Presenting Information: Making Informed Choices
January 28, 2010 
Fallout forced players to decide on skills or allocate points without seeing how those choices would affect how the game played.Over New Year's, I was playing a tabletop game with Will and Ned when Will said that he would estimate that the primary emotional response a player has when playing a computer RPG is regret. It sounds absurd, that an entire entertainment genre and medium are made up of predominantly negative experiences, but there's something to it.
In a computer RPG, it's inherent that once a player makes a choice, that choice walls off certain content. If you kill the prince, for example, you don't see the "didn't kill the prince" content. Unless the game is completely open-ended, it's impossible to tell a convincing story. Unless the game restricts certain content after certain player decisions, it's impossible to tell a plausible story.
Well, perhaps not impossible, but certainly tremendously difficult to the point of no one yet having done it. The greater point, however, is that something's being set aside that, as a player, I can't experience, and that's the origin of the regret. In many cases, replayability solves part of this, as you can always revisit that excluded content by coming back and making the choices that open it up to you, but, one, do you want to go back through and undertake the whole story again, including the vast amount that will be repeated content and, two, how do you know which choice to make that opens the previously obstructed content to you?
Being able to respec a character who already exists is a functional way of ameliorating regret at prior choices made without adequate information. World of Warcraft charges the player for the feature, while tabletop D&D 4e allows respecs as part of standard advancement.I think this is a problem. In particular, I think this is a problem when the story is elevated to a state of precedence over the game. That might sound weird coming from a guy who spent 15 years working on "storytelling games," but the distinction is in the medium. In a tabletop game, the gamemaster, as a participant in the game process, creates the relevant content on demand. It might not be available instantly, but in most cases, the gamemaster won't waste time designing the cult's lair beneath the wealthy socialite's estate if the group decides they want to hunt werewolves along the interstate headed out of the city. In some cases, the gamemaster will have that designed beforehand, but there's always an opportunity to reroute the story should the players choose, which isn't an option in a computer game with linear plot and progression.
For myself, even the process of character creation is often a source of regret. At the beginning of a game, when I'm asked to make a character, I'm making decisions the impact of which I can't possibly know. I haven't played the game, so I don't know if I'll enjoy the play of the fighter-type more or if a spy results in more interesting play. In some cases, entire swaths of content become unavailable immediately, as with the starting areas in World of Warcraft (which I can at least travel to as a character of a different race, but, as a noob might not have the knowledge that I can travel to those other areas).
Hence, the regret. I've been forced to make a choice, but I haven't been given the proper information to make it. Does something else exist as an option? What if that would have been a better choice for me?
It's odd to think that when a game ships, it does so with the developer's knowledge that a given player is never going to see a significant portion of it. It's a bit like buying a full tackle box but only needing a few bobs and lures -- why make the rest of the box's contents and bother putting them in the box? Granted, someone, somewhere is going to see the content that someone else doesn't, but there's something undeniably odd about releasing a product that the developer knows won't be used completely. As a player, I know those other lures and bobs are in the tackle box, and I want to use them, but by the construction of the tackle box, I just can't.
In most cases, I can research my options, such as by finding a FAQ or walkthrough or by asking a community of players. That's outside the game, though. That's not playing the game, that's an additional amount of preparation I have to do before actually playing the game. While certain hardcores might enjoy that bit of pre-game, that's not what your average player is going to enjoy.
The Fable series does a good job of teaching the player controls and world lore before her choices become a critical part of the game's flow.The challenge, then, and the way to manage this critical information is to design the game and the story so that the preparation occurs within the game environment and before the character makes a significant choice that affects what content the player participates in and what is held away from him. This may break immersion, but that's okay -- the very necessity of the information is because the player will be playing the game. It's not going to suddenly wreck an epic if a mouseover box tells the player his range increment will double, because he's already put the DVD in the drive and is manipulating the controller.
(As I write this, I've learned from @criticalhits that WotC plans to offer a solo D&D game that "helps generate [the] character while playing." That's a great idea, and an excellent example of introducing the player to game concepts with a progressive information flow. Fill in the blanks as to what you want to do and how you want to play as you're playing, as opposed to learning world lore and control schemes in a vast block beforehand.)
advancement, free will, managing information, player choice, plot in Design, MMOs, RPGs, Tabletop Games, Video Games
Reader Comments (6)
Great post. I started cooking one up after that same session, but this one's better.
Informed decisions are always important, even when surprise is meant to follow them. The thing I try to remember, and that I find tabletop gaming reminds me of whenever I let it, is that what feels like giving the player too much information is still almost never too much information. It's not always bad when a player is able to successfully predict what comes next. That can be a kind of satisfaction for the player.
More to the point, though, is this: Whatever the player expects, actual results are often a revelation (if not a surprise) if only because they have to compete with possibilities, which are almost always wider. Even if the goal of a choice is to surprise a player, and it shouldn't always be, surprise can be achievable without withholding too much valuable information from the choice at hand. Only a few great surprises are necessary to enliven a great tale — the surprise that, tada!, specializing in archery* is a waste of time is not worthwhile. *(Or buying Magic Potions, or hoarding Boar Pelts, or putting skill points in Intimidate, or whatever.)
That is, informing the player doesn't undercut surprises nearly as much as some games seem built to presume.
The sheer volume of possibilities in a game space means that any winnowed result, any new development, has the potential to surprise without withholding information just for the sake of protecting it. I mean, I sort of saw the end of the Dwarf Noble starting story coming in Dragon Age, insofar as I saw it as one possibility, but I was still struck by it when it happened.
Fallout 3, as you mention, is another great example. It withholds information (for the sake of, what, verisimilitude? realism?) and makes choices difficult, but it's not a wonderful kind of difficult. I found myself assigning skill points and crossing my fingers an awful lot, only to discover that my character was ill-spec'd for the kind of play I wanted to pursue later on. That game came with a lot of regrets for me. So it goes.
For me, the epitome of regret is Dragon Age.
I create a character that, only later, I'm told is a punch-in-the-nuts experience, and I should've started as X, Y, or Z, instead.
Further, the game's so long, I can't dive back in easily without sacrificing all of my free time to the altar of a game I only half-liked to begin with.
Regret could be lessened if the game were less robust on a single playthrough. Fable was better at this. The bigger the game, the harder it is to crack it open again and tinker with its choices.
-- c.
All of these posts on gaming (centered around the video rpg experience) have been insightful. Are these thoughts arising out of developing a new MMO perhaps? : )
And is said MMO set to get any news this year? Perhpas around GDC or E3?
Reading over this post, it seems like you're posing two related but very separate problems: it's nigh-impossible to experience all of the content in computer RPGs, and sometimes you're forced to make choices that you don't know the outcomes of ahead of time.
I'm not sure there's anything odd about that. The more open-ended something is, the more of the content a player isn't going to see. The player is still experiencing just as much content either way. And if you're playing an open-ended game and want to experience that other content... well then you play the game again, and make different choices.
Overall, I guess I'm confused as to what you're saying you want. Because what it sounds like is, "I want a choose your own adventure book where I get to experience all of the adventures, without having to re-read it." Could you give an example of where, in replaying a game, it was unclear how to get at that other content? Or is it more a matter of you want to experience everything, and you don't want to have to guess at what choices will make that happen?
I'm really hate class-based systems myself, and I completely agree with you that a player should be able to probe at least the surface of all of the outcomes of some choices (especially when it comes to character development). Ideally I think you should be able to "try before you buy," so to speak. But I'll play devil's advocate here.
I've known a lot of players who have hated (or at least, been ambivalent toward) a class in WoW until they played it up until a certain level; at that point, they loved the class. Sometimes it's only when they unlock a certain ability at higher levels. Sometimes (rarer) it's when something with the playstyle clicks. Sometimes it's when they make a realization. Funny story for that last: I was just starting WoW, asked Cary what the best class was as far as survivability. He said without a doubt, Paladins. So I rolled a pally, was playing it but not particularly impressed with its survivability -- I was still dying on a semi-regular basis. At some point Cary looks over and is like, "Why aren't you healing yourself?" I blinked. "...I can heal myself? Why do you not tell me these things?!"
To be a bit contrarian, a lot of people get their enjoyment of play out of achieving mastery, which demands a state of ignorance to proceed from. Now, I think this argument has been used to justify a lot of stupid, unfun play, but it's still something to keep in mind. Give too much information and it ends up feeling like hand holding, care bears get invoked, and nobody's happy.
Additionally, if choice I make in the narrative has _no_ impact, I usually find that far more unsatisfying than any loss I would suffer from the road not taken (but given that, I totally keep my thumb in the page via save games so i can see other paths).
But mechanical decisions? Yeah, those are so painfully hamstringing that I'm boggled at games that don't allow respecs in this day and age.
Anyway, reading this made me think of This post about the new player experience, and I feel like there's a lot of good connection between these points.
-Rob D.
@Will: I had the same issue with Fallout, and even more frustrating was the fact that points spent toward playstyle didn't guarantee that my preferred playstyle was well designed in the game, which was even more frustrating. I wanted a skeevy diplomat, a guy who could talk his way out of problems and overcome them. But since 99 percent of Fallout is combat, being allowed to make a smooth-talking character feels like an insult. "If you want, you can make a character who sucks" is another one of those ill-fulfilling reveals that come as a result from withholding information from the player.
@Chuck: I actually changed what I wanted to do in Dragon Age once it became evident that what I had originally wanted to do not only didn't fit the sole background story I was playing through, but also was going to be a slog to play through. That is, I played long enough to regret my initial choice, and then when changing, regret the time wasted in pursuing that choice. Bleargh.
@Paul: I neither confirm nor deny anything. PR jump-kicks my groin with their eyes when I even think about saying things about things.
@Mike: Yes, it's definitely two different issues here, but they both come from the same larger symptom. As an example of replaying content that makes it unclear how to get from point A to point B, I'll cite Dragon Age again, just because it's the most recent offender for me. A lot of dialogue options lead you to the same result. So regardless of whether you're brusque or cordial, you're going to get the same result in some exchanges. That misleads me at different times when my demeanor yields different results whether I choose affable or hostile. I'm told "it sometimes matters what choice you make," but it never tells me when.
@Rob: Thanks for the link. I passed it on to the ludology list at the office. While I'm not asking to be handheld in content, I think that creating the illusion of choice is what's most damning in these situations. I acknowledge that I need to go from plot point to plot point, but pretending that I have more of an open world approach to it when I don't — except when I do — is really at the core of my gripe. If the game's on rails (the storyline in GTA IV) great. I can accept that. If it's not (EVE Online), great; I know that I'm going to get out of it what I put in. If it pretends to be one but doesn't commit to that (Dragon Age, Neverwinter Nights 2), then I'm trained to do one things and then punished when the game decides it's time to change the thing it's been telling me to do all along, but communicate that to me only in the aftermath of my decision.
Good feedback, fellas; cheers!