Knob
Risk and stakes
You might say: what might go wrong, and how much it matters
Risk concerns uncertain outcomes; stakes are the magnitude of the gain or loss. The same chance of success can feel very different when failure costs a little health versus the whole run.
- What it does
- Controls how much uncertainty the player is being asked to accept for a potential benefit.
- Ask
- What are success and failure worth, and what can the player do to change the odds?
- Typical
- Set outcome magnitudes and, where the rules use chance, the probability distribution; separately account for unknown opponent actions.
- Trouble
- A supposedly risky option has no meaningful downside, or the player cannot connect catastrophic losses to a choice.
Connections
- See also: Planning information
Sources
- Daniel Cook, Building Tight Game Systems of Cause and Effect, Probability; Social Complexity
Players were convinced that the game was completely random and had zero logic.
- Tynan Sylvester, Decision-Based Gameplay Design, Examples: risks and alternatives of retrieving the AK-47
If he doesn’t get the AK-47, and his teammates die without his support, he is in a very disadvantaged position … However, if his teammates win the engagement, Bob can simply grab the AK-47 in safety after the fighting is over.
Use it on your project
teardown-apply: hold "Risk and stakes" (choice-risk-stakes) from the teardown at https://teardownatlas.com/game-design/ against my project
Paste it into a coding agent that has the teardown skills.
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