Mechanics: Tactical Combat – Extra – The Mistakes You Shouldn’t Make

Knowing how to balance a game involves both considering what works and what doesn’t. There is a number of common mistakes that often crop up.

I’m likely missing some important stuff too, so if you want, do let me know.

Design fallacies are most often traps. Things that seem like a good idea or a reasonable stance to take but have significant shortcomings in the long run.

The fallacies are not listed in any particular order.

1) Ivory Tower Design Fallacy

If you know what Ivory Tower Design is, you likely expect me to tear it a new asshole. The term is most known in the D&D circles due to its pretty infamous relevance to the 3rd edition of the game. At least in RPG terms. The concept actually originates from card games, and I’d be inclined to agree it has a dubious place there.

But you might also not know what I’m talking at all. In that case, allow me to explain briefly. Ivory Tower Design relies on providing the player with options, a toolbox if you will, where each option found in the toolbox has some potential use, but their usefulness will vary based on context. If you want to know more about it, let me link to two articles here.

Original article.
Additional musings of interest.

Suffice to say, ITD gets a lot of hate from people who might see some of the options provided as traps, included into the toolbox to trick gullible newbies into making mechanically unsound decisions.

These people are idiots.

I’m not saying that ITD can’t go wrong and I’m definitely not saying it should be included in any game at all. What I am saying is that it’s a tool. And like every tool, it can be used well, or it can be used poorly. I am personally not a fan of its usage in the 3rd edition of D&D, but at the same time, I wholly support the direction that version took. Just a shame we needed to wait until 5th edition for that direction to amount to anything.

As I’ve said before (Mechanics: Tactical Combat – Part I – Attrition), two of the principles by which a video game engages the player into its mechanics is exploration and exploitation. Both of them tie very firmly into the idea of the Ivory Tower. The actual issue often comes from the gap between the best and worst choices the player can make.

If your best choice is a must pick, and your worst choice is useless 99% of the time, you have a problem. On the contrary, if your worst choice is a good option under some circumstances (the second article I linked makes a note of this explicitly) and your best choice is a matter of subjective opinion, you might be getting it right.

2) Solvable Combat Fallacy

There is an opinion out there that combat is a puzzle. I will not argue that this view has a degree of merit. However, like many things, this can be taken to annoying extremes.

It’s one thing to require the player to solve a combat sequence. Something that usually involves some cross section of understanding enemy patterns/behaviours and game mechanics and the player’s ability to execute a tactic that takes both into account. And it’s another thing entirely to expect the player to make an overly specific sequence of actions.

This issue most often comes up with the one-off puzzle boss. A boss within a game that operates on different rules than any other boss in the game. A point where the player runs into something that goes contrary to everything the game has taught them before, often resulting in frustration and questioning what even is happening.

What is the fallacy then?

The fallacy is that some designers think that if they put a way to defeat a combat encounter into the game that’s enough. The combat is solvable after all. There is a way to overcome the enemy and move on.

The issue is that this can be done in a way that at best disregards the player’s preferences, and at worst makes very little sense. Most ridiculous are situations where the developer realises this and forces the game to explain the solution to the player, sometimes in a 4th wall breaking way. Something that very clearly shows they knew the encounter was a problem but chose to ignore it.

The best thing I can advise here is that you make sure encounters can be figured out based on information naturally presented in-game and from the player’s understanding of the mechanics. I would also suggest making your solutions not overly specific.

3) Mathematical Ballance Fallacy

A game developer might be tempted to attempt some inkling of mathematical proof for the balance of their game. A foolhardy idea that often leads to some form of spreadsheet hell.

I’m not saying math has no place in game design. On the contrary, I say that for any system that relies on number manipulation (which is often the case with RPGs) you need a firm mathematical basis to build your game upon.

What I am saying, however, that there comes a time to move past the math and take care of something much more important. And that’s the user experience of the system. The feel of combat, so to say. And this involves both the final layer of tweaks to the numbers and making sure that your audience can enjoy the system you have crafted.

A firm foundation will make this easier. And that’s why you must also make it a start. But at a certain point, you have to move past it and focus on the perspective from which your player will see the game. A view from which your mathematical foundations might be well hidden and even less likely to be thought of by the player. You will often see that players are drawn more to games they perceive as fun than games they regard as balanced. And a good dash of fun does more for a game than any amount of balancing will if the game isn’t attractive to the player.

4) Damage RPS Fallacy

Ah yes, the Damage Rock-Paper-Scissors mechanic… most often seen in the form of Elemental Rock-Paper-Scissors. An aspect of game design I feel a lot of people take for granted and few people think through before just throwing it in their game.

As with everything I’ve said today, not like there’s anything particularly wrong with including some kind of elemental resistances and affinities into your game. If you have a Dire Magma Mallard in your dungeon (fear its haunting quacks) it makes sense for that enemy to be somewhat resistant to fire.

And mind you, this does not only apply to elemental damage types or whatever else you might be inclined to include. Sometimes it’s dependant on weapon types vs armour types or whatever else it could be. And it could be a lot. There are many ways to obfuscate the fact that your mechanics include an RPS analogue.

So where exactly is the fallacy here?

The issue comes from overly specific and rigid elemental systems, usually in the form of a circle or something of that sort where almost everything gets slapped with an elemental label and the corresponding weaknesses and strengths. Such a system adds very little to a game. It’s not some puzzle the player has to figure out. The matter is in fact either obvious or wholly arbitrary.

Worst still is that often these mechanics stifle choice. You force the player to prepare for a section of the game in a way that doesn’t meaningfully affect the gameplay. In truth, most of the time, elemental abilities are reskins of each other. In such a case there is no meaningful distinction between different damage types. It reduces the mechanic to bringing the right colour of magic (or weapons) with you.

Of course, this doesn’t need to be the case. Some games go beyond this making elemental much more nuanced than the colour of the fork you are going to stab into someone’s eye. These systems also often break the idea of a strict RPS, considering things on a case by case basis.

When designing a damage system for an RPG consider if there’s ever a reason for using the wrong element over the intended one and if there are legitimate reasons to think what elements you use against elementally unaligned enemies. If that’s the case, you might be on the right track.

Ok, enough of this. I’ve spent the more substantial portion of 3 articles talking only about mechanics and not narratives.

Now, this ends. Now we talk narrative.

5) Ludo-narrative Dissonance

This is not a fallacy. This is an outright scourge on the face of gaming.

I’d be surprised you never heard about this before, but let’s go over it anyway. Ludo-narrative dissonance happens when the narrative and mechanics of the game do not line up.

For example, imagine you have a game in which one character, let’s call her Tulslaeh, has access to healing magic. Now let’s imagine a scenario where the player, with Tulslaeh in their party, encounters a wounding soldier. Poor guy is bleeding everywhere, but it shouldn’t be much of a problem, right? She could handle that time a dragon sat on you so… wait, why is everyone just walking away? Why are the characters, despite being able to help and being the defacto good guys just ignored this situation?

Well, if you think about it, pretty obvious, isn’t it? At no point did the narrative team even look at what the characters can do and how it could be used in the narrative.

There is a specific application of this dissonance to combat. If a character can do something in battle, they should be able to do the same out of combat. Otherwise, you have a problem on your hands. Do not even try to fool you that people will not notice. And do not try to trick yourself that you can give some explanation to this. The player will notice, and they will know. At best they might not care.

If your characters can punch a god in the gonads so hard his spine explodes, they will not be stopped by a locked door. If resurrection magic is common in your setting, you will have problems selling any death as meaningful.

Whatever abilities you give to your characters write your narrative as if you are writing about characters that possess those abilities. That’s it. And if it so happens that you want to say “but that ruins my narrative”, then your narrative is wrong.