Development of Guild Game Mechanics
In the Guild, the term “mechanic� refers to a collection of elements that allow players to have specific interactions with other characters or with the world of the game. A character in a science fiction game may need to purchase a thousand tons of an industrial ore by means of an interplanetary stock market in order to succeed in his or her goals. A game mechanic would allow a player to make that purchase within the game world and possibly affect the value of the ore on the stock market, thus influencing the buying decisions of other players. Game mechanics may be defined by the letter of written rules, by denying or providing different information to different players, by various manipulations performed by GMs or computers behind-the-scenes, and by the players arriving at their own interpretations of the rules.
In the MIT Assassins’ Guild, most game mechanics are intended to allow players to achieve their character’s goals. This process often involves the discovery and elimination of their opposition. Many GMs also use mechanics to promote or discourage various kinds of interactions among players to match the circumstances of the setting of the game.
Of course, the effectiveness and complexity of mechanics used in a game will depend heavily on the abilities and the experience of the GM or the group of GMs (known as a “GM team�) developing the game. Guild members laud some GMs’ ability to remember and discuss a large variety of mechanics from previous games. Just as valued, however, is a GM’s ability to balance a variety of tensions in the development of new mechanics, a talent that only comes to light once a GM has written and hosted several games. The following chapters will take a closer look at some of those tensions.
