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Journey to the Microcosmos:  Tardigrades: Chubby, Misunderstood, & Not Immortal

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Not Equal At All

Not Equal At All

Game Design Essay

Introduction

Many game systems offer a variety of choices or options during character creation; the general thinking among these options is that they are, in theory, “equal” to one another.  In other words, while there may be specific reasons to pick one or another for certain purposes, they can all be chosen without fear of one choice being clearly superior to the others, or at least close enough to not hinder gameplay and player enjoyment.  But this isn’t always the case, and in some games where very coarse-grained choices are part of the process, a wrong choice can have a heavy impact on character capabilities.  Let’s look over some examples.

(For the purposes of this essay, I’m NOT looking at comparative resource costs to get the same result, which is the bane of certain more-complex character creation systems, but instead circumstances where players may have a handful of choices to make.  The topics are similar, however.)

Broadness of Application

One area that this will often matter is broadness of application; if a character has a trait that can only be used in limited circumstances, they may feel very limited in play compared to a character with traits that can be used in a variety of ways.  Extremely freeform traits, such as Aspects in FATE, are susceptible to this problem.  (The FATE rulebook does provide guidelines, but it can still take experience to see the difference in application between Can Make Machines Purr and “Okay, I’m going for it!”  One is good for technological challenges, but the other could be used for almost anything.)

But sometimes, these issues with broad application are actually built into the system.  One example of this is the Sentinel Comics RPG.  PCs built in this game have two Principles in their Abilities list; without getting into game mechanics and probability too heavily, these are actually a very important resource for characters, because they allow characters to use the Overcome action with a dramatically improved success rate.  (The odds of complete success jump from extremely roughly 2% to 43%; PCs should rely on them a lot!)  Principles are selected off a list (and the full range of choices is sharply curtailed depending on character type), and everybody will always have precisely and only two of them, so they should, in theory, always be comparable.

But they aren’t.  An Overcome in SCRPG is, roughly speaking, beating a challenge that is not an opponent, whether it’s persuading an official, solving a puzzle, rescuing a drowning victim, or infiltrating a warehouse.  The Principles, among other things, have a triggering circumstance in which they can be used.  For example, the Principle of Lab says “Overcome while in a familiar workspace or when you have ample research time.”  That’s good when those very specific things are involved, but it becomes a very hard stretch to rescue a drowning victim or shift a boulder out of your way.  For contrast, the Principle of the Tactician says “Overcome when you can flashback to how you prepared for this exact situation.” For that one, it becomes almost impossible for the GM to deny its use, and fairly simple for a player to justify it.  Shift a boulder?  Studied leverage just in case.  Drowning victim?  Took lifeguarding classes to know what to do, anticipating trouble.  Persuade an official?  Did research on the profiles of all of them.  One is much more broadly useful than the other, period.  A player who plans ahead and picks at least one Principle that they can use in a wide range of situations will have a distinct advantage, but a random choice might find a character who is great at knowing locals and their own business and at situations where being small and young is an advantage and nothing more.  

(And yes, very creative and/or persuasive players may be able to somehow stretch and distort their Principle to fit anything, but there’s a point where it just goes outside rational use.)

Scenario Specific

During a scenario at a gaming convention I attended last year, one of the pregen PCs had their one-and-only special trait be a bonus at piloting extraterrestrial spacecraft.  In the course of the scenario, our characters wound up on a spacecraft that we couldn’t control or pilot in any way, arriving at another spacecraft that we then took over-- and that wrapped the game.  That player never had a chance to use their specialty; it was irrelevant to the game.  Now, that’s not good design, since it was a convention game with pregen PCs, but it showcases another kind of problem with unequal choices-- scenarios where some of the options for characters don’t matter.  A classic one is a character built for social encounters who finds the group frequently in deadly combat, but there are countless other examples that are possible.  (At the same convention, I wound up with a character whose major resources were related to hacking and communications, which was fine, but the only conflict involved very dangerous enemies attacking us while we were on a highway in the middle of nowhere, and it was set in the 80s, so there wasn’t much I could do with that.)  This is at least easier to solve if the GM is involved with the characters during the creation process, and can guide them into roles relevant to the scenario, but if that doesn’t happen, it’s all too easy for a character whose focus is not relevant for the game to simply be unable to participate in the way they wanted to, and that feels like a serious loss.

Combat and Noncombat

One key area where this matters in games is, of course, combat; woe betide the player whose character lags behind others in this arena, it is known, lest they simply die!  And that’s certainly a concern-- many RPGs involve a lot of combat, combat almost always involves the entire group, often takes up a lot of table time, and inability to participate meaningfully can get somebody killed.

But that’s actually not the only consideration here.  Being combat-capable is so ingrained into game design and character design that it’s almost not the largest concern compared to noncombat application in a number of game systems.  

One of the classic examples of this is the most popular game in the US and probably worldwide-- Dungeons and Dragons, notably the current edition.  In D&D, one class is “Fighter”; Fighters… fight.  They are good in specific aspects of combat; otherwise, they have skills.  But everyone gets skills; likewise, everyone can participate in combat, often challenging Fighters in their specific area of greatest strength (Single-target combat), and utterly triumphing over them in other aspects of combat (Crowd control, for example.)  It’s doubtlessly necessary for gameplay-- it wouldn’t do to have other classes be helpless in combat, which is a large part of D&D-- but outside of combat, things change.  Fighters can have Skills, as can all classes.  But spellcasting classes gain abilities that let them bypass Skill challenges, or let them do things that no Skill could ever accomplish, and this gap grows larger and larger even as the combat abilities of spellcasters grows with it.  

But this can also impact other systems!  In a relatively freeform system like Cortex, creativity can let a trait like Senses outperform Super Strength.  It’s easy enough to justify using Senses in combat-- analyzing a foe’s movement, spotting their weaknesses and strengths, and so on.  But Senses can also be used to solve puzzles, track enemies, potentially even have application in social settings.  Likewise, in some games, it’s very possible to even use social or psychological skills in combat, perhaps by creating “Good morale” assets for other to use.  However, conversely, it’s often much, much harder to apply combat skills to noncombat situations as broadly.  Being a master archer is much harder to apply to debate than it is to find a justification for a master of persuasion being able to distract a foe or boost an ally.  In this regard, it’s a serious issue if combat-themed characters can’t do anything out of combat, but the reverse isn’t true, and it’s something that needs to be considered, either in game design or in campaign design.

Does it even matter?

Does it actually matter if characters are unequal?  This is a delicate question, and depends in part on the group and the specific players.  If the differences aren’t great, of course, it surely matters less no matter what.  But sometimes it’s easy to see where one character has noteworthy advantages over the other… and I think that it does matter, broadly, and it’s worth addressing. Some players, for example, can become frustrated with their inability to contribute, or to act effectively, and that frustration isn’t fun, the more so when it’s not obvious that some choices aren’t as good.  Likewise, even if one player doesn’t mind being less capable, other players may become frustrated with that player’s weakness and having to cover for them; the GM, in turn, may find it more challenging to balance encounters and challenges while still allowing that player spotlight time.  Overall, the less inequality between equivalent choices, the more desirable the results will be, even if it’s fine with certain players.

Solutions

When making characters, of course, one should look at options and choose carefully, but that’s not always very satisfactory.  What if one’s character concept depends on certain choices, or if it’s not obvious that there’s a problem?  Another good place to work on this problem is at the design phase of a game, of course, but that’s not an option the majority of the time; most of us play games other people have already made.  (I’m a game designer, but for a variety of reasons, mostly play other people’s systems.)

Sadly, this means that a certain amount of work on the part of the GM becomes necessary; it is, however, worthwhile.  It’s good to see what choices players make, and then play to them.  Is the player immune to something?  Make sure it shows up so that they can have their moment!  Do they have a Principle that’s great at stealth?  Give them lots of chances to sneak in places!  Make sure to give players a chance to shine by adjusting scenarios to their characters, rather than making the players adjust to the scenario.  Sometimes, it’s the only solution, but I think that it’s the best one.

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