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How much should we police players in co-ops?

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bbblackwell
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Competitive games require stiff handling to ensure that no one is exploiting the system to gain an advantage, but can we loosen the reigns a bit with cooperative games?

A big part of how I design a game is by writing the rulebook and then revising it a billion times as I go along. So I wrote a seemingly obvious rule for my co-op adventure game that basically said "other players and their allies cannot be the targets of player attacks."

But then I got to thinking about how one of the available characters rages when he takes damage... wouldn't it be cool if one player could set him off by hitting him with an attack, instead of waiting for an enemy to do it? I don't know about you, but if I was walking down the street with Bruce Banner and a couple of muggers told me to put my hands up, I'd immediately start beating on Bruce with my umbrella until he saved the day!

So why not let the players have these fun interactions? I can think of many examples where this would be a cunning use of one's abilities and it could certainly provide players with some memorable moments. But of course, this comes at the risk of some jerk coming along and basically flipping the table by killing his comrades for fun. I only play solo or with friends, so I don't know how much of an issue this actually is.

THE QUESTION:
Is it our job as designers to protect players from themselves, and make sure they can't degrade the game into something unintended, or is it safe to assume that in co-ops players won't exploit this freedom to kill each other and ruin the game?

WikkedWood
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That is a FINE question

I would imagine you CAN loosen the reigns of the rules a bit, and allow for some...uhhh...unique strategies that come of it. To what level is almost certainly unique to every game's quirks.

Specific to your last sentence - it is never safe to assume anything. The question is mitigation and what you want to tolerate. If you believe that your audience would be better off to police themselves against some jerks that exploit game breaking or fun killing ideas, let them do it. If you believe the type of people that will be most likely attracted to this game are JUST the type of "scum" that delights in breaking games, by all means squash it in the rulebook.

In general:
If an exploitable loophole breaks the game immediately, it's no fun anymore right? But if it just allows for a homebrew little tactic NOT accounted for in the rules that gives the co-op players a slight advantage in the game, well that could be fun for everyone just DISCOVERING the loophole. That could almost be a right of passage for a group just starting out in your game. Of course, in today's age, it will be spoiled on the internet and in large gaming groups almost immediately - but as long as it doesn't kill the game let it be!

I have a similar situation in a game where I had just this dilemma. The game is a Co-Op based on IP so not likely to be seen too far outside my inner circle, but if it ever did, I ran up against this.

There are three levels of encounter tiles that the players can venture forth to. They are spaced such that, at the beginning of the game, surely one COULD spend their movement allowance to hit the hard stuff and skip the easy stuff. However, 9 out of 10 times, the player is going to need resources and buffs they get in the lower level encounters to stand much of a chance with the big baddies.

I did not want to restrict movement to: do all the easy stuff, then the medium stuff, then the hard stuff because it's railroading and 100% antithesis to the THEME of the game. But I also thought that beginning players getting wiped out their first few adventures before they figured out you really should hit at least a FEW of the lower level things first would leave a sour taste in their mouths and first impressions are important.

I settled on a warning. Something like: Although it is allowed to move to encounter tiles of any level at any time, it is not advisable.

I'm not entirely happy with the warning, and I may ditch it...but that will bear out in stress testing methinks.

WW

let-off studios
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Go For It!

bbblackwell wrote:
THE QUESTION:
Is it our job as designers to protect players from themselves, and make sure they can't degrade the game into something unintended, or is it safe to assume that in co-ops players won't exploit this freedom to kill each other and ruin the game?
The comic-book style scenario you mention has been a totally legit device in comic books, by the way. The Hulk (for example) would often deliver the "fastball special" by tossing Wolverine, or Spider Man, or some other lighter-weight hero into the melee to gain a tactical advantage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fastball_Special

Speaking of super hero games, Sentinels of the Multiverse has mechanics that enable heroes to damage other teammates, whether they want to or not. For example, persistent effects that cause damage to all characters active in the round will affect heroes as well as villains and their accomplices, with only attack resistance preventing damage.

My suggestion: it cuts both ways. If it's a player option to consider, then allow it in the game. But that doesn't mean it will always be the optimal choice to make in a given situation. It may carry considerable risk. But always consider that it would be fun for the players to perform their own in-game version of the Fastball Special. :)

saluk
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Beating on a teammate to

Beating on a teammate to activate their bonus: whether this is allowed in the game or not, it should be called out. It's a rare enough thing that most players may never think to try it, and those that do discover this interaction will be curious if it is something you had thought of or if they just broke the game. If it DOES break the game (make that ability too easy to trigger by some weak attack, or make players who try to do this hurt each other so much that it's almost always the wrong choice), then it really should be disallowed.

More generally, every coop game is going to have suboptimal moves, and I don't think you can police players playing in an optimal way. The best you can do is cultivate a playful anything goes kind of atmosphere and hope that players will get into the right spirit of things. I think sentinels does this pretty well.

bbblackwell
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Let a dog roam...

...and he'll find his way home. The leeway is good, I think, but you do bring up a good point about first impressions.

Thinking of your game, I was trying to come up with examples of how other games handled this. I was just playing the World of Warcraft Board Game the other night, and that game allows you to roam freely, much like the video game.

What they did was have the initial setup include the lowest level quests available. When a faction completes a quest, they may choose which deck to draw a new one from - easy, medium, or hard. Completing a quest before having to make that choice gave me a point of reference as a new player, and I just intuitively realized that I would want to tread carefully and not jump into the higher quests, without any specific guidance to that effect.

Also, there is a reference card that shows the stats for all monsters. So after fighting a monster, I could look at the higher level ones and realize I wanted no part of them.

Not sure if any of that helps, but it's always useful to know what other people have come up with.

I'd be interested to know how you would handle this specific situation -- the one about a rule stating that only enemies may be targeted by attacks. Of course, if the game broke out into a PVP brawl it would destroy any co-op; but honestly, I don't remember if the co-ops I've played explicitly stated that I could not to do this... the thought of doing so never entered my mind.

It's a fantasy adventure game in the same vein as Pathfinder ACG. These players are very familiar with the RPG party-of-heroes idea, but still, players do play with strangers in game groups sometimes, and some people are annoying and exploitative...

What would you do?

bbblackwell
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Ha!

I did not know of this as the Fastball Special, though I've seen it before -- thanks for the info!

There are very few instances where attacking another player or their allies would be useful, but I am always very hesitant to impose artificial restrictions that run in opposition to theme.

RPG's are completely open. Anyone could attack anyone at any time, but who would do that? It's basically a non-issue in RPG's, so why should a board game police the player at every turn?

Now of course, RPGs have a mitigating factor -- a good GM is going to brutalize a player who acts in this way ("You do 4 points of damage to your comrade, but before you can sheath your sword, an ethereal piano descends from above, instantly crushing you... You receive... *roll*... 67 points of damage").

Board games don't have GMs, but it's sort of like real life -- most people don't refrain from attacking people on the bus because it's illegal, they simply aren't inclined to do so. And yet, it seems that board games try to find all the loopholes and close them, and designers who don't patch up exploits before releasing their game are generally frowned upon.

So, stay true to theme, or follow the implied guidelines of the industry in which your game resides? I find it to be a very difficult choice.

bbblackwell
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Sentinels

I only played Sentinels a handful of times... I can't recall if it explicitly states that players cannot directly target other players.

I think, in general, people usually can't do this in games and so they don't even consider it as an option. It also doesn't come to mind because it's not usually a useful strategy.

I suppose I should review the rulebooks for games like Sentinels and see how they handled it. But whatever I find there, I'm still bothered by the question...

Like a dutiful servant of a beloved deity, I am very reluctant to put any rule into place that does not accurately reflect the story being told. I'm wary of players being aware of the designer's "omnipotent hand." I want my rules to bow in servitude to theme, helping to bolster and deliver that theme in a natural, intuitive way.

It feels wrong to simply say "each player can only have 2 eggs" when clearly anyone with a backpack could carry many more eggs than that. Although of course, many (if not most) board games do this to varying degrees and nobody -- including me -- seems particularly bothered by it when playing. If you think about it, leveraging against limitations is the very foundation of board gaming.

In an RPG-style adventure game, however, isn't the basic premise that we are supposed to be living vicariously through these characters? If so, then unrealistic limitations seem like they run in opposition to the implied purpose of the game itself.

But my perspective is tainted by the fact that I play solo the majority of the time. I know when people play in groups they goof around and don't generally place full thematic immersion at the fore. If your buddy teases you about your latest girlfriend, you may be inclined to attack him in the game just for fun, and this sort of thing could get out of hand with certain personality types.

Still on the fence as you can see... hahaha

EDIT: I just went and looked at Sentinels. I see no rule governing what is an eligible target and what isn't, other than "any card with HP is considered a Target." So the cards then govern the rules. Although some cards specify "non-hero target" (usually for attacks that target multiple opponents), there are many that just say "one target receives 2 damage" etc. So there you have it, you are free to blast your friends in Sentinels! Though I've never heard of anyone having a problem with this. Now granted, Sentinels has one of the lightest rule sets of any game of this style, but it's certainly food for thought!

adversitygames
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I really don't think it's

I really don't think it's worth trying to control players in co-op that much.

If people play like that in a co-op (attacking other players out of...? what? spite? out of game personal stuff?), they're a dick, and people will stop playing with them.

Eg imagine playing pandemic, and a player insists on playing badly to spoil the game? Is that a fault of the game or the player? I say: the player.

Stormyknight1976
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I say

I say that it all depends on the game story line or the game in itself.

Like for an example:

Your party just so happened to come across a large team of bullies or a gang of agents and your party needs to get into the location behind these brutes. You can use the one or two characters in your team as a rues or decoy as everyone else slips away to find another safe way in to the location and when the party is in, the two decoys can take out these bullies or gang of agents to knock them out before they knew what hit them. Your party enters the location, safe hostages, or get the bomb disarmed or find the hidden artifacts or what have ya. The party leaves with some what a trace of evidence left behind due to the fact the two decoys did their job.

Or in another example:

In some co-op video games or even solo games where you can pick another character's skill as a helper to fling you to the other side of the roof top? Or use the character's secret skill by tapping him on the head like in the movie,"Tai Chi Zero" I would suggest to look up the plot summary of this movie to get ideas about your game. I enjoyed this movie a lot.

These are just two small examples I had just come up with. I bet there are tons more.

Hope this helps you out in some way.

Stormy

polyobsessive
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The Covenant

I agree with Seph. Either everyone is onboard with the whole cooperation thing or they are not. If someone acts like a dick and sabotages the objectives, then either you have the wrong game or the wrong friend.

This actually goes for competitive games too: if everyone is trying to win except one guy who is just trying to arrange his pieces in a pretty pattern, or wipe out one person in particular regardless of other influences, or something like that, then few games (that have much in the way of interaction) can really withstand such behaviour, and the game generally breaks.

I think the trick is to ensure that all players know what the game requires of them in general terms, then let them go.

mcobb83
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My own view is that unless it

My own view is that unless it is game breaking, and so long as it is in line with the other rules, players should have as much "sandbox" effect as possible, with the lease amount of restrictions on what they can do within the framework of the game.

Big downside, in my experience, is that many players develop analysis paralysis and require some guidance, so remember that. For example, in Defenders of Wessex, the initial win condition was points = (players x 2), and points were scored by building certain buildings and reqruiting soldiers. Of course, the game got bogged down as players tried to determine the best path to victory every turn, and so points were then scored according to randomly drawn missions, with some leeway given for character specialty. It vastly improved the game.

bbblackwell
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Great perspectives, much obliged

polyobsessive wrote:
I think the trick is to ensure that all players know what the game requires of them in general terms, then let them go.

I'm hearing a lot of support for the notion expressed so concisely by poly here. You guys are a bunch of freedom fighters -- way t' be!

This is what I want to hear so I'm glad we've got a fair bit of consensus. Of course, I'm not deaf to the warnings sprinkled throughout; certainly we've got to be prudent. There's no rewards for bad behavior and no ambiguity about the goal planned for my game.

I think we'll be OK if players can target each other with anything, and I'd certainly be interested to see what people come up with in playtesting. I doubt anyone would even think of exploiting this freedom.

The cards for each mission are partially drawn from a large pool, so I don't have the full game prototyped yet, but I've got the necessary cards for the first mission and 4 characters on the table, so in my next few plays I'm going to keep an eye out for interesting interactions that may arise from this "free-targeting" system.

McTeddy
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This response will be

This response will be two-fold, both my opinion and my experience.

My advice is to test how it affects the balance. Attacking allies IS an awesome to activate abilities.

The problem is that if you balance for it being a possibility but players don't use it, the game can be too hard. If the balance is for not using it, these activations can be ridiculously overpowered.

Your isn't protecting the player's but balance IS your job. It's up to you which style you want to play with, but I highly recommend you go all in either way.

- - -

As for my experience, this specific concept is why my class loved Star Wars: Epic Duels. (We played 8 on 8 deathmatches!)

Luke has a special move that does massive damage, but only if Leia is dead. This lead to the Dark side avoiding Leia entirely and was frustrating.

Well, Luke was face to face with Vader and getting his butt handed to him. So, I came up with a diabolical plan "Obi wan! You need to kill Leia!". We reviewed the rules and didn't find any reason we COULDN'T target our own.

Leia goes down, and Luke uses a handful of those Anger attacks one-shotting Vader.

Well, the game opened up at that point and our battles truly became epic. Vader started draining the health of Storm troopers, Yoda would force push Mace Windu into enemy gatherings to activate his Whirlwind slashes.

I don't know what the official rules are on this front, but this was one of the most memorable gaming experiences of my life and it's official in my house.

let-off studios
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Barf

McTeddy wrote:
So, I came up with a diabolical plan "Obi wan! You need to kill Leia!". We reviewed the rules and didn't find any reason we COULDN'T target our own.
Just wanted to say that I think disposing of a main character - female, no less - to achieve such a benefit is pretty gross. But that's not the fault of the players. And my criticism isn't on you, McTeddy.

Does Leia have a similar "benefit" when Luke is killed before she is? If not, then that game sucks.

bbblackwell
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Help us Obi Wan Kenobi, you're our only... AAACKK!

McTeddy wrote:
I don't know what the official rules are on this front, but this was one of the most memorable gaming experiences of my life and it's official in my house.

This is a perfect example of this potential being realized. You guys had a blast and felt pumped up by your cleverness in devising this cunning plan! Players leave happy, energized, and with positive associations about the game that will hopefully lead to pulling that game off the shelf at future sessions.

Of course, I'm not thrilled that Obi was compelled to kill Leia in thematic terms, but going in to the design process with this in mind, the designer could avoid exploits that run counter to the story while still providing ample "Force push Windu" opportunities.

Thanks!

bbblackwell
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Hahaha

let-off studios wrote:
Does Leia have a similar "benefit" when Luke is killed before she is? If not, then that game sucks.

Yeah, I found that unfortunate as well. I think that interplay is probably an indication that they had no intention of players targeting other players with attacks. It was an opportunity born of oversight -- a designer's greatest shame.

But keeping a keen eye toward this, I think we could build in fun opportunities without exposing the game to such exploits.

And ultimately, when you buy a game, it's yours. Do with it what you will. If you're having fun putting Leia to the saber, have at it!

MarkJindra
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A&A and My Game

OK so I know it's not strictly co-op but I was playing in a major tournament for Axis & Allies many years ago. I was Japan and and the Germany Player decided he was going to blow all of his money on the first turn of the game on Tech Rolls. His rationalization was that if he could get missiles he could bomb Britain. I tried to talk him out of it but he went ahead and failed every roll. The game was over in a few turns as Russia and Britain rolled over Europe. This is a case where I feel some sort of tournament rule for a veto or a partisan judge could have helped.

Moving on to a game I have been working on. We currently have robotic mining rigs that can be equipped with weapons to fight against a common threat. We have specific weapons that when used damage the other mining rigs in the same location. We do not restrict you in doing damage and killing another rig in that way.

Healing another rig is easy enough although you cant self heal your rig if it is dead (incapacitated). There is no specific rule against attacking another rig directly although you are all technically controlling the rigs remotely from the same location and could just lean over and bop the other character on the head with a monkey wrench.

I guess if a player were being disruptive the other three players could take them out and refuse to heal them. However the game punishes the players for having one of the rigs out of action for too many turns.

We don't have any mechanics where damage to your rig gains you any benefit but if we did I would probably limit it to attacks from non rigs so that it could mitigate becoming the dominant strategy.

In general I have been designing with strategic freedom for the players. Only limiting where something could be abused. I would probably consider adding a rule that forbid attacking other players and test some rules for scenarios where the games objective became a free-for-all and being eliminated brought you back at a spawn point etc.

Not sure all that rambling helped =)

=M=

bbblackwell
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That's the key

MarkJindra wrote:
We don't have any mechanics where damage to your rig gains you any benefit but if we did I would probably limit it to attacks from non rigs so that it could mitigate becoming the dominant strategy.

Hey, thanks! Yeah, I think this is probably the key -- be vigilant about where the implementation of this strategy would be desirable.

In my game, there are several instances where cards become playable when a character takes damage. Obviously, they are intended to be used in response to an enemy attack (and this would be the most beneficial use of these cards) however, a situation may arise where you may want to trigger that ability on your own terms.

I would want to reward a player who devised an alternative means to their desired end, but I was mostly leaving this option open for players who have constructs under their control, or enemies who are temporarily made allies through spells, etc. The intent is not for them to attack each other.

It would be best if I could devise a way to make this strategy useful only under these pre-conceived conditions, rather than completely open. Not through rules that impose limitations, but just by manipulating what these abilities do.

I do not want to create thematically ludicrous situations whereby a player is motivated to attack a friendly character like the example of Obi-Wan and Leia above. This would disrupt immersion more than a direct rule limitation.

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