This Feature is part of my long-running series about advanced adventure and encounter design for tabletop roleplaying games. It’s called True Scenario Designery. If you haven’t been following it from the start, use the True Scenario Designery Course Index to catch up.

This specific installment is part of a several-part section of the series about planning and outlining roleplaying game scenarios that the players can play, win, and lose like actual frigging games. Crazy, right?

What Do Players Know Anyway?

Another week, another lesson in this thing I’m pretentiously calling a Course because I have to maintain the delusion that I’m not just an asshole blogger. This lesson fits into a Module about Designing Scenarios Players Can Win and Lose. As I explained last time, that just means designing roleplaying game Scenarios the way real game designers design real games. Now, you might think that’s how most tabletop roleplaying game Scenario Designers do things, but it’s not. Hell, most of those dumbasses don’t even think Winning and Losing are things tabletop roleplaying games should do. But you know better. At least now you do.

Way back at the start of this course, I told you that games need Goals and therefore True Roleplaying Game Scenarios designed by True Scenario Designers need Goals. I took it for granted then that y’all know what Goals are and why they’re important. At least, I think I did. I don’t remember what I explained; I tend to ramble a lot. Especially when I’ve been drinking.

The secret, Cap, is that I’ve always been drinking.

But I digress…

To be fair, you do know what Goals are. You might not be able to articulate that knowledge perfectly and accurately with a firm, concrete definition surrounded by clear, bright lines, but, honestly, you’re better off that way. Whenever you try to establish firm, clear, concrete definitions with no ambiguity, all you do is piss me off and wreck yourself.

As for why Goals are important, it actually doesn’t matter whether you know that. All that matters is that you trust me when I tell you they’re important.

All you need to know is that every game needs at least one Goal and that a Goal is basically the thing the players are trying to accomplish. Within the game. By interacting with the gameplay elements. We’re talking shit like rescue the princess and protect civilization from the barbaric orcs at the gate here, not have fun and tell a story.

True Scenario Designers establish Goals and build Scenarios in which the players — acting as their characters — pursue those Goals. Meanwhile, the players — acting as their characters — pursue the Goals the True Scenario Designer established until the Scenario is resolved. For better or for worse.

Pretty frigging simple, right?

Unfortunately, it’s not as simple as it seems. Displaying a level of insight that would have left me catatonic with shock if the alcohol hadn’t cushioned my system, some of you spotted a little plot hole in this whole Goal thing as you thought through my little pop quiz last time. I didn’t expect anyone to see it, even though I deliberately planted it because of the frigging genius that I am, so if you did spot it, you get a cookie. Good for you.

That plot hole and what it means about establishing Goals in tabletop roleplaying game Scenarios is our topic today. It has to do with the fact that the players don’t know what the Scenario Designer knows about the Goal — or anything else — and it’s both a bigger issue than you might think and a totally trivial problem to solve.

Let’s get to it…

Pop Quiz, Hotshot

Last time, I asked you to imagine a Scenario. Do you remember what it was? Because I need you to imagine it again.

Fine, I’ll remind you…

The players are dicking around town when, suddenly, the Empire attacks. The players do their utmost to save the town, but, ultimately, all they can do — all the Scenario allows them to do — is barricade a dozen or so civilians in a bunker and wait for the attack to end. When the smoke clears, the heroes and the lucky survivors emerge from their hidey hole into a smoldering, corpse-filled ruin. Huzzah and forsooth!

Before you continue reading, I want to you think about the answers to the following questions. You can even post them below in the comment section if you want to, but, let me warn you that, for the last fifteen or so years, I have demonstrated myself to be an impossible-to-impress, egomaniacal asshole who makes fun of literally everything everyone ever says to him, and that hasn’t suddenly and inexplicably changed. So if you post an answer and I end up making fun of it in the next lesson, you can’t send me any private messages being all butthurt about it. I mean, you can, but it’ll just prove that, in addition to being a pissy little crybaby, you also have zero sense of pattern recognition, and that’s totally on you.

Don’t expect an apology is what I’m saying.

Anyway, those questions…

• What do the players think is the Goal of the Scenario?
• What is the actual Goal of the Scenario the Scenario Designer designed the Scenario around?

Once you’ve got some answers in your head or in the comment section, you may proceed.

Why Are Goals So Important?

Before I get into the problem highlighted in the pop quiz — a problem I call The Information Gap except that I totally don’t because it’s not actually a problem and this whole thing is a setup so I can yell at you for not getting Goals really — before I get into this Information Gap thing, I want to talk about what Goals actually do for gameplay. Don’t worry, this won’t take long. This is very easy, obvious shit.

Goals basically provide Context and Direction and help determine who Wins and who Loses. In tabletop roleplaying games, that last thing’s down to whether the players Win or Lose, but that’s the same thing.

Context — in this case — refers to the reason the players are doing all the gameplay crap they’re doing. Without a Goal, an adventure is just a string of disconnected combats and puzzles and interactions and whatnot. Why are you fighting the goblins? Because there’s goblins to fight. Why are you solving that chess puzzle? Because you solve puzzles when you find them; that’s what puzzles are for. See what I’m saying? It’s all naked, abstract gameplay. You need a goal like, “Stop the goblins from raiding the town,” or “Recover the Jade Knight from the Vault of the Chessmaster” so there’s a reason to engage with the gameplay crap. Those reasons are actually part of the tabletop roleplaying gameplay experience and it’s why random filler encounters — which are totally fine in moderation, by the way — it’s why random filler Encounters don’t feel as satisfying as Encounters tied directly to the adventure’s Goal.

But this Context ain’t just about a reason to engage. Imagine the heroes have been tasked with stopping the murderous goblins from slaughtering the townsfolk. Now imagine the goblins offer the heroes a pile of treasure if the heroes will just go away and leave the goblins to their business. Can the heroes accept that bargain? Abso-frigging-lutely not! At the very least, they need to add some conditions like, “Stop killing the townsfolk or we’ll be back.”

Now imagine the heroes are on the way to the Vault of the Chessmaster and they blunder into a pack of goblins. The goblins offer the heroes some treasure if they’ll just go away. The goblins aren’t a direct, imminent threat to anything and they’re not guilty of anything. It’s just a chance encounter. The heroes can totally take that bribe, right? They might choose not to — killing goblins is fun and goblins are evil — but they totally can just act like ships passing in the night.

See, Goals don’t just give the players a reason to play the game, Goals inform their gameplay decisions.

That’s also how Goals provide Direction. When the players come to a branching path — either a literal path with literal branches or else any decision point at all — their Goals can help them decide which direction to go. Direction is extremely important in an open-ended game. When the players arrive in town, they could go anywhere and they could do anything, but if they need a divine spell cast on their behalf, they’ll probably start with the local temple.

Goals also provide a yardstick — ye olde metresticke if you’re from Europe or whatever and don’t know what a yardstick is — Goals also provide a yardstick against which the players measure their progress and evaluate their Outcomes. Remember all that crap about how players’ brains are always evaluating things in terms of Winning and Losing based on cues the game provides? Well, the game’s Goal is a big-ass cue. If your Goal is to stop the evil, pillaging goblins and you end up with the evil, pillaging goblins still pillaging evilly, you know you Lost the game.

Of course, this is all speaking of Goals from the players’ perspectives, right? And Goals are a matter of perspective, right? The pop quiz shows how important perspective is…

… right?

How Do the Players Know What They’re Doing?

Let me ask y’all something…

In that Bombarded Town Scenario, how do the players know their Goal? How do the players know their Goal in any random tabletop roleplaying game Scenario at all?

Sometimes, it’s easy, right? Sometimes, a non-player goober hires the players to explicitly do some kinda thing and so the players know exactly what’s expected of them. But is that always the case? Think about it. In The Bombarded Town Scenario, the characters are sipping lattes — because, apparently, that’s just a fucking thing in fantasy games now — the characters are sipping lattes outside Starbuccaneers or whatever when, suddenly, Imperial Airship Assault. Do you — you’re the Game Master now — do you tell the players, “Okay, dingdongs, your goal in this adventure is to save the townsfolk?” Does a little checkbox appear on their imaginary fantasy graphical interfaces?

No. That’s dumb. You’re dumb.

Goals come in two flavors: Explicit and Implicit. In both of my running examples, the Goals are totally implicit. They start with a town under attack or a roadside ruin whose contents are a complete mystery. Each Scenario counts on the players to infer the Goal based on the in-game situation in which the characters find themselves. Which is exactly how roleplaying games are supposed to work. “This is happening; what do you do?”

In fact, Implicit Goals — Goals the players infer from in-game context — are great for tabletop roleplaying games. They seem — to the dumbass players — to emerge organically from play and leave the — dumbass — players thinking they’re the masters of their own destinies. Neither the game nor the Game Master is telling the players what they must do to win, they’re just showing the players a situation that’s totally, really happening and letting the players respond however they want.

Of course, you and I both know that Scenario Designers don’t leave this shit to chance. True Scenario Designers set everything up to ensure the players infer the Goal the Scenario Designer determined and respond in ways the Scenario Designer designed the Scenario to handle. And don’t start that illusion of choice bullshit. It really is a free fantasy country and the players are doing what they choose to do. The Scenario Designer is just setting up choices and properly predicting the outcomes. But Choice Architecture is a topic for another time.

The point is that rarely are the Goals of a Scenario spelled out explicitly. Most Scenarios are built around Implicit Goals the players must infer from the in-game events.

A Matter of Perspective

Back to the Information Gap thing.

My Pop Quiz implied that there are two Goals in The Bombarded Town Scenario, right? There’s the Goal the True Scenario Designer Designed and there’s the Goal the Players Think They’re Chasing. This Scenario’s one of many examples you can probably imagine of Scenarios that have Real, Actual Goals and Imaginary, Pretend Goals the Players Think are Real.

Admit it, by the way, that’s what you’re thinking. There’s a real, designed Goal and a delusional player Goal.

Well, that’s wrong and you’re wrong and you’re also stupid because you should already know it can’t possibly work like that. Do you listen to anything I say? Or read anything I type? Whatever.

Games have Goals. Goals are what the players are trying to accomplish as they play the game. How many damned times have I said that? Not counting today when I also explained that Goals provide the players context, direction, and a yardstick for measuring victory. If that’s true — and it is because I don’t say untrue things — how the hell could the players ever possibly have the Goal wrong? They can’t.

Meanwhile, you — the Scenario Designer — build the entire Scenario around the Goal the players are chasing. How could you build a Scenario around a different Goal from the players’ Goal? In what universe does that even make a single, solitary iota of sense? Don’t answer that; it’s rhetorical. It can’t make sense and if you try to argue that it can, you’ll just prove your dumbassery.

You keep forgetting that this here ain’t Lameass Adequate Scenario Designery for Dumbasses. This is True Scenario Designery. Stop thinking like a Lameass Adequate Dumbass. Stop conflating Goals with Outcomes. Because that’s what you’re doing.

In board games and Lameass Adequate Adventures, the Goal is always one of the possible Outcomes. Defeat the Wizard — assuming you’re playing Magic: the Gathering or Dungeon of the Mad Mage — is both the Goal you’re trying to accomplish and one of the two possible Outcomes. It’s the good Outcome.

True Scenario Designers know that the Goal doesn’t have to be one of the Outcomes. Hell, the Outcomes actually, technically don’t have to follow from the Goal at all. The Goal defines what the players are trying to do; the Outcomes define what the players can actually accomplish. Or what they can fail to accomplish. Whatever. An Unwinnable Scenario is a Scenario in which none of the Outcomes are close enough to the Goal for the players to feel like they got there. An Unlosable Scenario is, likewise, just a Scenario wherein all the Outcomes are close enough to the Goal that the players will feel like champions no matter what.

Now, I ain’t saying that the difference between True Scenario Design and Mere Adventure Building is whether the Goals and Outcomes align. True Scenario Designers often design Scenarios where the Goal is one of the Outcomes. Most Scenarios are like that. However, in tabletop roleplaying games, there are also lots of Unlosable Scenarios and that’s okay too. It’s the nature of the medium.

All I’m saying is that True Scenario Designers know that’s not how it has to be. Goals are the places the players are trying to get to; Outcomes are the places they can actually get to. Usually, the Goal is one of the Outcomes, but sometimes it’s not and that’s okay. You dig?

As Long as It’s On the Way

Since you know now that Outcomes are totally distinct from Goals, does that mean you’re free to design Scenarios like those old episodes of The Simpsons from back when the show was actually good — a period that officially, brutally, and tragically ended on the evening of September 28, 1997 — are you free to design <em>Simpsons-like</em> Scenarios that start with, like, the town trying to decide what to do with a sudden cash windfall and end with Homer Simpson and Leonard Nimoy using a giant doughnut lasso to stop an out-of-control monorail from killing hundreds? Well, yes, it kind of does mean you can design adventures where the Goal’s got nothing to do with the Outcomes, but you really shouldn’t do that.

Remember, the Goal is what the players pursue through gameplay. While the Outcomes can technically be anything, they do have to be things the players will naturally do — or fail to do or fail to avoid or whatever — while they’re chasing the Goal. If the players are trying to save the town or fight the Empire, they’re likely to end up saving some endangered townsfolk. Or maybe they’ll fail to save some endangered townsfolk. Or maybe they’ll get so wrapped up fighting the Empire they let the townsfolk die. Either way, an Outcome based on how many lives they’ve saved follows naturally from them chasing the Goal even if the Outcome ain’t, technically, the Goal.

Remember, too, that all the different parts of a Scenario have Goals and Outcomes and all that game design crap. Complex Adventures with multiple Scenes allow for shifting or evolving Goals. But that’s a story for another time; we ain’t there yet.

Finish Your Business Before You Move On

Goals define what the players are trying to do in the Scenario. Goals help the players make decisions and measure their progress. In some Scenarios, Goals are explicitly stated, but in many others, they’re implicit and it’s up to the players to infer them. Regardless, Goals are only meaningful when considered from the players’ perspectives. True Scenario Designers never think in terms of Player’s Goals and Real, Actual Scenario Goals. Goals are what the players chase.

The Goal doesn’t define how a Scenario ends. Instead, the ending is defined by the Scenario Outcomes. Where Goals are the things the players chase, Outcomes are the possible endings the players can achieve or fail to achieve or avoid or fail to avoid or whatever. While the Goal can represent one or more of the Scenario’s Outcomes, it doesn’t have to. Outcomes can be separate and distinct from Goals and when there’s a big enough gap between the two, you end up with Unwinnable and Unlosable Scenarios. Unwinnable and Unlosable Scenarios are valid and fine and you can totally do them. Unlosable Scenarios are actually fairly common in the tabletop roleplaying gaming space.

Though they can be totally separate and distinct from the Goal of the Scenario, Outcomes must nonetheless evolve from the players’ pursuit of the Scenario Goal in some logical way. The Outcomes must be somewhere on the path the players follow when chasing the Goal.

Now, there’s just one more thing I’ve got to teach you about the relationship between Goals and Outcomes. Players will not stop chasing the Goal just because they hit an Outcome. Whatever the Scenario’s Outcome, the Goal must be a done deal when the players hit it. Otherwise, they won’t realize the game’s over.

Moreover, from the moment the Scenario starts, the Goal must be sliding inexorably toward closure and everything the players do — or fail to do or avoid or fail to avoid — must bring the Goal toward closure. One way or the other.

But that — and the vital game design elements that make that happen — are lessons for next month.

See you then.