Tools

Game elements used to provide or easy actions in game worlds.

Tools are game elements that enable players' avatars and units to perform actions better that usual, or perform actions otherwise unavailable to them. By being separate entities that can exist independently of avatars or units, Tools can be designed so that they can be picked up, dropped, destroyed, traded, and so on.

Examples

Roleplaying games Dungeons and Dragons and Hârnmaster make intense use of Tools, often in the form of weapons and armors to affect combat. GURPS includes detail rules for Tools that give bonuses to various skills if the player characters have them.

Weapons are common Tools in many computer games, including Left 4 Dead series, Torchlight, and World of Warcraft. While also doing this, Minecraft and the Team Fortress series, through dispensers and sentry guns respectively, allow players to create Tools that can act independently in combat, needing only to be resupplied. Minecraft and Ultima Online also have various Tools to support crafting and farming. Players of Just Cause 2 and The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker (and some mods and expansions for the Quake series) can find grappling hooks that allow players to move by swinging.

Using the pattern

The fundamental characteristics of Tools are the actions they support. They can support actions by giving Improved Abilities, either through Buffs or through increases in Skills, or by giving New Abilities that may also be Privileged Abilities. A common functional type of Tools are Weapons to affect Damage or how Aim & Shoot is done in Combat. Other Tools affect Crafting, Farming, and Privileged Movement (e.g. grappling hooks in Just Cause 2). Effects more specific that Tools can have is allowing Controllers to be activated and allowing Achilles' Heels to be exploited. Types of Tools defined by being noticeable game elements in their own right in Game Worlds include Installations and Vehicles.

Alarms Exaggerated Perception of Influence Avatars Units Characters Enemies

Freedom of Choice Multiplayer Games Factions Extra-Game Consequences Game Worlds Construction Cooldown

Armor

Loot

Sets

Player/Character Skill Composites Grinding Quests Environmental Effects

Depending on how actions of the Tools have been set up, several other design choices need to be made: which Units or Avatars can use the Tool? Does the use of the Tool require specific skills or does it consume Resources? Is there a limit on how long a time or how many times a Tool can be used? Can Tools be combined? Is there a limit on the amount of Tools that can be carried? Are the Tools available to a player when creating a Character and giving it abilities? Can some Tools be acquired directly after Spawning?

Typically Tools are Pick-Ups, i. e., they exist as game elements in the Game World before being acquired. It is also possible to combine Tools with other kinds of game elements such as Helpers. If the Tools are useful to several players, they promote Competitions and Races if the players know the location of the Tools. However, it may or may not be possible to drop or trade a Tool after it has been taken. If a Tool is dropped when an Avatar or Unit carrying it is killed or destroyed, or if Gain Ownership over other players Tools is supported in the game design, the presence of Tools promotes Competition even after the Tool has been acquired.

Tools can be used as goal objects in Gain Ownership goals, especially if there is only one instance of the Tool available and it is in a predetermined place. If the players can construct the Tools themselves, which is common in games using Converters in Producer-Consumer chains, the knowledge of what Tools to construct can be Strategic Knowledge. However, the production of the Tool can require Resources or knowledge, and gaining these may be used as goals in themselves using Gain Ownership or Gain Information goal patterns.

Ownership

Deterioration

Inventories

One aspect of Tools in Multiplayer Games is if they are Transferable Tools, and if so how this is controlled. Stealing is one option here, which adds Attention Demanding to those game elements holding them as well as Tension and possibly Actions Have Diegetically Social Consequences. Otherwise, Ownership of Tools may simply be that no offensive Transfer of Control actions such as Stealing are possible but those holding Tools can either drop them or voluntary engage in Trading. Some games that wishes to make Transferable Tools impossible (e.g. World of Warcraft) make the equipping of them into Irreversible Events.

Diegetic Aspects

Tools are a way of providing Improved or New Abilities without breaking Diegetic Consistency.

Consequences

Tools change how Avatars and Units work in games by providing ways to temporarily or permanently provide Improved or New Abilities. Depending on how common the Tools are, they may or not give Privileged Abilities, and when affected by Deterioration they can be Limited Resources. As Tools can give New or Privileged Abilities, they allow the fulfillment of Gain Competence goals.

When Ownership is regulated the existence of Tools open up for Transfer of Control and Collecting actions to achieve Gain Ownership goals.

Relations

Can Instantiate

Buffs, Crafting, Farming, Gain Competence, Gain Ownership, Improved Abilities, Limited Resources, New Abilities, Privileged Abilities, Privileged Movement

with Stealing

Actions Have Diegetically Social Consequences, Attention Demanding, Tension

Can Modulate

Achilles' Heels, Aim & Shoot, Avatars, Combat, Controllers, Damage, Deterioration, Skills, Units

Can Be Instantiated By

Installations, Vehicles, Weapons

Can Be Modulated By

Collecting, Ownership, Stealing, Trading, Transfer of Control, Transferable Tools

Possible Closure Effects

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Potentially Conflicting With

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History

An update of the pattern Tools that was part of the original collection in the book Patterns in Game Design.

Acknowledgements

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