As we all know, what makes a game "fun" or "interesting" is often, if not always, related to the kinds of decisions that the game system presents to the players. I think that very often, these decisions can be motivated by a balance between "risk" and "reward" in some cases, or between "difficulty" and "reward" in others.
With "risk/reward", the basic idea here is that some paths carry a higher degree of riskiness in whether the attempt to take the action will succeed, but also pay off more handsomely if the attempt succeeds. As an example of this, consider a game where you can choose to play the game in one of two rooms. Each room has several doors, and you must choose one door to open. Behind one of the doors in each room is a big monster, who will eat you if you open his door. If you open a door without a monster, you get a prize. Now, let's say room A has 20 doors, and if you open a door without revealing the monster, you get $1. Room B, on the other hand, has only two doors, but the prize for opening the non-monster door is $1000. You must choose which room you'll play the game in.
Now, this game probably isn't balanced, but I think you get the point; Room A gives you a much better chance of succeeding in the quest, but the reward is smaller. Room B has a higher risk, but also a greater reward for success. (and interestingly, both penalize failure to the same degree, which need not always be the case in a risk-reward system).
There's also a slightly different class that I'm calling "difficulty/reward". The idea here is that the things that are more valuable are also more difficult to obtain. For example, in Puerto Rico, Coffee generates more gold than Indigo, but it's also more expensive to build a Coffee Roaster than an Indigo Plant. Or consider another "hypothetical game" where there are three roads to choose, each of which has a prize at the end. One road goes downhill, and leads to a prize of $1. One is on level ground, leading to a prize of $5. One goes uphill, leading to a prize of $10. You can choose which road to take, and your reward at the end will (once the game is balanced) be proportional to the difficulty of the road.
Now, I claim that most games involve a reward system that pays out in some proportion either to the risk a player must assume, or to the difficulty of the path a player must take.
What I'm wondering is if there are any games that have payout systems that represent a mix of the two. This was all sparked by the recent Puerto Rico discussion, of multiple paths to victory. I'm wondering if those paths could have several different variables working at the same time.
For example, maybe there are several paths that you can follow, none of which is level and some of which contain monsters. Each path is characterized by two variables -- (a) its grade, and (b) the probability that there is a monster on the path. And the idea would be that the steeper the path, the more points traversing the path is worth, and the higher the chance of meeting a monster, the more the path is worth.
This is obviously a superficially silly game, but I think the idea could be extended and I think you have two legitimately different motivators now for decision making; one is the "press your luck", "risk-reward" motivator; do I go for big points by assuming the high risk? The other is "hard work will pay off in the end", the idea that being able to traverse the steep path will require more preparation/energy/supplies/whatever, but in the end, the reward for doing so will be better. And I think that in the right context, motivating decisions based on both factors could be more interesting than motivating players' decisions solely by one or the other. (Of course, in the wrong context, it could just lead to a muddle).
Are there games that have already done this? Or as a separate question, are there more motivators for payout schedules than simply "risk-reward" and "difficulty-reward"?
I welcome any thoughts on this subject!
Best,
-Jeff
In the sense that I'm using them, I consider "risk" to involve an action whose outcome is uncertain and a reward upon success that is related in some way to the probability of success. I consider "difficulty" to mean that an action has a certain obstacle that must be surmounted to take the action, and a reward upon success related to the size of the obstacle.
I agree, I consider PR to be more an example of "difficulty/reward"; for example, the more expensive (more "difficult to acquire") buildings are more valuable. There may be a mild element of risk/reward associated with producing commodities, since you have an intended destination for them (trading house or the boats) and there's some risk that they won't make it, but that's more an issue of tactical planning which may not fall exactly under the umbrella of what I'm calling "risk".
I don't disagree. But what I am advocating, I guess, is that a game system could create interesting decisions by blending "risk-reward" motivated decision making with "difficulty-reward" motivated decision-making. Perhaps it's even been done already.
Hope that clears things up a bit. I welcome any thoughts on the subject!
-Jeff