I've got another project I'm working on right now, so I wouldn't actually be MAKING such a game in the near future... but the subject has been running through my mind recently-- Specifically because I'm an avid player of the Pen&Paper RPG "Paranoia" and would love to see a well done MMORPG of it, but doing so would require a lot of behavioral engineering. (Shameless plug: Paranoia Live, a fansite I'm a member of and sometimes run chatroom games through) Through rules and game structure and such, it should be possible to build a game that encourages certain types of behavior. Heck, Everquest has been doing this for years, except that the behavior that's being trained and encouraged is excessive amounts of clicking, or perhaps simply "Staying Logged On for Long Periods of Time". See: The Norathian Scrolls: A Virtual Skinner Box which is an academic research project on the subject of Everquest, and the reason it is psychologically addicting. The point is though that staying logged on means paying Sony money, so encouraging people to stay logged on is important to them. But that is hardly the only behavior that can be created entirely by manipulation of the rules and rules alone. And I don't mean merely in MMORPGs. Any online game. I'm going to compare two games, both FPSs, both Half-Life mods. Counter Strike and Natural Selection (Classic, not the new "Combat" mode). Both games benefit greatly from teamwork, both games have organized clans and a following (a bigger following for CS than NS, but that's another story). But go to any random "pub" game (public game) with players that don't know each other, and you'll find vastly different situations. In Counter Strike pubs, or at least the vast majority of them, you'll find that all the players tend to "go it alone," rely on their own skill, and in general, a single player's efforts can mean a win or a lose, without any aid at all from other players. Furthermore, communication between players is rare and sparse, and when there is communication, it tends to be either a compliment ("gg" "good game" "nice shot"), an insult ("you suck"), or an accusation of cheating ("hax!"). Co-ordination is almost unheard of, despite the amazing gameplay benefits you can gain from doing so. An organized team is a winning team, but when set with people you don't know, it's far easier to just treat the game like a single player game where you can insult the monsters. In Natural Selection, on the other hand, on the vast majority of pubs, you'll find that players who have never heard of each other before will instantly start discussing plans, and organizing themselves. Communication tends to be more on the level of "I need backup at *thus and such location*" than the standard "you suck" or "hax!" (although those exist as well). And not only that, but when requests for backup are made, other players will generally respond. Not only that, but there is constant communication. I have never seen more voice-chat used in a game before, and it is used tactically. Players without a microphone are at a disadvantage. Remember, I'm talking about PUBLIC servers here. What makes the difference between the two games? I'll admit to not playing a lot of CS (I prefer NS) but I do know the basic way things go. Individual prowess is given a lot of honor and respect. When you go it alone and win the game for your team you recieve accolades, and not only that, but your name is listed at the top of the player list for that server. And since headshots make one-hit-kills possible, a good enough player can really be a hero. In Natural Selection, on the other hand... you are utterly reliant on someone else for the entirety of the game. The way the game is designed, it is litterally impossible to win "on your own". As a marine, you can't get better guns, you can't heal, you can't get ammo... heck, at the most basic level you can't even respawn without your commander. A considerable amount of the marine game is spent building things placed by the commander, during which time you are vulnerable to attack, so you'd better make sure you have a buddy with you. Ambushes are common and deadly, also making moving in groups necessary. But beyond that, the maps are so big and only the commander can see it all, so following orders means FINDING the enemy and knowing what needs to be hit, and when. On the alien side, each player has limited resources to spend on improving themselves, but certain improvements can't even be accessed until one player or another spends a LOT of those resources on specific structures. Which means that only some players can get the upgrades, others have to offer the upgrades. Which means that communication must be done to see who is doing what. Add to that the fact that the marines are generally stronger than the base alien, and you need to ORGANIZE strikes. You need to hit the marines where the marines are NOT and you need to do it en mass. The very rules of the game determine the behavior analyzed here: Communication and Teamwork. So there's the theory. Now to a thought experiment of a new way of implementing the theory: encouraging the players, through rules alone, to play Paranoia. I think I'll need to describe Paranoia, as it works in the Pen and Paper version, in order for you to understand why this is such a challenge. Paranoia is a game in which the Game Master controls EVERYTHING, right down to the rules that the players are aware of. Information is rationed strictly, and the GM contrives seperate missions for each player such that all the players will be at each other's throats, preferably in a very sneaky, shady, behind the scenes plotting sense. The game world itself is organized by security clearances. High clearances run the show, give missions, do the REAL complicated plotting, and make life miserable (in a fun way, trust me!) for the lower clearance players. Players start basically at the bottom of the ladder, and are more or less never allowed to reach the upper realms. That's just not the way the game works. The game is a real strategy game, with the smarter, smarmier, sneakier bastards rising to the top. Everyone always dies in the end, but that's part of the game's charm: disposable characters that you can laugh at even as they spontaneously combust. The problem with designing a ruleset which will create this game WITHOUT A GM, by emergent behavior, is this. In order to have plots and missions and things, you need organization: you need co-operation. On the tabletop, this is handled by NPCs... players are all enrolled in a secret society and can get help and missions and things from their society. But at the same time, the activity we want is BETRAYAL and BACKSTABBING. Which means DIS-ORGANIZATION and INDIVIDUALISM. We have two conflicting goals in mind, and both need to be encouraged... via the rules, mind you... in such a way as to create a stable society based on treachery. Quite a task, I'd say. I think I'll end this post here, see if anyone is as interested in Mob Psychology and Game Theory as I am before I write any more about my actual ideas as to how this could work out...

First of all, I'd love to see a Paranoia computer game. However, I'm not sure who owns the rights to it, and if you're going to take this much further than the design stage I'd check out the legal side of things first.

To be honest, I think the basic rules of paranoia are pretty good at encouraging the sort of behaviour you want - they're designed for it after all. The Computer needs to reward those who uncover mutants, secret society members, and complete missions, and needs to punish those who are foolish enough to be revealed, or fail their mission, or are simply be in the wrong place when a random sector of the city undergoes high vaccuum decompression for structural integrity testing. [grin] The secret societies need to reward their members for completing their own secret missions, thwarting the computer's missions where appropriate, and exposing the members of enemy secret societies.

The tricky part - and I think this is the part you're asking about - is how do you actually attract players in the first place, and keep them interested? I'm not sure I can answer this, but here's a few thoughts on the subject.

On the surface, it might seem like a perfect game for the more antisocial MMORPG players, like griefers and player killers etc. However, a lot of these only do it because it annoys people, in a game where it's expected behaviour it might lose it's appeal. Plus the fact that overt player killing tends to be punished - you have to be a bit more cunning than the average PKer if you want to avoid being sent to R&D for Cone rifle target practice... to act as a target.

Also, the turnover of characters in Paranoia is very high, and even with six clones of each character you're unlikely to keep the same character for very long. Therefore, the 'reward' for suitably paranoid behaviour needs to be something that transcends a single character - but not to the point where death becomes completely irrelevant.

You also have different yardsticks by which to measure a player's mastery of the game. A player might concentrate on the secret society missions, or just the Computer's missions. Scoring highly with both takes real skill, since the two are often mutually incompatible.

[Edited by - Sandman on August 2, 2004 4:11:13 PM]

Well, quite frankly, I don't think the rules of paranoia as written would encourage the behavior I'm looking for -without GM interferance-. I'm thinking of designing, more or less, a society here, which self perpetuates the game... perhaps with one or two nudges here and there from those running the game.

By the way, the rights to a Paranoia MMORPG are already purchased, no news on it though. Paranoia has been on my mind a lot recently since I was selected to beta-test the new "Paranoia XP" version of the game (which rocks by the way, I highly reccomend it, and it ships August 19). Most interesting though, was a little bit of world building that the authors gave to a small number of fans in the form of a "wiki" online game, the results and rules of which you can see here: Paranoia: The Toothpaste Disaster. In it, we got to see things from the UV point of view... and all kinds of interesting prospects pop up. Like Project Infinite Hole, which had complex-wide ramifications and spun off all kinds of side endevours, like Project Finite Hole.

Basically, in the story, the conflicts between PIH and PFH created what we Paranoia players would recognizes as a metric ****ton of missions and game sessions. For example,

--A group of PIH mechanics are jumped during a lunchbreak. Their heads are sent back to Tech Services in a box labeled "Need Repairs".

--An Armed Forces rocket test goes awry when the missiles slam into a Power office building. The Armed Forces does an investigation and later executes their HPD&MC consultant for "assuring them it was abandoned".

--"Commie mutant bugs" are released by Sierra Club in an Armed Forces hangar. The Army's attempts to exterminate them result in over 5,000,000 credits of damage to combat vehicles.

--IntSec raids an FCCCP meeting on PIH premises. The accompanying HPD&MC vidcrew ensure that the footage is aired over a dozen times in the following weekcycle. PIH head De-V-ITO is demoted to Yellow clearance in shame.

Just SOME of the effects of UV citizens starting the two competing projects. But beyond that, all the results actually make logical SENSE. It's not just random destruction and slaughtering each other for -no reason-... it's all carefully planned out with forsight with a definite goal in mind. And THAT'S what I want to see in this potential game: A ruleset that is designed to encourage PLANNING and MANIPULATION to complete a tangible GOAL that will have widespread rammifications. The "Law of Unintended Consequences" personified, if you will. Law of Unintended Consequences, by the way, states that any action, whether or not it has the intended result, will have at least X consequences unplanned for, at least Y of which is unpleasant. X and Y change depending on the person quoting the law, but you get the point.

Additionally, there should be more, shall we say, standard rewards. In fact, for a ruleset to encourage behavior, the more standard rewards are practically a neccesity. What are the rewards that players will want? Better stuff, better skills, better score.

In the Paranoia system, all three types of rewards can be obtained in two different means: Computer Sanctioned Promotion (Security Clearancy, IR-R-O-Y-G-B-I-V-UV-?G?) and Secret Society Promotion. My thought was that CSP would be "Temporary" and SSP would be more permanent. SSP is more dangerous to the player and the benefits are QUITE as good as CSP, but, when a player runs out of clones, his CSP is reset.

According to the XP rulebook, clone distrobution above IR (NPC) clearance looks something like this:

50% - Red
30% - Orange
10% - Yellow
5% - Green
3% - Blue
1.5%- Indigo
0.5%- Violet
??? - UV

This distrobution would work well in game as well. The top 0.5% of players would be Violet, etc. And your score is reset when you run out of clones, so there would be plenty of "churn"... that is to say, most players will be to experience most clearances at some point, but will very likely be busted down eventually unless they are VERY skilled indeed.

Which brings us to the subject of "better" equipment. Why is churn related to better equipment? Because of the scare quotes around the word better. Paranoia is infamous for having very nasty equipment... the more useful a tool is or a weapon is, the more likely it is to kill the user in addition to or instead of the target.

In order to gain score or points or whatever at higher clearance levels, one must perform tasts that more or less REQUIRE the use of bigger toys, much like a more conventional game like Diablo... when questing in Act 4 (Nightmare), you'd better have better equipment then when questing in Act 1 (Normal). But here's the difference betweem my proposed game and Diablo: In paranoia, it doesn't matter if it's YOU PERSONALLY who completes the mission, only whether or not the mission is completed. Coupled with the user-deadliness of the tools required to do the job, this logically encourages players to DELEGATE RESPONSIBILITY. One of my stated design goals. Player-driven missions.

Now, I do wonder how to handle Secret Society missions, which I also want player driven... at the same time as making your SS, more or less your "Class"...

(Cutting off here for now, going to class)