No, not that type of zombie. Here I'm referencing game mechanics that failed when they were first developed, failed in every game they were used in thereafter, and fail in games designed today. But they are still used. It would be baffling if one didn't expect people to be stupid, but sadly they are and so I imagine we'll never outgrow bad game design.
So in this post (the first of a series) I want to take a quick look at Design Zombies.
First up, spending your XP in exchange for altering or changing in-game events. One simple example is classic Deadlands where you spend your hard earned chips for re-rolls or instant healing.
It’s a meta-game decision that pulls you out of character, and doesn’t in any way relate to anything ‘real’ to the character. Think about it, does James Bond put off raising his driving skill in order to
keep Goldfinger from killing him? I never saw him consider that exchange in
the movie or book. Perhaps I missed it.
I think this mechanic results from a game design that fails to
represent the genre by providing too many non-genre results. To correct this the
designer puts in a player controlled ‘override’ ability but doesn't want to give away 'freebies'. Thus he charges him the one currency the player always values (XP) to make sure it's not 'over-used'.
Alternatively, the designer loves to have his players make meta-game decisions (mistaking such things as a type of resource management), puts the mechanic in and then designs his game to *fail* at providing genre appropriate results so that the players must purchase them with XP.
Both reasons are terrible. The whole concept should be avoided like the plague it is and the designer should just design a good game that provides good results upfront.
But that would be hard I suppose. And why do hard when people will still buy easy?
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3 comments:
I don't know that I agree with this particular example.
I agree, if you call that resource "EXP" that there are certain expectations regarding its behavior and uses. Trying to turn EXP into a meta-currency is just ignoring the accepted definitions of words.
But giving players a meta-currency that can be spent in a number of mutually exclusive ways, some of which allow you to buy your way out of a short-term fail, and some of which allow you to purchase permanent infrastructure improvements -- that seems like an interesting choice. Do I spend now, or do I invest in the future? How much do I horde as a safety net, just in case?
But I would separate it from EXP with some layer. Ie. Maybe you could purchase exp with this currency, or use it to reroll dice. And then exp is only for levels. One-way transaction.
That to me could be interesting, depending on its implementation.
Oh, and welcome back! Missed your posts. :)
Thanks for the welcome back, things have eased up a bit in real life so there's time to make a post now and then.
I'm afraid I'm going to have to disagree about these types of mechanics being an interesting choice. We've attempted playing games using them a number of times and the long term result was always negative.
Basically we end up feeling robbed as the game systems enforce highly random outcomes that often are capable of destroying your character outright unless you spend your XP to prevent it.
It's the combination that good solid play can't keep your character alive plus the robbery of your XP at gunpoint that is the killer.
We either end up dropping the game, or just letting the characters die through disgust (which drops the campaign after a bit).
Well, since you actually have experience with the mechanic, and I am engaging in a hypothetical exploration, I'll defer.
Theory vs Practice and all that. ;)
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