Penalties

The one-sentence "definition" that should be in italics.

This pattern is a still a stub.

Examples

Left 4 Dead series,

Monopoly

Chess

Pac-Man Asteroids

Dungeons & Dragons

Super Mario series

Space Alert,

Pandemic

Using the pattern

Typical reasons for receiving Penalties include taking Damage, triggering Traps, or suffering from Death Consequences. Being the target of successful Enemies actions or Eliminate goals also qualify. More uncommon but still possible reasons include performing specific Actions Have Diegetically Social Consequences of a negative kind, e.g. failing to follow the requirements of Factions one belong to (which risks making one an Outcast) or attacking other in what should be Safe Havens. Critical Hits can motivate additional Penalties compared to ordinary hits, but Critical Failures or Critical Misses can be used to inflict Penalties on those performing actions or attacks rather than any potential targets. Failing with the Committed Goals of accepted Quests is another reason for receiving Penalties, as may be losing Area Control over places or entering places controlled by others. Applying Penalties to Ephemeral Goals make them Committed Goals but still let players have the choice to focus their efforts on other things.

General categories of Penalties include Setback Penalties, Energy Penalties, Life Penalties, and Game Termination Penalties. Besides these, there are many, more specific, Penalties that can be used as well. Downtime (e.g. through being made a Spectator), Helplessness, and forced No-Ops, remove Player Agency from players. Turnovers also do so by giving the turn in a Turn-Based Game to some other player. Ability Losses, Decreased Abilities, and Movement Limitations can make further challenges more difficult or impossible to complete but without removing all Player Agency. Lowering Resource Caps can serve the same purpose. Other common ways of creating Penalties is to negatively modify players' Resources or Scores, or to remove or destroy Game Items for players, i.e. making these into Destructible Objects. New Abilities that are negative, e.g. spreading diseases, is more rare but another way of creating Penalties; one example of this was found in Team Fortress Classic. In Single-Player Games, Game Time Manipulation can be used to slow down players or speed up Enemies (this is more problematic to do in Multiplayer Games since manipulating game time is likely to affect everyone).

There are several ways to modify how Penalties behave. First, a basic choice is whether the Penalties should be Individual Penalties or Shared Penalties (or, similar to the latter case, affect Shared Resources or linked to Mutual Goals). Second, the strength of Penalties can follow Arithmetic Progression or Geometric Progression based upon how bad a failure was, how good a success was, when in a gameplay arc players are, or some other measurable value. Regardless of the second possibility, Randomness can be used to affect the severity of Penalties and Rewards can be used to modulate Penalties to mitigate them somewhat (as can Penalties be used to temper Rewards). Letting players know how Penalties are applied lets them be Predictable Consequences and can let players choose to accept them for tactical reasons. Parallel Lives can make players have to handle several different reasons for getting Penalties simultaneous. One type of Privileged Abilities can make players immune to Penalties while another one can let players control how other players receive Penalties. Finally, Extra-Game Consequences - often bad ones - can be tied to the Penalties.

The possibility of using Save-Load Cycles in Single-Player Games can make any Penalties avoidable even though in reality few players may be willing to engage in Save Scumming often enough to avoid all Penalties.

Interface aspects

In Single-Player Games, Cutscenes can be used to high-light the effects of Penalties without disrupting gameplay for others.

Narration aspects

In games where players control Characters, Penalties can be more emotionally experienced if the game design succeeds in making players have Emotional Engrossment with their Characters.

Consequences

Penalties are typically Ephemeral Events and the possibility of receiving Penalties in games create Tension in them. Experiencing them may break any Exaggerated Perception of Influence that players may have had, and can easily break Thematic Consistency if not following the diegesis or narration (e.g. killing a player's character but then letting them restart at earlier positions of a Level).

The presence of Penalties and other patterns give rise to other patterns. For example, Penalties related to hitting or touching Avatars, Characters, or Units that have Movement give rise to Evade goals. As another example, combined with Anonymous Actions and Unmediated Social Interaction, e.g. in the game Resistance, Penalties can make players have to engage in Roleplaying.

Can Modulate

Attention Demanding Gameplay, Player Killing, Quick Time Events,

Relations

Can Instantiate

Destructible Objects, Ephemeral Events, Safe Havens, Spectators, Tension

with Anonymous Actions and Unmediated Social Interaction

Roleplaying

with Ephemeral Goals

Committed Goals

with Factions

Outcast

with Movement and either Avatars, Characters, or Units

Evade

Can Modulate

Attention Demanding Gameplay, Ephemeral Goals, Player Killing, Quick Time Events, Scores, Resources, Rewards

Can Be Instantiated By

Ability Losses, Actions Have Diegetically Social Consequences, Area Control, Critical Failures, Critical Hits, Critical Misses, Damage, Death Consequences, Decreased Abilities, Downtime, Eliminate, Enemies, Energy Penalties, Factions, Game Termination Penalties, Helplessness, Movement Limitations, New Abilities, No-Ops, Life Penalties, Resource Caps, Setback Penalties, Traps, Turnovers

Committed Goals together with Quests

Game Time Manipulation together with Single-Player Games

Can Be Modulated By

Arithmetic Progression, Extra-Game Consequences, Geometric Progression, Individual Penalties, Mutual Goals, Parallel Lives, Predictable Consequences, Privileged Abilities, Shared Penalties, Shared Resources, Randomness, Rewards

Characters together with Emotional Engrossment

Cutscenes in Single-Player Games

Possible Closure Effects

-

Potentially Conflicting With

Exaggerated Perception of Influence, Thematic Consistency

Save-Load Cycles in Single-Player Games

History

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

Acknowledgements

-