Game roleplaying enforced

In this article, I argue that the dynamic of roleplaying is an underexplored design pattern uniquely suited for addressing both quarterbacking and the need for learning in cooperative and educational games.

In this section, I analyze the existing design patterns which address or alleviate the quarterbacking problem. The play itself done in proxy through online videos 14 of the games being played in order to observe a wider range of experiences, augmented by the synthesis of documented player experiences.

Before beginning, I should note that I am not the first to enumerate solutions to the quarterbacking problem. In addition to online blog posts and forums describing the issue e. Alexander, from both designers and players, Allen and Appelcline proposed a list of solutions as shown in Table 1.

Table 1. There are four supercategories of mechanical solutions: Information Restriction , Complexity , Uniquity , and Imperfect Cooperation.

A fifth supercategory, Player Psychology , describes psychosocial dynamics which affect quarterbacking but are not yet designed first-order by specific mechanics. Note that games which consider and address this design problem often use a mixed approach, since these patterns are not mutually exclusive and work well in synergy. Further, bear in mind that this taxonomy does not describe the entire possibility space of quarterbacking solutions, only those which we have seen in existing games so far.

The first category can be considered perfect information. However, as Salen and Zimmerman observe in Rules of Play, 19 information known to the game only and randomly generated information are often very similar.

I argue that these two categories are equivalent with respect to the quarterbacking problem, because what they afford is hiding information from all players, and so I call this Incomplete Information.

Category 2, information known to only one player, could be generalized to information known to some players but not all, and I call this Hidden Information. Finally, perhaps the most interesting case is a variant of hidden information which is treated as typologically distinct for the purpose of quarterbacking: Restricted Information Sharing. In this category, information is hidden but limited in how it can be shared. Notably, Allen and Appelcline consider limiting communication as a distinctly separate approach from limiting information; however, because both serve the same purpose restricting the control of information , I consider these to belong to the same supercategory.

In the Incomplete Information pattern, the game withholds some information from all players. This is primarily achieved through chance of various forms. Appelcline defines two categories of chance in games: randomness such as dice and arbitrariness such as cards. In Betrayal at House on the Hill Avalon Hill, , there is randomness to the encounter, board, events, items, and who the defector is.

The other type of Incomplete Information besides randomness is unknown information. In Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective Sleuth Publications, , players work together to solve a mystery which none of them have encountered before, creating a shared puzzle for everybody. In theory, Incomplete Information offers a paradigm of a game that cannot be quarterbacked because no one is able to know the information.

In practice, this can break in one of two ways. For Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective , so long as no one has played the case before, everyone stands on relatively equal footing, at least with respect to game knowledge. This solution works for a while until it renders the game finished at least for those players. Games with randomization, on the other hand, can still be quarterbacked with probabilistic strategies.

The quarterback can demonstrate their knowledge of the random distribution, and in this way the paradigm begins to resemble perfect information again.

The only exception is complete randomness for which there is no strategy, leaving you with a game of pure luck. This is not necessarily bad, but it circumvents the quarterbacking problem, which applies only to games with skill-based decision-making, by re-defining the game outside the scope of the problem. It is perhaps worth differentiating types of information which can be incomplete or hidden.

For example, there are statistical probabilities e. In practice, the handling of each type of information greatly affects the likelihood of quarterbacking.

The goal of the game is for this player to convey information about a murder to the other players using only cards depicting surreal art. Why would they pick these cards to mean this? A quarterback does not have equally incomplete information to everyone else because there is some value to what each player has to offer, i. Incomplete Information comes in two forms: a game which has no quarterbacking but a finite length, or a game which is harder to quarterback because the strategy depends in part on chance.

The former is useful for a niche of games, the latter is a more generally applicable solution, albeit only a partial one. Contrary to Incomplete Information , where no player holds the information, Hidden Information is the pattern where one or more players hold information withheld from the rest of the group.

Allen and Appelcline describe Hidden Information in more detail, breaking the pattern down into the three ways players can struggle with hidden information: misremembering, misunderstanding, and miscommunicating. They suggest that both hidden information and confusing i.

As an example, consider Dead of Winter Plaid Hat Games, , a game where each player has a hand of cards hidden from other players. Yet, because each player has their own objectives to fulfill, this information remains hidden for fear of betrayal.

However, what keeps this information hidden is not competition but complexity. Hidden Information as a pattern does not often exist on its own without a reason to hide the information. Items you gain in Forbidden Island Leacock, become public information 23 because that knowledge is useful to share; nothing prevents the hidden information from being revealed to the benefit of the group.

The three common reasons to hide information are fear that other players are against you, i. The third way to restrict information is to do so explicitly. This pattern always appears with Hidden Information but adds explicit rules preventing certain information from being shared.

Allen and Appelcline enumerate the six mechanics seen so far which create Restricted Information Sharing : revelation limitation i. They recommend that co-op games employ Restricted Information Sharing and suggest that communication restrictions be meaningful, clear and unambiguous, unassailable i. In Magic Maze Lapp, , players cannot speak at all, relying only on communicating through the mechanics of the game to work together.

Of all the patterns to reduce quarterbacking, Restricted Information Sharing is often the most drastic approach. Depending on implementation, this pattern can limit or entirely prevent table talk, which can be important for casual enjoyment, since board games are such a social activity. News Archives.

Game Information. The Renowned. Bandit Captain. Belladonic Toad. Carrion Crawler. Drow Elf. Duergar Dwarf. Gelatinous Cube. Giant Scorpion. It tells me nothing. I don't care about the rules or what a creator wants a game to be, as much as I care about what a game actually is. Maybe I am asking for something that the vast majority of Mudders don't care about, but I know there are more people out there like me.

There are certain features that I prefer on games, but even if a game was created with all the other features I desire if it doesn't have a rich RP environment I wouldn't play it. There have been many times over the years that I have almost given up on MUDs completely because it has been too time intensive to try to muck through all the "RP Enforced" and "RP Mandatory" claims to find games that the vast majority of the player base are devoted to staying in character.

So I guess my question is this I don't know if you've been reading the RPI threads right next to this one Also, I'm curious what you're looking for.

Are you looking for a mud with coded systems and RP? That would suggest a RPI. Few coded systems and RP? That would suggest a RP mush instead. Just straight RP? For that I would start looking at IRC and play-by-chat games.

In-depth, detailed RP not necessarily synchronous? Then a LJ or play-by-post game would be in order. The field of text games is very broad, and something other than a 'mud' might suit you better. I had the same problem looking for a new MUD about four years ago. Nearly every one I tried that said they required roleplaying did not actually require it in practice.

I found one that did finally. RPI would probably be a good bet but I was looking for a setting that none of the listed RPIs were supporting, so that didn't work in my case. Besides, I couldn't care a whole lot less about details like global channels, listing levels, etc. But yes. I wish there was a way to require people to describe their games with some accuracy. Despite an excellent demo at Gen Con that year, the final game received mixed reviews.

It has moved from strength to strength over the past five years with a number of crowdfunded projects, including a trilogy of Resident Evil board games , a Horizon Zero Dawn board game , and a Monster Hunter: World board game.

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