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100% GMing
Treasure Tables is dedicated to game masters, offering GMing advice and ideas and a community of GMs helping each other run great games since 2005. I'm Martin Ralya, and I've been GMing since 1989 and writing for the RPG industry since 2004.
GM as Video Game Designer
Mon. April 17, 2006
Wired recently did an issue on videogames, and one thing that piqued my interest was this concept: Video game designers have to strike just the right balance with the difficulty of their games — too easy, and the player gets bored; too hard, and they give up.
That middle zone — where the game is difficult enough to be challenging, but easy enough to stay fun — is also an ideal goal for the majority of RPGs. And as GMs, that’s where we come in.
In and of itself, this isn’t a new idea — it’s at the heart of D&D 3.x’s Challenge Rating system, for example, as well as countless other tabletop RPGs.
But the conceptual underpinnings hadn’t grabbed me in quite that way before — the idea that we as GMs need to have this goal in mind when we run games:
Make the game challenging, but not so tough that the players become frustrated.
Thinking of it that way — as an explicit goal, both during prep and in play — puts it in a different perspective, at least for me.
So the next time you’re writing an encounter, ask yourself this question: If this were a video game, would I want to tear the controller in half? If the answer is no (taking into account the play styles and gaming goals of your players, of course), you’re probably on the right track.
The other element, of course, is something that gaming does much, much better than video games: Scaling difficulty on the fly. Last battle too rough? Just skip the next one. Fight heading for a TPK? Fudge a few rolls. Players look bored? Skip ahead.
This goal isn’t going to work for every group, of course — but it should work for most groups and most games. Does it work for you?
More posts about: Improving Your GMing
Comments
4 Responses to “GM as Video Game Designer”
“Make the game challenging, but not so tough that the players become frustrated.”
Maybe it’s because every idea like this is a conceptual one to me, but I don’t remember a time when I saw it any other way.
Of course, the related issue from video games is that the audience itself is varied. The players in an RPG probably aren’t as varied, but you still have the issue that what is fun for one is frustrating to another.
This is one of those posts that should go under the heading. “Things to cram into your head when your setting up encounters”.
As a GM we often get caught up in our own story telling to such an extent that we forget the important and simple things. The most often forgotten things in the name of a good story are.
1. Is this actually going to be fun?
2. Will this kill my whole party (nothing is worse than watching your super cool monster that was supposed to be the highlight of an entire story arc bring a whole campaign to a crashing halt).
3. Does this fit in with the world I’ve established.
Anthony
I do want to warn that while there are a lot of similarities between video game design and our hobby of choice, not everything a video game does is something to be emulated in role-playing.
Having said that, this is a point to remember. This goes right along with Flow Theory. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_(psychology))
(http://www.jenovachen.com/flowingames/flowtheory.htm)
CJ: I agree, it’s pretty intuitive — but I’ve generally done in unconsciously, and never thought about it in precisely this way before.
Anthony: Hmmm…an “encounter checklist” post might be a pretty good idea. Would something like that be useful?
Patrick: After reading some of the comments on 9 Lessions GMs Can Learn from World of Warcraft (mainly the ones on Slashdot), I think it’s safe to say it can be a contentious topic.
Thanks for the Flow Theory links — that’s interesting stuff.