This Feature is part of my ongoing True Scenario Designery course. If you’ve not been following it from the start, the convenient True Scenario Designery Course Index is a convenient way to start at the start. Do that.

Quality Wins and Losses

Hello aspiring designerinos and designerinas…

The last lesson ended abruptly with me saying y’all need to think deeper about Winning and Losing, as concepts. I hinted, even, that you already have a deeper, more complex, more complete, more nuanced understanding of Winning and Losing buried in that dumb brain of yours and you don’t even know it.

Now, I didn’t help anything by starting the lesson with a deliberately brain-breaking question phrased in the most inflammatory way possible. Except I totally did help you by helping you see just how broken your concept of Winning and Losing really is. I needed you to recognize that you just don’t know what those words mean.

Here’s what’s funny, though… if you’d all been paying attention, you’d remember that I already answered exactly that question in exactly that form. I did a couple of times both explicitly and implicitly. I even gave you a frigging example. Whatever pain that question last time caused you, that’s on you. It’s your own damned fault you couldn’t answer that question.

Today, I’m finishing the lesson and undoing the damage I did. I’m going to show you that more nuanced, more complex, more complete, correct definition of Winning and Losing. The one that’s buried somewhere in your cranium. The one you intuitively run on whenever game instruction manuals fail you. In so doing, I will have completed the introduction to this next big-ass section of True Scenario Designery content. The one that I said isn’t about Winning and Losing. Except it totally is. It’s just also about a lot more than that.

But this shit’s for the last section of the Feature, not the first, so let’s get to it. But first…

Pop Quiz, Hotshot

Imagine this hypothetical gameplay Scenario…

The heroes are dicking around town one day when, suddenly, an Imperial airship appears in the sky and starts bombarding the town with alchemist’s firebombs. Imperial soldiers pour through the streets and strike down any who stand against them. In the face of this sudden, cataclysmic assault, the heroes do everything they can. They protect townsfolk from the soldiers, rescue puppies from burning buildings, and eventually help the local priests barricade the townsfolk in the temple. When the attack ends, the heroes emerge onto a blasted scene of devastation. Fires still rage and much of the town has been razed. There are corpses everywhere. The heroes lead the survivors they saved from behind the barricades — the number of surviving people and puppies in the group is the direct result of the players’ actions and choices during the Scenario — but the survivors are too shocked and devastated by the destruction all around them to express their gratitude and there is nothing left to reward the heroes with. The end.

Same game as last time, here. I’m gonna pose two questions and you need to answer both before you’re allowed to keep reading. You can even post your answers below but remember to keep them brief. It’s a comment section, not a college essay. Besides, these are yes and no questions, so if you need more than a word to answer each, you’re doing it depends pussy copout bullshit because you’re a baby coward. But don’t let that stop you; I’m just saying.

• Assuming the players manage to slay every soldier they encounter and rescue every one of the dozen or so townspeople it’s possible for them to rescue and have thus achieved the best Outcome the Scenario allows, did the players win?
• Is it okay for you, a Scenario Designer, to design such a Scenario?

Anyone Remember a Little Thing Called Outcomes?

Lots of you probably recognize that Scenario I described in the pop quiz above — let’s call it The Defense of Mysidia after the single best 16-bit Final Fantasy game ever published — lots of you probably — no, I did not forget that Final Fantasy VI exists but I said best — lots of…

Fine, let’s just call it The Bombarded Town Scenario. Now shut up. Your taste in games sucks and so do you and no one wants to hear it.

Lots of you probably recognize that The Bombarded Town Scenario is a perfect example of an Unwinnable Scenario. That’s assuming you answered the first question correctly. Because the players did not win and, by the end of this lesson, you’ll know why. That’s probably leaving some of you with the sickening suspicion that you got last week’s question wrong. That’s assuming you answered the second question above correctly. Because, yes, that’s a perfectly fine and valid Scenario to Design.

But all of you — every last one of you — should be reminded of something I talked about in the introductory section to True Scenario Designery. To wit: Outcomes. Remember Outcomes? True Scenario Designers — when they write their Design Statements — identify the various possible Outcomes — plural — they intend to Design into their Scenario. Hell, I even gave you an example of a Design Statement and talked about the concept of Outcomes.

In that example, I described a Scenario wherein the heroes come upon a roadside ruin in their travels and have the opportunity to explore and plunder. I mentioned it wasn’t the sort of adventure anyone could actually Lose — except by dying but we’ll save that topic for another time — but that there was still a spectrum of Outcomes. There was a sort of completion percentage thing going on that depended on how many of the ruin’s rooms the players managed to discover and access and how many valuable and useful treasures they recovered.

How’s that sickening feeling of failure, huh? You really lost this round, didn’t you?

The point is Outcomes. When True Scenario Designers design Scenarios, they determine — and design — the various different ways a Scenario might be resolved. Those different resolutional possibilities are called Outcomes. At least, that’s what I’m calling them.

Outcomes can be discrete, multiple-choice type things. Either the hero slays the dragon or the dragon destroys the town. Either the Knight defeats the Hollow Knight and takes its place or else the Knight awakens the Dreamnail and enters the Hollow Knight to destroy the Radiance or the Knight gives up like a sissy and Hallownest is overtaken by the Infection. You get the picture.

But you can also have a more continuous, more spectrum-like set of Outcomes. Degrees of success or degrees of failure or percentage completion or some shit like that. The Outcome is determined by the number of townsfolk rescued or the number of rooms explored or the amount of treasure recovered or whatever.

Obviously, The Treasure-Filled Ruin Scenario and The Bombarded Town Scenario present examples of those more spectrummy, score-based Outcomes.

Just remember that, as a Scenario Designer, you design your Scenario with some number of Outcomes and then make it so the Outcome the players actually achieve is determined by their actions and choices. You map the dungeon with hidden rooms and hard-to-access spaces and scatter treasure about — some hidden and some guarded and some just there for the taking — so the players are challenged to access, find, and recover everything. Or you build encounters with imperiled villagers and puppies and hostile soldiers to fight and then track the results. That’s True Scenario Design in a single paragraph. That’s the art of it.

Outcomes Follow from Goals… or Do They?

For now, I’m just leaving this as a side note. I’ll come back to it much later in this course.

It’s possible that in the introductory section of this course, I left you with the impression that Outcomes must follow from Goals. I don’t think I explicitly said that, but I drink pretty heavily when I write these days, so I can’t be sure. I know I explicitly said that Major Challenges must follow from Goals, and that’s correct, but…

The point is, as I’ll explain later in the course, Outcomes do not need to follow directly from Goals. They can — and they often do — but they don’t have to. In fact, some of the most interesting and powerful Scenarios have Outcomes that don’t follow from Goals at all. This has to do with the perspective from which Goals are actually designed and a big Information Gap between the players and the Scenario. But that’s a story for another time.

So Winning and Losing Are Just Good and Bad Outcomes, Right?

You’re probably thinking by now that all this focus on Winning and Losing is giant-ass red herring because there’s not really any such thing as Winning and Losing, there’s just Outcomes and that’s the point I’m gonna make.

WRONG!

Winning and Losing are actual things! I said that explicitly last time. They ain’t just terms for Outcomes. Nor are they special kinds of Outcomes in Scenarios with binary resolutions, one good and one bad. Winning is not getting the Goodest Outcome and Losing is not getting the Worstest Outcome. It’s nothing like that.

In fact, Winning and Losing are actually, conceptually, totally independent of Outcomes. Kind of.

By the way, I have a special message to any of you dumbasses who used the phrase, “It depends on what you mean by Winning and Losing…” in their answer last time. You’re a dumbass and I would slap you if I could. The meaning of words does not depend on the speaker. Words have definitions. Words mean things. Sometimes, words do have multiple definitions and that can lead to confusion and miscommunication, but the definitions of words are never dependent on the speaker. When you say, “If you mean X when you say Y, then the answer is Z, but if you mean A when you say Y, the answer is B,” what you’re really doing is saying, “I don’t know what words mean but rather than admit that, I’m just going to give you a correct answer and a wrong answer and let you sort it out so I’m right regardless.”

Knock that shit off.

Anyway…

Consider the Bombarded Town Scenario. If the players managed to save every imperiled villager and kill every hostile soldier possible in the Scenario — if they get the best possible Outcome that I — the Scenario Designer — allowed — did the players win?

No, the players did not win. Do you really think, for a moment, that if you run the denouement I described with the heroes standing in the blasted, devastated ruins of the town square surrounded by a dozen shocked, sobbing, despairing villagers, the players are going to high-five each other and sing We Are the Champions? Absolutely frigging not. At best, they’ll be saying things like, “At least we saved who we could…” or “This would have been even worse if we hadn’t done what we did…” or other shit people say when they’re trying to shore up their broken spirits.

Winning and Losing are easy to recognize when a game’s got binary Outcomes. Especially if one’s labeled Winning and the other’s labeled Losing. Most board games work like that. They define Outcomes and clearly label the Outcomes as Winning and Losing. Most roleplaying game Scenarios aren’t so clean cut and, even when they are, they don’t necessarily spell shit out for the players. Even the roleplaying game Scenarios that do offer simple, binary Outcomes usually include side events and mini-quests and all sorts of little in-world consequences that stick with the players and other shit like that so that, even if you win — by getting the Scenario’s best Outcome — you — the player — might not feel like a winner.

As soon as you’ve got a game in front of you that ain’t binary and whose Outcomes ain’t clearly labeled as Winning and Losing, things get really tricky. But — and this is where I’m going to lose some of you Internet intellectuals — but Winning and Losing are still actual things in those nonbinary, unlabeled Outcome games. That’s because Winning and Losing are not Outcomes; they’re qualitative assessments of the Outcomes the players achieved or missed or avoided or whatever. Whatever the ending, whatever the resolution, whatever the Outcome, the players are going to assign it a descriptor — and assign themselves a descriptor — of either Win or Loss — and either Winners or Losers.

Winning and Losing are about how the players score themselves.

This is true even if the players don’t actually acknowledge this shit out loud. It’s true even if they’re not consciously aware of what they’re doing. Players score their Outcomes. Why? Because one of the major, intrinsic motivations that drive people to play games is a desire to challenge oneself. We’ve already covered this shit. Part of that means deciding whether you rose to the challenge or failed to beat it.

Now, I can already feel a bunch of y’all pulling away from me. I need you to stay with me because I know what I’m talking about whether you like it or not.

First, I acknowledge some players care far less about Winning, Losing, and Challenge than others. I even admit some people play roleplaying games for reasons other than Challenge. As I already noted last time, I’m not talking to those bad-faith players and I can’t teach you how to design games for them. They’re irrelevant. Beyond that, the existence of exceptions does not mean the general rule isn’t generally true. And I’m speaking generally. You dumbasses get really confused by that sometimes.

Second, do not conflate players classifying Outcomes as Wins or Losses with players’ value judgments about those Outcomes. It is possible to feel good about a Loss if you think you did everything right and you were just outmatched or luck was against you and if you’re a frigging well-adjusted adult. It’s also possible to feel bad about a Win if you don’t think you played your hardest and don’t think you really deserve it or if you think you blundered into it. These classifications have nothing to do with whether players feel they earned or deserve an Outcome or not; they’re purely about rating the Outcome itself.

Third — and this is the one that’s gonna call out all the people who just can’t handle Scenario Design — third, do not assume that just because something is subjective and it exists only in the minds of players — consciously or otherwise — that Winning and Losing aren’t real things for which you — the Scenario Designer — are responsible. Don’t assume that just because this shit’s subjective, there ain’t reliable, general patterns to it all.

See, Internet intellectuals hear the word subjective and immediately dismiss that shit as pointless to discuss, impossible to understand, and completely beyond a creator’s control. That just ain’t the case. I’ll come back to it below and then I’ll have a lot more to say about it later. Subjective ain’t random or irrational or beyond influence.

You Always Count Your Money When You’re Sitting at the Table

Winning and Losing ain’t outcomes. They’re subjective, qualitative assessments player brains assign to the Outcomes they achieve, avoid, or fail to avoid, usually unconsciously. That’s how we True Scenario Designers are gonna define Wins and Losses going forward. Got it?

Now, that definition’s correct by the rules of this course, which I assume y’all remember. But it ain’t totally complete. There’s another little piece to this puzzle.

Do you remember from last time what I said about tabletop roleplaying games being all permanent and continuous and how that makes it super hard to talk about Winning and Losing because most people think of Winning and Losing as final results that come at the end of the game? Winning and Losing are a little more complicated than that.

Players constantly — constantly — take stock of how their games are going. “Am I winning,” they’re always asking themselves. “How am I doing now? Am I losing?” Again, it ain’t totally conscious, but most people are dimly aware of this shit. When you play a board game, you’re probably usually keyed into how you’re doing, aren’t you? Moreover, after you have a good turn, you might even say something like, “Yeah, I totally won that turn.” After something goes against you, you might say, “Damn, I totally lost that exchange.”

This is natural, normal human gameplay behavior. More than that, it’s necessary human gameplay behavior. People must periodically assess their position as they play games. In long games, people need the psychological highs that come from celebrating small victories to keep them going. Most people prefer not to suffer the psychological lows that come with temporal losses, but they can’t not. That’s how people are wired.

I’ll bet this makes that whole thing I said about the Quest Structure make more sense, doesn’t it? It also makes sense of that whole roleplaying games are both continuous and discrete bullshit I brought up last time. This shit’s the reason why True Scenario Designers break long-term games into chunks with distinct Goals, Challenges, and Outcomes. It facilitates players’ constant needs for self-assessment, celebration, and reflection in what would otherwise be an endless, unbroken play experience.

It also gives the Scenario Designer space to tell the players how to score themselves.

The Objective Reality Behind Subjectivity

That brings me back to the really challenging idea that you — as a True Scenario Designer — are responsible for the player’s subjective, qualitative assessments of their gameplay Outcomes. Because you totally are.

Whenever players hit an Outcome — whether it comes at the end of an encounter or a chapter or an entire adventure or whatever — their brains need to figure out whether that Outcome gets tallied as a Win or a Loss. If the game’s purely binary and the Outcomes are labeled in the instruction manual, that’s easy enough to do. But that ain’t the case in tabletop roleplaying games. Players operate with very limited information about a Scenario’s Goals and the potential Outcomes available to them. They only know what their characters know. Thus, the players’ brains — consciously or otherwise — will glom onto any and every context clue available to decide whether they scored a W or an L.

Now, take a wild guess who the hell is responsible for all those context clues. Hint: it ain’t the players or their brains.

Look again at The Bombarded Town Scenario. Specifically, look at the denouement I described. It’s miserable, right? It focuses on death, devastation, and destruction. What do you think a normal, reasonable, sane player brain will make of that? It’s gonna be all like, “Well, this was a frigging Loss, huh?” Do you think if the denouement were different, you might be able to get the players’ brains to claim a Win?

Probably? Possibly? Maybe?

Truth be told, this ain’t the greatest example. But I kinda did that on purpose. I’m sure you can imagine a Scenario with a negative Outcome that you could, with proper presentation, flip the mental assessment from Loss to Win, right? I totally can. But also, you can only do so much with presentation and that’s something True Scenario Designers have to recognize. With the right spin, you might be able to leave The Bombarded Town Scenario players feeling like they eked out a win, but it’s going to be a hard sell. You can — and you must — use every tool in your design toolbox to tell the players’ brains how to score their Outcomes, but you can’t totally turn their subjective impressions on their heads.

Scenario Design — Game Design — is an art and games are an entertainment medium. Ultimately, your job is to build a bunch of game mechanics and game constructs and gameplay situations such that the players feel the right feelings when they interact with all that shit. That’s what being a True Scenario Designer is. You have to take responsibility for the subjective, you’ve got to know how to manipulate it, and you’ve got to know the limits beyond which you just can’t bend the subjective.

This is why, by the way, you’ve got to separate the qualitative classification that player brains do when they sort their Outcomes in Win buckets and Lose buckets from the players’ feelings about those Wins and Losses. You have to recognize they’re two separate things. You can design a Scenario the players can’t Win as long as you also design it so the Loss feels earned and satisfying. Part of that involves taking advantage of the fact that players don’t know anything that their characters don’t.

Of course, Losses are still downers. Players who Lose too often will eventually get bummed out, however fair those Losses feel. In the long term, you want players to experience a good mix of highs and lows. That’s why, by the way, Unwinnable Scenarios are useful. Modern tabletop roleplaying games are designed such that players rarely experience significant losses so Unwinnable Scenarios can provide some necessary lows throughout an adventure, arc, or campaign.

But that — and by that, I mean literally everything I’ve explained above except for the definition of Winning and Losing — is a story for another time. Because all of this was one big-ass introduction to…

Designing Scenarios You Can Win… And Lose

This course started with a multi-part introduction to the basicest of basic game design concepts. Now, it’s time for the next big, multi-part module. I already taught you how to plan a Scenario that’s basically playable. Now I’m gonna teach you how to plan a Scenario that’s actually Winnable. Or Loseable. Or Both. Which, by the way, is something I don’t think anyone’s ever analyzed with regard to tabletop roleplaying game Scenario Design. Everything’s about assembling the pieces into playable things that meet the basic definition of a game, but in this section, I’m going to teach you how to build actual, full-on gameplay Challenges.

Everything I explained above about Winning and Losing? It’s just an appetizer. It’s just an introduction. Except for the part where I told you that Winning and Losing are qualitative assessments players’ brains attach to the gameplay Outcomes they achieve, avoid, or fail to avoid. That’s going to be on the test and I’m considering it taught. Write that down.

Over the next several lessons — and for the next couple of months — I’m going to be showing you how to plan a Scenario based on Goals, Outcomes, Wins, Losses, and Major Challenges. Specifically, I’ll be covering the following…

• Introduction to Winning and Losing as Gameplay Concepts (You Are Here)
• Discrete and Continuous Gameplay Structure
• The Information Gap Between Players and Scenario Designers
• The Relationship Between Goals and Major Challenges
• Classifying Outcomes and Compounding Outcomes in Scenario Design
• Letting Players Build Momentum and Fight Inertia
• Momentum and Major Gameplay Challenges
• Inertia and Minor Gameplay Challenges
• Building a Scenario Design Roadmap

So that’s it. That’s what you’ve got to look forward to. Meanwhile, this is your final warning about knowing the basics of Magic: The Gathering. You’re gonna need it next time. Unless I forget to use it as an example.