Out of Character Chat

[Super Haplo]

OBJECTION!

*SLAM*


...Come on. Get your friends around.

[Gold]

A good game requires goals for players to achieve. Those goals serve as motivation to remain active and as motivation for competition between players.

Goals, including but not limited to wealth, power, and prestige. I hope to include some brief example to the usefulness of those three particularly since the goal of winning outright doesn't exist in a game of this form.

Wealth as a goal can be highlighted by things like new toys, boats to cruise the ocean, throw parties on, planes to jetset in, houses to form plans. Even as far as military compounds and vehicles. Equipment can also be limited to wealth. Wealth is also a good reward because it creates a motivation for bad guys to rob banks, break into 'Ft. Knox', or run protection rings. Typical bad guy stuff.

Power as a goal. Players like to become more powerful, just look at almost any RPG ever made. While yes true superhero comics don't have characters randomly gaining powers, but comics aren't games. The ability to make up mistakes by learning new powers can cover for poor decisions made at sign up. Players typically learn a system as they play it, and requiring them to understand it the instance they sign up is a type of punishment.

Prestige, is perhaps highlighted most easily as a goal by this example. A player defeating their opponents in either straight combat or completion of quests or similar activities creates prestige amongst other players. To make such activities a fair ground for developing prestige the skills, powers and rules surrounding them most also be fair.

Finally, the mechanics surrounding the game need to allow for fair competition and visible goals to maintain the activity of the players in a game. Otherwise the health of that game is questionable.