Internal Rivalry

Being a player or character within one's same social network as an enemy or competitor.

While rivalry can exist in many forms in games, Internal Rivalry is a conflict in which the progress of a conflict is regulated by the norms of a social network due to all the involved participants belonging to that network. This can make the conflict act out in other ways, or through other means, than other types of conflicts which may make it take long time to resolve or be more or less impossible to end. Internal Rivalry can also easily affect the other members of the social network, either by involving them in the conflict in some sense or threatening to destroy the whole network.

Examples

In the board game The Republic of Rome players need to collaborate to keep the enemies of Rome from invading their empire, but at the same time compete against each other to become the dominant power in the Eternal City.

Internal Rivalry can exist within guilds in World of Warcraft since several players may need the same equipment for their characters. These rivalries can easily turn into open conflicts in the aftermaths of raids as the desired equipment is bound to the first character that picks it up.

Using the pattern

Internal Rivalry can occur both on a player level and on a Character level. A basic requirement in either case is to have some form of game structure that creates a social network. Factions, Guilds, and Teams can all fit this purpose. Once the intended participants of the rivalry have been places within the social network there needs to exist a conflict of interest. This can be Incompatible Goals or Competitions but these need to be Enforced Goals unless the Internal Rivalry is meant to be optional. Tragedy of the Commons is a specific example of optional Internal Rivalry based on Limited Resources where the rivalry can be kept low by successful Negotiation.

An possible problem with Internal Rivalry is to ensure that it isn't ended by the removal of the others, e.g. by Combat or Player Elimination, which can be achieved through only allowing Indirectly Aggressive Actions, or using Enforced Agent Behavior to provide a Limited Set of Actions. An example of using Enforced Agent Behavior, albeit one that breaks the diegesis, is to disable friendly fire in First-Person Shooter games. If one does not wish to explicitly limit actions possible, another way to make it impossible for participants to remove each other is to make the Survival of the other participants into Predefined Goals for all involved participants.

Another potential issue with Internal Rivalry is to make sure one participant does not become dominant before it is suitable for the design. This can be achieved through Negative Feedback Loops in systems where some form of aggressive actions are possible, or, for other systems, through making the development of the Internal Rivalry as part of the Narration Structures.

Typically the conflict is set up by the Predefined Goal (Björk, Holopainen, 2005) of a PC that put the PC in opposition with the NPC and both the character are members of the same Faction. Different Social Norms can be used to regulate the progression of the conflict via Actions Have Social Consequences, penalties such as the risk of becoming an Outcast or rewards.

Information Passing

Introducing Internal Conflicts in a game design is quite likely to create Internal Rivalry as well, but it is not as certain that the conclusion of the conflict will remove the rivalry also (this may of course be the wished outcome).

Consequences

In Internal Rivalry, the conflict is complicated as the player needs to take into account the social network of a Faction and its Social Norms. This can lead to Varied Gameplay (Björk, Holopainen, 2005), as the consequences of the Actions Have Social Consequences can vary depending on how the player tries to reach the goal and in what kind of circumstances.

Internal Rivalry easily leads to Internal Conflicts. This can be enforced through Narration Structures but can easily occur between players in Factions, Guilds or any kind of Teams if they engage in Roleplaying or some form of Competition.

Social Interaction

Negotiation

Relations

Can Instantiate

Internal Conflicts

Can Be Instantiated By

Internal Conflicts

History

An updated version of the pattern Internal Rivalry, first introduced in Lankoski 2010.