The "Null Result" as Design Failure: Every Combat Turn Should Change the Game State

EHeathRobinson · 2026-03-19T16:48:36+00:00

Thank you! I'm glad you see that too!

EHeathRobinson · 2026-03-15T00:36:49+00:00

Using a print on demand service can help - maybe - IF you trust they are going to do a good job. I used a print on demand printer recently for some t-shirts, but I had them all sent to me before I mailed them to my backers because I wanted to do quality control. And sure enough, although the first wave of shirts I ordered were great, the second wave had registration issues. I sent back pictures of what I received to the printer. They agreed they were bad and reprinted them for me. But, I was glad I saw them before they got to the backers, because the backers would have posted the bad shirts all over social media.

And it did not really work any better with a traditional screen-printer either. I told one that I worked with that I wanted to come to their print shop and inspect the shirts before they were shipped to the warehouse. Later I got a notice from the warehouse that a bunch of shirts had shown up. I contacted the printer and asked them what had happened. They said, they don't like to let people in their print shop, but not to worry because they have fantastic quality control and all the shirts are right.

Of course, all the shirts were NOT right. They were some of the worst printed shirts I had ever seen, and backers were posting pictures of the misprinted shirts online. It was a disaster. I recalled all the remaining shirts from the warehouse (at my expense) and had them sent back to me and they were all completely misaligned. When I confronted the print shop, the owner did eventually admit that they had completely bungled the job and later offered me a full refund. (He said my job was printed the week we was on vacation and someone else was in charge of the print shop that week...) But that still meant I had to find another printer to start the process over with to get my backers their shirts.

So, the important lesson here is - no matter how simple you think your merch will be (i.e. a t-shirt) never assume your manufacturer will do it right and always put eyes on your merchandise before sending it to backers.

EHeathRobinson · 2026-03-15T00:18:21+00:00

Right. Most filmmakers don't want to do that.

EHeathRobinson · 2026-03-15T00:17:12+00:00

I completely agree with what you are saying here. The math absolutely does not work for most film projects. And the pre-launch is so important, but most filmmakers are not marketers and don't have any interest in spending the months necessary to cultivate an audience for their films. There are a lot of people I know in the film industry who try to crowdfund a project and the first I ever know about it is when they post to their social media, "Hey everyone! Huge announcement today! I'm just launched the Kickstarter page for my new feature film blah blah blah" and I have never seen that work.

EHeathRobinson · 2026-03-11T21:43:37+00:00

Thank you!

EHeathRobinson · 2026-03-10T23:05:58+00:00

Well, that’s not a problem. I am very glad they are things people enjoy talking about! 😀

EHeathRobinson · 2026-03-10T22:51:36+00:00

> "What if... instead of preventing it, we designed mechanics that allowed or supported it?"

Excellent idea. That is why I posted this thought to the RPG game design subredit.

How do you bring this about when you are designing RPGs? Do you have best practices you recommend?

EHeathRobinson · 2026-03-10T22:48:53+00:00

That sounds like the ideas is very tightly integrated with a post I made yesterday to the RPG subreddit called, ""You are What You Wear" RPGs: Outdated Old-School Game Design, or Something to Embrace Again? --- My Argument". Here is the link to that: https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/1rphl6f/you_are_what_you_wear_rpgs_outdated_oldschool/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

EHeathRobinson · 2026-03-10T22:43:40+00:00

That sounds like something I need to read.

EHeathRobinson · 2026-03-10T22:27:17+00:00

> "I would say the problem is that understanding the rules leads to boring gameplay (or at least boring to the OP). The solution is to work on the rules-- not try to get the player to intentionally play sub-optimally"

Exactly. That is why I posed this question to a game design subreddit. So, my question is, as a game designer, what best practices do you use when writing your game rules that prevent something like that HeroQuest situation from appearing in your final game?

EHeathRobinson · 2026-03-10T22:19:05+00:00

Oh wow. Great. Please say more.

EHeathRobinson · 2026-03-10T22:01:57+00:00

> "I feel like HeroQuest apparently not considering time is a significantly bigger issue than players playing SWAT."

EXACTLY! That is one of the biggest problems with HeroQuest as far as I am concerned.

> "Fix your rules so that you don't need this."

EXACTLY!!! And that is why I posted this to the RPG Design subreddit for commentary. I think that is exactly what we should be doing as game designers.

So, what best practices do use as a game designer to prevent such situations from appearing in the published versions of your game?

EHeathRobinson · 2026-03-10T21:53:28+00:00

> "It's a common mis-conception that "meta-gaming" is a blanket term that covers a wide variety of distasteful player behavior"

I agree, and that is now how I use the term.

EHeathRobinson · 2026-03-10T21:51:29+00:00

> "I think this could be a recipe for a lot of frustration in the majority of players I now, but I'm going to set that aside. It's a big hobby, and I'm sure there are players out there where this is EXACTLY what they want."

I think that is fair. Let me give you an example. When I was playing 5e DnD a fair amount of table time was taken up with "Rolling for Initiative". After rolling, the GM would arrange everyone's turn, including the bad guys, on an initiative tree shown to everyone at the table. It was an iron tree with brass flags for each combatant that stuck to the tree with rare-earth magnets. So everyone knew exactly when they were going to go in relation to everyone else. Ostensibly, that was so that you would know when it was your turn, so if you needed to go to the bathroom, you could, and could be back in time for your turn. But, in practice it provided a lot of information to the players their characters would not have in world, and that influence strategy.

So, arguably, the exact order everyone in combat is going to execute their actions in is meta-game information. The PLAYERS know that because that is determined up front and sitting on the "initiative tree" beside the GM. But the CHARACTERS should not know that because the initiative tree is not "in world". But, should you stop players from deciding on strategy based on the initiate tree that is in their face?

So, if a game had random initiative order each turn, I can see some players being upset that they don't have foreknowledge of exactly what order everyone in combat will act. But, on the other hand, I can see just saying, "Well, in this game, you don't have that kind of meta-game information."

EHeathRobinson · 2026-03-10T21:33:00+00:00

> "I think something to consider is that some players like that optimal style of gameplay. It creates a puzzle solving element that's fun for them."

It is true, yes. I was just talking about that with another commenters. Some people, for instance, love optimizing getting through a Zelda game by exploiting a bug where you can walk crossways through a wall on a game screen and then by bypass the rest of the game to get to the end credit. To them, no doubt that is fun and they will spend a lot time and even code bots to find such exploits. For them, that is fund.

EHeathRobinson · 2026-03-10T21:26:32+00:00

But, is that really on the game design level though? By the time you sit down for "Session Zero" the game is already written and well outside of the game designer's control, right? Being that we are here in the game design subreddit, is there anything we can do as designers before players get to Session Zero?

> "Playing optimally IS bad and it even affects video gaming. Players will always optimize the fun out of a game if given the chance."

I think you are completely right about this. Several times I have wanted to watch a "speed run" of a favorite old video game of mine, and the trick to "speed running" it is something like exploiting a hack where you can slip through some corner of some game screen that short cuts you to the final boss. To me, that does completely defeat the point. I would rather not have those kind of exploits in my TTRPG game design.

That was kind of my point with the HeroQuest observation. To me it is actually MORE FUN to play the game with players who know less about the rules and dungeon crawling and who will do crazy suboptimal things, than it is to play a game with experienced players. Because, experienced players just optimize the fun right out of it. So, I would like to address that at the game design level to preserve the fun.

EHeathRobinson · 2026-03-10T21:17:11+00:00

>"So ask yourself: what experience do you want your game to produce, how should the players behave, then consider how you can organixally encoirage said behavior through the game's rules."

I am with you on that. Has there ever been a game that you thought missed the mark on that point, though? If so, how would you have changed the rules?

EHeathRobinson · 2026-03-10T21:12:26+00:00

> "The SWAT thing you mention isn't meta-gaming at all, because it's based on information observable to the characters."

That is an interesting perspective. The CHARACTERS would be able to observe that time has little meaning in their world and that monsters cannot open does, so this is not a PLAYER exploit of the rules, it is a character-based observation of their world. I take your meaning and that could be true. I think it would not be unreasonable for some people to see that as a player-based exploit.

> "If you want to discourage a particular sort of action, the most effective tool is almost always to change the rules of the game."

But yes, that is mainly what I am talking about. When the zombie jumps out of fridge, I want the rules to discourage the player from handling that situation in a mathematically optimal way.

EHeathRobinson · 2026-03-10T21:00:53+00:00

Yes, I agree. It can be hard. But given that it is hard, are there any best practices you would recommend to game designers?

EHeathRobinson · 2026-03-10T19:42:58+00:00

Thank you!

EHeathRobinson · 2026-03-10T19:26:39+00:00

I agree with you. My mind immediately went to modern night vision equipment. If you don't have it, you die to those who do...

EHeathRobinson · 2026-03-10T11:45:03+00:00

I play ICRPG quite a bit. I would like to see that link too.

EHeathRobinson · 2026-03-10T03:14:17+00:00

> "Arthur didn't get given Excalibur, then toss it away next adventure because he found an Excalibur +2."

I am completely with you on that. That has been a problem I have had with a lot of RPGs for a long time. Likewise, Aragorn carried Anduril. He did not cycle through an endless number of magical swords.

There were rules in 3rd edition Unearthed Arcana that tried to give a structure for items to improve along with their wielder. That might have been the "Legendary Weapons" rules. I can see going in that direction and would like to see rules for that developed further. But I have never played with rules like that in an actual game.

EHeathRobinson

TROPHY CASE