Luck
The feeling that random effects are not random but favorable or unfavorable to a player.
This pattern is still a stub.
Many events in games are impossible for players to control in a predictable and repeatable fashion. However, when players feel that they can affect this event anyway, either through how they perform the action or what they wish for when the effect of the action is being determined, they may feel that they have Luck.
Examples
Example: Letting players roll dice in any game is motivated primarily by letting players experience the possibility of Luck; the main other reason is that nobody else should have to perform the physical actions for the players' game action.
Example: The high level of Luck in gambling games lets most people start playing the games easily and feel that they are competent players, even though Game Mastery might be very difficult to achieve.
Using the pattern
Luck is hard to explicitly design into games since it is subjective emotion and emergent as well. Instead, different approaches can be taken to maximize the chances for these to occur sometimes during game sessions. This is much easier, most often simply some form of Randomness is sufficient, and classical ways of providing Luck through Randomness include letting players roll Dice or giving them Card Hands. Checking against Skills (e.g. in Basic Roleplaying and Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay) or determining one's Movement and whether one will land on Location-Fixed Abilities (e.g. in Snakes & Ladders and Monopoly) are common examples on how Randomness is linked with Luck. Risk/Reward situations is also a general way of supporting Luck since players can choose what to do based on how lucky they feel, as is unknown Delayed Effects. Note that some of these solutions work towards making players feel lucky when an outcome is revealed while others work against players being able to feel lucky while the outcome is determined, regardless if they will actually feel this when the outcome is revealed.
Other, more specific, ways of supporting Luck without changing probabilities of actual success is to provide players with multiple Drawing Stacks to draw from or allowing them to choose with Dice to use. Introducing Critical Hits is a way of augmenting the possibility of Luck since how players have more than one level of possible success. Near Miss Indicators can make players feel lucky because they avoided being hit, and can realize how closely they avoided this.
Several patterns can work against players feeling Luck. Extra Chances take away the perception since unluckiness can be avoided through them. Fixed Distributions, Predictable Consequences, and Strategic Knowledge can work against it since players may know exactly what will happen or at least the exact odds for different outcomes. Avoiding these intentionally in a game can be seen as a form of trying to support players in being able to feel Luck while playing.
The alternative to trying and encourage experiences of Luck by creating possibilities for it to occur is to cheat. This can be instantiated by Game Masters which can combine this with providing Tension. A specific way of doing this is to make Feigned Die Rolls and give players the unlikely but positive outcomes. This however introduces Risk/Reward choices for the Game Masters since if players notice the cheating they will not only lose the sense of Luck but quite likely also of a Exaggerated Perception of Influence.
Narrative Aspects
Predetermined Story Structures
Consequences
Feeling Luck gives players an Exaggerated Perception of Influence in games, and this can be enough to create interesting games with No Direct Player Influence. However, Luck can also create Tension when perceived in actions with Delayed Effects since players may not be sure about their Luck. Games that make it possible for players to feel that the outcome depends on Luck have deceptive Smooth Learning Curves if not real ones.
Luck can ruin or lessen the satisfaction of Goal Achievements when it allows the goals to be achieved not by player skill but fortunate events.
Relations
Can Instantiate
Exaggerated Perception of Influence, Smooth Learning Curves
with Delayed Effects
with Game Masters
with Exaggerated Perception of Influence
Can Modulate
-
Can Be Instantiated By
Critical Hits, Delayed Effects, Drawing Stacks, Feigned Die Rolls, Game Masters, Multiplayer Games, Near Miss Indicators, Predetermined Story Structures, Randomness
Can Be Modulated By
-
Possible Closure Effects
-
Potentially Conflicting With
Extra Chances, Fixed Distributions, Game Mastery, Goal Achievements, Predictable Consequences, Strategic Knowledge
History
A rewrite version of the pattern Luck that was part of the original collection in the book Patterns in Game Design[1].
References
- ↑ Björk, S. & Holopainen, J. (2004) Patterns in Game Design. Charles River Media. ISBN1-58450-354-8.
