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Going beyond "risk/reward"

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jwarrend
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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

doho123
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Going beyond "risk/reward"

I'm not sure what the difference bewteen "risk" and "difficult" is, as the definiton of risk is sort of the rating of difficulty.

And I'm not sure the PR is a good example of risk/reward either, as your multiple paths of victory is better defined as "who built the better mousetrap".
It's a game that rewards the most efficient engine given the components at the time. There seems to be very few occasions in the game where I am balancing a risk/reward ratio in selections; instead, I am trying to determine the best cog for the machine I am building at that given moment.

Risk/reward elements are more important I think when thinking about games involving choices based on randomness. (say, taking a coffe roaster now when you don't have a coffee plantation currently). Games with little or no random information effectively have no risk/reward since there's a logical way to mathematically compute what the best move is at any given time.

jwarrend
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Going beyond "risk/reward"

doho123 wrote:
I'm not sure what the difference bewteen "risk" and "difficult" is, as the definiton of risk is sort of the rating of difficulty.

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.

Quote:

And I'm not sure the PR is a good example of risk/reward either,

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".

Quote:

Risk/reward elements are more important I think when thinking about games involving choices based on randomness. (say, taking a coffe roaster now when you don't have a coffee plantation currently). Games with little or no random information effectively have no risk/reward since there's a logical way to mathematically compute what the best move is at any given time.

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

sedjtroll
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Going beyond "risk/reward"

The problem I think you'll run into is that if you give each 'path' a value on the risk/reward or difficulty reward scale then you compare those values to each other, are you comparing apples to apples, or apples to Railroad cars? [edit: read on, I think I'm about to change my mind here...]

What I mean is that the downhill path with high probablility of monsters might stack up well value-wise as the uphill path with low monster count (we'll call that "safe"). Meanwhile the downhill safe path is clearly easier and presumably will have a much lower reward as it's value would be pretty low. The uphill dangerous path would have a much higher value and therefore a much higher reward.

So I guess that's not a problem at all, but rather there's just more than 2 paths to look at- there are 4. Or lots, from one extreme to the other. For some reason I read what you said and thought you were looking at 2 paths, which in my description would be the middle 2 (uphill safe and downhill scary). Between the two I'm not sure there's much difference. BUt if you look at the whole spectrum then I guess you can see that you can spend time and energy preparing for the harder road in order to reduce the chance that you don't succeed (past the monsters), or you can "go for it" and take the easier, more risky path. Between those two options the reward should probably be about the same, and there's a benefit for getting there first (or at all I guess).

Hmm. I hope that made sense. I guess what I'm saying is I think you can do what you suggest, but maybe put a time pressure on the game such that you can't just keep preparing until the 'risky' guy gets eaten then waltz through the safe path. Imagine a race through these paths, where encountering a monster means you're moved back to the start, maybe that makes it clearer?

- Seth

jwarrend
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Going beyond "risk/reward"

Seth,

Thanks for your reply. Just one clarification; the "monsters/sloped paths" example was completely off the top of my head, to illustrate the point. I'm not currently developing such a game, nor do I have any intention of doing so. I am assuming you were, like me, using my example to illustrate the points you were raising, just want to make sure that you (or someone else) don't spend too much effort trying to help me out with this particular nonexistant game! (although someone else is welcome to work on such a game if it sounds interesting to them...)

-Jeff

sedjtroll
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Going beyond "risk/reward"

jwarrend wrote:
the "monsters/sloped paths" example was completely off the top of my head, to illustrate the point... I am assuming you were, like me, using my example to illustrate the points you were raising.

Yes, that is what I was doing.

So... how can we apply this to another game, assuming that it will work out. Let's take the example I was starting in the PR thread-
Risk: Getting caught by police. Stealing stuff would have a high risk, Investing would have a low risk, and maybe selling would have a medium risk (maybe it's selling on the black market, or maybe you could get busted for selling stolen goods).
Difficulty- Investing could be difficult because you have to do work to make sure your investment increases in value (?), Selling could be hard work because you have to find buyers and keep up supplies. Stealing could be pretty easy.

Hmm...
maybe I should reduce this down to 2 variables, and look at the investing another way. So the main two are stealing and selling. One is more dangerous than the other. Maybe there's 2 cases of each, one risky and one safe- risky=stealing from stores- more lucrative, more dangerous. Safer is stealing from some ghetto home- but not as likely to have great stuff.

Selling could be legit (safe) or Black market (risky, profitable).

In addition to all that there could be investing, and the value of the investments can go up and down depending on other stuff.

So there you go, you have your 4 options, and on top of that another way to increase your score (if you can determine who will do what actions then you can invest).

Comments?

- Seth

GeminiWeb
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Going beyond "risk/reward"

jwarrend wrote:

Quote:
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.

I was wondering about the crayon rail games here (e.g Empire builder, Eurorails, India Rails ...).

One option is to make money with lots of short routes, which don't require much track. [Downhill, low payoffs]

Another option is to build longer tracks with bigger payoffs [uphill, bigger payoffs]

And, of course, there is the middle ground.

Also, the game favours a balance as you need money to build the longer tracks to win the game (i.e. joining up the major cities).

Anyway, back to the question at hand ... there are also event cards in those games, which can do things such as caused lost turns, spilled loads and bridges to to be lost. Longer tracks might be more subsceptable, but certain areas are also (as I found out when I build my beautiful track through the Ganges, only to see it wipted out by flood ...]. This is an interesting one also, as the event cards appear as trains drop off thier loads ... so some paths are 'riskier' if other players are favouring short routes (with a quicker turnove rof the cards0, but the difficulty remains largely constant (well, not quite - the easier paths are taken if you wait too long ...)

Just some thoughts anyway ...

stumps
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Going beyond "risk/reward"

I highly suggest any reader or poster of this thread to read the following article:

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20010427/hopson_01.htm

Behavioral Game Design

The article discusses such topics as Fixed Ratio Schedules, Variable Ratio Schedules, Chain Schedules, and Avoidance Contingencies among others.

jwarrend
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Joined: 08/03/2008
Going beyond "risk/reward"

I got a login prompt when I went to the site; could you summarize the article's salient points for us?

Thanks,

Jeff

hpox
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Going beyond "risk/reward"

jwarrend wrote:
I got a login prompt when I went to the site

Here's a tip: http://bugmenot.com/view.php?url=www.gamasutra.com

stumps
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Joined: 12/31/1969
Going beyond "risk/reward"

I also posted in this Forum for you it in a thread called, Behavioral Game Design

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