Sometimes, it’s the assumptions we make which block us from moving forward. Becoming aware of what they are, and questioning them, can show us new ways to achieve our goals. In my day job, this is something I do with clients early on, but it’s easy to forget about in this context for some reason. Here’s an example of how using this technique solved a development problem for me.
As regular readers are aware, I’ve been working on expansion content for Close Encounters for a while now. Deciding on how to organise all this content has been troublesome, so to make development possible I’ve split it all into modules which can be worked on independently.
Within each module, there are game mechanics which need to be developed. These are fairly easy to identify, so work on these has been progressing well. There are also thematic elements – story missions and locations, flavour text, and so on – which I’ve been deferring on the assumption that this sort of thing should be sorted out once the mechanics they need to reflect have been finalised.
Map tiles are a bit of a crossover of these, and in hindsight I should have realised this earlier. On the one hand, new map tiles need to have new effects in the game – a mechanical effect. On the other hand, though, they have to look like something which could plausibly create those effects – this is a thematic element. And this duality had been blocking progress on one module for a while.
The problem was that I had identified a set of mechanics that I wanted to include, and a plausible cause for those mechanics. I’m not much of an artist, so producing tile art which represented that cause was causing a good deal of difficulty for me, and holding everything else up while I struggled with it.
If you’ve been tracking along with me, then you’ve probably identified several assumptions I was making. There are two in particular which were causing trouble, though:
- Mechanics drive theme and take priority over it.
- Mechanics have only one cause, and that cause does not change once determined.
I hadn’t realised I was making these assumptions, but they were combining to force me down quite a rigid path. Eventually, I got so frustrated I put the whole mechanical issue aside for a while and turned my attention to themes… and, to my surprise, that very quickly unblocked the tile art issues I had been struggling with.
I had started by working along lines best described as “here is a set of mechanics, devise a situation which makes them thematically appropriate”. I had switched to “here is a situation, devise mechanics which are thematically appropriate to it”. Doing this showed me that there were other ways to represent plausible causes for some of the mechanics I wanted to include, and other mechanics should be changed because they were not thematically appropriate to the situation I wanted players to encounter. This changed the tile art requirements, and the new tile art requirements were much easier for me to satisfy.
I was honestly surprised how much this cleared things up. Having thematic elements identified made it much easier to come up with appropriate tile art. It also indicated directions for the story missions for that content, and the whole module new feels much closer to being “final” (I use quotes because this is all pending additional playtests and reviews).
Now, how does this tie in to the assumptions I was talking about earlier? Well, those assumptions had been what was preventing me from making progress. Not addressing themes until I had the mechanics sorted out meant that I couldn’t take advantage of thematic input and support for the mechanics. Deciding on a cause and never changing it meant that I was locked in to the first cause I came up with and had to try to make that work.
I’m not suggesting that themes should always take precedence over mechanics, of course. Depending on the circumstances you’re dealing with you may derive benefit from that, or you might derive benefit from letting mechanics drive themes. I guess the point is that, if you’re getting stuck, it might be worth checking the assumptions you’re making. It may help give you a fresh perspective on what you’re dealing with.
Encounter Table Games 