Belief in the System, Part 3: Bits and Pieces

The examples that I've covered in parts 1 and 2 are simply expository, though they hint at a richer potential that could be found in the system.

For example, poker and hearts aren't strategically rich because of the deck of cards, there are certain properties that a deck of cards has that make it 'tick':

1) There are 4 suits.
2) There are 52 "unique" cards.
3) Of the 13 cards, 3 of them can be designated as "face" cards.
4) They are numbered in order.

Each of these properties adds something to all card games that use a standard deck of cards. Don't believe me?

Try playing Poker with a deck of 'Uno' cards. There are 4 suits. They are numbered 0 to 10. But uniqueness is violated, and there are a ton of 'special' cards that don't belong to a suit or have a specific number.

It's similar to the original game, but it's a little more chaotic and random than would be expected out of a popular game.

Working Example - Damage Types

Adding monsters with different resistances to different types of attacks adds greater design space: complexity in equipment/ability choice.

It tends to be an extremely common feature in games, mostly because it's very intuitive and close to reality.

But it *also* adds the design pitfalls that follow: the possibility that the player will have to carry around lots of different attacks and juggle his ability choice; increasing the amount of information the player needs to care about; opens up the possibility to be lazy with design (Monster Y is just like Monster X, except it's fire instead of ice.)

If the number of elements you consider grows to a staggering amount... (Fire, Ice, Lightning, Wood, Earth, Wind, Light, Dark, Tastes like Oranges...) then the net effect also decreases because each element simply feels the same.

Both the number of damage type you choose to consider and their net effect determines the extent of how your game suffers from either: Damage Types not mattering because you never have the right damage type on hand or tedious juggling from players because there are too many damage type items to switch between.

Then there's the need to constantly tweak monsters to both ensure that players who do and don't use the "correct" damage type make it through the game without making it too easy or too hard.

Adding resistances/bonuses to damage types opens up design space but make sure you consider common pitfalls of design when exploring said space. After all, if the feature doesn't add any well explored design space or simply adds problems, it would have been better if the game doesn't support it at all.

It's a good feature.. but what can we do to avoid design pitfalls?

We could design every monster and every skill very carefully so there's no overlap, therefore all elements are equally fair.

We could design every weapon that has a specific element to be unique and yet somehow expected results, so that the player never has to juggle elements just for the sake of doing damage.

We could plot each aspect of the game out very carefully to ensure that each battle is winnable.

We could script specific reactions from monsters to elements so that each of the individual elements actually have meaning.

We could tweak monster hp and resistances specifically for each area, knowing what elements are available so that no area is too easy or hard for the player.

We could promote very specific elements for very specific situations, for example, giving the player an 'anti-tree' weapon when entering a forest, with the knowledge that anti-tree will never appear again, because we don't want to keep making new 'anti-tree' weapons and abilities for tree monsters down the line.

We could simply design better, so that we never come across the lazy design problem with 'fire beetle' and 'ice beetle.'

...God. That sounds like a lot of specific work. And what if we get it wrong for some area?

The problem is, these solutions are all very specific solutions.
And they all make the assumption that you can design well in *each* case.

But what if you worked on a higher level?