View Full Version : What makes an overlord?
Fengol
10-08-2009, 09:31 AM
I need a bit of design help and I hope the community can help me come up with a definition. I'm working on a building/economy game and the premise is that the player is an evil overlord bent on dominating the world.
My problem is, every time I think about it; I can't see why the player has to be an overlord as supposed to just a king ruling his kingdom. You could say I'm stuck on ZP's single moral stat; either kissing babies and helping the poor or kicking dogs and urinating on the swing set; cause even Sauron had to feed his troops and Darth Vader let his generals do their thing.
So what is the mechanic that makes the player an evil overlord? The only thing I can come up with is that an evil person would break the game rules. There a building would take 5 goblin resources to build, the evil dark lord would use 4, sacrificing the one to make the building go faster. When getting 3 gold from a resource the evil dark lord would take 5, collapsing the mine because he didn't bother with proper support structures and leaving it unusable for a turn (and sacrificing a goblin).
Is that enough? What are the mechanics of evil?
dislekcia
10-08-2009, 11:46 AM
That doesn't sound evil, it sounds corporate. The lack of moral reactions is exactly what lets companies do the sorts of things they do...
I wouldn't say that sacrificing pawns to maximise something else is evil, most players will do this if given the opportunity. Evil itself is often difficult to define - large chunks of the population believe that what you sleep with, when and how makes you evil, for instance. I think we tend to see evil as generally negative in outcome: In Overlord the player is ambiguously about as evil as the people/things that they're destroying on their path to domination; However, the player doesn't replace the things they've destroyed with anything "better", they just need to be in control. Also, all evil has a final goal, often a very strongly defined one that we're made aware of early - we judge that outcome and that colours the character for the rest of the experience.
I still reckon if your ultimate goal is to construct a doomsday device, your players will assume they're evil. Then you simply need to provide mechanics that allow them to roleplay that and they'll enjoy it.
Fengol
10-08-2009, 12:03 PM
That's exactly the problem. I could just "say" you're evil and colour the box and pieces to represent that but what's the difference between aiming to build a doomsday device or a tournament fairground?
I want the mechanics to give the player a sensation that what they're doing is wrong but they're going to do it anyway because it achieves that higher goal.
****-blocking is a perfect example where a player uses to the rules of the game to inhibit another player, and there's a feeling of resentment on the part of the blocked player and malicious mirth on the part of the blocker.
Maybe that's the mechanic I need to allow, and the players are opposed to each other.
Azimuth
10-08-2009, 12:09 PM
Underpaying or enslaving peons would make them work faster, but at the risk of revolt? A policy of killing the first-born in every family on festival days, on an enormous central ziggurat? Using babies as resources?
So many options.
Fengol
10-08-2009, 01:32 PM
really Azimuth? but that's just balance then; pushing the system as far as it can go before it breaks. As Dislekcia says that's just corporate, doing what you can until people complain.
My mechanics need to make the player feel like they are flaunting "the man". Breaking the rules or impeding others and getting away with it.
BTW, I think this is coming to the conclusion. Evil, which is morally objectionable behaviour or causing harm, destruction or misfortune, comes from breaking the game rules or interfering with another player.
Azimuth
10-08-2009, 03:48 PM
I dunno. I suppose I'd consider "evil" as a context more than actual game mechanics. The game Overlord is a good example - it's all the usual action adventure stuff, with a big bucket of "evil" paint slopped over it. So instead of having shiny knight battalions, you've got a bunch of gremlins. So yeah, more of narrative context than anything else for me. You start breaking rules, you start breaking games.
dislekcia
10-08-2009, 04:07 PM
I think this whole "evil" idea is literally a feeling the player gets in response to the types of actions they're doing. At least in all the games that have that "evil" label, that appears to be the case: You could, with not too much effort, re-skin and change the settings so that the player isn't evil at all and still performing the same sorts of actions.
Is something like this just setting? Or are there truly "evil" play mechanics? If there are, are they even fun or would we consider them evil because they break each other's fun?
*edit - didn't see Azi's post before I replied, pretty much exactly what I was trying to say *
Nandrew
10-08-2009, 04:55 PM
Of course, this seems to tie in with that ever-elusive holy grail of "proper morality" in videogames. This is something that, quite frankly, has pretty much all of us stumped. I, for one, would love to be able to design a game system where "good" and "evil" have true meaning beyond the whole min-max and extremist approaches.
Reminds me of this piece on Gamasutra: http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=24128
dammit
10-08-2009, 05:09 PM
Most people assume "good" and "evil" are on opposite ends of the same continuum. The main problem with this is one assumes that certain actions are wholly good and certain actions are wholly evil. How do you decide which one is which?
I would say intention. The only difference between good and bad, if you believe that good and bad even exist, is the intention behind the action the person is currently doing.
For example: Killing your husband.
This is bad right? Killing is always bad? Unless you're killing him to prevent him killing someone else. This is good, right? Unless you're killing him to prevent him killing that someone else so that you can enslave that person...etc.
However, there are games which give you options about what to do in a certain situation but take no heed of your intentions in doing this. You're told what your intentions are, which generally makes players indifferent. Do you want to open this gate to free the prisioners? Yes/No? Well...I'd like to free them so I could enslave them to work on this gold farm I've found...
This is the same problem as defining proactive and aggressive behaviour. Much prosocial/proactive behaviour stems from selfish intentions (to gain status etc) as do much aggressive behaviours.
...I dunno if this is helpful at all, but there it is.
Fengol
11-08-2009, 09:56 AM
I really have to disagree with Dislekcia and Azimuth, and that you can represent good and evil in game mechanics and not just in painting the game components.
Here is an example:
Setup
A 4 player game, each player has a space in front of them for tokens. Between the players is a pool with 4 tokens and next to it a stockpile of an infinite number of tokens. Each player takes a turn taking a token from the pool. A round is when each player has had a turn. At the beginning of a round, add 4 tokens from the stockpile to the pool. Select a first player.
Game
Starting with the first player, take 1 token from the pool or all the tokens. If there are no tokens in the pool, none can be taken. If a player only took 1 token from the pool this round they can give another player 1 token and take another token from the stockpile.
Goal
The winners are the players with 12 or more tokens at the end of a round.
Here you can see a system. In its natural state every player gets a token; just staying in the game you will eventually win (being neutral). Giving another player tokens helps them win and this altruistic (good) act rewards the player and you both win. Taking all the tokens means only you win.
See how I haven't painted anything, there are no puppies, unicorns or babies but you can see the player will definitely experience being a selfish evil bastard or a self-sacrificing hero.
I'm looking for more mechanics like this.
dammit
11-08-2009, 10:54 AM
I really have to disagree with Dislekcia and Azimuth, and that you can represent good and evil in game mechanics and not just in painting the game components.
Here is an example:
Setup
A 4 player game, each player has a space in front of them for tokens. Between the players is a pool with 4 tokens and next to it a stockpile of an infinite number of tokens. Each player takes a turn taking a token from the pool. A round is when each player has had a turn. At the beginning of a round, add 4 tokens from the stockpile to the pool. Select a first player.
Game
Starting with the first player, take 1 token from the pool or all the tokens. If there are no tokens in the pool, none can be taken. If a player only took 1 token from the pool this round they can give another player 1 token and take another token from the stockpile.
Goal
The winners are the players with 12 or more tokens at the end of a round.
Here you can see a system. In its natural state every player gets a token; just staying in the game you will eventually win (being neutral). Giving another player tokens helps them win and this altruistic (good) act rewards the player and you both win. Taking all the tokens means only you win.
See how I haven't painted anything, there are no puppies, unicorns or babies but you can see the player will definitely experience being a selfish evil bastard or a self-sacrificing hero.
I'm looking for more mechanics like this.
Or, taking all the tokens at once might end the session quicker...so that you get back to doing other stuff sooner. Not necessarily out of spite or anything, just because it suits your situation. I think this goes back to what dislekcia said about this just being a corporate situation.
Ultimately, I think you'll struggle to create a situation of pure evil, because something is considered pure evil when the intention is only to inflict harm and suffering on another (regardless of person gains and/losses from the situation).
dislekcia
11-08-2009, 12:56 PM
Fengol, the situation you've painted above is a game theory exercise. People in competition situations like that behave in particular ways - there's all sorts of research on this stuff. That doesn't make taking all the tokens evil, it makes it likely. Chances are that if the first player in a round rotates, then the same player will win as would have won if everyone simply took one token, it would even take the same number of turns.
There's no context here to make anything evil or good. The only context is self-provided: You as a designer don't like people that attempt to win at the expense of others, even when doing so doesn't really damage the others at all. If the winner of the game were to be thrown in a volcano as a sacrifice, then taking all the tokens would be altruistic and giving someone else your tokens would be evil.
See my point?
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