Tools for Creating Dramatic Game Dynamics

Within Salen and Zimmerman's The Game Design Reader: a rules of play anthology (2006), there is a section written by Marc LeBlanc entitled 'Tools for Creating Dramatic Game Dynamics'. I find this article to be particularly intriguing, as it seeks to provide readers with the tools and knowledge they might need to create drama in games. Here I have included the notes I took on the matter.

Introduction

• Games can tell stories
• Games can become stories
• Drama is desired in games
• It can be difficult to create:
• No direct control over a game
• Designers can only create circumstances for drama to emerge from

Mechanics, Dynamics, and Aesthetics

• Framework for viewing games
• Mechanics - Things required to play the game
• Dynamics - 'Behaviour' in the game
• Aesthetics - Emotional content
• Three questions:
• How does drama function as an aesthetic? 
• What kinds of dynamics evoke drama?
• From what mechanics do these dynamics emerge? 

The Dramatic Arc

• Drama is one kind of aesthetic
• Dramatic tension - Level of emotional investment in a story
• Drama isn't scripted, it emerges
• Conflict is required for drama
• Conflict comes from contest.
• Tension is the product of: 
• Uncertainty - The sense that the outcome of the contest is unknown
• Inevitability - The sense that the contest is moving forwards towards resolution
• Tension requires both.
• Over the course of the game, the inevitability increases and the uncertainty decreases.
• The climax is where there is realiszation, and no more uncertainty.

Game Dynamics that produce Dramatic Tension

• Uncertainty and inevitability are usually created by separate systems
• This gives more fine control
• Create uncertainty with:
• Force - Manipulating the state of the contest
• Illusion - Manipulating player perception
• Tools to create uncertainty:
• Feedback (Real/pseudo)
• Escalation
• Hidden Energy
• Fog of War
• Deceleration
• Cashing out
• Tools to create inevitability:
• Ticking clocks:
• Literal clock
• Non renewable resources
• Non reversible processes

I think this is all very useful information for creating drama, but in particular the notes on uncertainty and inevitability are of interest to me. With regards to articles I read around the subject of games design, I find the ones that hit me the hardest are ones who's content I can see echoed in games I see or play; and this is certainly one of those.