Incompatible Goals

Two or more goals that cannot be fulfilled simultaneously due to having end conditions that are mutually exclusive.

This pattern is a still a stub.

Examples

Left 4 Dead series

In the board game Time Agent, six different species try to manipulate the past so that events promoting their species occur and events bad for them disappear out of history. Most of these events have at least one species wanting them to exist and at least one species that wants to erase them.

Example: Tag, where the goal of the chaser to catch the other players, the chaser's goal of tagging cannot be fulfilled at the same time as other players' goals of not being caught.

Using the pattern

Incompatible Goals Two forms of Incompatible Goals exists; those that cannot at all be completed at the same time and those that cannot be completed by one player at the same time. The latter can be used to ensure that one players cannot block other players from all goals as well as actually encouraging players to perform Collaborative Actions of completing these simultaneously. The main reason for this is if completion the Incompatible Goals simultaneously is in fact another goal, e.g. having to press two different buttons at different locations to trigger an effect.

There are some patterns that can be used to easily create Incompatible Goals. Connection goals can be incompatible to each other if they need to cross each other while Contact goals can be incompatible to each other if they need to touch the same game element and enough space for all to do so doesn't exist. Variable Accuracy provides Incompatible Goals when it makes players have to choose between aiming and moving.

Preventing Goals are Incompatible Goals with their target goals. Excluding Goals by their definition are also Incompatible Goals but not the other way around. This since the completion of one goal in a set of Incompatible Goals does not have to make the others impossible to complete later, just that both goals cannot be fulfilled at the same time.

Rather naturally, Incompatible Goals are incompatible with Mutual Goals in that a group of goals cannot be of both types at the same time.

Narration Aspects

Incompatible Goals can be used to add tensions and conflicts to Narration Structures, thereby create symmetry between a game's gameplay goals and its narration.

Can Modulate

Attention Swapping, Player-Planned Development, Roleplaying, Sidequests

Consequences

Incompatible Goals between players or Agents are likely to lead to Competition or Conflicts. In the case where the goals can lead to actual Player Elimination they create Last Man Standing goals. They can also create Internal Rivalry if the players or Agents are in the same Team or other group with common goals, which may also cause Social Dilemmas. In contrast, Incompatible Goals leads to Internal Conflicts if a player or Agent has goals which are incompatible with each others and Incompatible Goals which are not incompatible if performed by different players or Agents can make these perform Collaborative Actions to complete all the goals.

When the different goals are created by completing various types of Configuration, Incompatible Goals create a Selectable Sets of Goals.

Incompatible Goals typically lead to Varied Gameplay between game instances since completing one in a game instance is quite likely to provide different gameplay than completing another in another game instance.

Relations

Can Instantiate

Collaborative Actions, Competition, Conflicts, Internal Conflicts, Internal Rivalry, Last Man Standing, Social Dilemmas, Varied Gameplay

with Configuration

Selectable Sets of Goals

Can Modulate

Attention Swapping, Narration Structures, Player-Planned Development, Roleplaying, Sidequests

Can Be Instantiated By

Connection, Contact, Excluding Goals, Open Destiny, Preventing Goals, Variable Accuracy

Can Be Modulated By

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Possible Closure Effects

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Potentially Conflicting With

Mutual Goals

History

An updated version of the pattern Incompatible Goals that was part of the original collection in the book Patterns in Game Design.

Acknowledgements

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