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[TiGD] Player interaction

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jwarrend
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A charge that can be leveled at some games that they are “multi player solitaire”, which means that each player is basically worrying only about his own sphere, and doesn’t really have to worry much about what the other players are doing. I’d like to briefly explore different kinds of player interaction that can happen in a game, and hopefully spark discussion about how to build interaction into our designs.

First, I want to make a distinction between “interaction” and “interactivity”. I consider a game’s interaction level to be a statement about how much my moves affect the standing of the other players, and vice versa. Interactivity, on the other hand, is more a matter of how much I am actually talking to the other players. So, for example, chess is a game with a tremendous amount of interaction, but relatively little interactivity. I’m mainly interested in discussing the former, although some mechanics that create the former will also create the latter.

So, what kinds of player interaction are there? I claim there are at least 4: scarcity, combative, cooperative, and turn order. These aren’t mutually exclusive; a game, or even a single mechanic, may contain more than one.

Scarcity

With scarcity, I have in mind the idea that there is some limitation present in the game, the acquisition of which by some players will necessarily exclude equivalent levels of acquisition by other players. Some games have player-specific scarcity issues that players must deal with: Carcassonne, for example, limits each player’s supply of meeples. However, interesting interaction can arise when players’ actions are restricted or guided by mutual scarcity concerns.

Scarcity issues can come in the form of spatial limitations. A good example of this is the area-majority game Web of Power. In Web of Power, players seek to gain majority status in a variety of different territories in two different categories: cloisters and advisers. The game’s placement system creates two different scarcity issues. First, the number of cloisters that can be placed in each territory are limited. Second, the number of advisers that can be placed in a territory are limited a total equal to the number of cloisters of the majority player in that region. So if Joe has the majority of cloisters in Frankreich, with 4, then all players may only place, collectively, 4 advisers in Frankreich. These scarcity concerns make placement interesting, particularly for the majority player: expanding his majority also can open the door for other players to place advisers. So, too, can attempting to overtake the majority cloister player.

Mutual scarcity can also come from limitation of resources. In Acquire, each hotel chain has 25 stock shares that can be bought. This can lead to some very nice decisions. In Acquire, when 2 chains merge, the smaller chain is absorbed by the bigger, and shares of the smaller can be exchanged 2:1 for shares of the bigger chain. Sometimes, the value of the bigger chain’s shares doesn’t equal twice that of the smaller chain’s, yet because of the limitation of stock, it can sometimes be a good move to make this exchange anyway so as to prevent yourself from getting closed out by waiting to buy.

Puerto Rico gives another example of scarcity issues in (at least) two of its main mechanics. One is the Trading House, to which players may sell one crop each for money. However, the trading house has two limitations: first, only one of each crop type may be sold to the Trading House, and the Trading House only accomodates 4 crops. These can motivate what crops you will choose to sell; you don’t want to be selling crops that the player to your right is selling, since he’ll often get to sell his first, closing you out of the sale.

Puerto Rico’s shipping system also gives a nice example of mutual scarcity. Although there are 5 commodities, there are only 3 ships, and each can only accomodate a limited supply of one type of crop. This again makes turn order important: you want to make sure there’s space on a ship for your crops. But sometimes, you’ll have to ship in an order that will reduce your overall payout in order to block another player from shipping something (for example, placing Coffee on a vacant ship so as to prevent the Corn King from shipping 5 corn).

In this sense, the important consideration that runs common in all of these examples is the way in which the interaction associated with mutual scarcity concerns motivates interesting decisions. In these cases, we see that it can involve sometimes making a play that is “suboptimal” in order to prevent being closed out of a resource or position, or to affect another player’s position.

Combatitve

By combatitive interaction, I have in mind the idea of one player directly interfering with another player’s position in a way that hurts that second player, and, presumably, helps the former player. This type of interaction is well-known, exemplified by combat-heavy games like Risk, and can come in a variety of forms.

The most common version is military combat. Games like Risk and Axis and Allies are classic exemplars of mechanics where you attempt to improve your position by taking away territories from other players.

Other games have mechanics in which you can take actions that hurt other players’ positions. One such mechanic is known as “take that!”. This refers to, typically, a card-based mechanic where players can play a card on another player that hurts that player in some way. For example, in the game Illuminati, there are a variety of cards that interfere with the other players’ actions; “your die roll is an automatic 2 (a failure)”. The role selection mechanic in Citadels has a “take that!” mechanic, since some roles allow you to directly interfere with other players -- the Assasin lets you take away another player’s turn; the thief lets you steal another player’s resources.

“Take that!” mechanics can be amusing, but they should be used cautiously for a variety of reasons. One is that a mechanic that only hurts another player, but doesn’t help you directly, is not of much use for helping you towards winning the game; it only allows to you to prevent another player from winning. This is a way to combat a runaway leader problem, but it often involves “taking one for the team”, which often just hurts the player who decides to hurt the leading player -- he spends his action hurting the leader, which frees the other players to take actions that improve their own positions.

Additionally, all combatitive mechanics have an “emotional” element. How many times have we found ourselves saying “I can’t believe you’re attacking me! Joe is the real leader!” Being attacked is, in and of itself, sometimes frustrating. But above and beyond this, poor players often make moves that aren’t necessarily in their own best interest. In a combatitive game, this can lead to the reduction of a player’s position in a way that doesn’t help the attacker win the game, but does hurt that player’s chances. Combatitive interaction can also devolve into “petty diplomacy” -- “You attacked me, so I’m going to attack you back.”

Some games have peaceful versions of combatitive mechanics. A good example is Princes of Florence: players can “take away” the characters that other players have used, but they give the player a place-holder card so that the player still derives the benefit of having the work. Mechanics where players can take things held by another player, but in a way that does not actually hurt the player, can be a nice way to reduce the potential emotional consequences of combatitive interaction.

Combatitive interaction is common because it is the most direct route to player interaction. Games without a direct way to influence the other players’ position can result in players feeling like they are playing “multi-player solitaire”. On the other hand, combatitive interaction has an emotional ingredient that must be factored in to the player experience that the designer is creating.

Cooperative

Cooperative interaction occurs when players must work together in some way to achieve some mutually benefecial state of affairs. Ironically, fully cooperative games like Knizia’s Lord of the Rings fall outside the scope of this discussion, because there are actually relatively few cooperative mechanics in this game, and none are central to the game’s action. The game has an essential ingredient of interactivity, i.e., table talk, but relatively little in the way of interactive mechanics.

A better example would be the trading mechanic in Settlers of Catan. Trading gives a perfect example of cooperative interaction: two (or more) players are able to, by exchanging resources, able to improve both of their positions. The much-maligned Monopoly also has a strong trading element.

Other games have an element of “deal-making”, which is a close cousin of trading. Games with deal-making include Diplomacy, in which players negotiate as to what moves they will make; include supporting the military maneuvers of the other players (in that sense, Diplomacy also has a strong element of combatitive interaction!). Deal-making games expand the scope of negotiations beyond the simple exchange of tangible goods, to the trading of consideration or actions as well. It’s the classic “I’ll scratch your back if you scratch mine”.

The trick in deal-making and trading games is to arrange things so that you gain more than the other players. This can often be facilitated by hidden information; I may not know that giving you Stone gives you enough to complete a City. Other games, like Civilization and Big City, have “bomb” cards hidden in the commodity decks, so that when trading, you may end up with something that actually hurts you (obviously, this risk factors into decisions about whether to accept a deal or not).

Some games have cooperative scoring mechanisms. A good example of this is Web of Power; players place cloisters in regions, and the person with the most cloisters in a given region receives VPs equal to the total number of cloisters in the region. The next highest total receives points equal to the first player’s total, and so on. So, if player A has 4 cloisters and player B has 1, A gets 5 points and B gets 4. One can see that scoring systems that pay out based on the contributions of all players can create interesting decisions for the individual players, since the goal becomes to shoulder as little of the work as possible but to reap the largest VP payout.

Turn order

A corollary of scarcity issues is turn order effects, whereby one player on his turn makes a move that affects a subsequent player simply by virtue of the fact that he gets to go before the other player. Obviously, scarcity amplifies turn order effects, since if there are only 3 widgets to buy, and players 1, 2, and 3 buy a widget, player 4 is closed out. But in some situations, simply going before another player gives an advantage to that player.

A textbook example of this effect is Puerto Rico. In many of the game’s systems, going before another player gives you an advantage. As mentioned above, this is often related to scarcity, but it isn’t in all cases. For example, since choosing a role gives you a special upgrade for that role, getting to go earlier and choose the role you want could give you a benefit that you need, such as a disount on building when you need to buy a more expensive building.

Other games like Citadels, Mahajara, and the new Twilight Imperium, have mechanics built around turn order effects, in which players choose various roles and the roles act in a specific sequence. The special power associated with each role is proportioned according to the position in the sequence that the associated role will act. In other games, like El Grande, New England, and Shogun, players bid for turn order. Both of these styles of games take into account the fact that turn order matters in the game, and incorporate this as a way to motivate interesting decisions.

Conclusion

Just as some games may have too little interaction, other games have so much interaction that players feel like they don’t have much control of the game. A good example of this is 6 player Acquire, where so much changes before your next turn comes that there’s very little strategy in the game. It’s important, with any game, to understand what sources of player interaction could be operative, and to use the ones that will emphasize the player experience you’re trying to create for your players.

Feel free to chime in with any comments!

-Jeff

Nando
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Re: [TiGD] Player interaction

jwarrend wrote:
I want to make a distinction between “interaction” and “interactivity”.

I think the gaming community's vocabulary in this general area is perhaps too weak, as evidenced by the recent brown-bag chat topic of indirect conflict. I appreciate your effort here. I would also like to indulge in my own exercise in futility with further suggestions for clarification. :-P So here goes...

I think either Inter-Player Causation or Inter-Player Agitation would more clearly describe the concept addressed in this TiGD thread. I want a term that conveys that a game's design and implementation of mechanisms conspire to amplify the consequences of players' decisions. That the normal course of play for any given player can and will cause (or agitate) other players to retaliate, react, course-correct, or just plain "pay attention."

jwarrend wrote:
I claim there are at least 4: scarcity, combative, cooperative, and turn order.

I think these are excellent. These are analogous to design patterns in computer programming (as has been stated many times by many people, I'm sure). They allow you to diagnose a problem, reach into your design toolbag, and begin crafting a solution within a tried and true framework. However...

I think it interesting to note that, with the possible exception of turn order, these tools will not singlehandedly produce inter-player causation. For example, just because I can fight another player, doesn't mean I will. Likewise, a scarce resource required for building may get ignored if a player can usurp the building efforts of others. I'm not saying anything new here, and I'll leave it up to Jeff to decide whether we should assume for this discussion that a game's design will properly encourage use of the tool made available.

jwarrend wrote:
I’d like to ... spark discussion about how to build interaction into our designs.

I think knowing which tools to use is important. I think motivating use of the tools through proper scoring and victory conditions is important. I think using principles of finite-ness and limits is important. I've seen mentioned several times that there are "only 14 actions" in The Princes of Florence, and therefore it's important to make good use of every one. This game seems to get maligned most (when it gets maligned) for lacking inter-player causation, but is still very popular nonetheless. I think it is because if someone uses their two actions very effectively, it forces other players to take note and redouble their efforts!

jwarrend
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Re: [TiGD] Player interaction

Nando wrote:

I think either Inter-Player Causation or Inter-Player Agitation would more clearly describe the concept addressed in this TiGD thread. I want a term that conveys that a game's design and implementation of mechanisms conspire to amplify the consequences of players' decisions. That the normal course of play for any given player can and will cause (or agitate) other players to retaliate, react, course-correct, or just plain "pay attention."

I actually think that "interaction" is the best word for this effect, it's just that some people conflate the concepts that I'm calling "interaction" and "interactivity". Maybe the differentiation could be amplified by coming up with a more appropriate word for "interactivity", like "table talk" or some such.

The point I'm trying to get at is that some people consider a game where all players are silently sitting around the board, studying the game, to be "non-interactive", because the players aren't actually talking. What I'm trying to get at is that, for the purposes of this discussion, the relative amount of "table talk" is not an area of primary consideration.

Quote:

I think these are excellent. These are analogous to design patterns in computer programming (as has been stated many times by many people, I'm sure). They allow you to diagnose a problem, reach into your design toolbag, and begin crafting a solution within a tried and true framework. However... I think it interesting to note that, with the possible exception of turn order these tools will not singlehandedly produce inter-player causation.

I don't disagree, but don't misunderstand the goal of my post. More than creating a toolkit per se, I was simply trying to analyze patterns of interactivity in games, with the idea that these patterns could be incorporated into one's toolkit based on one's design goals. The main point I was trying to make was simply (and I know we agree on this), "these categories appear to exist". But how to make a good game out of them is an excercise left to the reader!

Quote:

For example, just because I can fight another player, doesn't mean I will. Likewise, a scarce resource required for building may get ignored if a player can usurp the building efforts of others. I'm not saying anything new here, and I'll leave it up to Jeff to decide whether we should assume for this discussion that a game's design will properly encourage use of the tool made available.

You make a great point. I would say that to say whether a game has a particular interactive mechanic depends on whether a good player would have to consider the other players in determining his use of that mechanic. A fine example is turn order mechanics. Every turn-based game has a turn order, but not every turn-based game has a turn order interaction effect. In some games, the turn order really doesn't affect the game. And as you say, sometimes the game gives you "workarounds" for scarcity issues. For example, in PR, the Office lets you ignore the scarcity issue of the Trading House. Yet, I would claim that this building's utility is entirely motivated by scarcity issues, since it's only worth having because of the unique rules associated with the Trading House. In that sense, often a workaround strategy will itself be a way to circumvent a scarcity issue, thus retaining an element of interaction.

Quote:

I think knowing which tools to use is important. I think motivating use of the tools through proper scoring and victory conditions is important. I think using principles of finite-ness and limits is important. I've seen mentioned several times that there are "only 14 actions" in The Princes of Florence, and therefore it's important to make good use of every one. This game seems to get maligned most (when it gets maligned) for lacking inter-player causation, but is still very popular nonetheless. I think it is because if someone uses their two actions very effectively, it forces other players to take note and redouble their efforts!

First, a request for the usual suspects (and you know who you are!) to please not hijack this thread for a rehashing of the endless PoF debate!

That said, PoF definitely has, in its bidding mechanic, an element of player interaction. Hmm...not sure where bidding fits into the 4 categories I discussed above; does my list need to be expanded?

Thanks for your thoughts!

-Jeff

Nando
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Re: [TiGD] Player interaction

jwarrend wrote:
PoF definitely has, in its bidding mechanic, an element of player interaction. Hmm...not sure where bidding fits into the 4 categories I discussed above; does my list need to be expanded?

I think auctions fall squarely into the scarcity category. There is one item up for bidding. Isn't that scarce by definition?

Scurra
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Re: [TiGD] Player interaction

jwarrend wrote:
[First, a request for the usual suspects (and you know who you are!) to please not hijack this thread for a rehashing of the endless PoF debate!]

Who, me? (whistles nonchalantly and tries to look innocent. Fails.)

jwarrend wrote:
That said, PoF definitely has, in its bidding mechanic, an element of player interaction. Hmm...not sure where bidding fits into the 4 categories I discussed above; does my list need to be expanded?

I think I agree with Nando - auctions are generally a subset of the Scarcity category, since by buying whatever it is you are denying it to the other players. Of course this is a broad generalisation since it's possible to have auctions that don't work on that basis (although I guess they aren't usually called auctions in those circumstances!) And generally Auctions are affected by turn-order too as it's difficult to make standard auction models work within game constraints.

I would certainly agree that a distinction between interaction and interactivity is a key point - but I also think that although the terms are alarmingly similar in sound they are probably the best ones we have to capture the two different aspects of a game. Although there are probably good (and slightly more accurate) technical terms we could use, I'm not sure it's a good idea (unless we are going to try and establish a formal vocabulary - or should that be "slang" - for these discussions!)

Sebastian
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Re: [TiGD] Player interaction

Scurra wrote:

jwarrend wrote:
That said, PoF definitely has, in its bidding mechanic, an element of player interaction. Hmm...not sure where bidding fits into the 4 categories I discussed above; does my list need to be expanded?

I think I agree with Nando - auctions are generally a subset of the Scarcity category, since by buying whatever it is you are denying it to the other players.

There are also arguments for putting it in the combatitive categories, because you can actively take away items that the other users need, and cooperative categories, when players receive money for the goods, and you may well pay different amounts because you know that the player you're paying it to is behind and needs it.

Sebastian
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Re: [TiGD] Player interaction

jwarrend wrote:
I’d like to briefly explore different kinds of player interaction that can happen in a game, and hopefully spark discussion about how to build interaction into our designs.

...

I claim there are at least 4: scarcity, combative, cooperative, and turn order. These aren’t mutually exclusive; a game, or even a single mechanic, may contain more than one.

I am unconvinced that these are useful in a games design except for very theoretical discussion. Specifically, the fact that we're having difficulties exactly categorising auctions, the mainstay of so many games, suggests that they are uncertain.

I'm currently sufferring an overload of exams, so I don't have enough time to go into too much thought about the matter - I'll come back to it in a weeks time or so ... however, my initial feelings are that the following would give a better vocabulary for discussing interaction:

There are several methods of interaction. Each of these exists in a continuum which goes between positive (there is a net increase in game winningness for participants) and negative (there is a net decrease). These include temporal scarcity (getting to things first), resource based scarcity (being able to afford them), deal making, direct interaction (attacking the other player) and turn order. Some of these have to be in certain parts of the continuum in order to get them to work. For example, turn order is inherently neutral and deal making is usually positive (or people wouldn't do it).

Scurra
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Re: [TiGD] Player interaction

Sebastian wrote:
Some of these have to be in certain parts of the continuum in order to get them to work. For example, turn order is inherently neutral and deal making is usually positive (or people wouldn't do it).

My suspicion is that it's exactly statements like this that end up prompting many game mechanisms :-)
For instance, stating that turn order is inherently neutral is more likely to result in games in which manipulating the turn order becomes a significant component of the design...

Sebastian
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Re: [TiGD] Player interaction

Scurra wrote:
Sebastian wrote:
Some of these have to be in certain parts of the continuum in order to get them to work. For example, turn order is inherently neutral and deal making is usually positive (or people wouldn't do it).

My suspicion is that it's exactly statements like this that end up prompting many game mechanisms :-)
For instance, stating that turn order is inherently neutral is more likely to result in games in which manipulating the turn order becomes a significant component of the design...

That's quite all right - those are the sort of things that my post was supposed to encourage...

With regards to the turn order, the inherant neutrality that I'm ascribing to it is that the fact there is a turn order does not somehow increase the likelyhood of some group of people winning the game. Manipulating the turn order would either be a mechanic in the deal making or direct interaction. But that's just one interpretation.

Chip
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Re: [TiGD] Player interaction

jwarrend wrote:

First, I want to make a distinction between “interaction” and “interactivity”. I consider a game’s interaction level to be a statement about how much my moves affect the standing of the other players, and vice versa. Interactivity, on the other hand, is more a matter of how much I am actually talking to the other players. So, for example, chess is a game with a tremendous amount of interaction, but relatively little interactivity. I’m mainly interested in discussing the former, although some mechanics that create the former will also create the latter.

What you describe as "interactivity" I usually call interaction. What you call "interaction" I refer to as interdependence.

The other component I usually think about when designing games is the idea of involvement - how active and engaged is a person in the game? Do they sit around a lot waiting for their turn? Or must they stay mentally and physically involved?

Chess for example would be low in interaction, high in interdependence, and high in involvement.

Chip

jwarrend
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Re: [TiGD] Player interaction

Sebastian wrote:
I am unconvinced that these are useful in a games design except for very theoretical discussion. Specifically, the fact that we're having difficulties exactly categorising auctions, the mainstay of so many games, suggests that they are uncertain.

Certainly, my aim with writing this piece was mainly to look at interaction from an "academic" perspective and make some broad generalizations about the kinds of interaction that games can have. I think I was clear that I didn't think there are hard and fast boundaries between these effects; a mechanic may have elements of several. For example, Diplomacy's support mechanic is both combatitive AND cooperative. Yet, it is clear that it is a convergence of a cooperative element and a cooperative element; it isn't some "other" that doesn't fit into either category. In that sense, I think that my categories may be viewable as "building block" considerations for methods of interactions, and whole mechanics and whole games will obviously be much richer.

Quote:
There are several methods of interaction. Each of these exists in a continuum which goes between positive (there is a net increase in game winningness for participants) and negative (there is a net decrease).

What I find interesting about this scheme is that it doesn't at all invalidate the categories I came up with; rather, it adds an additional criteria; it gives a hierarchical way of interpreting the categories. I think that's perfectly legitimate, and I like your "continuum", as it expands these ideas and relates them toward a way to solve actual design problems. For example, "I want an interaction mechanic that has a just-above-neutral game-winningness-effect on the players".

I strongly suspect that there are many such possible continua, and thus, that the categories can be ordered in a variety of ways. But I'm quite convinced that they do exist as real patterns in games. Whether these categories can be used to build actual mechanics, I couldn't say, but even if not, I think that it's perhaps not a complete waste of time to be aware of them (or else I wouldn't have written the thing in the first place!).

Chip wrote:

What you describe as "interactivity" I usually call interaction. What you call "interaction" I refer to as interdependence.

I should be clear that I wasn't actually seeking to formalize nomenclature for these concepts, merely to explain what I meant by the terms I'd be using. In that sense, many terms for "interaction" and "interactivity" may be appropriate, but for the purposes of this discussion, it's probably best to keep the terms as I defined them, unless there's some strong reason why they're gravely inadequate.

Quote:

The other component I usually think about when designing games is the idea of involvement - how active and engaged is a person in the game? Do they sit around a lot waiting for their turn? Or must they stay mentally and physically involved?

I agree that downtime is indeed an important consideration, but I'm not sure it relates to player interaction specifically. In the sense of interaction meaning "my moves affect/are affected by other players' moves", I don't think it does.

Sebastian wrote:
With regards to the turn order, the inherant neutrality that I'm ascribing to it is that the fact there is a turn order does not somehow increase the likelyhood of some group of people winning the game.

There are definitely some games, though, where "the player who consistently goes first/last/whatever" has an improved chance of winning. Often, this is a design flaw, but sometimes it's used a feature to create interesting mechanics. For example, bidding for turn order in Samurai Swords.

On the other hand, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "some group of people" in a sense that is other than neutral. Are you talking about a negotiation-heavy game, where the "silver-tongued" players have some advantage? If not, are there mechanics that can be anything other than neutral?

-Jeff

Sebastian
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Re: [TiGD] Player interaction

jwarrend wrote:
On the other hand, I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "some group of people" in a sense that is other than neutral. Are you talking about a negotiation-heavy game, where the "silver-tongued" players have some advantage? If not, are there mechanics that can be anything other than neutral?

I should not have referred to gamewinningness as 'likelyhood of winning'. The sort of thing I was trying to express was more about progression within the game.

Let me give an example. Suppose we have a race game, between red, yellow, green and blue. In scenario A, the red player plays a card that sends the green and blue cars back to the starting line. In scenario B, the red player plays a card that sends itself and the yellow car to one space before the finish line. In both the scenarios, the chance of the red and yellow player have improved the same amount.

In my description, I view scenario A as negative, as there is a decrease in progression in the game overall, and scenario B as positive as there is an increase in progression in the game. A card that moved red forward two spaces and yellow back two spaces would be fairly neutral, give or take the details about the game.

Likewise, the fact that there is a turn order does not change the progression of the people within the game, even if it does affect how much the players can progress the game themselves within their turn.

zaiga
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Re: [TiGD] Player interaction

Sebastian wrote:
In my description, I view scenario A as negative, as there is a decrease in progression in the game overall, and scenario B as positive as there is an increase in progression in the game. A card that moved red forward two spaces and yellow back two spaces would be fairly neutral, give or take the details about the game.

How much "negativeness" do you put in your game? That's an important question when designing a game. Being able to do something nasty to your opponents every now and then is what a lot of players will find fun. However, if there's too much opportunity for negative play, the game may drag and not move forward, causing frustration. If any progress players have made can be undone easily then that may make the whole game seem pointless. You have to strike a balance here.

Games of the Anglo-American school of game design typically have more opportunities for "negative" play than games of the German school, although the best German games often feature a bit of nastiness - the robber in Settlers being a prime example.

It's also interesting that you could say that with more players games tend to become less interactive, as negative play becomes less effective. For example, to continue Sebastian's example, sending back an opponent's car in a racing game is just as effective as moving your own car forward if it is a two player game, but such a "negative" move is usually a bad idea when you have more than one opponent. With more opponents it's better to focus on moves that help yourself than focusing on moves that hinder an opponent.

larienna
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[TiGD] Player interaction

It's good theory information ( we will have to build a book, an encyclopedy or something ) anyways. I just want to get back on your first sentense which took my attention:

Quote:
A charge that can be leveled at some games that they are “multi player solitaire”, which means that each player is basically worrying only about his own sphere, and doesn’t really have to worry much about what the other players are doing.

It is a good point that you made with this theory because it can allow us to track bug in the design of a game. For example, the "Star Trek" CCG was a solitaire multiplayer. Combat between players was non essential to win the game. Cooperation did not exist and the only scarcity there was is that you cannot accomplish a mission made by somebody else. Result, playing the game in multiplayer was almost useless. Player will never oppose each other since they don't need to. It's the same bug for "Spell Fire", you play 6 territory card and you win. No need of opposition.

So in the examples above, direct combat between players would have been essential. I DON'T think that all multiplayer games MUST allow player combat. But it is a good way to stimulate competition between them.

Scurra
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[TiGD] Player interaction

I don't think your conclusion follows from your examples.

Larienna wrote:
So in the examples above, direct combat between players would have been essential. I DON'T think that all multiplayer games MUST allow player combat. But it is a good way to stimulate competition between them.

Stimulating competition is indeed the important thing - but combat is not necessarily a good way to do it.

For instance, it is true that multiplayer Trek CCG had a disturbing lack of interaction. However, I played in several groups that had all sorts of house-rules to get around this, and few of them were connected with promoting combat (mostly they were related to restricting resource supply and/or missions.) This wasn't a fault with the original design: there are a vanishingly small number of CCGs that can handle all the different styles of play that are thrown at them, and the Trek game wasn't one of them! (although it came closer than many...)

IOW my position is that although combat is a useful "tool", I don't believe in the assumption that it is the first resort (or even an early one!) when trying to introduce more competition into a game.

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