Showing, not telling and other concerns

[Sodomy]

I think a high persuadion skill in Arcanum allowed you to have success even if you chose a "worse" dialogue option, a dialogue option which wouldn't lead to diplomatic success if a character with a low persuadion chose it.
So the persuade skill only broadend the number of dialogue options leading to success, but it didn't indicate the right dialoge option through something like
[Persuade] Dialogue Line

And choosing the right dialogue lines could often be kinda tricky, since you were presented with many valid ones.
I remember one situation:
I wanted to steal an item out of an old Elvengrave, and upon arriving there I met a group of Elves standing next to the body of a human explorer they killed.

They tell me they don't wan't anybody disacrificing the grave side, and ask me in a hostile way who I am and what I want here.
You can chose to pretend to be an scolar who is send to explore these ruins, but of course you don't want to steal anything. If you chose to say at one point that you are "a man of science" the elfes will kill you since they anti-science zealots.
Anyways, if you manage almost to convince them of your good will, the leader asks you the question what you would do if they let you go:

You are presented with two options:
1)I will tell nobody about it, I promise.
2) I will tell everybody about it as a warning of what happened here.

Now, at first glance the option 1) seems the right thing to say, however turns out that if you choose this option, the elvenleader will accuse you of being a lier who would say everything to save his skin and the group attacks you.
If you chose the 2nd option, he will actually respect your honesty and leave you in peace, just telling you to get away as quick as possible, since its actually in the elfes interest that people hear about what happened to this grave robber and take a lesson from it, meaning don't bother the graveyard again.

Now where was my point again. I think that this system I described is superior to the "[Diplomacy/Persuade]Dialogue Line" approach (no matter if the actual dialogue line is written out or left to your imagination) because it has at least a bit of challenge in it.
You still have to think about what to say and can fail.
Of course unfortunatly this challenge is easily avoided by the option to reload your game and just try another sequence of dialogeoptions until you come to the end that satisfies you. However, that's a general problem of the saving system. You can reload after a failed gambling attempt, after a failed pickpoting attempt etc and still gambling and pickpoting exist without giving you instant success.

Actually, this sort of crap made playing a "talker" in Arcanum really fucking annoying. Since, as a talker, your chances of winning most any of these fights were next to none, and since it kept pulling the "randomly choose your response, since all of them seem ok, but all but 1 are going to backfire miserably for no apparent reason LOLZ", it turned the game into a save/reload trial-and-error fiesta. "Sausage replies" (as in PS:T or Fallout) or a tag saying [skill name] before the dialogue option (such as in ToEE [well, ok, ToEE used icons rather than brackets around the skill name, but it's the same thing]) are a better idea, since a character who is a smooth talker presumably wouldn't have that hard of a time coming up with what to say, even if the player behind him is far from a smooth-talker.

 

[galsiah]

Perhaps, but Jora is correct - the best solution is to design the situations to allow failures (and to support failures as sources of interesting consequence/gameplay). Clearly that's hard to do, but it's definitely the situation to aim for.
Arguably the idea of a "failure" shouldn't be clear at all - and outcome which is a failure in one PC's eyes could be a success for another. Ideally the game should throw interesting consequences at the player whatever the outcome, without attempting to judge success/failure (though NPCs will, of course). The player is bound to think of certain outcomes as successes/failures, but that's ok - he knows his own motivation. Since the game wouldn't be defining outcomes as success/failure in any absolute sense, it'd have no choice but to make every outcome interesting.

One fairly simple way to encourage this kind of situation would be to have there be definite advantages to the PC for having [Faction X] hate him. E.g. to divert their attention/resources from [Important Situation Y], to get the PC on side with [Rival Faction Z] etc. Once it becomes a real advantage for some PCs to have certain factions hate them, then all kinds of "failures" naturally become successes. This is a fairly low-effort means to make failure interesting, since there's no need to cover each low level quest directly (though that's clearly desirable if possible).
This sort of thing has already been done, of course, but it's usually as an extra for flavour and a few reasonably significant consequences. It's also rare that being hated is actually an advantage - it's usually just a negative consequence of doing something to get liked by the other side.

Another alternative would be to provide advantages for being perceived as a weakling. Being seen losing several fights, then undertaking and badly "failing" a quest to win in a public boxing contest could have you labelled a laughable non-threat. This could then put people off their guard in a wide range of contexts, allowing you more access since you're "no threat", or allowing you to win in combat against an unprepared foe in a pivotal situation. Similar reasoning applies to appearing dim-witted.

Appearing keen-to-help-but-useless by screwing up in good-natured, well-meaning ways could be a means to get some faction/NPC to assign you to a different area for your own ends. Getting arrested could be a good way to build contacts with criminal elements.

All these mechanisms can work just as well for PCs who intentionally go out for "failure", as for PCs who actually fail. An interesting failure with unforseen consequences for one player is all-part-of-the-plan for another.

In general I don't think failures need to be positive for the PC, so long as they're interesting for the player. Frequently they can be though.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

I dunno, I recall I had to reload a few times aswell in such situation, but very often it worked out the first time, and it was kinda fun thinking about the right answers. I don't agree that the right answers were just random, they weren't obvious immidiatly but you could guess them, often by choosing one of the more original ones.

Also, the dialogue sequences often consited of different "rounds", if you gave a wrong answer, the person would react with supision and you could read from his behaviour that you said something wrong and get back on the right track with your next answer.

 

[JuJu]

Rewarding player for failure or even allowing failure without dire consequences is one of the worst things you can do to a game. The game becomes like jumping with parachute from a table, that is, with absolutely no excitement to it. To make the game exciting the player needs to know that if he makes a wrong choice he will be punished. Otherwise the player will grow careless of what he chooses. Even if player is said right in the face that he failed, but still is rewarded it doesn't work. It is like saying to puppy "Bad dog!", but still giving him a treat.

The thing that could be done about failures is to make them apparent only relatively long time after dialogue, so the player had to spend much longer time if he decided to reload. Of course these kind of failures should not end in inevitable death, but in to much more trouble getting out with your body in one piece. Like insulting a thief could result in you getting beat up and mugged by his friends later or failing to lie to a guard about who you are would still result in being taken to his boss (without player knowing he has been discovered), but with a lot more work to do to convince the boss not to kill the player.

As for using [skillcheck] it is totaly useless. While talking to someone you don't think what kind of skills do you use to convince him. You just choose one of the few things to say, that you have in your mind. Of course what comes in your mind depends also on your skills. The same goes for any PC you control. The only difference is that player is given time to evaluate what will be result of each answer. [skillcheck] is also very immersion-braking - you are forced to think about game mechanics rather than what your character is doing.

 

[galsiah]

If you're referring to my comments, first note that I don't think there should be such a thing as clearly defined, objective "failure". Therefore it's impossible to design a game to reward success and punish failure - you don't know which is which. All you can do is provide reasonable consequences.

Second, repeat after me:
The player is not the player character.
The player is rewarded by entertainment and punished by lack of entertainment.
Punishing the player is NEVER a good idea: it runs counter to the purpose of the game.
Punishing the PC should be done in such a way as to reward the player - i.e. in an entertaining fashion.

Delight in the fact that players don't usually act to maximize their entertainment, but rather to do their best for their character. You don't need to reward success and punish failure to get the player to act sensibly - he already will so long as you don't reward failure significantly more than success: simply because people like to do their best for their characters.
Players will act all pavlovian in response to the rewards/punishments you give the character. That frees you to reward the player for everything - with entertainment.

Again, note that most of the time in my examples, the "failure" was only as rewarding as success if the player was aiming to fail to get the benefits. Usually the benefits would only be worth it for players aiming to get them as part of his plan. For players who screwed up, they'd just give him another option to pursue, but would rarely help him to achieve current goals without some significant change in his overall outlook.


As regards saving, the key isn't to contort things so that the player can't reload if he "fails" - much better is to make it so that he doesn't want to reload when he fails. Make failure interesting and entertaining for the player, and make it provide gameplay. Where appropriate, make it horrible for the player character. A concrete example where this already works, is in Fallout where the player can screw up in conversation with Harry the Super-Mutant, and get taken to the military base and imprisoned early. This is a horrible setback for the character in some senses - it makes things much harder for a significant time. However, it's interesting in plot terms, it's surprising, it's entertaining, it opens doors (and closes others).... It's everything that "failure" should be.
[Again though, it shouldn't be thought of as a "failure", since it could always be a ploy on the part of the player to get inside the base and take it down from the inside.]


Failing to distinguish between rewarding/punishing the player and rewarding/punishing the PC is a huge (though sadly common) mistake.

 

[JuJu]

If you're referring to my comments, first note that I don't think there should be such a thing as clearly defined, objective "failure". Therefore it's impossible to design a game to reward success and punish failure - you don't know which is which. All you can do is provide reasonable consequences.

I agree.

You don't need to reward success and punish failure to get the player to act sensibly

You do! For example in System Shock 2 only consequence of getting killed was losing a few credits, so I didn't care although my character should have gone through terrifying pain.

Again, note that most of the time in my examples, the "failure" was only as rewarding as success if the player was aiming to fail to get the benefits.

The same as in my examples.

As regards saving, the key isn't to contort things so that the player can't reload if he "fails" - much better is to make it so that he doesn't want to reload when he fails.

And one of the methods to do that is making the player go through the same trouble again.

Make failure interesting and entertaining for the player, and make it provide gameplay. Where appropriate, make it horrible for the player character.

Sure it needs to be done, but no player will tolerate failure when he can easily avoid it. At best he will explore the possibilities the failure gives and then reload. IMO the best way to make player to stick with his choices is to make their logical consequences apparent only later.

A concrete example where this already works, is in Fallout where the player can screw up in conversation with Harry the Super-Mutant, and get taken to the military base and imprisoned early.

It is a good example, but it didn't work in my case. I still reloaded the game after exploring (almost) all the choices it gave me.

Failing to distinguish between rewarding/punishing the player and rewarding/punishing the PC is a huge (though sadly common) mistake.

I don't know how about other players, but in RPG's I associate myself with my PC, so the difference between punishing me and my charachter often gets hazy.

 

[TalesfromtheCrypt]

A concrete example where this already works, is in Fallout where the player can screw up in conversation with Harry the Super-Mutant, and get taken to the military base and imprisoned early. This is a horrible setback for the character in some senses - it makes things much harder for a significant time. However, it's interesting in plot terms, it's surprising, it's entertaining, it opens doors (and closes others).... It's everything that "failure" should be.
.

Yeah, good that you mention it. This was really amazing and gave my game a completly different "twist".

It was hard, but I managed to sneak out and blow the damn thing up with my character at level 6 or so. All my previously gathered equipment was gone, but thanks to selling 2 or 3 miniguns I had taken from killed supermutants I made enough money to equip myself again.

Games should offer more of such twists and turns in character development, disstracting from the monotonous and linear progression of getting better and better stats, more and more loot and more powerful equipmet.

My main motivation for not reloading was that the Lieutenent had already revealed to much background story for me to "go back".

 

[galsiah]

You don't need to reward success and punish failure to get the player to act sensibly

You do! For example in System Shock 2 only consequence of getting killed was losing a few credits, so I didn't care although my character should have gone through terrifying pain.

You don't have to punish the player. You might want to punish the player character. There's a difference.

And one of the methods to do that is making the player go through the same trouble again.

But it's a bloody awful way to do it. It's about as good as beating the player with a stick if he reloads. It might make the player want not to reload, but it's certainly not increasing his overall entertainment - it's simply making him choose the lesser of two annoyances.
The problem is that the player wants to reload in the first place. He's playing your game, and decides that he wants to stop - why? Because he presumes he'll be more entertained after reloading? - again, why? Probably because your game fails to entertain in the case of failure. That sucks, and needs to be fixed - not made the lesser of two evils.

Sure it needs to be done, but no player will tolerate failure when he can easily avoid it. At best he will explore the possibilities the failure gives and then reload.

First remember - "There are no failures."
Second, bollocks. The player will continue down the "failure" path as long as it's compelling and as long as he has reason to believe it'll give him as much long-term entertainment as the "success" path. Usually it's neither compelling, nor does it offer the same degree of long term entertainment - the best paths for the character tend to be the most rewarding/interesting/entertaining for the player. That needn't be the case.

I didn't reload when I got captured and sent to the military base in Fallout - because it was interesting, entertaining, and didn't close off a load of options without opening up any others. Of course I considered that I might have to reload - since I couldn't be sure at the time that the failure was going to make things interesting.
There's an element of player expectation involved here - failure is currently boring (not supported by most games), so players often reload (expecting the lack of support for the outcome), so designers expect players to reload, and don't support "failure" as a significant outcome. I don't think this is an inevitable cycle - a designer just needs to warm players up to the failure-is-interesting concept with small failures before hitting him with any large ones.

IMO the best way to make player to stick with his choices is to make their logical consequences apparent only later.

That's bloody stupid in general. Of course some consequences should be delayed where it makes sense, but to delay all significant consequences is contrived, robs the player of any immediate feedback, and is still an ugly workaround: you're not encouraging the player to continue by making things entertaining/interesting/compelling - you're penalizing him for reloading by making sure he'll need to reload from hours ago.

It is a good example, but it didn't work in my case. I still reloaded the game after exploring (almost) all the choices it gave me.

First, that's in the context of a game which doesn't support failure fully throughout. It's a pretty good case, but it's not ideal, since you've still got the justified "in general failure makes things less interesting in this game" thought. It's also not really fully supported throughout - there are dialogues later which don't respond as they ought to, and one or two bugs.

Second, how did it "not work" in your case? The criterion for "working" is whether it entertained you overall - not whether or not you reloaded. Sometimes the most entertaining course for a player will be to explore the consequences of a choice, then reload and go the other way. They'll never be able to play most games enough times to follow through to the end by every path, so what's wrong in having them explore a few interesting byways?
Reloading isn't always a problem - only when it reduces overall entertainment. Wanting to reload is fine, so long as the player also wants to continue. It should be a question of choosing between two interesting/entertaining/compelling paths, both of which you'd ideally like to explore if you had the time. It should not be a choice between being vexed at reload times and being vexed at annoying/dull consequences.

I don't know how about other players, but in RPG's I associate myself with my PC, so the difference between punishing me and my charachter often gets hazy.

That's fine as a player - in fact it's good, since it means that you'll generally act in your character's interests: the very fact which makes it ok for a designer to make failure as interesting (or a little more) than success.
It's not fine as a designer / someone proposing design ideas. As a designer of games you'll generally have the central goal of entertaining the player (in a broad sense). That means you want to be rewarding the player all the time (again, in a broad sense). Clearly it'd be idiotic to reward the character all the time, so you must draw the distinction between player and character.

The player doesn't have to feel good/rewarded all of the time, of course - just as the reader of a book doesn't need to like everything that happens in order to think it's a good book. The player just needs to feel involved/interested/compelled by the situation/events.

 

[JuJu]

Delight in the fact that players don't usually act to maximize their entertainment, but rather to do their best for their character.

He's playing your game, and decides that he wants to stop - why? Because he presumes he'll be more entertained after reloading? - again, why? Probably because your game fails to entertain in the case of failure.

In these two quotes you contradict yourself. I believe that the first one is right, but the second is wrong - player reloads because it is best for his character not because it isn't entertaining enough. Even if player doesn't reload, he has to make a choice - either to pursue entertainment betraying interests of his character or choose the boring way doing the best for his character. In either way it isn't an easy and pleasant choice to make.

There's an element of player expectation involved here - failure is currently boring (not supported by most games), so players often reload (expecting the lack of support for the outcome), so designers expect players to reload, and don't support "failure" as a significant outcome. I don't think this is an inevitable cycle - a designer just needs to warm players up to the failure-is-interesting concept with small failures before hitting him with any large ones.

First, where did that "doing best for the character" go?
Second, it is settled too deep in the minds of players that they shouldn't fail. For example, I was really surprised when I discovered that failure was an option in Freespace 2, but still I didn't want to use it, because i couldn't cope with the fact, that i have failed.

That's bloody stupid in general. Of course some consequences should be delayed where it makes sense, but to delay all significant consequences is contrived, robs the player of any immediate feedback, and is still an ugly workaround: you're not encouraging the player to continue by making things entertaining/interesting/compelling - you're penalizing him for reloading by making sure he'll need to reload from hours ago.

Of course you can apply it only where it makes sense, but the same goes for rewarding failures.

Second, how did it "not work" in your case?

It was like reading a spoiler - at first I was excited and interested about knowing what really happens in this world, but after that I felt guilty, because I knew something that my character shouldn't have known in situation when I reloaded. I also robbed myself a chance of discovering it all the different way. And getting raped by Supermutants wasn't the way my character wanted to end his live.

Reloading isn't always a problem - only when it reduces overall entertainment. Wanting to reload is fine, so long as the player also wants to continue.

Reloading too much makes me feel guilty, because I don't pursue the path I should be following. It isn't good to make player feel guilty.

As a designer of games you'll generally have the central goal of entertaining the player (in a broad sense).

I believe there are three main things that entertain when playing games:
- Exploring - plot, possibilities, background, locations, even discovering new monsters and weapons
- Overcoming challenges - making the correct choice, beating enemies, completing quests, getting highscore etc.
- Shooting in groin :D Actually killing the bastards

IMO although exploring is the main source of fun in RPG's, the thing that has been lost in modern gaming industry is challenges.

When implementing rewarding failure in large scales as a developer you might increase the fun the players get from exploring (although i doubt many would use this chance), but you would surely decrease the fun that players might get from overcoming challenges, because there would be fewer disastrous choices.

 

[RGE]

... player reloads because it is best for his character not because it isn't entertaining enough.

I usually reload because I'm never too sure if a failure might lead to a crucial setback that might end up making the game less entertaining at some point in the future. But then again, I don't have a lot of experience with meaningful failures, so when choosing between failure and success, success is usually the safest path to entertainment and freedom of choice.

But I could see how certain interesting paths might not open up until the PC has tried something and failed. Would be a very tricky way to hide game content from people who insist on saving before taking a risk, and then reloading if they don't succeed, only to have the PC walk away without having tried the risky action in that continuum.

 

[galsiah]

In these two quotes you contradict yourself.

Not really - the player thinks of stopping because you're not entertaining him enough. He then goes through with stopping if he anticipates a long term loss in entertainment. In general play he'll do the best for his character - since he's immersed in the process of playing. Once he's having a save/load debate with himself, he's no longer immersed, and is more likely to act in the interests of entertainment.
Certainly he'll often still go for his character's interests - but why? I'd say it's due to an almost automatic assumption that the most entertainment to be had from the game is through "winning" - and indeed that there is such a thing as "winning".

In most current games, it makes sense for players to reload when things go badly, simply because most current games do not support failure over the long term. The player anticipates missing out on good stuff, and doesn't anticipate getting anything extra - so he reloads. His direct action is to do the best for his character, but there's an automatic assumption that that'll give the most entertainment in the long term.

...he has to make a choice - either to pursue entertainment betraying interests of his character or choose the boring way doing the best for his character. In either way it isn't an easy and pleasant choice to make.

It's an entirely out-of-character choice, so in no sense is it "betraying" the interests of his character. I'd also say that the idea that each outcome should have clear success/progress/win states is daft. In any coherent world stuff just happens - the vast majority of outcomes, intentional or otherwise, have both benefits and costs. Only in a trite, simplistic, shallow world will it be obvious exactly what is a win and what isn't in the context of long term goals.

As for the idea that it's an unpleasant choice, I'd say that that too is a consequence of the player's anticipated long-term entertainment. Having his character be worse off will usually make things harder, close doors without opening any, provide higher odds of frustration, increase the odds of a less fulfilling conclusion... - in general closing off a load of content without providing any extra, and making life needlessly annoying/frustrating (since most games are balanced assuming prior success).

None of this is necessary. If the player could expect a similar amount of content, level of challenge, satisfying (but different) conclusion..., he'd be much more likely to see continuing as a reasonable option.

First, where did that "doing best for the character" go?

Players generally naturally act in their character's interests while immersed in the game - since they're not consciously thinking about their level of entertainment, but are thinking about their character's goals. Once the player is deciding on a save/load issue, he's is very conscious of entertainment considerations, and less (if still somewhat) focused on only his character goals. Here pursuing character goals is more of a matter of expected future entertainment (though maybe there's still a little tiresome powergaming-for-its-own-sake).

Second, it is settled too deep in the minds of players that they shouldn't fail.

Which is less of an issue when it's less clear what constitutes a "failure" outcome.
I agree that it's an issue, but not one that can't be solved - the game just needs to be presented in such a way as to not give the idea that it can be "won" or "lost", preferably with many different final outcomes. It's an adventure to be experienced, not a task to accomplish (perhaps removing levelling would be one way to change the mindset to an extent). Also, it's possible to educate the player right from the start that failure is supported/interesting/entertaining - by making the small failures sources of interest.

For example, I was really surprised when I discovered that failure was an option in Freespace 2, but still I didn't want to use it, because i couldn't cope with the fact, that i have failed.

Clearly you suck, but I concede that you're not the only person who sucks.
I'd make the same points again here: undesirable clarity of "failure" without compensation; anticipation of lower long-term entertainment; probably more denial of content than extra content on failure (??) [or at least the expectation that's true]; no attempt to get the player failing and enjoying it right from the start....

Of course you can apply it only where it makes sense, but the same goes for rewarding failures.

You can reward the character for "failure" only where it makes sense. You can - and should - reward the player for "failure" all the time. It's just a specific case of the general question: "Should I stop entertaining the player when...?". Answer: No.

It was like reading a spoiler - at first I was excited and interested about knowing what really happens in this world, but after that I felt guilty, because I knew something that my character shouldn't have known in situation when I reloaded. I also robbed myself a chance of discovering it all the different way. And getting raped by Supermutants wasn't the way my character wanted to end his live.

If you really felt guilty after experiencing the "spoiler", the it probably was problematic that you didn't continue. It's a great example of supported failure, but I agree that it's certainly not perfect.

Let's look at your reasons: You say that you didn't want to get raped by supermutants. What does that imply? Was the choice well balanced? Not really. Did it offer you a likely means to continue without needing to reload-on-death quite a few times? No (for a low level non-stealth-specialist - i.e. most characters at this point). There's no likely course of action that gets you out of trouble without reloading, so it's normal that you'll be confronted with the decision to reload many times, and need to replay the same section many times.

The better option here would have been to provide the player character with a reasonable line of retreat. Consider what you'd do if you were writing a story/film where the central character gets imprisoned in one of the major bad-guys' strongholds at the start. You don't have that character work his way through in the usual way and destroy the place - you have him find some cunning means of escape, and make the challenge a thrilling escape against the odds. Then you have him return later to turn the tables after getting guns/info/backup etc., and kick some ass.
There's nothing wrong with giving the player the option to try destroying the base after being captured early - but it shouldn't be the natural option, and not much harder than escaping. The natural outcome for the "Unprepared and naive hero gets captured by (deputy)arch-villain early on", is "Hero narrowly escapes with his life after learning some stuff + vows to return and kick some ass."

That option should have been there, and would have made a natural, non-reloading course of action hugely more likely.

Reloading too much makes me feel guilty, because I don't pursue the path I should be following. It isn't good to make player feel guilty.

Ideally there shouldn't be a load of cases where one option is clearly the "right" course of action, and you reload to take that path. Not having forced-reloading-after-death be so common would also leave you confronted with the idea of reloading more rarely.
So long as it doesn't happen a lot, there might not be too much of a problem in "reloader's guilt". It's not desirable, but then nor is the feeling of missing out on interesting content that you're never likely to go back and experience (if you've no intention of replaying the game, or it doesn't really support replay).
You can't have everything - it's not clear to me that saving the player from himself by denying him the option to explore the path-not-taken actually entertains him more overall. You avoid the potential guilt, but you also take away the option to experience more of the game in a way many players would enjoy.

Some guilt might be a price worth paying for a broader experience.

I believe there are three main things that entertain when playing games:
- Exploring - Overcoming challenges - Shooting in groin :D

That's too itemized I think. A game needs to be a holistic experience, and to entertain as a whole - not to involve a series of mini-entertainments/features producing nothing more than the sum of its parts.

IMO although exploring is the main source of fun in RPG's, the thing that has been lost in modern gaming industry is challenges. When implementing rewarding failure in large scales as a developer you might increase the fun the players get from exploring (although i doubt many would use this chance), but you would surely decrease the fun that players might get from overcoming challenges, because there would be fewer disastrous choices.

Challenges are important, but in an RPG more than in most games, they should be the player's challenges with the player's goals on the player's terms. The more you dictate an objective idea of success/failure, the more you make the player's experience about gaming the system, and less about forming+pursuing his own character's goals.
When a player sets his sights on [Challenge X] to achieve [Objective Y], he's not going to be dissatisfied with the challenge if he fails and gets [Interesting-but-not-what-he-wanted benefit Z]. He wants Y because it fits in with his plans and goals. Z probably doesn't fit with his current plans and goals - it's just an extra point of interest to provide a richer experience, and perhaps to get the player to think about re-evaluating his goals. If Y was really vital, not getting it is still a huge setback (but needn't make the game any less entertaining - possibly more).

Of course some players will reload if Y was particularly important to them - but no-one likely to feel that that's their only option. Since different characters have different objectives, it's clear that X was never absolutely necessary. Since the player has been given Z, it's clear that the game doesn't expect/require his success at X, and is willing to support failure.
Again, it's not about totally eradicating reloads - it's about making the choice rarer, and generally positive: both paths being well supported and entertaining.

There's nothing to say there would be "fewer disastrous choices" either - it's just that very few, if any, choices would be disastrous for all characters with all sets of goals. Certain outcomes can still be disastrous for some characters, but they should often have an upside (even if it's an upside that isn't [/wasn't] considered important by that player), and should always be interesting and entertaining for the player.

 

[JuJu]

Certainly he'll often still go for his character's interests - but why? I'd say it's due to an almost automatic assumption that the most entertainment to be had from the game is through "winning" - and indeed that there is such a thing as "winning".

But there is such a thing as "winning" and that really grants the most entertainment. Such a winning is doing the best the player can possibly do to achieve the goals of the character, whatever he imagines they might be. People like to succeed and hate to fail. If player somehow fails, he will always be disappointed if this failure doesn't serve the interests of his character, no matter how interesting it might be.

I'd also say that the idea that each outcome should have clear success/progress/win states is daft. In any coherent world stuff just happens - the vast majority of outcomes, intentional or otherwise, have both benefits and costs. Only in a trite, simplistic, shallow world will it be obvious exactly what is a win and what isn't in the context of long term goals.

Sure, but each player thinks he knows what would be best for his character and what would be the best way to achieve it. If he for some reasons is unable to do what he thinks is best for his character, then he thinks he has failed, unless the events provide a new goal or way that would serve the character's interests.

Once the player is deciding on a save/load issue, he's is very conscious of entertainment considerations, and less (if still somewhat) focused on only his character goals. Here pursuing character goals is more of a matter of expected future entertainment (though maybe there's still a little tiresome powergaming-for-its-own-sake).

But it is pursuing character goals that is entertaining. The only thing that is entertaining while not pursuing the character is discovering the possibilities the game gives, but it is entertaining only for short time.

The game just needs to be presented in such a way as to not give the idea that it can be "won" or "lost", preferably with many different final outcomes. It's an adventure to be experienced, not a task to accomplish.

But there is no adventure without risk to loose. What would be skydiving without risk of being crushed to death? Just a good view.

Clearly you suck

Thank you!

Let's look at your reasons: You say that you didn't want to get raped by supermutants. What does that imply? Was the choice well balanced? Not really.

How can a choice be balanced if you are taken to fortress full of supermutants, who are superbly armed and willing to kill?

The better option here would have been to provide the player character with a reasonable line of retreat.

There is no reasonable line of retreat if you are held at gunpoint by minigun wielding supermutant all the time.

Consider what you'd do if you were writing a story/film where the central character gets imprisoned in one of the major bad-guys' strongholds at the start. You don't have that character work his way through in the usual way and destroy the place - you have him find some cunning means of escape, and make the challenge a thrilling escape against the odds. Then you have him return later to turn the tables after getting guns/info/backup etc., and kick some ass.

Cliché. Escaping should be almost as impossible as destroying the place. At least you've got the advantage of surprise when you are trying to kill everyone, but bad guys really should be expecting you to try escaping.

That option should have been there, and would have made a natural, non-reloading course of action hugely more likely.

Not if developers wanted to stress that supermutants was a real threat, not stupid bad guys who were tricked by some kind of miserable "hero".

That's too itemized I think. A game needs to be a holistic experience, and to entertain as a whole - not to involve a series of mini-entertainments/features producing nothing more than the sum of its parts.

Of course game is more than just sum of it's parts, but each of the parts play a large role in the game as whole.

Challenges are important, but in an RPG more than in most games, they should be the player's challenges with the player's goals on the player's terms. The more you dictate an objective idea of success/failure, the more you make the player's experience about gaming the system, and less about forming+pursuing his own character's goals.

Sure the challenges should be dictated by player not developer, but aren't they always? If the challenge the game offers isn't the one the player wants he just won't play the game. The RPG's are unique with the fact that they (should) try to provide a wide range of challenges for player to choose from. But for each challenge there should be a failure. And there is no reason for that failure be not only subjective, but also an objective failure (like death or torture).

The more chances of failure, the more happy the player will be when he finally succeeds. Player would feel more happy if he chose the only right answer rather than one of many. Have you not felt the thrill when you overcome some obstacle in game with which you have struggled for hours? That gives player the feeling of power and pleasure that no means of exploration can give him. Of course that struggle should be interesting, so that player doesn't quit. While exploring the story is more interesting in long-term it is outwitting or outgunning someone (even if AI or script) which makes players scream "Hell yeah!" on top of their lungs. The problem with RPG's in this context is that in dialogue they have only limited choice and the result is apparent right away, so it is too easy to make the right choice in short time. You are right in one way - you can't give player the line "You failed, go away!" in the dialogue. It makes everything too boring and easy to avoid by reloading. You should give player hope and in the end crush it, so when player finally gets everything right he would feel that thrill of accomplishment.

 

[John Yossarian]

But there is such a thing as "winning" and that really grants the most entertainment. Such a winning is doing the best the player can possibly do to achieve the goals of the character, whatever he imagines they might be. People like to succeed and hate to fail. If player somehow fails, he will always be disappointed if this failure doesn't serve the interests of his character, no matter how interesting it might be.

I don't think you're understanding the winning/losing thing. For a character, and for a particular player's playthrough, there should be such thing for every challenge, but not for the designer.
For example, let's say you are given some quest by faction A, and you fail, which reduces faction A's power/influence/standing in the gameworld. Would that be an objective failure (i.e. failure to all players)? What if a particular player only joined faction A as a part of quest from faction B to bring it down from the inside? Even if you wanted to succeed at the quest, what if faction B finds out about your "failure" and rewards you (money/job offer etc)? What if faction A actually wanted you to fail (without telling you of course), as part of bigger plans?
If a game made clear that these options might show up after failures, would you still want to reload?

 

[JuJu]

I don't think you're understanding the winning/losing thing. For a character, and for a particular player's playthrough, there should be such thing for every challenge, but not for the designer.

First of all I'm not a designer, just a gamer. Secondly the designer should consider which options for particular challenge can lead to possible success for what kind of players and which choices are definitely going to lead to certain failures (like getting beaten).

For example, let's say you are given some quest by faction A, and you fail, which reduces faction A's power/influence/standing in the gameworld. Would that be an objective failure (i.e. failure to all players)?

Sure. Failure until proven otherwise. Means that PC is too weak/unreliable/stupid to be trusted. (unless a player wants to be a looser, but that isn't the case)

What if a particular player only joined faction A as a part of quest from faction B to bring it down from the inside?

You can't possibly do that by failing a quest. All that this failure would achieve is getting you kicked out of faction A, thus ruining plans for both faction A and B.

Even if you wanted to succeed at the quest, what if faction B finds out about your "failure" and rewards you (money/job offer etc)?

Stupid from faction B to reward a looser. They surely could find someone better.

What if faction A actually wanted you to fail (without telling you of course), as part of bigger plans?

You are not only a looser, but also too stupid to notice that you are being tricked, which doesn't say anything good about you.

If a game made clear that these options might show up after failures, would you still want to reload?

Of course! I don't want to fail at any job I have willingly accepted. If I wouldn't want to do the job, I would have told them already. If I choose to betray faction A, I would do it more efficiently than playing a looser who wouldn't be trusted by anyone in their right mind.

 

[John Yossarian]

First of all I'm not a designer, just a gamer. Secondly the designer should consider which options for particular challenge can lead to possible success for what kind of players and which choices are definitely going to lead to certain failures (like getting beaten).

What I meant was the designer shouldn't introduce different mechanics to handle consequences coming from failures and those coming from successes. Just have the world react realistically and interestingly to both.

You can't possibly do that by failing a quest. All that this failure would achieve is getting you kicked out of faction A, thus ruining plans for both faction A and B.

First, if you got kicked out of jobs for failing at one task, they wouldn't be putting RAI into fallout 3. It should only happen when the quest was very important, which means failing it was a big enough hit for A that your job with faction B would be considered accomplished.

Second, note I said part of a quest to bring them down, so I doesn't have to be done with that one quest.

But even if it did, have you played Arcanum? You were given a quest about getting two cities to become allies according to some guidelines, and right after a guy who didn't want it to happen told you to kill the king of one of the cities instead. I don't think it would have been to hard to include an option that let you tell the guy that maybe you wouldn't kill the king, but you would fuck up the negotiations so bad that not only would the alliance not get made, but the cities would become somewhat hostile towards each other.

In ToEE, there were some merchants who were sabotaging the construction of a castle. What if they had hired you to help them, and you in turn had sought the help of a guy who turned out to be an agent for the owners of the castle? He could convince you of giving up the merchants, and that would be the end of them since the owners were pretty powerful guys.

Stupid from faction B to reward a looser. They surely could find someone better.

Holy shit, free sig material and jabs! (second post I think)
Obediah is a gold mine.
What's with the loser thing? The PC might have only failed that one task. Shit, all Super Bowl winners except the '72 Dolphins would be losers. He might be great hiring material, especially if he was just kicked out faction A, since then he has reason to hate their ass and is unlikely he'd double cross in their favor.

You are not only a looser, but also too stupid to notice that you are being tricked, which doesn't say anything good about you.

Again, he failed one quest, and yes, the PC might be too stupid to realize he's being tricked. Why is that enough reason not to use him for missions that don't involve intelligence and its related skills?

Of course! I don't want to fail at any job I have willingly accepted.

Remember, in the first option I mentioned, failing the quest gets you a step closer to succeeding at a larger goal. But if your intention was to succeed at the quest, then sure noone wants to fail, but they do fail sometimes.

If I choose to betray faction A, I would do it more efficiently than playing a looser who wouldn't be trusted by anyone in their right mind.

I never advocated playing such character.

I admit my examples weren't that great, but I'm sure there are interesting enough consequences to failures that would make people forget about reloading.

Now, about your idea, after the player finds out he's going to be punished after a while for the first time, wouldn't you still reload everytime after that anyways? Wouldn't you need to hide whether the character failed everytime then?

 

[galsiah]

But there is such a thing as "winning" and that really grants the most entertainment. Such a winning is doing the best the player can possibly do to achieve the goals of the character, whatever he imagines they might be.

First, as JY says, it's a relative issue - the designer doesn't know what's a "win" [and if you're proposing design ideas/improvements, you must think in terms of design]. Also, you seem to assume that the player's/character's goals are clearly defined, firmly held, and unchanging. This needn't be true in general, and almost never will be in a dynamic world. Of course certain outcomes will always tend to seem more/less positive, but it's not a simple matter of comparing scores and knowing that X is objectively better than Y in every respect (with regard to the player's goals).

People like to succeed and hate to fail. If player somehow fails, he will always be disappointed if this failure doesn't serve the interests of his character, no matter how interesting it might be.

That's clearly nonsense in general. I agree that with all else being equal, most people prefer success over failure in an individual case. However, they will certainly sometimes prefer interesting failure over dull success (an extreme but obvious example being a "Kill the bad guy and win the game" lever in the first room of an otherwise interesting RPG).
Also, things need to be seen in context of the game as a whole. It's dull to succeed all of the time. The more a player succeeds, the less satisfying it becomes. In an individual case, a player might favour success over failure, but that failure might increase his overall entertainment more - since it makes every subsequent success taste that much sweeter. The goal is to give the player the most overall entertainment possible. You don't do that by encouraging him to play in such a way that he succeeds all of the time - since in that case success is a dull run-of-the-mill expectation.

Again, I'd point out that the goal isn't to make sure the player never reloads - it's to reduce the odds that he will by making failure an interesting course to pursue as well. He might well have preferred success in many individual cases, but it's the total impact of the game that matters. He'll still reload sometimes, but the point is to push the balance towards a success/failure ratio that gives real value to success, and at the same time break up the play experience less often.

Sure, but each player thinks he knows what would be best for his character and what would be the best way to achieve it. If he for some reasons is unable to do what he thinks is best for his character, then he thinks he has failed, unless the events provide a new goal or way that would serve the character's interests.

Perhaps, but the important issue is what immediately follows. Does the failure have interesting consequences opening up doors to a variety of challenges to achieve either the original goal, or to achieve some now-more-desirable goal? Usually failure closes doors and raises no interesting new challenges.
So long as the "failure" brings interesting consequences and challenges, the player can remain interested. He might not enjoy the process of failing, but he can enjoy the challenges it raises, and have increased enjoyment of his successes - which become more valued through not being certainties.

But it is pursuing character goals that is entertaining. The only thing that is entertaining while not pursuing the character is discovering the possibilities the game gives, but it is entertaining only for short time.

It's not entertaining outside the game. The process of pursuing character goals within the game provides entertainment. Getting a better character situation by reloading is not in itself directly entertaining. It's only entertaining due to its usual assumed consequences - i.e. that the game will be more entertaining/rich/deep... for a character who succeeds/is powerful, than for one who fails/is not powerful.
If the most entertainment lay in the pursuit of character goals, the logical decision would be to load up the game where you failed - there'd be more goals left to pursue. The problem is that the pace of game content and amount of total content in a playthrough tends to increase with success. Succeeding usually leads to a richer, more densely packed game experience, so is preferred. If failure meant a longer, more complex adventure, still chock-full of incident, players would have little reason to play/reload in a manner ensuring constant success.
In reloading terms, that's clearly preferable; in playing terms it'd free the player to roleplay eccentric/oddball non-pragmatic characters without suffering a more shallow/frustrating experience as a result.

But there is no adventure without risk to loose. What would be skydiving without risk of being crushed to death? Just a good view.

The point is that there shouldn't be some pre-designed overall YOU WIN state. Rather what is considered a "win" depends on the player, the player character, the information each has, the state of the world.... Also, there is no real risk to lose if the player simply reloads on every "failure". There is no adventure there, since the PC never actually suffers any setbacks.
Without some contrived Total Win state, there's much more reason for a player to continue past a few setbacks and go for some different outcome. You're not seeking to "win" - just to shape history.

Also, I think your analogy is pretty good: to view the main point of skydiving as overcoming "the risk of being crushed to death", is about as shallow and daft as thinking an RPG should be primarily about winning. I can lie down on a road and risk being crushed to death, just as I can get a challenge from playing space-invaders.

How can a choice be balanced if you are taken to fortress full of supermutants, who are superbly armed and willing to kill?

By offering other means of escape that don't involve killing a load of supermutants. It's not rocket-science. How does any conventional hero survive in similar circumstances? He finds some way to sneak/talk/think his way out without confrontation.

There is no reasonable line of retreat if you are held at gunpoint by minigun wielding supermutant all the time.

Are you saying that there's no line of retreat if the game is exactly as it is now?? So what? We're talking about changing it. In Fallout you are taken to a cell after the episode with the minigun wielding supermutant. If you can't think of huge amounts of possible escapes from such a cell/prison area, you can't be thinking very hard.

Cliché.

Almost everything is cliché - even your writing "cliché". It didn't stop you. In any case, my example wasn't intended to be perfectly refined - just an illustration. If you can't think of less clichéd ways to offer means of escape/retreat, then you still suck. For example, talking your way out, involving a multitude of reasons-why-the-PC-must-go-out-in-order-to-locate his vault - e.g. convincing the SM that you never knew the location of your vault when inside (why would you?), and were blindfolded+taken away from it before release (so you couldn't betray its location). However, you usually contact them by some-means-requiring-your-presence-outside-the-base, so you must be released to help in the great SM quest....
Many alternate means could have been offered - all different in their own ways, and suited to different skill sets. A sneaking means was already naturally there, but other methods can and should ideally have been in place: in particular at least one way to talk your way out.

Escaping should be almost as impossible as destroying the place.

No it shouldn't. This can be the case in most circumstances, but the beauty of game design is that you can create the precise circumstances you need for it to be credible that that isn't the case. In game-design/dramatic terms, escaping can, and should, be much easier than destroying the place. Whether that would be true in most such cases couldn't matter less - you have all the freedom in the world to construct a situation where it is credible. If you can't, then again - you suck.

but bad guys really should be expecting you to try escaping.

Sure - so give the player some means to get out by persuading the SMs that it's in their interests (e.g. see above). Alternatively, construct circumstances where it's reasonable that means-of-escape-X would not have occurred to the SMs.

Not if developers wanted to stress that supermutants was a real threat, not stupid bad guys who were tricked by some kind of miserable "hero".

Since everyone who is/was ever misled by anyone else - however silver-tongued, intelligent, informed, and cunning -, must be a "stupid bad guy"???
Why don't most players end up captured like that in the first place? Because Harry the SM is a slow idiot who can't tell a ghoul from a human, and can be easily mislead by anyone who wants to. Offering more complex/intelligent talker's escape from the military base is hardly the part which would give the greatest SMs-are-stupid impression (and there are SMs in the base that can be tricked already in any case).

Sure the challenges should be dictated by player not developer, but aren't they always? If the challenge the game offers isn't the one the player wants he just won't play the game.

That's a laughably trite and trivial notion of player-dictated challenges. "Our game gives the player the chance to choose his own path/challenges/goals - either the goals we've put in, or to play another game."

But for each challenge there should be a failure. And there is no reason for that failure be not only subjective, but also an objective failure (like death or torture).

In most cases, subjective failure is preferable, since it's a natural way to offer diverse replay value using the same content. It makes for a game world which is consistent for different characters, with the character's goals and perspective making the important difference - rather than a game world divided into a few separate quest lines that might as well be a few separate games.
Death usually sucks (i.e. is dull and opens no doors), and I don't see what torture inherently offers. Both death and torture could be used as sources of interesting gameplay challenge and content. However simply something like "[You got tortured] You died. The End", adds very little.

You can include objective, dull failure, but it's a dull option. Subjective "failures" offer more possibilities for choice and replay value, in such a way that the separate playthroughs have natural parallels and contrasts.
Once "failures" are subjective, it becomes meaningless to suggest that "for each challenge there should be a failure". There are no failures from the designers point of view - just different outcomes with different consequences. That automatically means there'll be relative failures according to some sets of player goals, but can never guarantee that for any player there always exists an outcome state which is actually worse than the initial conditions. It all depends on player goals.

The more chances of failure, the more happy the player will be when he finally succeeds.

First that's not precisely true: the player will take more satisfaction at the final success, but he won't necessarily be more happy overall at that point. If you've put him though hours of frustration, he likely won't be absolutely happy - he'll just be thankful that the hours of torment are over.
Second, again, if the player reloads on failure, there is no real chance of failure. The failure isn't part of the character's journey through the game world, and has no long term consequence for the character. The only consequence for the player is a quick reload. It's a meaningless failure which doesn't satisfy the player when he succeeds beyond thinking "Great - that crap is over with and I can get on with the game".

Of course it can be enjoyable if the process of attempting the challenge provides interesting gameplay each time, and doesn't get stale before the task is completed. However don't look at a situation and simply think "That provides entertainment, so it's good design." Rather, compare the entertainment it gives with the potential entertainment of doing things differently.

The process of attempt-fail-attempt-fail-...-attempt-fail-attempt-succeed, might provide entertainment - but does it provide more entertainment than a process without that degree of repetition? Probably not. Does it offer any difference in consequence between characters / playthoughs / goals...? No - everyone succeeds in the end, so there are no real implications for failure - and by extension no special/interesting/rare implications for success.

Player would feel more happy if he chose the only right answer rather than one of many.

There are not many "right" answers in what I'm proposing - there are none. Personally I'm much happier when I'm free to decide my goals and tactics, rather than have a designer dictate the "right" solution based on his limited imagination.
The main advantage of having relative, personalized goals for different players/characters, is that the player knows that the "wrong" choices are fully supported (since they'd be "right" for different characters). He can therefore continue past a "wrong" choice with confidence, without assuming that his experience of the game will be the poorer for it.

Have you not felt the thrill when you overcome some obstacle in game with which you have struggled for hours?

Yes.
Is it the most thrilling gaming experience I've had? No.
When I consider all my gaming experiences, do I look on those as being the most entertaining for the time invested? No.

I've overcome many such repetitive tasks in my time - with all the fervor of an autistic with OCD. That doesn't make them the most entertaining gaming experiences I've had (they probably weren't), and it certainly doesn't make them at all rich/deep.
Certainly an RPG can have the same challenge-related aspirations as Pacman/Mario/Halo..., but should it? Simple games without significant choice, lore, background, history, character... can achieve that repetitive-challenge-focused gameplay without any of the complexities of an RPG world. Once you construct a rich world, it makes sense to use it - to play to the unique strengths available to an RPG.

In an RPG I don't want to struggle for hours to complete a task, going back and trying the same repeatedly. I want each attempt to have significance for the future of the game world, and to change the nature of any future attempts. Relative failure should open doors to new approaches and challenges, and possibly change the nature of the original goal/challenge.

That gives player the feeling of power and pleasure that no means of exploration can give him.

First, the idea that the aim should be to provide feelings of "power and pleasure" is horribly shallow.
Second, your view is still not helped by seeking an artificial black-and-white separation between challenges and exploration. If an RPG is an process of essentially insignificant exploration punctuated by isolated, meaningless challenges, it's much less than it could be. Exploration should be inherently challenging, and challenges should be about exploration of a rich space (abstract, physical, or both) to find some suitable resolution/continuation.

While exploring the story is more interesting in long-term it is outwitting or outgunning someone (even if AI or script) which makes players scream "Hell yeah!" on top of their lungs.

Is the aim to get the player to scream "Hell yeah!"??? Is that playing to the strengths of an RPG, or an FPS? The notion that all games should be about immediate competition/victory/power is rather limiting.
The idea that there's some "story" which exists separately from the majority of gameplay events is tiresome and restrictive. A good RPG shouldn't allow any clear separation between story/exploration/challenge.

The problem with RPG's in this context is that in dialogue they have only limited choice and the result is apparent right away, so it is too easy to make the right choice in short time.

The problem isn't that it's simple to make the right choice. The problem is the existence of a right choice in the first place.

You are right in one way - you can't give player the line "You failed, go away!" in the dialogue. It makes everything too boring and easy to avoid by reloading. You should give player hope and in the end crush it, so when player finally gets everything right he would feel that thrill of accomplishment.

That "thrill of accomplishment" puts the emphasis in entirely the wrong place. The point should be to make the process entertaining - not to have the player thrilled at the result when it says YOU WIN in big metaphorical letters. The chance to get "everything right" is a recipe for a trite, shallow world, without a hard decision in sight.
Implications of actions in dialogue or elsewhere should be immediate/delayed based on what makes sense in the context. Giving the player hope, then crushing it, is only any kind of reasonable option if the crushing is entertaining, and opens doors. To do otherwise is to punish the player (always a bad thing) without giving him the option to avoid this. If your crushing is done well, there should be no reason not to have it happen immediately (where that makes sense). If it entertains, and opens up interesting new gameplay and content, it's fine. If the player wishes to avoid it even then, he should have the option to without needing to reload from a few hours earlier.

Seeking to trick the player out of reloading is shoddy design. Either be upfront about it, and enforce non-reloading, or preferably work to make all outcomes entertaining enough that the player doesn't want to.

 

[JuJu]

I agree that with all else being equal, most people prefer success over failure in an individual case. However, they will certainly sometimes prefer interesting failure over dull success (an extreme but obvious example being a "Kill the bad guy and win the game" lever in the first room of an otherwise interesting RPG).

Then why not make an interesting success instead of interesting failure? It would entertain player more. As for your example it is not a success in a challenge, because there is no challenge.

Also, things need to be seen in context of the game as a whole. It's dull to succeed all of the time. The more a player succeeds, the less satisfying it becomes. In an individual case, a player might favour success over failure, but that failure might increase his overall entertainment more - since it makes every subsequent success taste that much sweeter.

Sure, but that means, that player needs to know that he has failed, and failed hard, and that it matters. You need to make an illusion, that the failure will have dire consequences in order to make him enjoy success. Also at no point should you make success easy.

Again, I'd point out that the goal isn't to make sure the player never reloads - it's to reduce the odds that he will by making failure an interesting course to pursue as well.

But it is hard to make a failure seem dangerous and pursuable at the same time.

So long as the "failure" brings interesting consequences and challenges, the player can remain interested. He might not enjoy the process of failing, but he can enjoy the challenges it raises, and have increased enjoyment of his successes - which become more valued through not being certainties.

Sure, but the challenge the failure gives should be really hard. If it would be easy to correct things after you would have failed, it would not be interesting.

Getting a better character situation by reloading is not in itself directly entertaining. It's only entertaining due to its usual assumed consequences - i.e. that the game will be more entertaining/rich/deep... for a character who succeeds/is powerful, than for one who fails/is not powerful.

Of course reloading is never entertaining, but it is entertaining to prove that you can do better than you did previously. Games are usually most entertaining for characters who are not powerful, but still succeeds. As for games being rich or deep for successful characters, well, it should be so, because only those characters who are willing and successful enough should be given understanding of all the mysteries that surround them. Unfortunately most RPG's are shallow even for the most successful characters.

The point is that there shouldn't be some pre-designed overall YOU WIN state. Rather what is considered a "win" depends on the player, the player character, the information each has, the state of the world.... Also, there is no real risk to lose if the player simply reloads on every "failure".

Of course pursuing a pre-designed win state is daft and each character should have different views on what is winning. The fact is that there might not even be a real risk. It is the seeming risk that counts. I could bet that there we take more risk when crossing a street, than skydiving, but it is the second that gives us the thrills.

Also, I think your analogy is pretty good

Thanks!

This can be the case in most circumstances, but the beauty of game design is that you can create the precise circumstances you need for it to be credible that that isn't the case. In game-design/dramatic terms, escaping can, and should, be much easier than destroying the place. Whether that would be true in most such cases couldn't matter less - you have all the freedom in the world to construct a situation where it is credible. If you can't, then again - you suck.

Usually the hero escaping after being captured by the bad guys in games and movies is made in such a bad level that divine intervention would seem more plausible. The only thing I can think of that would really seem credible is sweet-talking the bad guys, but usually it isn't really exciting.

Why don't most players end up captured like that in the first place? Because Harry the SM is a slow idiot who can't tell a ghoul from a human, and can be easily mislead by anyone who wants to. Offering more complex/intelligent talker's escape from the military base is hardly the part which would give the greatest SMs-are-stupid impression (and there are SMs in the base that can be tricked already in any case).

Yes, Harry is an example of utter stupidity, but not every SM is stupid, especially not the ones who would be responsible for such an important thing as gaining information on the location of the vault.

That's a laughably trite and trivial notion of player-dictated challenges. "Our game gives the player the chance to choose his own path/challenges/goals - either the goals we've put in, or to play another game."

The game doesn't give the choice in this case, but gaming market does. I wouldn't even buy a game which promised the challenges i wouldn't want to take.

In most cases, subjective failure is preferable, since it's a natural way to offer diverse replay value using the same content. It makes for a game world which is consistent for different characters, with the character's goals and perspective making the important difference - rather than a game world divided into a few separate quest lines that might as well be a few separate games.

Subjective failures comes with implementing different styles of playing, but what if a player character finds all the choices acceptable? Then he has no chance of failing thus he doesn't have a challenge to overcome and it makes his experience less entertaining. Objective failures make sure that here still will be a failure even for indifferent characters.

Death usually sucks (i.e. is dull and opens no doors), and I don't see what torture inherently offers. Both death and torture could be used as sources of interesting gameplay challenge and content. However simply something like "[You got tortured] You died. The End", adds very little.

Yes death is usually too dull to be entertaining. Death should be something that makes you feel the pain which your character is feeling, not just something that makes player say "Oh well, i guess I'll have to try again". I think the way to make death more interesting it needs to be described in details. You could even make mini-adventures when you are near-death with probability of avoiding it. For example, you are struck by a spear in chest. You can either try to stop the bleeding, plead for mercy, feign death(hoping they will go away before you bleed to death) or strike your enemy with the last of your strength. Of course whether the result is a success depends on skills, attributes and relationships of both you and your enemy.

You can include objective, dull failure, but it's a dull option. Subjective "failures" offer more possibilities for choice and replay value, in such a way that the separate playthroughs have natural parallels and contrasts.

You can also include an objective failure that isn't dull, for example insulting your captor and getting punched in your face, or worse getting your finger cut off. Of course it could be considered a success by sadomasochist, but i won't consider that option.

First that's not precisely true: the player will take more satisfaction at the final success, but he won't necessarily be more happy overall at that point. If you've put him though hours of frustration, he likely won't be absolutely happy - he'll just be thankful that the hours of torment are over.

That means, that the process should be at least as entertaining as achieving the goal.

Second, again, if the player reloads on failure, there is no real chance of failure. The failure isn't part of the character's journey through the game world, and has no long term consequence for the character.

As i said before it is not the real risk that counts, only the imaginary one. As long as there is an illusion, that player has a chance to fail and failure has consequences, the failure itself is not needed to make player be happy with success. If a player discovers that the failure doesn't have the expected consequences or there is a too small chance to fail, then he will be disappointed and his overall gaming experience will dwindle.

There are not many "right" answers in what I'm proposing - there are none. Personally I'm much happier when I'm free to decide my goals and tactics, rather than have a designer dictate the "right" solution based on his limited imagination.

Mind that everywhere I refer to right/wrong choice I mean the choice that leads to the goals pursued by the character, not the only best way to go. I meant that character should have only a few possibilities that lead to the exactly the same goal the character thinks is the best possible, instead of whole load of ways to accomplish the thing the best way possible for him.

Certainly an RPG can have the same challenge-related aspirations as Pacman/Mario/Halo..., but should it?

You are right. RPG's shouldn't have that kind of gameplay. I guess I was just expressing my frustration with the modern gaming industry as whole, not the RPG's.

The point should be to make the process entertaining - not to have the player thrilled at the result when it says YOU WIN in big metaphorical letters. The chance to get "everything right" is a recipe for a trite, shallow world, without a hard decision in sight.

It is true that winning itself doesn't give a single moment of fun. It is overcoming the challenge that gives it. As for doing "everything right" it is again not right in opinion of developer but right in opinion of player character.

To do otherwise is to punish the player (always a bad thing) without giving him the option to avoid this. If your crushing is done well, there should be no reason not to have it happen immediately (where that makes sense). If it entertains, and opens up interesting new gameplay and content, it's fine. If the player wishes to avoid it even then, he should have the option to without needing to reload from a few hours earlier.

I'm not talking about giving no chance to avoid certain failure(death) and even less about unavoidable death after hours of playing. There should always be some chances to continue without a major failure (again in PC's opinion). but in some cases these chances should be close to zero(if he has already done something, that makes him hard to achieve his goals). A certain death which is delayed by a long time would be a real pain in the ass, so I'm not even suggesting it. I was talking about something more like that Fallout example we have already talked about, where chances of getting out alive are slim, and result of previous dialogue is delayed for only a few minutes.

 

[JuJu]

What I meant was the designer shouldn't introduce different mechanics to handle consequences coming from failures and those coming from successes. Just have the world react realistically and interestingly to both.

IMO that is obvious. All the consequences should made with common sense in mind, not the "You good! Here exp!" or "Bad boy, no exp for you!".

First, if you got kicked out of jobs for failing at one task, they wouldn't be putting RAI into fallout 3. It should only happen when the quest was very important, which means failing it was a big enough hit for A that your job with faction B would be considered accomplished.

Mind that PC's usually are not constant members of factions. They usually are just some guys who do some jobs, so they are not really loyal to faction and are expendable. Even if you would not be kicked out you should not be trusted anymore, so you couldn't do any damage.

But even if it did, have you played Arcanum?

I have, didn't like it.

I don't think it would have been to hard to include an option that let you tell the guy that maybe you wouldn't kill the king, but you would fuck up the negotiations so bad that not only would the alliance not get made, but the cities would become somewhat hostile towards each other.

The difference is, that you don't fail, but you make a deliberate choice to make them enemies. I doubt that it would be possible to make two cities go hostile towards each other by accident.

In ToEE, there were some merchants who were sabotaging the construction of a castle. What if they had hired you to help them, and you in turn had sought the help of a guy who turned out to be an agent for the owners of the castle? He could convince you of giving up the merchants, and that would be the end of them since the owners were pretty powerful guys.

Again, that is a deliberate choice not an accidental failure.

What's with the loser thing? The PC might have only failed that one task. He might be great hiring material, especially if he was just kicked out faction A, since then he has reason to hate their ass and is unlikely he'd double cross in their favor.

If he would be great hiring material faction A wouldn't let him walk away alive. Even if they did, he would be a betrayer and he couldn't be trusted by any faction, even those who hate faction A. I think he would be more likely to double-cross faction B in order to get back his favor and chair in faction A.

Again, he failed one quest, and yes, the PC might be too stupid to realize he's being tricked. Why is that enough reason not to use him for missions that don't involve intelligence and its related skills?

I doubt that someone would seriously like to play a character who doesn't mind being tricked and called stupid behind his back.

Remember, in the first option I mentioned, failing the quest gets you a step closer to succeeding at a larger goal. But if your intention was to succeed at the quest, then sure noone wants to fail, but they do fail sometimes.

If I do something to achieve a goal, how can failing it help me to achieve the same goal? Remember the quest itself is never a goal, it is only a way to achieve it. Of course failing to do some quest could reveal a new way to reach your goal, but it should rarely be as easy and efficient as pursuing the same goal without failing at anything.

I admit my examples weren't that great, but I'm sure there are interesting enough consequences to failures that would make people forget about reloading.

No it wouldn't make them forget about reloading, atleast if the characters are pursuing real goals, not just doing quests for money/exp or just for sake of doing a quest.

Now, about your idea, after the player finds out he's going to be punished after a while for the first time, wouldn't you still reload everytime after that anyways? Wouldn't you need to hide whether the character failed everytime then?

It doesn't need to be employed everywhere, just where it makes sense. And a failure should never be unavoidable, just hard to deal with.

 

[Ismaul]

You guys got some very good points, from both perspectives. I believe the effective way to approach the concept of failure in games is to think on its implementation in-game. Theorically, failure adds interesting developments and depth to story and characters. But, at the same time, failure goes against the basic mechanics of all games: game are played because ultimately, they can be won. So failure is much more a component of the story, rather than the gameplay.

The "gamey" part, the one you can win, is usually put under total control of the player. There is a task to be done, and it is possible to do it. Then why would the player let his character fail? The "game" aspect dictates winning as an outcome. All failures are therefore not the character's failures, but the player's. If you have someone to kill, and you are killed/disabled before you do or the quarry escapes, the typical reaction is to reload, because the player could have won instead of failing. The only reason a failure would be accepted/chosen by the player, is if it's part of the story (or in a multiplayer game where you can't go back). But, hoping that the player will let his character fail in the "gamey" part to see interesting consequences goes against the rules of all games. It also goes against the control the player was given, which, I have to remind, was given by the developer himself. A player with total control in a situation where it's possible to win will never let his character fail, because, again, the failure is his own. Introducing failure in the "gamey" part to obtain a "win" in the story/character part is clearly bad design, and just won't work. It's counterintuitive. Failure can only happen in the "story" part.

Now, since the player is in a position of total control in the "gamey" part (he can always win), the only way to introduce failure in the story part is to either take the control away, or let him use it. Most games, if/when they introduce failure/setbacks, they do so by making the events out of the player's control. Hence they make the game linear. This is not what we want/are talking about. Therefore, the only way to successfully introduce failure in non-linear games is to give the player control over it, to give him the choice. By doing this, the story part becomes part of the "gamey" part. This is what I believe to be the begining of role-playing, when the story becomes the gameplay, when the player has control over the story. The more story is integrated into the gameplay, the more role-palying does the game offer. But anyways, back to the failure.

For this control over story to be effective, the different choices available must each have something interesting to the player. Like galsiah said, each must have an inherent entertainment value to be considered by the player, no matter what value they have for the character. So, in that sense, failures for the character have to be wins for the player if the choice is to be viable. And it theorically makes sense, because at that point, the player was given total control (can always chose to win) over the story, since story has become the gameplay. The rules of games apply here again: a player will not voluntarily chose to fail or be punished and will always try to avoid it, since the objective is winning/obtaining some positive enjoyment. Choices that punish the player are annoying and shouldn't be in games at all. But the character can fail and be punished if an only if the player wins. In that sense, all choices become wins for the player, even character failure, interesting roleplaying being its own reward. The way it should be.

On the subject of delayed consequences/failure for past actions, I think they're interesting when they make sense, but not as a way to prevent the player from reloading. The only rule: don't punish the player. If most players would think of reloading, it's because they're feeling punished, which means the failure is badly designed.

The real hard part is to design character failures that are interesting to the player. I think the main problem with failure is that often the interesting part comes a bit later after the failure, serving as a fueling agent to future successes. Those types of failures are sadly not very suited for non-linear-chose-your-own-failure games, while they work well in the linear ones where gameplay is (almost) entirely detached from the story, and in movies and books. Interesting how linearity has a certain advantage there. I guess the best way to have failure is to have situations that are part win part failure and situations with conflicting moral values. Say, for example, you are hired as an assasin to kill some dude. You planned the hit well, but when you arrive to kill him, you realise it's a character you knew from the begining of the game (or for comical value, your mom), with which had a good relationship. What do you do? Kill your friend, forfeiting firendship values over loyalty to an employer and a cold-heart or betray your employer, coming off as unprofessional, but keeping your freind and a more human side? Choices like that are great. But they only work if the whole game is story and character driven.

 

[Sodomy]

Now, since the player is in a position of total control in the "gamey" part (he can always win), the only way to introduce failure in the story part is to either take the control away, or let him use it. Most games, if/when they introduce failure/setbacks, they do so by making the events out of the player's control. Hence they make the game linear. This is not what we want/are talking about. Therefore, the only way to successfully introduce failure in non-linear games is to give the player control over it, to give him the choice. By doing this, the story part becomes part of the "gamey" part. This is what I believe to be the begining of role-playing, when the story becomes the gameplay, when the player has control over the story. The more story is integrated into the gameplay, the more role-palying does the game offer. But anyways, back to the failure.

Actually, there's a third way that's probably the sanest- limit saves somehow (perhaps not forced Ironman, but only one allowed save slot [one that autosaves on, say, map change], and "forced" saving in that slot after a major event [such as a major failure]).

 

[galsiah]

That doesn't address the real problem - only the symptoms. The problem is that the player wants to reload. Not allowing him to reload does nothing to solve that. Making the player want to continue is hugely better than forcing him to by denying him any other option. A limited save feature is a crutch.
Perhaps it can make sense in an RPG that's based on Roguelike-type gameplay (though I still wouldn't call it ideal). That's not the type of game I'm talking about though.

Oh, and two quick points:

As for games being rich or deep for successful characters, well, it should be so...

Nonsense. [or rather, I'm not talking about that: games should be rich and deep for the PLAYER, regardless of what happens to the character]

...game are played because ultimately, they can be won...

Nonsense.
First, all games are played for entertainment. Players generally try to win when playing, but winning is not the reason to play. Anyone who thinks their ultimate purpose in playing a game is to win it, is simply confused.
Second, calling all interactive entertainment software "games" is unfortunate and misleading. It gives the idea that there necessarily needs to be clear competition and victory involved. This notion is baseless.

If you want to say "Well - if there's no idea of winning, then it's not a game.", that's fine. I don't give a damn whether entertaining interactive software fits into the category "games" any more than I care that it fits into "RPGs".

Also, while I agree that many story branches can be direct player choices with direct control over "failure", I don't think all examples need to be that way. In fact in many cases it's much more meaningful to know that the character tried his utmost to achieve X, but failed - with interesting consequences, naturally. Choosing to fail doesn't seem like roleplaying to me in most contexts - more like puppeteering.
I think that the reason most players are unwilling to accept many failures is that they don't like the consequences (for the player, not the character) - not that they don't like to fail. A huge number of such challenges are effectively locked doors with content behind them for the successful. Of course everyone likes to succeed in those circumstances, since they want the content.

Think about all the mini-failures you go through in gameplay - getting hit, missing an opponent, taking significant damage, damaging equipment, losing some money, finding nothing in a randomized loot container.... None of these usually has any chance to deny you content, so you don't reload - whether or not the failure was your fault, and success would be likely on a reload. [again, note that reloading-for-medium/long-term-character-gain can be explained in terms of long-term content prospects]

 

[Sodomy]

That doesn't address the real problem - only the symptoms. The problem is that the player wants to reload. Not allowing him to reload does nothing to solve that. Making the player want to continue is hugely better than forcing him to by denying him any other option. A limited save feature is a crutch.
Perhaps it can make sense in an RPG that's based on Roguelike-type gameplay (though I still wouldn't call it ideal). That's not the type of game I'm talking about though.

At this point, it's so ingrained into a player to reload whenever something bad happens to a character that they're not even going to stick around to see the consequences and find out that it's more fun to keep playing. A gamer's first instinct at this point in time will always be to reload, even if the game is more fun without reloading- for an example, of the people who have replayed Fallout, how many of them do you think have ironmanned it? I would venture that very few have.

It's kind of a nasty spiral- gamers are given the ability to reload. They do so. Games then have to be balanced around this ability, so that they're still difficult to complete with the reload ability (most gamers will always take a gamist approach to a game, and thus attempt to "beat" it). This makes reloading a necessity, further ingraining that behavior. A game designed in the manner you describe would HAVE to remove save/load control from the player to an extent, if nothing else, then simply to break their habits.

 

[galsiah]

At this point, it's so ingrained into a player to reload whenever something bad happens to a character that they're not even going to stick around to see the consequences and find out that it's more fun to keep playing.

There's an element of that - which is why a game would need to introduce the player to the failure-is-interesting mindset gradually. You'd need to include a load of small-but-interesting failures to before anything large.

for an example, of the people who have replayed Fallout, how many of them do you think have ironmanned it?

That's no argument, since Fallout wasn't designed according to the methods I'm advocating. For a start, unavoidable death isn't that uncommon in Fallout - you can easily die through bad luck, even if well prepared. That's not a failure that allows the player to continue - it ends the game, and forces a reload or restart
Also, Fallout isn't that different from most games in the success/failure sense. Success generally opens doors, and failure generally closes them (not always, but that's still the trend).

Currently player actions make sense according to the design of most games. That players act in way X with current design is no argument that they will necessarily continue to do so under different conditions.

A game designed in the manner you describe would HAVE to remove save/load control from the player to an extent, if nothing else, then simply to break their habits.

No it wouldn't - it'd need to break their habits by gently persuading and educating them through minor+interesting failures. It'd have to do things positively and elegantly, rather than with some huge forced hack.
If it used some ugly hack, it wouldn't be doing what I described at all.

 

[Ismaul]

What galsiah said about reloading. Plus, reloading has become part of game design. Most games have game-ending outcomes (death) that come way too easily and sometimes accidentaly. So removing reloading and save-anywhere would only frustrate the player. The only way IMO to have save-on-exit would be to exclude those type of outcomes in the game. A game with a design where every possible game-ending outcome is a "real" ending will make it work. But most likely, that means fights to death are going to be extremely rare, and the action component that is the central element of most games will become almsot inexistant unless replaced by something non-lethal. But just removing the save-everywhere option without accomodating the game design is only going to result in tedium for the player.

As for games being played because they can be won, I think I wasn't clear enough. Obviously the enjoyement of a game comes from playing, not only winning. Otherwise, a lot of people wouldn't play games. And games are often played for this enjoyment only. But, games hold in their essence the objective of winning. It's in the mechanics of every game, and motivates every action/decision a player makes. All games present some sort of challenge, an obstacle or adversary to overcome and best while playing. For example, someone playing soccer/football for fun will still try to score and prevent you of doing so. Even is you're playing for the enjoyment of playing, the game itself is oriented towards winning and exists only because of it.

Second, calling all interactive entertainment software "games" is unfortunate and misleading. It gives the idea that there necessarily needs to be clear competition and victory involved. This notion is baseless.

I too would like to think that interactive entertainment software can be more than simple games. They can make you feel, they can teach about life and have depth beyond other medias because of their interactivity. But that doesn't stop making them games. Games have always been about combining learning with fun. Heck, even all games animals play prepare them for "real" life. Sure, it does make them a different type of game, more serious, less mindless-gameplay oriented. But even role-playing at its full potential, self-discovery through avatars in imaginary situations, is still a game. It's the type of game that has repercussions on the player outside the game, but it's still a game.

Games are not necessarily something of a lower level, the concept shouldn't be pejorative. As for competition and winning, well, role-playing still has a concept of winning. You can role-play successfully or not. Role-playing well = win. The winning here is not about the character's successes or failures, but about the player. And the competitive aspect is still there in a certain form. Even though you're not role-playing against someone, you're still trying to bring the best role-playing out of you.

Also, while I agree that many story branches can be direct player choices with direct control over "failure", I don't think all examples need to be that way. In fact in many cases it's much more meaningful to know that the character tried his utmost to achieve X, but failed - with interesting consequences, naturally. Choosing to fail doesn't seem like roleplaying to me in most contexts - more like puppeteering.

I do agree that failure, real unchosen failure that happens even when you tried your best to succeed is extremely interesting. But if this finds itself in a game, it's most likely something that happens "without the consent" of the player. You want to keep the player associated with his character, and, usually, no one has the motivation to work to acheive failure. For both the player and the character, it doesn't make sense. So a failure like that in games would most likely be imposed, forcing a linear story point. I beleive the only way to make this kind of failure work in a non-linear RPG is to make the failure a consequence of previous choices, choices that made sense for the character, and that it makes sense that in this specific situation they would lead to failure. Here you go, failure-as-a-consequence works. But it's still indirectly chosen, and so since the player has chosen what leads to the failure, it is much easier for him to accept the failure that comes with them. And, in that sense, it's a win for the character that acquires some depth, a win for the player that experiences it. And obviously, the only way to do failure successfully is if it's as well supported and intersting than the success.

 

[galsiah]

Games are not necessarily something of a lower level, the concept shouldn't be pejorative.

That doesn't bother me. I don't want the idea of a "game" to be a source of mental-blocks or artificial restrictions in design. I guess it might be nice for society to have less of a games=trivial mindset, but I don't think that's important.

As for competition and winning, well, role-playing still has a concept of winning. You can role-play successfully or not. Role-playing well = win.

Sure - but in that kind of wide sense everything has some concept of winning. I'm talking about the kind of predefined victory entailed in a "You Win!" end sequence. That kind of narrow concept of a win is frequently assumed without justification. Of course it's an appropriate setup for many games, but for it's probably less appropriate in RPGs than in most genres.

I beleive the only way to make this kind of failure work in a non-linear RPG is to make the failure a consequence of previous choices, choices that made sense for the character, and that it makes sense that in this specific situation they would lead to failure.

That's a good idea, but I don't think it needs to be the only way. Or rather, I think that the "previous choices" can include combinations of choices, analogue choices etc. For example, character creation involves a load of choices which would be relevant in many situations.
I guess one vital element here is that the game would have to focus hugely on replay value. That's the only way you'd be able to justify putting a load of content into areas/paths that won't be seen in some playthroughs - either through choice or through "failure". I think that's another way to influence the player: push the idea that you don't finish/beat the game by playing through only once. That way it's more likely that the player won't take a must-succeed-at-everything-this-time approach, since he knows he'll be replaying (unless the game sucks).

Another advantage to having previous choices (including character build + gameplay choices...) affect outcomes is that the player will see a wider variety of content in different playthroughs. If the player gets to choose each outcome, he'll frequently go for ones that seem natural/sensible/practical/reasonable to him - even if he's playing quite a different character. If it's not clear that the character he's playing would take any strong view, he's likely to fall back on what he considers common-sense - which won't change between playthroughs. If many decisions/outcomes are out of his hands (being based on previous choice/action, or having success chance heavily determined by previous choice/action), it won't seem unnatural to follow different paths.

For example, in Bloodlines I frequently found that I'd tend to want to make the same decisions the second time through. I'd often make the same choice, or make a different-but-unnatural choice just to see more content. Neither way was ideal. I guess this is close to the Roleplaying Personality vs Roleplaying Skillset issue. Roleplaying Personality is more versatile in some ways, but also allows repeated playthroughs to be pretty similar whereever the player is playing two characters who both have similar ideas of common sense (i.e. not polarized nutters). Roleplaying Skillset is less versatile, but naturally enforces variety on the player over different playthroughs.