What is an Immersive Sim?

 I'm going to be making some posts about immersive sims in the future but in order to do so it probably is helpful to define some terms. Notably there are a lot of 'meme definitions' of immersive sims, they has also caused a lot of confusion around the term. But honestly, the wikipedia definition is good enough as a working definition for most people. You can probably skip this entire post if you just want a 'good enough' definition.

But I think the main point of confusion that new fans to immersive sims are the 'meme definitions' like "any game that includes 0451" or "any game you can stack boxes" or "every game is an immersive sim" which are not helpful. They don't help people articulate what they like or find what they want. They are not particularly useful in describing the genre or having meaningful discussions. They function as a thought terminating cliche. And more destructively, it can function as misinformation that creates confusion. Players who might not know what an immersive sim is get confused or start declaring every game they like as an immersive sim and unscrupulous developers will try to use that label to get their games in front of players. Worst of all, anyone wanting to make an immersive sim will have an uphill battle performing their due-diligence before creating that game.

I worry about RetroSpace's inclusion of a spray bottle 
and what it means for the genre.

Normally, I wouldn't really care about this situation but the reality of game discovery has forced my hand. Current digital storefronts use genre tags for users to find games (and for developers to perform analytics). I have a real problem when I try to determine how to budget my game when the best tag for the kind of game I want to make is polluted with farm sims and sports games. Now imagine a developer wanted to get funding; How are they going to explain to business people, who might not even play games, what the revenue expectations should be? If an executive sees that there is no powerwasher in the Immersive Sim their developer is making, how are they going to react to that? Are they going to derail development and design with the insistence it is added to the game (withholding milestone payments; potentially canceling projects)? How can a developer push back against that when the executive can turn around and point to 3 games tagged 'immersive sim' that include a power washer?

I know that sounds hyperbolic and that no executive could possibly be that stupid. But if you are reading this blog you are probably an enthusiast. And what has history shown? What do you think a data driven executive is going to say when some developer says "the data is wrong"? Any reasonable executive would 9 times out of 10 follow the data and replace the developers with someone who will also follow the data and trends like they expected.

I need a Blendo games rest stop before moving
 on to what this blogpost is supposed to be about

This blogpost is supposed to be a foundation for talking about immersive sims, for establishing a foundational definition. But what are the good definitions? I already mentioned Wikipedia, but many developers have also given their own definitions and written on the topic. Any disagreements I have would be minor points. So what is the definition that I use for determining what is an immersive sim?

Drum roll please:

The Immersive Sim is a genre of video game defined by having a player controlled character interacting through systemic gameplay, where the game systems allow for emergent gameplay and player-driven solutions. These games emphasize player agency and intentionality, enabling players to use experimentation to find their own solutions to open-ended problems.

The levels of immersive sims are designed to frame the player's freedom within a simulated environment designed for emergent behaviors. There is a Reactive Narrative such that the game will react to the player's influence, but immersive sims focus more on the interplay of mechanics that encourage player intentionality and emergent gameplay in collaboration with an authored narrative.

Immersive Sims typically pay homage to other games in their genre. They are frequently in the First-Person perspective. They often have some form of stylization to their graphical presentation.

Now that definition has a lot of extra words that probably need some defining to make sense. I would caution against assuming you know what certain terms mean; as many people mistake immersive sims for being any game that is 'immersive' and 'a simulation' (but most simulations tend to be immersive while distinctly not being immersive sims). So here are some definitions:

Player Controlled Character: The player in an immersive sim directly controls a single character at a time. If you are tactically controlling units or strategically controlling armies the game shifts outside of the genre. Now having 'companion' characters that a player doesn't directly control, or the player switching control/possessing other characters I think still keeps the game in the tradition of an immersive sim.

Systemic Gameplay: Gameplay made from interconnected and consistent systems of rules rather than scripted sequences or bespoke game objects. These are typically required to support Emergent Gameplay.

Player Agency: The ability for a player to meaningfully influence what they are doing. Typically by making choices with consequences that go beyond progression. Instead of the game asking 'if' the player can do something, it asks 'how' they want to do something and supports those choices.

Player Intentionality: The ability for the player to formulate plans and implement them within the game (with the reasonable expectation of their success, and the possibility for failure).

Emergent Gameplay: This is complex interactions coming from the rules of the game and the games design affording these possibilities. Typically this means players will be able to create solutions the designer may not have anticipated and the game will allow this to occur.

Open-Ended Problems: These are goals that have multiple solutions that are not prescriptive or authored. If a player must acquire an item/MacGuffin it should be able to be obtained in potentially in multiple ways (ie there is no one way to steal it).

Player-Driven Solutions: The solutions to problems in an immersive sim are to be brought or figured out by the player. They are the ones to dictate how the tools the designer has crafted can be used to bypass the problem. Conversely, the designer does not prescribe a single solution for a problem. The designer may ask for a single output, but provide multiple ways for the player to create that output.

Simulated Environment: A simulated environment is one that is object rich and attempts to be interactive in all ways that a player would expect. An example of this would be the stackable boxes but also the ability to turn off lights and interact with computers.

Authored Narrative (in collaboration): This is also something unique about an immersive sim from other genres. A game must be designed and played as an immersive sim to be an immersive sim. The philosophy must run through all of development and into the player. The genre is a collective experience.

Leave it to the inventors of Immersive Sims
to challenge the notion of an immersive sim can be

And here are some things that are not in my definition that I am not sure about:

Singleplayer (vs multiplayer): I don't think immersive sims make good competitive multiplayer games; but I remain open to being convinced otherwise. I think one of core experiences of an Immersive Sim is the protagonist 'outsmarting the world' and in a multiplayer context this means outsmarting other players. However for the player being outsmarted they are likely having a negative experience. Manipulating NPCs in a single player game is fun, manipulating players in a multiplayer game can be toxic. I will need to expand on this in the future, but for now I advise against it.

Narrative Themes (Romance and Transgression): Some people tend to take a "you can do anything with anything" approach with creative endeavors; I tend to gravitate more towards a "just because you can doesn't mean you should" approach. I wont try to stop people from doing what they want, but I may ask the question "why are you making it hard on yourself"? That being said there is a major theme that I don't think works well with Immersive Sims: Romance. Since Immersive sims tend to have players manipulating systems and NPCs; doing so in a romantic context is exploitative. More specifically I think (or more agree with) the idea that Immersive Sim narratives feel better when they involve transgression of power structures in some form. Mixing that together with romance seems like it easily could be something uncomfortable for the player to experience.

Hopefully I will have time to expand upon so many of the things I have mentioned (and things I have omitted). But for now I think there is enough here for everyone to chew on. With a definition (and a clear rationale for having one) I hope we can get on with the most important part of immersive sims; enjoying them.

The issue with issues with romance in games.

TL;DR Most games include romance as a feature and not a pillar or theme of their game; so critiquing their romance mechanics is basically just nit-picking. Developers should be free to include romance mechanics in their games and not be shamed for it (unless it's the focus of their game and they drop the ball).

I've seen a few discussions come up recently about how romances are done in games. The critical consensus seems to be that they are done poorly but this discussion has been going on for at least 15 years. But that begs the question as to why things haven't changed and why gamers accept the status quo.

The critical critique of the romance in a CRPG is that they are 'unrealistic' (which should tell most game designers everything they need to know). They tend to lament the collection of 'kindness coins' and the treating of romance as a reward as problematic. The idea you can just say the right words and 'win' at romance as being reminiscent of toxic stereotypes and objectification. Some developers have even taken to calling romance in games contrived. While these are all a kind of true; the criticism persists unaltered.

Kindness Coins was a game jam project that came out in 2013. It's a charming game and I appreciate what it does. The only thing that dismays me is the conversation hasn't changed much beyond what it said over 10 years ago.

I think the reason why things haven't changed is something that I like to call (in my head) the 'Hollywood Reality'. It's realistic in the movies, it's simplified and serves the story. Just as in a movie the hero never reloads, in a videogame the hero never has to manage half-spent magazines of ammo.  And the romance is the same way. The protagonist gets the (obligatory) love interest; or in games the player is able to use the systems of the game to romance their favorite romance option.

And that's an important point. They use the systems of the game. The parts of romance that can not be shown through the game are left absent. When a player invests time and chooses romantic interest toward their chosen love interest that is analogous to the time and sacrifice it takes to be in a relationship with someone (to think of someone other than yourself).

I think this is where the developer, the critic, and the player all misunderstand each other. The developer wants to create the best game they can; the critic sees the limits in how relationships are implemented; the player has a desire for expression. And this misunderstanding is especially true when the game isn't even about romance. It's usually about some heroic story with warrior wizards and psychic cyborgs and ninjas with rocket launchers. It's not a romance game about romance (or even if it is, its not a game about the complexities of romance. Rom-coms are not a deep analysis of the imbalances in modern relationships; maybe what you are looking for is a prestige film). Basically a CRPG with romance is not a game about the complexities of romance; it is romance as a part of a larger game.

A polygon article recently made the same old arguments against romance in games and prominently featured Baldur's Gate 3 as having the same old 'problems'. But as a CRPG, romance is not the games focus. Why not platform the prestige games trying to do romance better?

The real problem seems to be a misunderstanding of what the inclusion of romance is for. The critic seems to be asking mass market games to be more like indie 'prestige' games. They are asking for explorations of what a relationship can be. They want representations of differing types of relationships and to examine the intersectionality of romance within broader cultural contexts. They want to see games be different and find a deconstruction of romance that elevates the artform.

But the player isn't any less noble. They are looking for romance as a subplot. Something that deepens their connection to events and can be jeopardized to raise the stakes (or frame other concepts). It's part of the game, not the full game. The romance option they choose (as a-romantic as that sounds) is a part of their expression in the game. And there is an aspect of wish fulfilment but no more so than being a bad-ass cybermancer who doesn't play by the rules. Why shouldn't the protagonist get the love interest?

I'm not advocating that every game with romance should converge on having a playersexual polycule (well, I'm at least not going to admit it). What I want is for players, critics, and developers to understand the role of romance in the game they are playing, criticizing, or making. If a game isn't 'capital A about romance' criticizing its romance kind of sounds like you are missing the point or wanting the game to be something it is not or just nit-picking. And even if a developer added deep critical commentary on romance... if that was not what the game was about it's going to be confusing and probably not get the development time it needs. It's probably going to disappoint the critics who want to see that and annoy the players who don't. To the player it can feel like a rug-pull or a gotcha when the game starts testing romance topics that the player didn't think this was on the table.

If you want to make a game about the romance, about all the confusing complexities of people falling in love; go for it. But also be aware of the type of game you are making; it's prestige. It's more for the voice of critics than the whims of players (and that doesn't mean players wont enjoy it; they just need to know that's what they are getting into). But also be very well aware that you probably are not going to get AAA sales numbers out of a prestige game. You can do whatever you want, just please have realistic sales expectations.

With all of that said, let's have a little more love for the games with romance. Lets critique games for what they are trying to do rather than what they wished they had done. Lets let the prestige games have their moments without denigrating games who include romance as feature instead of a pillar.

Hey, I'm as surprised as you are that I was able to find relevant images of Tiefling devil-ladies for all of  images in this post.

Level Design Jams

Here is another blog post because this is the season for things to come back from the dead 🎃🦇👻.

For the last few years I've been participating in Steve Lee's Level Design Jams. I want to do a videogame something every year and it has been a great excuse to do that. Although I'm not sure how successful I have been; I never feel bad as long as I'm still 'getting on the board'. My day job is not videogame related (software engineering for websites and other webstore stuff for scientist people).

Here is the list of the ones I have done and how I rate them of 7.


LDJ4-Mission30 - A mod of Deus Ex and probably the best of the bunch. This is considered peak 'Tomtent' (Tom+Content). 6/7 because I can still think of more I want to do with it.

LDJ10 - Memory Jar - A quake map with a little bit of modding to make it do what I want. I feel like I executed on what I wanted to do but I'm not sure what I did was any good. 4/7 because I could've done something better.

LDJ8 - Turnin Urban - I'm torn because I feel like this one has probably the weakest level design but explores a lot of things I think will come back in more Tomtent (Vending Machines, ₱esos, Camera). Made me think more about cameras and first person games. 5/7 could use more level design (almost as good as the dark night?).

Orb - 7DFPS 2023 - Not really my best work; actually this has pushed me to focus on UE5 a little more and try to work smarter and with more modular content (reuse of content is what made this possible). 3/7 formative for how bad it is; an exploration of the procedural that failed.

LDJ6 - Orb - Probably my worst work; I think I just had to make too many compromises for time to be satisfied with what I came up with. While UE gives you a lot, it basically drops you off at the bottom of a mountain and you still have to climb all the way up. 2/7 it could be worse but I hold myself to a higher standard than this.

Khthonic

In 2020 I made a Quake deathmatch map titled Khthonic for my friends to play at a lan party. This is a postmortem of my map creation process.

Concept

There were a lot of inspirations that lead to this map. The retro shooter revival was just starting, I was wanting to develop something with proven tech and within constraints, and I really wanted to try out the TrenchBroom level editor for a small project. The theme and name 'Khthonic' came from some books on Ancient Greek religion I was reading at the time.

I started the map with some sketches in a notebook. At this stage I knew a few things. First, I wanted to make a Greek temple. I also wanted my map to have ‘verticality’ or an emphasis on elevation in the map. And finally, I limited myself to using TrenchBroom and Quake to make it. I also quickly decided on a Deathmatch map because I felt I could develop that faster (and I think there was a job posting for mp level designer at the time but I'm not quite sure).

Sketches

In this first sketch I started to use lines to map out some of the routes and volumes of the map. I think a good map has a mixture of spaces and ranges for fights to occur. I also knew that I wanted to let it break rules and conventions of just pure balanced design. It would be really easy to make this a cave complex with a perfect balance of corridors and open areas… but there are a thousand maps like that. A little bit of unbalance in the spaces in a map can reward players who know to avoid those areas.


Verticality was also a big theme for me when I was making the map. What always struck me about Blood Gulch (Halo) was that it broke up spaces with hills. So I went with a lava pool at the bottom of the map and a hill sloping off the temple mount. I also started thinking of ways to add verticality to the temple and in the cave complex around it. It was around this time I started to get the concept going in my head about a capitalistic mining corporation burrowing into an ancient hidden temple to the underworld.



Early Mapping

Early in the process I just tried to block everything out and get it lit. I mostly spent time getting a feel for the space I was building and how it felt to move around. I also started to better understand the scale of my map. I didn't want to change too much about the temple initially because I wanted it to start from a relatively historically accurate place. But I had a lot of cave space to play with. While I did play with some other ideas with this map, later I found myself going back to a few of the ideas here.



With a large map my corridors were kinda boring. I started playing with the idea of adding some more cover to the corridors but I wasn't really thinking about it right. As caves around the map got more and more complex and as I refined things I really started to play with the idea of the caves not as corridors but just as long spaces. This is when they started to get better and I started adding more ways to vertically interact with those spaces.



The picture below shows some of the verticality in the map which was important to get in during these early stages because this would’ve been really hard to change later on. This verticality was also important for controlling sight-lines in such a long area. Quake doesn’t really give the player a sniper rifle or a long ranged weapon. Making the sight-lines shorter kinda helps keep the player from wasting ammo on things they can’t possibly hit.



I spent a lot of time trying to find the right way for players to get to the upper level of the temple. While not technically historically accurate, I didn’t just want there to be a cool place the players couldn’t get to. So I settled on this little jumping puzzle. It also let me open up more space into the caves.



About the lighting; during play-testing people noted that some of the areas in the map were just too dark! I really had to learn a lot about how quake lights worked and the lighting tools I was using (which have changed a fair bit since the retail version of quake, see EricWtools). Also using an lcd screen sometimes made it hard to judge if it was just really moody or impossible to see anything.



Also in regards to lighting I’m a fan of the film directors Michael Mann and Nicholas Winding Refn and their distinctly colorful lighting. I tried to pull this through in my map by showing the more technology driven caves as blue and the more ancient areas as being warmly lit. This create a contrast around the cave entrances in the map that helped them pop out.



Feedback: 

I sent my map out to be played by some friends at this point trying to get some feedback on if I was meeting my design goals. I also had a LAN party with some friends showing off a little of the map. Ultimately there were some issues and bugs server-side that eventually got ironed out.

Initially people reported that the map was too dark (as mentioned earlier). Players also noted a lot of navigation issues that took a while to iron out. Also while the caves and temple were distinctly different, players sometimes noted they weren’t sure what part of the caves or temples they were in.

Changing the lighting was pretty easy (mostly just changing the light baking settings). But the navigation issues were a little harder. And I also wanted players to get in and out of the temple area more. If it's the temple map and you aren’t hanging around the temple it's not a good temple map! I made some holes in the temple walls and made the area much easier to jump on and around. Getting into the temple also afforded players more cover so it started to become a more attractive area.

So to fix the caves I added some set pieces to make the different areas a little more distinct. Now the caves near the pool of water have some computers by them and no metal beams, where the other side has more metal beams and some machine devices.

It was also around this time I made a version of the map that could be played with Reaper bots which was helpful for getting feedback from individuals. However one of the issues was that they would not navigate through the jumping puzzle to the top of the temple. I ended up keeping this since it gave a clear advantage to human players and made the area feel more special.

Final:

Beyond the general enjoyment I had making this map; it felt really good to get back into map making (something I felt I had been doing less and less of). After this map I really found myself trying to do more maps and game jams to keep myself creating. 

I will say though there are a lot of things to improve on in this map; especially on the technical aspects of the map making. Quake and BSP maps have their own quirks that need to be taken into account and while I had a lot of fun; I'm not sure I would consider my map 'optimal'. Although it runs great with a modern source port and a high-end PC made 20 years after the games initial release.

I'm not planning on releasing this map but I may do so in the future. If anyone I give it to 'leaks' the map or it is otherwise distributed I want to go on record that it doesn't offend me in any way. Sharing something you like (or even dislike) as long as it is done with earnest and good intention is ok by me. But for now I kind of want to keep it close to me as it is the map that reminded me how much I enjoy level design.

#NOTGDC Voices of F.E.A.R.

Voices of F.E.A.R.

Chances are if you are reading this article you already have a passing interest in the AI of Monolith Productions 2005 classic F.E.A.R. First Encounter Assault Recon. While FEAR is best described as a mid 2000s video game love-letter to imported asian cinema, it's mostly remembered for its horror thematics and Artificial Intelligence (although, I think there are other interesting things happening in this game too). Most of video game AI itself is about building the actions and reactions that an AI agent or NPC has and telegraphing those actions to the player. One of the most common ways to do this is through the sounds and ‘barks’ of the AI agent.

This blog post will take a look at sounds and barks used by AI agents to communicate with the player with a particular focus on FEAR, but comparing with other games as well.

Basic trends

There are some commonalities in most AI barks (including FEAR). They are short, often less than 3 seconds. They are often recurring; used/reused as reactions to the player often including whenever the AI agent changes state. They often contain multiple versions of the same line (3-5 seems most common) or they only play on a random roll (50% of the time when all conditions are met). Later systems tend to have ‘call and response’ barks. They don’t contain ‘plot’ information or critical narrative information (such as changes in the objective or an increase of dramatic steaks).

Essentially the barks are encounter oriented; and based on what an agent could say in a variety of likely situations. They are also targeted at human depicting AI agents, humans have a lot of different things to say while animals or aliens would not. However these other AI agents may not be expected to behave intelligently as more ‘human-like’ AI Agents.

Numbers

Agents in different games have different numbers of audio barks, FEAR (2005 - fps) has around 300-400 barks for their AI agents. Deus Ex (2000 - fps/rpg/is), Bioshock Infinite (2013 - fps/rpg),  Splintercell: Blacklist (2013 - stealth action) has about 75-100 per agent, although it’s a little hard to determine due to the extraction method used. Neverwinter Nights has a little less than 50 barks (2002 - crpg) on its more advanced agents but leverages UI and other systems to communicate states. Doom 3 (2004 - fps) is on the extreme low end with ~30 or less audio barks for many of its AI agents.

An interesting point a reference is that there are ~35 hand signals for dismount operations in Training Circular (TC) 3-21.60, which is military manual on the proper hand signals to be used in wartime scenarios by the United States Armed forces. As this is information deemed critical enough to be communicated through hand signals, I think it’s worthy of study for anyone looking for a communication model. It should be noted that this TC was not available during the release of FEAR.

Differences in FEAR

FEAR distinguishes itself from the audio barks most obviously by number of barks it has, however the specificity of certain audio barks is also important. Most games use general terms in audio barks to denote location, but FEAR has a long list of very situational places terms. They also respond to possible player tactics and weapon with very specific terms. When the AI agents search for the player, they again have very specific location terms they can use. In addition to these specifics FEAR calls out player and agent tactics as most other games do. There seem to be general fall back audio barks for the specific instances as well, which are similar to what is seen in most games. However one difference is that the AI agents in FEAR also have some interaction options that other games don’t always give their agents.

It's important to note that one of the criticisms of FEAR was that its environments were very similar. It almost entirely took place in office blocks and warehouses. This meant that a lot of audio cues could be reused and certain locations like labs and offices were very common. Also, since the soldiers are ‘clones’ they can all sound the same with no variation in their voices. As far as enemy types involved in FEAR, there are only Replica Troopers (the AI agent analysed), Heavy Armor, Powered Armor, Assassins, Turrets, UAVs, Assassins, and Spectres appear in the game. This seems to be a little sparser than some games, but not by much.

But the counter point is that other games (and even FEAR itself) have enough space for voice lines with multiple characters using a large amount of audio barks. Bioshock:Infinite has 10 possible voice sets for some variations of it’s basic AI agents. So while 3-400 audio lines may seem excessive, it is likely no different as a size consideration as long as there are lines to say.

Voices of Fear Spreadsheet

I have collected and transcribed every general voice file used by the basic AI Agent in F.E.A.R. for analysis. I also made up some categories roughly based on how common I felt these audio barks would be played. The rough categories are (in order of possible frequency) interjection, multi, command, situational, specific item, armor*, turret* and hurt/death. Interjections are generally an audio bark of the AI Agent swearing. Multi are audio barks that likely fit a wide variety of situations, or those situations are going to be common. Commands are likely to be said the the AI agent and can be said at almost any time with little context. Situational audio barks are generally a response to a possible situation. Specific item is an audio bark that calls out something specific, generally a detail that keeps the audio bark from being used in many different scenarios.  Armor and turret audio barks didn’t seem to fit well into the model and are related specifically to the Powered Armor and Turret enemy types (They could be categorized as Specific Items). Hurt/death are noises the AI agent makes when they die. Asterisks (*) generally denote me being unable to transcribe what is being said.

spreadsheet

Individual notes (appendix)

I don’t have time to break down of every title I looked at but I do want to make some comments about some particularly interesting facts that I found about the content of the audio barks. I think there are a lot of interesting things to take away.

• Almost every game has some sort of vocalization to communicate the awareness that the AI agent has of the player. There is almost always an unaware and an aware state and audio barks that play during the transition between those.
• Every game has particular callouts around mechanics, especially if those are specific states the the ai agent, the player, or objects. A notable example of this in Dishonored, where AI Agents patrolling a ‘wall of light’ will notice and mention if someone tampered with it. They may even notice if a player steals or otherwise moves their weapons.
• Not many games do this but there is an audio bark for protecting ‘your commander’ in Dishonored. Some AI Agents organize into squads or have commanders or similar units. This is especially true if destroying these units can cause the squad to panic.
• The AI Agents of Half-life 2 are known for being hard to understand, with heavily ‘radio filtered’ voices and coded terms. This is often cited as a reason the AI is lackluster.
• All AI agents say something before they throw a grenade, but in Splinter Cell: Blacklist they tend to also say why type of grenade they will throw.
• Splintercell: Blacklist has lots of non-specific dialog for its AI agents, however it does make some exceptions for the player being in vents or for the player being above the AI agents.
• Bioshock infinite’s AI Agents and Audio barks seemed to follow the following states as per their files (* denotes optional). The method of extraction has made it difficult to get named audio files from most games.

airborne

charge

charge close

combat enter

damage

death

effort grunt

emotion scream

emotion surprise

flush

*gammareact close

*idle

move to cover

reload

searching enter

severe pain

suppress

suspicion enter

target no LOS

taunt

*creepy taunt

For Additional Researching

The AI of Half-Life

An indepth look at the AI of the original Half-life (from a source code perspective).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cOSCBMHGE18

Laments on Half-Life 2's AI and balance

A comparison of Half-life FEAR and Half-life 2 AI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsDM7GKb0xU

Behind the AI and Storytelling of Spec Ops: The Line | AI and Games

An analysis of Spec Ops: the Line's AI

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y--BgBOPduE

The Three 'E's of Encounters

Encounters

Ok, before you correct me, I know that you spell the word ‘Encounter’ with only two Es but that's not the point. When designing an encounter there are three angles you should consider to get the most out of the encounter, the Enemies, the Environment, and the Events. Thinking about these things is a great way to flesh out encounters beyond something as simple as ‘2d6 wolves’ which tends to end up a pretty stale encounter, especially the second time around.

Varying the types of enemies always creates a more interesting encounter

Enemy

When it comes to enemies the most interesting encounters often use multiple enemies together. It's important to consider what types enemies the players is in conflict with. That same wolf encounter becomes a lot more interesting if a Dire-wolf is thrown into the mix (or even better, Werewolf or Bargeist). A mix of tanking, supporting, ranged, and melee and whatever other roles are created for combat can really create interesting moments for players and show what is interesting about those enemies.

It's also important to consider the goal of these enemies. Are they mindless monsters that fight to the death? Are they worried about self preservation and are they gonna flee if they leader dies or the fight turns against them? Also how do these Enemies prioritize their actions? Do they try to kill all intruders or do they defensive and do they draw back when they are losing to try to hold out as long as they can? Enemies don’t stand around and wait, they guard, they sleep, they invade, they travel. A bunch of wolves and a Dire-wolf is probably hunting, and they will probably flee if their leader or enough wolves die. Injured wolves will probably try to stay out of the fight.

Where enemies are placed also is important to a good encounter. Are the enemies in a good position to show off their talents or are they in an area where their spears and bows are useless? The placement of enemies can also create opportunities for players to use their abilities to gain the upper hand or make it more difficult for them to sneak up and surprise. Our wolves probably don’t want to all be seen at once and probably will try to encircle whatever ‘prey’ they find so it can't get away. This of course leads us to consider the...

Not shown; the several hours hike to get here.

Environment

The environment where the encounter takes place is can turn a simple encounter to an entrancing one. Fighting a tough dude is just a tough fight but fighting a tough dude at the Preikestolen in Norway is a totally epic fight. Static environmental pieces help limit movement and create areas of advantage for players and enemies to try to control. Cover can limit the effectiveness of ranged weapons and create safer areas, difficult terrain can slow players and enemies leaving them vulnerable. The advantages and disadvantages of individual positions can keep players moving and tactics changing. Environments also can include interactable elements. They can be simple traps, to spillable liquids, to starting fires. Each of these represent choices the player or enemy can make to influence the environment. Other advantages in the environment can be weapons and items that players can, even doors that players can open, close, lock or barricade. Our 2d6 wolves and Dire-wolf encounter changes a lot when the wolves can travel and attack through a thorny hedgerow the players can't follow through, and a cart of rotten barrels the players can tip over for cover and concealment against the seemingly endless wolves come out of the woods.

Lightning strikes are maybe a little too cliche of a random event

Events

During an encounter, events can occur to to change the conditions of the fight. Maybe when the fight starts it begins to rain, the ground becoming muddier and harder to move through as players and enemies fight. Maybe lighting flashes and illuminates the darkness giving a brief indication of what hides in the darkness. Maybe the cave is collapsing, or it's not a cave at all. These events generally occur outside the fight and are outside of anyone’s control, events are things that just happen.

What events really can do is add another dynamic to a fight to break stalemates and add an unexpected element to strategies. Once a player thinks they have it figured out, the event can show them a twist. It can also help to change a fight that is slow battle of attrition, to one where the player has a chance or realizes they are in over their head. A lot of games have waves of enemies that help an encounter, especially with a boss, change from predictable slow win, to being ‘reset’ to something more interesting. Our dire wolf encounter might start as a storm brews and rain falls. Wolves might keep pouring out of the thorny hedgerow like like the endless rain until we manage to kill the Dire-wolf, the ground becoming a torn up, impassible mass of mud as we churn through it in combat.

Our Dire-wolf encounter is looking pretty snazzy, but is too snazzy?

Words of Warning

So we got a pretty awesome Dire-wolf encounter figured out. It's got a Dire-wolf leading some wolves and their coming at you from all along a hedge. There is a wagon to tip over to make a wall for you to put your back to. It starts to rain so the ground gets muddy as we fight making it hard to move as more and more wolves come out… it's pretty badass!

This is a great encounter, but did we go too far? Is this supposed to be the climax of an adventure or… are we just some bros traveling roads? The purpose of the Dire-wolf encounter was really to show how this model takes a simple, boring concept of 2d6 wolves and changes it into something spectacular. But if the purpose of this encounter is to makes a random encounter to spice up a trek, 2d6 wolves and a Dire-wolf would be enough. Maybe the hedgerow of endless wolves is a great way to show how dangerous the road is.  You can just take parts of the formula, you don't have to fully use and fully rely on it, as a matter of fact, it might be a little overwhelming for a player to constantly deal with all this epic-ness. You could go really overboard and have like 5 different enemies and tons of intractable and then a storm starts but then undead rise from the grave and there is an earthquake as you fight on the side of a volcano and also there are bees… My point is that there can be too much. Don't over do it (or maybe just overdo it once).

While this is a formula, you shouldn't over rely on it. Understand that choosing to just have one type of enemy is fine, but its still a choice. If the goal of your encounter is to introduce that enemy then by all means, just use one enemy. You can use a simple or boring environment if there are other things you want to show off. Not having an event can be just as tense as having one. Doing nothing with the Enemies, Environment, or Events in an encounter is still using them, it's just choosing them to be nothing. And that choice can be made to highlight or help reinforce the purpose of why the encounter was made in the first place.

Encounters can be conversations too!

Beyond Conflict as Combat

Often games show conflict as combat. But you can still use these same principals with other systems that model conflicts. Enemies might be individual npcs that must be debated or convinced, the Environment might be the setting and social situation the characters are in and Events might be things that happen during the conversation. There can be a lot more to this than just action movie fights. But action movies are cool so it's a great way to frame things right now.

*Wolves get a lot of bad publicity, and undeserving so. The origin of the 2d6 wolves encounter comes from a D&D module, the Curse of Strahd. It being a particularly boring random encounter, in an otherwise well regarded module. Wolves are actually an important part of our ecosystem and not a statistically significant threat to livestock. They also can not spontaneously generate from thorny hedgerows. In case, you know, you mistook this article as being scientifically accurate or something.

D&D Tools for (Digital) Game Designers

Caution:

These things are developed mostly by dungeon masters running tabletop rpgs. While game design and DMing are very similar activities, you can improvise and adapt in a physical medium in a way you can’t in a digital one. So these tools may not be immediately helpful without some adaptation; however they are rigorously used and they are helpful to many people. So, like all game design advice, you’ll be glad you got the half of it that is useful.

5x5 campaign method

https://critical-hits.com/blog/2011/03/04/the-5x5-method-compendium/

How do people even design campaigns anyway? With interweaving plots and multiple characters it can be hard to keep everything straight and related. The 5x5 is a systems that helps to keep things organized.

The method isn’t terribly complicated, it's basically a grid or a tree, each column represents a significant story threads or questlines and each row is how far they are into completion. Ideally the completion of one of cell in the grid will feed into or relate to other questlines (like a data tree). So instead of players working each questline to completion they jump between them as they progress. This is also a good way to keep things related and influencing each other (instead of just a hub with quests).

There is a lot of work an interest on this and most people modify it to their own end. When I’ve attempted to lay things out I tend to find things converge at the end into a single climactic event. Your mileage may vary, but it will get you going.

5 room dungeon

https://nerdsonearth.com/2017/12/5-room-dungeon/

https://www.roleplayingtips.com/rptn/rpt156-6-methods-making-dungeons-interesting/

For game designers this is basically a mix of ‘differences in kind’ with an ‘engagement curve’. I think it's a mistake to take this literally as a dungeon with 5 rooms, but I think it's better to look at it as a bunch of encounters every session/adventure should have.

As with all formulas, add things, repeat things, drop things. A 5 room dungeon is fine but be willing to change things up. It's already pretty great because most of these ‘rooms’ or encounters are either or type affairs (puzzle or roleplay encounter) kinda things. I think it's a really solid formula and definitely something game designers should be taking with them into their own games.

10 m/f names

The basic gist of this is to write down 10 male and 10 female names. If players ever want to figure out someones name or what’s going on with them; you can just pull one off the list and roll with it (sorry for the pun). But what this creates is the idea that this is a real and believable world, suddenly, everyone has a name and a tiny back-story. The world comes alive!

This is more abstract (and as a knee-jerk reaction, it's impossible) thing to in digital games. But I think it's one of those things where you never know who players might attach to and find important. If you can find a way to let your players elevate the importance or seek deeper interactions with *any* character they come across it will go a lot farther in creating a believable world.

7 sentence NPC

http://www.pandius.com/npcbuild.html

Originally from TSRs Dragon magazine, this is a simple framework for building NPCs. Now these are customized for a tabletop seeing but depending on the game your making things like “physical description” and “Distinguishing Features” might be handled by whatever system is used to generate character art. If you are trying to create a system where any player can interact with any NPC its a good place to start.

And if you do have to make NPCs for your team; well they should all get the 7 sentence treatment. The upside to this is that it compresses information to basically a paragraph anyone has time to read. Starting with a blank slate is hard, but getting those seven sentences out give you a place to go.

Secrets and Mysteries

http://slyflourish.com/sharing_secrets.html

http://slyflourish.com/facilitating_empowered_investigation.html

Secrets and details are great for world building and helping things come alive. Having a bank of little things players can learn is a great way to reward interactions of the players. Interaction is a core advantage that games have over other mediums. Having a list of secrets is a great way to reward players who like to dig into the world and read every little description.

When players need to investigate or uncover a crime, well we know that a significant number of players just won't get it. So even if they have all the secrets in front of them or the details seem to all point to one direction, sometimes you have to keep nudging. Basically, it's better to let players shoot the arrow and then paint the target around it. If players keep looking in the wrong spot, just put the clue in the next place they look.

Encounter Building

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5DowI3p7L44

HA! I worked a youtube video into this! So even if you are too lazy to read, you can’t say this post wasn't useful!

I’m going to break this video down a little bit because Projared isn’t really articulating exactly what he is doing. But basically, each encounter has a variety of monsters and it has environmental components. I don't want to get too deep into encounter design (that should be its own post), but I do want to explain the very basics of what he does.

When it comes to monster variety, it doesn't have to be complicated. Even just varying the equipment (up-armoring a guy, or changing a weapons) can create a much more interesting scenario. The important thing to do is to avoid fighting ‘6 goblins’ because then the players just ‘attack the one that took the most damage’.

The other thing to do is to see what you can do to make the environment more interesting. An encounter without an environmental gimmick is like toast without butter. Its missing something. Now sometimes giving your enemies some high ground is basically just an advantage to them, but  you can use gimmicks to help players engage with the space. What's important to consider is that potentially both Players and Enemies could use these gimmicks too.

Conclusion:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zTD2RZz6mlo&list=PLlUk42GiU2guNzWBzxn7hs8MaV7ELLCP_&index=2

These 6 things are by no means comprehensive of everything you can take from d&d and every trick and tactic you can learn from. But this is a good example of the popular stuff, and a great batch of tools to take with you. If you think this was super useful, I would suggest taking a look at Matt Colville on youtube. He’s a videogame designer and Writer for Turtle Rock Studios as well as DM extraordinaire. So you can tumble down that rabbit hole if you want more.

Disclaimer:

I didn’t really vet anyone I’m linking to. I mostly pulled these explanations from google searches. So while I'm endorsing these ideas; I won't endorse anyone's character. I actually have never met any of these people.