-attacker and perhaps timing as well. Climbing is also contextual in Assassin's Creed. Simply direct Altair's movement and he'll use whatever actions are necessary to climb or leap that way. It's simple, fun, and occasionally surprising.

Fable 2 apparently makes spell-casting and ranged combat contextual as well. I'm anxious to see how that will work, but it also has me looking ahead to games of next year and beyond. How else might contextual powers be applied?


STORY
Game events are often activated by invisible triggers placed in the environment. When the player crosses a particular threshold or interacts with a particular object, a scripted event is set in motion. Triggers could also be used to activate variations in AI. When an AI character witnesses a particular event, crosses a particular threshold or such, then a change in personality occurs.

In Neverwinter Nights, child NPCs are invincible. If you attack one, the child will follow and attack your character relentlessly, eventually killing him. That's the closest thing I've seen to what I'm talking about, but that's still not it. That's basically a scripted event, a simple action command ("Kill the PC"). If it had been a change in AI, the children's perception of your character would change, but a number of subsequent events would be possible due to different personalities, different environmental circumstances, and other variables which combine on-the-fly.


ITEMS
I've long waited for contextual items. Item reward systems can be a lot of fun. I think they can be even more fun if some items are not what they appear to be, and if some items receive bonus powers in particular situations.

A broad item reward system has never been combined with a contextual combat system. It would be ridiculous to attempt as many attack animations as Assassin's Creed had for every weapon in a Diablo-type game. But breaking weapons down into a small number of classes (sword, axe, blunt, etc) would make this combo possible. In MMOs, it can be fun seeing how different characters' combat actions mix, but how much more so if there was significant variety within each character's optimal repertoire?

We've seen weapons and armor with effects or resistances that make them optimal for engagement with particular enemies. That's not the sort of contextual variety I'm praising here. In those cases, each item offers a single animation and three degrees of difficulty dependent on the enemy (ineffectual, average effect, superior effect). What I hope to see is different animations and other visible/audible effect variations independent of enemy type. Beyond mere show, I'm hoping for variety in type within one weapon.

When a player uses a "Frostbane" flaming sword against arctic inhabitants, he expects the sword to be more effectual and, though he might take some mild pleasure from pride in being smartly equipped, the experience is basically the same as using the weapon in any other scenario. On the other hand, imagine that the sword exhibits an effect type when fighting those arctic creatures that it doesn't exhibit elsewhere. What if the sword looked rather plain most of the time, but it glows hot as the player journeys further into the cold setting? What if fire suddenly erupted from the blade and was hurled at the enemy the blade was destined to fight?

Experiences like that don't just make players grin and think "cool...". Experiences like that make us wide-eyed, exhilirated, and we tell our friends about it days or even weeks later. It's more impressive, and it's feasible.


SKILLS
One of the cooler concepts I've ever read was something the Darkfall devs suggested about their Alfar race early in production (I don't know if the game still includes this scenario). The Alfar are ruled their god in physical form as a king, and that god is literally insane. All of their magic comes from him. So the spellcasters of that race have unpredictable magic. As the god's mood and sanity shift from one moment to the next, so does the potency of their spells. Sometimes their magic will sputter and fail, while at other times it is excessively powerful and brilliant.

While that's an extreme example, I think there's a lot of hope for similar variety within any particular skill. Variety can keep games fresh and replayable. It would be great if a skill gained early in a game could still surprise its user near the end.


How else might context be used to make games more fun?

playing with fear

The faces of fear
In a college course I took on Gothic literature, I was taught that the readers of Victorian England distinguished between two types of fear: horror and terror.

Horror is the fear from which one flees. It is obvious, bold, and usually aggressive. The creature in the movie Alien is a horror, as most monsters are.

Terror is the fear that paralyzes. There is an element of mystery about it that makes the victim immobile with wonder and uncertainty. Ghosts tend to be terrors, as are cool-tempered murderers and vampires. Terror is often accompanied by what Freud labeled the uncanny... the feeling of something being strange but somehow familiar as well.


Which face to show?
In every aspect of a story's presentation, frightening objects are capable of being either horrifying or terrifying.

A harsh, guttural roar will cause a player to run from the sound. The muted gurgling sound of someone being strangled, on the other hand, will make the player cringe and look for the source of the sound ("Is it a strangling sound? or is it something else?" the player wonders). A snake-like hiss causes the player to recoil and prepare for danger. Heavy breathing and wheezing in the darkness raises the player's curiosity. Screams and whispers evoke different responses.

Slow movements and villainous smiles attract attention, while ferocious charges and the fiery collapses of structures tell the player to get moving. Gargoyles and malevolent artworks invite the curious eye, but spikes and electric sparks encourage one to keep away.

Quick, bitter bursts of angry mutterings raise one's defenses against imminent danger. Slow, graceful, philosophical eloquence invites the player to be caressed by beauty within the darkness. Words can contain fire, or they can contain poison.

Enemies can hunt the player with brute determination, glaring hatred, and barking bloodlust. Or evil can be clothed in charm and elegance, pursuing the player patiently, teasingly, even affectionately. I'm talking about AI here, by the way. ;)


Toying with expectation
Building a particular, fearful expectation in a player and then revealing the source to be harmless can have two effects: (1) it can make the player paranoid, or (2) it can make the player skeptical. Either result can be good. The paranoid player's tension makes even harmless surprises eventful and raises the severity of the scare when he encounters truly fearful beings. The skeptical player's mistrust and constant questioning of her own expectations monopolizes her thoughts and makes her slower to respond to real danger, potentially giving the danger a brief advantage.

An exhaust hose can sound like wheezing. A flap of plastic can sound like a scurrying animal. Scraping metal can sound like screaming.

Doll parts can look real until you see the stuffing. Water and veils can distort things beneath/behind into startling images (such as faces). Crystal and glass can make things seem bigger or smaller.

Language can be ambiguous (intentionally and unintentionally). Personalities and cultures can include misunderstood tone-of-voice, expressions, and customs (a player could be frightened away from allies by such customs, like an assertive tone mistaken for aggression).

NPC actions (scripted or AI) can be purposefully erratic or nonsensical. Why did that young girl gleefully leap to her death? Why did that madman stop chasing me halfway down the hall and start staring wildly up at the ceiling?


Rewarding the steel will
One fun feature to put in a horror-survival game might be to award morale bonuses to either the player or enemy depending on the player's initial reaction. If a monster leaps out of the darkness and the player steps back in response (gives into fear), then morale is given to the monster (or taken from the player). If the player immediately steps forward to face the threat, then morale is awarded to the player's character.

Certainly, this is better suited for sporadic one-on-one encounters than in situations with multiple, simultaneous attacks. But there are probably ways to spin the idea as well.


Adrenalin
One of the body's main responses to fear is the pumping of adrenalin, which has three primary effects: (1) vastly increased strength, (2) numbing of pain, and (3) increased perception and reaction time. It's the first and last effect that make adrenalin particularly fit for being a game feature.

A rush of adrenalin slows one's perception of time. Slow-motion cameras work by taking more pictures-per-second than regular cameras. The increased number of photos allows the perceived scene to be stretched out into a slower progression. Adrenalin does the same thing to the brain. It triggers a flood of chemicals to be released in the brain, thereby allowing it to capture experiences in smaller increments... making those experiences seem longer, slower, so the person can react more quickly.

In a game, imagine if dropping below a particular level of health triggered slow-motion, as well as increased strength and speed. Such a feature would not only offer the player one last chance to avoid death, but would also make those dying moments more intense and more memorable.

design masters:Paul Barnett

This is great game design.

"It's why we're human." Sound familiar? Paul Barnett is quickly making his way onto my list of favorite designers.

know thy enemy

Sometime tomorrow, I'll pick up my pre-order of Culdcept Saga. One interesting feature of that board-card game is that you're able to see your opponent's cards. You know every card they draw and even get a glimpse of their entire hand each turn.

Some reviewers complained about this, because it definitely goes against expectations. But it's an interesting twist, I enjoy it in the CS demo, and I've been thinking how it might open up a new style of gameplay for many genres.

RTS games, for example. Imagine knowing at all times what your enemy is doing. What would it be like if the element of surprise was not present?

It's a little more common in mono-a-mono games. If an enemy spell takes 3 seconds to cast, the player might be able to recognize it in the first second and cast a 2-second counterspell. In Sid Meier's Pirates!, the same is possible in dueling.

Anyway, how do y'all feel about some games including complete transparency?

Routine and an illusion of fate

INTRO
If any two philosophers would have been excellent game designers, they would be Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas.

Aristotle called something virtuous when it performed the purpose of its design well. A knife, for example, is virtuous if it cuts well. You could choose to use a knife as a hammer, but it probably wouldn't perform that function well. There are limitations inherent in the design, though few designs are absolutely limited. A knife may sometimes act as a pretty good flat-head screwdriver, for example.

St. Thomas Aquinas believed that there are three things any person must know in order to be happy and fulfilled: (1) he must know the world for what it is; (2) he must know his own place, his role, in the world's design; and (3) he must know how to fulfill that role through momentary actions. If a person does not know how to translate his knowledge of the role into definite actions, his ability to experience the joy of fulfillment is stunted.

On the other hand, nobody likes to feel like just a cog in the machine. In every MMO game I play (and I've played or tested almost a dozen now), I inevitably hear some players criticizing others for not knowing how to play a particular group role. If these criticisms were general, like asserting that a defender should be apt at protecting his allies, then I would agree. But they are more often suggestions that a very particular tactical blueprint should be followed without deviation; thereby ensuring, in combination with everyone else's particular blueprint, that the factory of combat produces the agreeable (if bland) result predicted.

THE GIST OF IT
For most gamers, fun is best achieved through a balance of predetermination and free will. What MMOs have shown me is that stale routines can lead to an illusion of predetermination and confinement.

Consider real warfare. A Roman swordsman knew what his initial actions must be in order to preserve the integrity of the group's strategy (a phalanx formation). In order for the formation to be effective, each soldier must move toward the enemy at an equal pace, maintaining a position in the battalion's order, until he the melee combat begins. But... once that combat begins, the soldier must respond to the spontaneous (though trained) actions of the enemy and to the progression of events surrounding his immediate opponent (like the allied soldier by his side falling to an enemy attack). Likewise, in modern warfare, the soldier has a general place in unit operations, but he must respond to spontaneous events in a fluid and often creative way (here, "creative" often means applying his training to an unfamiliar scenario).

If an encounter does not seem spontaneous in its unfolding, if the enemy does nothing that vaguely surprises the combatant, then the encounter leaves an impression of being fated, of unfolding as it was certain to unfold. Utter predictability acts as an adversary to a feeling of free will. If something always happens, then it must happen. This is a basic assumption of the empirical philosophy which popular culture has accepted from modern science.

The problem of the infamous "grind" isn't that the player must struggle through an endless series of encounters to grow and realize his or her goals. The problem is the predictability of these encounters, and the player's consequent impression that his actions were never truly his own, but rather just the fulfilling of an external plan.

Predictability (Lessons from Monopoly)

How important is predictability to you?

My Bartle-type is heavily on the Explorer side, followed by Killer and Roleplayer, with very little Achievement thrown in. So, not surprisingly, my favorite games have been those with much freedom of movement, much freedom of choice, and a lot of surprises (both harmful and beneficial to my character). Diablo 2, Star Wars: Battlefront, Mario Kart (SNES)...these are some of my favorite games of my 20+ years as a gamer. So I'm very interested in an RPG that offers more control over the character's responses to experiences than control over the experiences themselves.

I think there are a lot of gamers like me (though most probably aren't as self-analytical as I am, and so they might not be able to define themselves as such a gamer). Those are some of the most popular games in the history of the industry.

Think back to Monopoly. The first time playing, perhaps you knew that some of the cards were good for you and some were bad, but you probably didn't expect the particulars, like "There was a mistake in your tax return. Pay the government $500". Ouch! That 500 bucks may have been the difference between being able to afford Park Place and having to mortgage Boardwalk. And who knows how the dice will roll? These unpredictable game elements aren't minor...they're the difference between biting the dust and puting your fellow players to shame.


CONCRETE
So how could a similar unpredictability be applied to RPGs?

We could start by eliminating experience points as a guarantee for killing, as I suggested in Green's latest blog. Experience-rewarded kills are a major source of predictability in most RPGs. Over the past 20 years or so, a gaming culture has developed that is very mechanical and grind-oriented. Merely providing alternative ways to gain xp isn't going to dissuade players from grinding, and something else will become the grind if you just shift the optimal xp expediency toward some other source.

I'd like to see an RPG in which player progression is largely dependent on chance, as it is in Monopoly. In Monopoly, the dice decide what you encounter and the player decides how to respond and plan ahead. You may prefer Boardwalk and Park Place to every other property set, but you never happen to land on them to buy or you never happen to have the money when you do land there.

Now imagine an RPG in which skills/spells and equipment usually aren't acquired by going to a foreknown location and paying your dues. Instead, you wander wherever interests you and happen into encounters (people, places, things) that provide you with an opportunity to acquire something. Like in Monopoly, you decide whether to use your limited resources (some are universal currency, others are situational...like having what the NPC wants) to acquire the thing offered, or whether to hold onto that currency for the possibility of other objects.

In Monopoly, sometimes you passed up an offer you wish you hadn't, yet still had fun...and that would be possible here. What makes it possible is that your property still has regular "live" value, that it still has trade value, and that it has situational advantages. In Monopoly, the situational advantage is relatively unpredictable...your opponent just happens to keep landing on your property and having to pay you. Likewise, in an RPG, your weapon might be just so-so most of the time, but it proves to be the bane of a particular genre of creatures. For one example, think of Bilbo's sword Sting and how he only realized its magic when in the appropriate circumstances.

This system could be used to reward player knowledge, "lore" skills and encounters with wisemen/scholars by hiding an item's identity until researched, if not used. If applied to objects such as spells, there's a lot of unique fun possible. Imagine finding a scroll that seems to be some sort of transfiguration spell, but you're not sure what specifically it does. Without acquiring clarification, you have the option of taking a gamble by using it blindly, or on limited information. So perhaps you use this scroll, which bears a vague sketch of some four-legged creature, and your character is temporarily transformed into a small dog with little defense...or perhaps it changes you into a terrifying beast half the size of a cottage. Either way, you're surprised and a very engaging experience may follow (you have to run like hell or you wade through your enemies like water). Or you may cast it on yourself and nothing happens...perhaps it's a golem spell, using the metal of something in your inventory to create an automaton.

Going back to the skill/object acquirement by wandering... Such a system could be mixed with a clue system. Some measure of control could be sometimes offered to the player by providing them with rumors and other hints of what general direction an interesting object may be found at. Any number of degrees are possible with predictability.


Anyway, I could go on forever (and probably will, in my game sketches), but the point is that I wish RPGs offered less predictable experiences. I wish they did more to invoke my sense of wonder and inspire memories. "The time I accidentally changed myself into a small dog" is more memorable and fun than a particularly rough fight at the such-and-such camp (one of the 50 times I fought there).