Abstracting Character Actions for Feasibility
Game writing schedules emerge as a tension in mechanics design when game effects that would be otherwise be desirable might require too much preparation time. Even simple game mechanics may not be worth writing up for games that do not call for that sort of functionality. If there are no items that can influence the course of the game, for instance, it is a waste of time to write rules for searching other characters. If there is absolutely no way to provide a specific kind of functionality for a game within the limited time, money or technical ability of a GM team, it stands to reason that the function should be excluded from the game design.
However, certain game settings and scenarios rely on the existence of an interaction among characters that is hard to represent. A game about economic diplomacy would certainly be awkward without any means of negotiating with tradable currencies. Yet, economies can be notoriously difficult systems to incorporate and balance for the purposes of a game. It may take too long to write all the rules necessary for elaborate economic transactions or the GMs may not have the necessary math skills or experience to balance a realistic, playable economy among the characters.
Usually, one way to implement a difficult game mechanic is to abstract and simplify aspects of the game setting until the mechanics become feasible for writing. Other tensions then begin to compete. Will the activity of the players become too abstract so as to render it meaningless? Will players be able to effectively strategize at this level of simplification? Can the mechanic be altered reduce its demands on GM time while satisfactorily fulfilling other reasons for its existence?
As an example, some detective or archaeological games require characters to pursue sequential interactions with other characters in the world and a long, potentially dangerous line of clues to discover a hidden secret. This activity needs to fill most of the time available in the game so that the player does not run out of things to do before the end of game. It may be impossible to prepare all the books and physical items that a player needs to examine to discover the right clue or have thirty other bit parts hanging around to feed information to the players at precisely the right time. Possible simplifications might include inserting clues into real books, adding time delays so that players take more time to solve fewer clues, or reusing the same set of clues for every character so that only one line of clues needs to be prepared.
Abstractions usually map the character’s time and resource-intensive endeavor onto a different activity that requires less preparation on the part of the GMs. Some GM teams in the Guild favor “riddle trails� as a generic approach for the example above. A player needs to find an obscure line of text that appears in some public space on the MIT campus and locate a small colored dot near the text. The dot is labeled with the initials of the name of the game and a unique serial number that corresponds to the clue. Finding the dot allows the player to open a stapled slip and read the next obscure line of text, and the trail continues. Alternatives have included picture trails (finding out where certain photographs were taken) or puzzle trails (solving mathematical or pen-and-paper puzzles that reveal the location of the dot).
“Dot hunts� have been used to represent the character town trying to find reclusive informants or secret panels. While sharing much of the same joys as a scavenger or treasure hunt, some dot hunts run the risk of being so abstract and disconnected from the actions of the character that players lose their engagement with the activity. However, the dot hunt does preserve some very important characteristics of the hunt for information. Both the character and the player are moving around in space, away from the majority of game. Often they will travel alone and run the risk of being distracted by the hunt, providing a wealth of ambush opportunities for other players. Furthermore, the dot hunt provides players with unequivocal direction for their subsequent steps on their trail, although false-negatives are one of the primary flaws of the dot hunt . The chief benefits of the dot hunt, however, come from its low preparatory demands on the part of the GM team. It takes little time to write and can easily generate several hours worth of player activity. Furthermore, interesting player interactions can be stimulated by the dot hunt when multiple players realize that they share the same trail.
