Chance and Skill

Chance

One of the reasons chance is used in games is to make them playable by a wider audience, only hardcore players would want to play a purely skill based game.

The amount of strategy(skill) and chance used in a game depend on the designer's desired dynamics.

If a player can know all the possibilities in a game, it would make the game solvable. This means the player can know all the steps to take in order to reach a certain victory or tie, thus removing uncertainty from the game.

As discussed last week, a game without uncertainty loses its dramatic tension, which in turn stops compelling players to reach its goal.

The random element can be used to make the game unpredictable in order to retain uncertainty. It can also keep less skilled players interested longer as the game will give them more chance to win against a superior player due to luck.

The random element adds variety to a game because with each play through, players will have to react to a new situation. Randomness increases replay value for this reason.

Randomness on its own can be entertaining, as a key point of a game is about to be resolved by a single random outcome, a lot of dramatic tension is created.

(Unrelated note: Some dice have 100 sides...)

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Random elements can be introduced in games using several different elements, such as: Dice, Cards, Pseudo-Random Numbers and Hidden Information.

Dice
When using dice to get a random number, you get an even chance to get any of the numbers, however when using multiple dice and adding their numbers, it is more likely that the value will be in the middle of the possible range. (Using 2D6, you can only get 1 combination that adds up to 2, but you can get 2 combinations that add up to 3, and 3 combinations for 4, etc...)

Die rolls will not influence future rolls such as drawing cards from a deck would.

Cards
Cards can be drawn from a deck to get a random draw chance, they can be put face down to be used as hidden information, and can be shuffled to randomize their order. Although, for each known card drawn from a deck of cards, the odds for drawing one of the rest of the cards changes. Smart players are able to keep count of the odds to gain an advantage.

Pseudo-Random Numbers
Pretend-Random numbers generated using a computer algorithm, often based on the computer clock. Though the numbers aren't truly random, the players will normally have no idea which number is most likely going to turn up.

Hidden Information
While hidden information doesn't have to be random for all players, it still creates uncertainty as players will not know what they are dealing with until the information is revealed.

In strategy games: One may build some defenses instead of generate more resources in fear that the enemy MAY be building an attack.

In card games: One may not play a certain move in fear that his or her opponent may counter it with one of the cards they are holding.

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Games which are entirely based on luck are often children games or gambling games.

These games are all about creating dramatic tension and resolving it with a random element. While gamblers have money in play, it is easy to maintain dramatic tension, as for children games, they are quite easily amused by seeing the random elements play out.

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Skill

This term refers to player actions and decisions which will affect the game state and eventually its outcome.

Skill is what brings us back to a game because we want to master its patterns and become better at it. Replaying a skill based game will keep increasing your odds due to the knowledge you build.

Designers want players to be constantly making decisions in order to get them into a state called "flow". At this point players are emotionally invested in the game.

Sometimes games have obvious choices, which make the choices pointless to begin with. However these obvious choices can make sense if a time constraint or some other sort of pressure is added. (Such as left clicking your opponent's character's head to get a head shot in an fps)

This converts the skill required from the game from strategic to twitch skill.

Meaningless decisions are generally pointless, but sometimes they can trick the players into thinking they chose something meaningful, at least for the first play-through.

Blind decisions can be meaningful but aren't interesting because there is no reasoning behind them.

Trade Offs
This is when a player must make a choice to gain something and lose another, none of the choices are entirely right or wrong, but it is up to the player to decide which one to make. A problem to trade offs would be if one of the choices is obviously better, however, a well balanced game will keep these decisions interesting.

Dilemmas are similar to trade offs but offer more drama as both decisions have a negative effect for the player. (Ex: give all your hard earned gold and equipment to kidnappers, or lose the chance to save a party member that was kidnapped by them.)

Risk vs reward trade offs are a means of giving all players meaningful choices, the bigger the risk, the greater the reward, but when should one choose the big risk or the smaller one?

When players are ahead in a game they should maintain their strong position by going for safe decisions, whereas the players who are behind must take bigger risks in order to have a chance to catch up to the leading players. This way both players are making balanced meaningful choices.

Personal Note: I find this would be a very interesting feature in player vs player MMORPGs enviroments. Low level players should be given more motive to fight against high level players. I have yet to see an MMORPG where the skilled player is motivated to seek out stronger opponents... aside from bragging rights that is.

Auctioning is a mechanic that allows players to bid an amount of currency in order to gain something valuable to them. This can be done in several different mechanics such as:

Secret bids where the players aren't aware of each other's bids and the highest bid wins.
Instant buyouts where the players have to ability to get the item for a set price.
Permanent bids (made this up myself) where any bid made is paid and cannot be taken back, regardless of who actually wins.

Purchases and Auctions are important mechanics that give players choices, thus making the game feel more personal. Naturally this will only apply if the purchases I make will have an actual effect on the game.

Limited Actions are similar to how purchases work. Instead of spending your currency, you are spending your actions (such as special abilities or movement points).

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Summary

From my experience, both chance and skill are important to make good games, as a designer you get to choose how much of each to add to the game in order to achieve the dynamics you are aiming for.

When reflecting upon this reading, I can understand how true this is by using myself as an example.
- I can't stand games highly based on chance, because I don't feel involved.
- I can't stand games which only highly skill based, because they nearly always play out the same way, and the victor never changes.

When you put both elements together to the right degree however, a game is formed which much wider audiences can enjoy.

Until recently, I was under the impression that chance should be avoided when possible, and that it is a lazy designer's mechanic.

In our first week, when we were to design a game, I tried to come up with a simple game idea that was purely skill based, and I found out it takes a lot of effort to create one with unpredictable game play, and it required that I'd go into a lot of detail and create several mechanics.

My solution to this back then was to ditch my original idea and go for a much simpler twitch skill based game (Alpha Pigeon). Had I known better I could have just simplified the original game by using a random chance mechanic, thus solving the predictability of the game.