#INDIEGAMEaDAY2016
Day 3
What's your favorite behavioral incentive?
I'm going to tip my toe into the water on this one.
I like having contrasting incentives, forcing the players to choose between multiple paths. This is shown really well in the Corruption mechanic in Urban Shadows.
I've absolutely used this in my own games, such that:
path A: become better at being a hero, and eventually retire as a hero / revered leader / super cool person.
Path B: Become what you fought against, but gain ridiculous powers as you do so.
The path of light side versus dark side. Reward players for doing both, so they make a free choice. But, always make it easier to go down the dark path.
I've been thinking of games as economic simulators -- do these things to gain XP, do these things go gain wealth, etc -- and that means incentives. Studying the behavior those incentives create is delightful.
That's my favorite, I think. Contrasting incentives.
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Excellent answer.
ReplyDeleteThose are my favorite economies, for sure. Meaningful choices without one being obviously better than the other. Corruption is IMO the best bit of Urban Shadows.
And US has a lot of good things going on, too.
ReplyDeleteRemember John Kirk's Design Patterns of Successful Roleplaying Games? In it he defines a mechanic he calls a "conflicted gauge". Basically, you have a stat that changes over the course of play that helps you in some circumstances and hinders you in others. I like that kind of push/pull incentive quite a bit.
ReplyDeletePaul Czege I don't know that, can you link to it?
ReplyDeleteI think his goal for it was that it would help people become better designers. I'm not sure it does that. But it has some interesting terminology, and the examples are interesting:
ReplyDeletehttp://legendaryquest.netfirms.com/books/RPG_Design_Patterns_9_13_09.pdf
Thank you for reminding me of that document, Paul Czege!!
ReplyDeleteA/B choices are one of my favorite things too.
ReplyDeleteI'm working this into my Fallen Empires game right now, allowing players to choose advancements from a common Demonic Advancement pool while crossing off an advancement on their playbook. There's two "roll+demonic advancements" moves too. And that's literally what you posited above.
That's really good! I'd love to see what you've done with it.
ReplyDeleteI am inordinately attached to FE. It kind of exists because I kinda maybe dared vincent to write it. Maybe kind of sortof.
I'm pretty sure "spankings" is not an appropriate answer to this question.
ReplyDelete