[Game Design] Proactive vs. Reactive Game Design

May 16, 2008 13:29

I've been thinking about game design more than usual lately, especially in regards to the Star Wars Saga game. It's not that I hate the game; it's the best Star Wars RPG I've seen (yes, better than West End's). It's that I love the idea of the game so much that I'm turning my most critical eye to the thing. To that end, I think I've figured out what's bothering me (and has always bothered me) about most licensed RPGs. And it leads into something I'm calling reactive vs. proactive game design. Note that these are loaded terms, and that's unfortunate. While I'm a personal fan of proactive design, this isn't an attempt to delegitimize the other; it's just a sign of my play preferences.

When you're designing a system, you're inevitably looking at some non-gaming inspiration. Whether that's real-life, fantasy novels, sci-fi films, an action figure line, whatever, you want your system to evoke that source. My favorite way is to either brainstorm wildly or boil it down into a list of key features. Two examples below.

Example: Kaiju RPG

I'm currently fiddling with a Godzilla-style RPG, right now in the chaotic mess of thoughts and half-baked rules stage. The design guidance can be mostly summed up by a paragraph at the beginning of the document.
Two modes of play: Kaiju and People. People offer story oomph and provide for narrative control outside of the monsters' immediate stuff. Kaiju level offers monsters duking it out. MONSTERS FIGHT!!

A very important feature of a kaiju RPG is the crazy gigantic monsters; I've got to provide rules for creating these things! I have two general ways of going about this:

Reactive Design: Watch a series of giant monster movies, note down all the monster types and their abilities. Codify this into a laundry list of choices for the player. Perhaps a points-buy system:
  • Type: Purchase a basic monster type. Ape (gorilla), insect (praying mantis).
  • Size: Determine its size, earning or spending points to do so.
  • Features: Modify the physical form, using points to buy wings or extra heads, for example. Or maybe earning points by losing intelligence.
  • Abilities: Purchase abilities from a gigantic list of items. Energy breath attack, rocket-powered fists, wing buffet, etc.
  • Weaknesses: Earn points by picking weaknesses. Electricity, an external power source, physical weak spots, etc.

Proactive Design: Watch a series of giant monster movies, note down all the monster types and their abilities, or at least a big sampling. Turn this into a set of creation guidelines. In my case, it's currently a series of fill-in-the-blank entries:
  • Form: Your monster's form. Gigantic mechanical ape with crab claws. Twenty-foot praying mantis with two heads.
  • Purpose: To Destroy Humanity for the Alien Invaders. Protect the Rainforests. Devour All Nuclear Energy Sources.
  • Wrasslin': Your primary method of fighting up-close. Pincer grasp. Head chomp. Tentacle squeeze.
  • Screamin': Your primary (or only) ranged attack. Rocket-powered Claw. Acid spew.
  • Movin': Your signature way of getting around. Retractable crab leg shuffle. Big buzzing wings. Ridiculous and mighty leaps.

Note the difference! In the reactive case, you choose from a predetermined list. In the proactive case, you have a ridiculous amount of freedom. There's really nothing preventing you from inventing completely out-of-setting entries, such as "Screamin': Flaming Cream Pie Attack" or "Purpose: To Fill Out the 2005 Income Tax Forms". With this kind of proactive design, you really need to impart either some guidelines or hope that your flavor text and participants will do their part.

Example: Star Wars RPG

I don't mean to pick on Star Wars, but rather compare two different design approaches. Let's just look at the Force; it's a big enough deal to likely warrant its own mechanic. Specifically, let's look at moving physical objects with the Force.

Reactive Design: List specific powers fueled by the Force and how to use them. The actual use could be anything from using only powers you've trained in (Star Wars Saga system) to a system allowing the use of any power at a points cost. How do you move things with the Force? Here's a sample list from the movies:
  • Force Grab (Luke in the wampa cave)
  • Force Throw (Vader and Luke in Cloud City)
  • Force Choke (Vader, natch)
  • Force Push (Episode I, Jedi vs. droids)
  • Force Distract (Obi-Wan's diversion on the Death Star)
  • Force Disarm (Vader and Han Solo in Cloud City).
That's a great suite of powers! Write up the rules for each (task resolution, possible damage, other effects) and you're golden.

Proactive Design: Rules on creating various effects of the Force Use, allowing for interpretation. In this case, rather than list the various powers from the movies, you allow the player rules on physically interacting at a distance. Sample guidelines for a non-existent system:
  • Moving an Object: It costs 1 point per round to move an object. The difficulty is 10 + (Object Size * 5).
  • Resistance from Object: If you're moving something that's actively resisting (droid, person, starship), add the object's Strength or Force Power to the difficulty, whichever is higher.
  • Help with Resistance: If you're moving something that someone else is restraining (you're disarming somebody, or the object is being restrained by a person), add the restrainer's Strength.
  • Damage: It costs 1 point per 1d6 damage you wish to apply
  • Complex Manipulation: If you wish to manipulate something that would normally require a skill, add your skill bonus to the roll.
These guidelines allow you to customize your Force interaction, at the expense of allowing possible non-canon, or at least unfilmed, use. We have yet to see the Force disarm a band of stormtroopers, reassemble the weapons into a new, massive blaster, and deliver it to into the Jedi's arms. But with creative application (Moving, Resistance, Complex Manipulation), such feats become possible.

Some Discussion

The benefits of reactive design are a purity of canon and likely quicker use. This may be good in some situations, especially when trying to simulate events identical (or nearly so) of the source material. Though if you go fully canon with no deviation, why the heck are you roleplaying this stuff out? But some people may like this. A less reactionary criticism would be: You're not only shoehorned into existing canon, but you have to design around (or wait for supplements to cover) any additions to the source material.

The benefits of proactive design are a flexibility in adapting new concepts, whether they are canon or not. Proactive Star Wars force powers hopefully allow us to mimic new powers, such as those that may show up in the Clone Wars movie. We are also given a sort of ownership of the setting, rather than basking in the shadow of the Skywalker clan.

Lastly, it's probably not appropriate to go wholly proactive or reactive design. With an entirely reactive design, you could only follow exactly what you see in the movies. It would get pretty boring if one of your character's only force abilities were: Convince Stormtroopers to Ignore Droids, Make a Noise Around the Corner, and Die Without Leaving a Body. Similarly, an entirely proactive design would be some kind of encyclopedia of system manipulations, only a fraction of which would match the source material.

rpg, game design

Previous post Next post
Up