thread: 2011-06-28 : Designing Philosophical Arguments
On 2011-07-01, David Berg wrote:
Finding the right relationship between (a) the philosophical position and (b) what the game is ostensibly about doing—this is tricky for me.
My recent game Within My Clutches says "the shit you own ends up owning you". The mechanics enforce that—when you achieve stuff, your achievements saddle you with responsibilities that demand your resources away from other stuff you might want to do.
So, who experiences those kinds of situations? I said "supervillains". So there's some color and some mechanics that I'm happy with.
The odd bit, though, is that what you do when you play your supervillain is you try to achieve stuff. So the philosophical message kinda traps you. Every time you achieve stuff, it owns you, hosing your ability to achieve more stuff, and sending you on a downward spiral that can encompass play entirely if you're not clever about alternatives.
Compare this to Dogs, where your objective is not to lose arguments, but rather to judge situations in which you may wind up losing arguments. You can encounter the "argument loser throws first punch" message independent of whether you succeed or fail at your primary objective.
Perhaps a takeaway is that the message should be attached to the process of play rather than its product? The momentary feedback rather than the large-scale rewards? Or at least that's one approach...
