Discovery and Self-Directed Goals in Games

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This post I feel is in the same vein as a post on the previous blog, the one about Waterfall Quest from Runescape. This one will also feature a Runescape mention.

 

The King Black Dragon was the first boss monster released Runescape, and it was released without mentioning its location. There's probably no good record of what happened after the release of the news, but I imagine a wild goose chase across every corner of the world map ensued, with the knowledge of such a powerful beast with valuable loot being spread by word of mouth if not kept secret. I think it probably was a fun time for everyone involved, with likely a lot of confusion, deaths, and a few scant victories.

There's nothing like setting off into the unknown for a journey which might end in death. It's a tale as old as time, and still motivates people to this day (cf. modern space travel, and the many violence-prone people on Earth today). It seems a timeless thing, although it probably only applies to the subset of people that are attracted to it. In any case, I want to think out loud on how to engineer this into a game.

A game is an imperfect medium, at first glance. After all, can you really have a journey into the unknown if you play a explicitly designed and preplanned game? It feels like someone messing with you if you fail. But this design flaw was fixed in the 80s: with almost entirely randomized rogue-like games. But still, that doesn't seem to completely resolve the problem: it can feel like you just stumble from room to room with disjointed encounters, without a sense of an overarching goal. 

With the King Black Dragon, the quest is straight out of myth: slay the beast. Classic hero shit. How do we the experience I speculated on earlier to the table? 

I've had a consistent line of conversation with a close friend over the past few weeks. He's an avid Runescape player, and we compare notes on game design. He has played TTRPGs with me before, and been unimpressed. One note we hit on recently was the seemingly contrived nature of just about anything you encounter. This is the same critique of video games I brought up earlier. But now applied to DnD. But it's all the same problem: how can a designed experience compare to the venture into the unknown? How can we slay the King Black Dragon?

I've thought about running roguelike DnD. It's easy, run The Stygian Library in a system with totally random character creation, like Cairn. Does this suffer the same critique as roguelike video games? Possibly. I have yet to actually run it. But it might. And certainly I can put more thought into this than just mashing system and module.

I think the impetus for self-directed goals in games has to be discovery. You have to know just enough to want to go somewhere, and then be promised a reward that makes what you know of the journey worth it. An in-game reward, does that rule out one-shots? Not sure. Designed experience or not, this logic should work.

As an aside, I think the "designed experience" pitfall is balance. Not balance of in-game elements (well, kinda,) but really balance of effort. A GM can put up a dragon that no one can beat, and when the enemy doesn't give you a chance to win, it just feels like the other person didn't want to design a good challenge for you with a possibility of winning. It seems lazy and self-indulgent. A power flex. 

It also seems possible to have a game with no self-directed goals. You can totally plop the party into a do-or-die situation, and give no choice. This requires a stronger hook, and a similar suspension of disbelief as before. So no easy resolution.

You could also try the MMO-ification of DnD, multi-party West Marches. That takes a bunch of time to prep though. It's a bit intimidating, and I much prefer less preparation and spontaneous ideas.

I don't think I have a solution. Probably there is not a one-size fits all solution, and it more comes down to the specifics of a particular game, and what works well for the established world and modes of play involved. But I think players deeply believing in the world is what makes a difference. It doesn't need to be living and breathing in a usual sense (it can be barren and desolate, but responsive), but player buy-in is what it comes down to.

Yes, I took nearly 800 words to tell you that you need to have player buy-in in order to play a fun game, and gave you no instruction on how to do so. Other than paying attention and communicating with players about what is desired and what is interesting. But that goes a long way. I'm gonna keep thinking on this. I'll let you know what I come up with.


P.S. Joesky Tax. Here's a fantasy NPC you can use.

Errant Cockroach Knight - a humanoid cockroach with a sword. Scuttles across the land, scavenging corpses and large detritus, often working to create it. Has lived a long time (cockroaches are survivors, after all), and views human as the real vermin.

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