User:Oportet/The Core Game Design Elements in D&D
If you want to learn about game design theory, it's hard to know where to start. I recommend this amazing video by Crash Course on game design. It even has a segment devoted exclusively to dice games, which I'll almost certainly be talking about later. For now, I want to focus on the five game design elements: space, components, mechanics, goals, and rules. I understand that these elements are man-made concepts, but they're useful concepts that can improve homebrew quality. From the top:
Space, as defined by Crash Course:
| “ | The space is the look and feel of a game. It includes the sound, the lighting, the color, and the physical space like the walls, doors, windows, ect. It acts as the defining feature of the other game elements. Space influences which characters are chosen, what feelings are invoked, and what activities can take place. | ” |
| —Game Design: Crash Course Games #19 | ||
Obviously, playing in a dirty back alley is going to be a different experience than playing in a penthouse suite. So in D&D, the DM controls the space. Except not. For instance, what if the Fighter class was renamed to Warrior? Nothing inside the class changes, but there's a different connotation. What if it was named Swordsman? Or Soldier? Which has the most appeal? Which describes the class the best? What would you want to call yourself? When designing content for D&D, think of space as the "flavor" or "fluff".
If you're looking to tinker with space, check out 5e Monsters Reimagined. A creature can be transformed just by giving it a different name, even though the underlining mechanics and rules are the same. Appearance can even influence how a party reacts to a threat; try playing a session where the party fights a Tarrasque, only call it a "Fluff Monster" and describe it as being covered in pink fur. Trust me, it won't be the same.
Components, as defined by Crash Course:
| “ | The components are the objects that exist in the space and are used to play the game. The components include everything from the characters in the game, the weapons and vehicles they use, and pretty much any object in the game the player comes in contact with. Even easter eggs. | ” |
| —Game Design: Crash Course Games #19 | ||
This one should be obvious. Except not. You might be tempted to say that a class or background is a component, but those don't have a presence during gameplay. When you're at the table, you're not controlling a class; you're controlling a character that has a class. This extra step back is critical. When you're designing content, you need to consider all components your content makes possible. Sometimes, more possibilities is good (unique characters, cool dungeons), and sometimes it's bad (game-breaking characters, overkill dungeons). DMs aren't game designers; if you give them a possibility, then you can't blame them for using it. At the very least, include a description of how to best use your content.
Mechanics, as defined by Crash Course:
| “ | The mechanics involve what the player can actually do in the game; so think verbs. Whether it's creating and spelling in Scrabble or running and shooting in Halo, the core mechanic of the game is the activity that players do over and over again. | ” |
| —Game Design: Crash Course Games #19 | ||
When you talk about RPGs, you can't help talking about mechanics. You're probably already familiar with them. Except not. From a game design standpoint, mechanics ≠ rules. Rather, mechanics would be the player's actions, abilities, spells, and whatever else the player uses to interact with the game. They're the player's options, and they don't always interact in the most obvious ways.
As a general rule of thumb, each mechanic you give the player should be viable, but it shouldn't automatically be the go-to. There needs to be a decision involved, or else the player isn't really playing. If a player can go into a fight with no planning, yet spends no time contemplating their choices, then you have a problem. Even if they do have a plan, there should be some degree of uncertainty if the players spend time enacting it, or else you're wasting time playing something out that everyone already knows the result to. After all, no plan survives contact.
Goals, as defined by Crash Course:
| “ | Goals are, well, the goals that players are trying to achieve to actually win the game. For this element, game designers must think about what they want the player to achieve and map out a way for them to reach it. So the goal could be to work cooperatively to discover cures as in Pandemic, or simply survive hordes of zombies, like in Left 4 Dead. | ” |
| —Game Design: Crash Course Games #19 | ||
D&D is one of those games where players set their own goals, kinda like Sim City. It's up to the player to determine what goals they want to achieve. Except not. You see, not every player is a game designer. Some goals might be fun on paper, but in practice can suck the life out of a game. Playing a drunken warrior might sound cool, until he passes out five minutes into the session and you spend most of the game unconscious. When designing content, you'll need to think about how it impacts what goals a player chooses, and whether those goals are worth pursuing.
For instance, what if you took out all the combat in D&D, added in a generic "combat" skill, and used it to determine every battle's outcome? The game is suggesting the depth of the game is elsewhere, which in turn encourages players to look for that depth. Think about what parts of the game you're emphasizing with your content. Is it fun on paper but not on practice? Is it fun in practice but not on paper? Good contents needs both appeal and follow-through, not either or.
Rules, as defined by Crash Course:
| “ | Rules help players understand how to play the game, but they also help create the play experience of the game. Rules inform players of the game's constraints, or what they can and can't do. And if you've ever played by house rules, you know how rules can affect gameplay. | ” |
| —Game Design: Crash Course Games #19 | ||
Rules, rules, rules. They practically are D&D, at least from a playability standpoint. You know rules when you see them. Really. It's that simple. No catch. Yup!
Anyways, rules might be the cause of endless frustration, but you can't have a game without rules. Think of those games young children play, ones where rules are made up on the spot. Because the players can change the rules at any times, there's really no way to play that won't get you screwed over by a rule change. Once you figure that out, the games stop becoming fun. If you've learned anything since you were a kid, you usually can recognize those types of "games" a mile away. A game needs rules that are clear to all players before play starts, or you'll spend the entire session looking up rules. And when you're looking up rules, everyone else is staring into space. As you know, this never happens in D&D.
By themselves, the core design elements don't offer advice. Rather, they give perspective on how content interactions with a game. Knowing what elements your contribution alters, and how it alters them, is the key to game design.