Difference between revisions of "Freedom of Choice"

Revision as of 08:04, 27 April 2010

The freedom to choose between several different actions which all seem meaningful.

It has been can argue that for a game to be a game at all, the players have to be able to make what they feel are interesting choices. For example the quote attributed to Sid Meier's "a good game is a series of interesting choices" argues this, as does the definitions of game from Costikyan where player make decisions^[1] and Abt where players are independent decision-makers^[2]. This means that the choices must have seemingly different effects and have effects that are meaningful. If these conditions are met, players can feel that they have the Freedom of Choice within the game system and they can affect the outcome of the game.

However, what constitutes interesting choices can vary between people. It can seem that there are no choices in some goal-oriented activity requiring skills, e.g. solving puzzles or participating in some sports, but this is a matter of perspective. Choosing strategies for how to lay a puzzle can be seen as an interesting choice if one is aware of the different strategies. The same applies to many sports, including sprint races and weight-lifting, besides the different strategies one can use while training. Similarly some games, e.g. Tic-Tac-Toe, provides several choices of where to place one's tokens which may seem meaningful for a novice player but becomes less so for somebody that has explored the whole possibility space of the game. Thus, Freedom of Choice of a game always needs to be considered in relation to the intended players.

Examples

No Thanks only provides two possible actions to a player when it is his or her turn but still maintains a Freedom of Choice since the choice between the actions are in nearly all cases important.

The board game Puerto Rico and the card game Race for the Galaxy not only provide each player the choice of what action to perform during a turn of the game; the other players also get to perform each others' actions and thereby get more opportunities to make decisions.

Open-ended games like the Sims series provide players with a multitude of game elements to interact with and many types of actions for each game element. In addition, they give players the freedom to define their own goals within the game.

Role-playing games such as Dungeons & Dragons and GURPS allow players a huge variety of choices since all actions are judge by a game master which on the fly can allow or disallow actions depending on how well they fit the diegesis and the character's abilities and personality.

Using the pattern

Alarms Randomness Exaggerated Perception of Influence Avatars Characters Stimulated Planning Enemies Rerolls

Freedom of Choice can either be due to the ability of affecting the game states or through the possibility of performing Extra-Game Actions, for example, Storytelling or Social Interaction.

and there are many ways to limit players' Freedom of Choice: Limited Planning Ability lessens players freedom to make long-term plans in a game; Predefined Goals may force players to have certain goals and tactics in a game; Ultra-Powerful Events may enforce Narrative Structures and Downtime and cause Shrinking Game Worlds; Inaccessible Areas and Movement Limitations can hinder players from moving within the whole Game World; what players can do in the game may be defined as a Limited Set of Actions or require commitment to Extended Actions or Collaborative Actions; and actions may further be restricted by Decreased Abilities and Ability Losses during gameplay.

Freedom of Choice can be achieved within three different areas in relation to games. First, players may have choices to do before gameplay starts on how they wish to play a game. Second, they may have choices on which actions to perform as part of the gameplay to effect the outcome of the game. Third, they may have choices to engage in other types of activities while the gameplay progresses.

before and after

programming games Magic the Gathering GURPS Dungeons & Dragons Progress Quest

Possibility of Anonymity Handles

during

Irreversible Actions

Freedom of Choice is not only an effect of how many choices are available at any given moment, but also on how important the decision between those choices is for the future gameplay. If a choice is to make an action which can easily be undone immediately by the player or negated by another player, that choice is likely to not effect the gameplay significantly in the long term and is therefore not really a choice. This is of course dependent on context, in games with Emergent Gameplay an action that is typically not significant can become very much so in special conditions.

Interruptability

No-Ops Tick-Based Games

Late Arriving Players Drop-In/Drop-Out

while

Social Interaction Activity Blending

Roleplaying Negotiation

Even if a game may wish to have Freedom of Choice this can be centered on specific moments in the game rather than be spread throughout the gameplay.

Maintaining Freedom of Choice while players gain Game Mastery is another challenge.

An important aspect of designing for Freedom of Choice in gameplay is to be aware that the allowing players several different ways of affect game states in not the most critical issue, it is that they perceive that they have it. This makes the options of Exaggerated Perception of Influence and Determinable Chance to Succeed important considerations for the pattern to appear.

Freedom of Choice can be achieved in several ways: affecting the actions possible for the players, what can be done with the actions, letting players choose goals, or letting players affect the results in the game.

Freedom of Choice can be increased by expanding players' possible range of actions. This can be done by Improved Abilities and New Abilities and is often represented as Rewards or Character Development. Even allowing players to do No-Ops is a form of expanding the range of possible actions for players and thereby increasing their freedom. Ways of letting players have increased Freedom of Choice of what to do when performing actions include Trading, Conceal, Construction, Character creation, Planned Character Development, deciding how to do Game World Navigation, choosing where Spawning occurs, and giving them Creative Control through the actions. Extended Actions, which players can choose how long to continue doing, are another way of giving players more freedom in how to use actions.

Although motivated by Limited Resources, Resource Management gives players opportunities of how to use Resources, including No-Ops, by saving them in Containers and creating other types of Resources through Converters. The type of Investments that give players the greatest Freedom of Choice are Arithmetic Rewards for Investments, since they does not give any Penalties or disadvantages between making one large Investment or several smaller ones.

Players' goals can be chosen by the players through Selectable Sets of Goals, which still let the game designer control the goals, or Player Defined Goals, which can either be implemented in the game state or be completely under the players' will. Optional Goals can further give players choices of objectives in the game without forcing them. Asymmetric Goals are the effect of allowing players to choose goals in Multiplayer Games.

The most powerful Freedom of Choice players can have is that which affects the results in games. This can range from the relatively limited Budgeted Action Points and Player-Decided Distribution of Rewards & Penalties to allowing full Reversability through Save-Load Cycles and letting the players freely choose when they want to play the game in first place in Asynchronous Games.

Diegetic Aspects

Interface Aspects

Narrative Aspects

Consequences

Freedom of Choice lets players plan their actions and thereby promotes Stimulated Planning and Immersion, especially Cognitive Immersion but also Emotional Immersion since Freedom of Choice gives players Empowerment. Being able to choose between different actions or goals can support Varied Gameplay if the action require different skill sets or make it possible to create different strategies. When the Freedom of Choice causes players to have Asymmetric Abilities, it can promote Replayability of the game.

The presence of Freedom of Choice can also have negative connotations for players, in the form of Social Dilemmas and forcing them to make Tradeoffs and Risk/Reward choices. This occurs when all choices have some negative effects associated with them, irregardless of their positive effects. Regardless of any negative effect on the game state of a player, Freedom of Choice in Multiplayer Games can cause Analysis Paralysis, and thereby still have effects which are experienced as negative by others players in Multiplayer Games.

Players' Freedom of Choice can affect their Determinable Chance to Succeed with actions both positively and negatively; while having many possible actions and seeing how they can lead to a goal leads to an increased perception of how likely one is to succeed, having many choices without clear views on how they can directly help one pursue a goal can instead be confusing. Similarly, the possibility to make choices can effect Exaggerated Perception of Influence. Having more choices is an easy way to make it at least seem as one has greater possibilities to help shape the outcome of the gameplay, but even gamebooks^[3], which have Predetermined Story Structures and very limited choices, provide a sense of influence the first time a certain story structure is explored since readers can have goals on how the story should unfold.

Relations

Alarms Analysis Paralysis Randomness Exaggerated Perception of Influence Avatars Characters Stimulated Planning Enemies Rerolls

Can Instantiate

Can Modulate

Can Be Instantiated By

Can Be Modulated By

Potentially Conflicting With

History

An updated version of the pattern Freedom of Choice that was part of the original collection in the book Patterns in Game Design^[4].

References

1. ↑ Costikyan, G. (2005). I Have No Words & I Must Design: Toward a Critical Vocabulary for Games. Proceedings of Computer Games and Digital Cultures Conference, ed. Frans Mäyrä. Tampere University Press
2. ↑ Serious Games, Viking Press, 1970, p. 6, ISBN 0670634905.
3. ↑ Cite error: Invalid <ref> tag; no text was provided for refs named gamebooks
4. ↑ Björk, S. & Holopainen, J. (2004) Patterns in Game Design. Charles River Media. ISBN1-58450-354-8.