Tools

Game elements used to provide actions, or make them easier to perform, in game worlds.

Tools are game elements that enable players' avatars and units to perform actions better that usual, or perform actions otherwise unavailable to them. By being separate entities that can exist independently of avatars or units, Tools can be designed so that they can be picked up, dropped, destroyed, traded, and so on.

Examples

Roleplaying games Dungeons and Dragons and Hârnmaster make intense use of Tools, often in the form of weapons and armors to affect combat. GURPS includes detailed rules for Tools that give bonuses to various skills if the player characters have them, and have entire source books dedicated to Tools and other game items (Dungeons and Dragons have these as well).

Weapons are common Tools in many computer games, including Left 4 Dead series, Torchlight, and World of Warcraft. While also doing this, Minecraft and the Team Fortress series, through dispensers and sentry guns respectively, allow players to create Tools that can act independently in combat, needing only to be resupplied. Minecraft and Ultima Online also have various Tools to support crafting and farming. Players of Just Cause 2 and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (and some mods and expansions for the Quake series) can find grappling hooks that allow players to move by swinging.

Using the pattern

Besides the design choices available to all Game Items, the fundamental characteristic of Tools are which actions they support. They can support actions by giving Improved Abilities, either through Buffs or through increases in Skills, or by giving New Abilities that may also be Privileged Abilities. A common functional type of Tools are Weapons to affect Damage or how Aim & Shoot is done in Combat (but some Tools are meant as diegetic tools but can be used as improvised Weapons). Other Tools affect Crafting, Farming, and Privileged Movement (e.g. grappling hooks in Just Cause 2). Effects more specific that Tools can have is allowing Controllers to be activated and allowing Achilles' Heels to be exploited. Types of Tools defined by being noticeable game elements in their own right in Game Worlds include Installations, Self-Service Kiosks, and Vehicles.

The use of Tools can require that actions of successfully completed, e.g. Aim & Shoot.

Besides what actions are affected, several other design options exist regarding Tools. One is which Units or Avatars can use the Tools, possibly controlled by the presence or absence Powers, Privileged Abilities, or Skills. Another option is which begin with them, and this can be more important for Tools than other Game Items if Enemies can use them as well. A third option relate to adding Tradeoffs or Risk/Reward considerations by linked the use of Tools to the consumption of Resources, the activation of Cooldown periods, or their Deterioration. Finally, game designers need to consider if the usage of several Tools together simultaneously should be allowed, and if so if it should give rise to Combos.

Diegetic Aspects

Tools are a way of providing Improved or New Abilities without breaking Diegetic Consistency. Maintaining Diegetic Consistency can also be used to explain restrictions of where one can acquire Tools, e.g. only through certain Factions. This can also be used to regulate who can used them also without noticing that Actions Have Diegetically Social Consequences.

Consequences

Tools are Game Items that change how Avatars, Characters, or Units (all which may be Enemies) work in games by providing ways to temporarily or permanently provide Improved or New Abilities. Depending on how common the Tools are, they may or not give Privileged Abilities, and when affected by Deterioration they can be Limited Resources. As Tools can give New or Privileged Abilities, they allow the fulfillment of Gain Competence goals.

Since they can change the outcome of actions done by Avatars or Units, they provide a way of constructing Player/Character Skill Composites. The change can also lead to players having an Exaggerated Perception of Influence, and if players can choose between which Tools to use this provides a Freedom of Choice. They may also cause problems with Player Balance in Multiplayer Games since those in possession of Tools may have a distinct advantage.

Relations

Can Instantiate

Actions Have Diegetically Social Consequences, Aim & Shoot, Buffs, Combos, Crafting, Exaggerated Perception of Influence, Farming, Freedom of Choice, Gain Competence, Gain Ownership, Game Items, Improved Abilities, Limited Resources, New Abilities, Player/Character Skill Composites, Privileged Abilities, Privileged Movement, Weapons

with Resources or Deterioration

Tradeoffs

with Cooldown

Risk/Reward

Can Modulate

Achilles' Heels, Aim & Shoot, Avatars, Characters, Combat, Controllers, Damage, Enemies, Skills, Units

Can Be Instantiated By

Installations, Self-Service Kiosks, Vehicles, Weapons

Can Be Modulated By

Cooldown, Deterioration, Factions, Powers, Privileged Abilities, Resources, Skills

Possible Closure Effects

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Potentially Conflicting With

Player Balance in Multiplayer Games

History

An update of the pattern Tools that was part of the original collection in the book Patterns in Game Design.

Acknowledgements

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