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Notes on Information Architecture When it comes to designing a game with many different layers of components and so on, it rapidly becomes critically important to figure out how all the information is surfaced to players and indexed so that it may be findable in the future. Particularly for a megadungeon which has multiple points of entry, large and small zones, and denizens, the amount of information that is generated in prep, execution, and aftermath of a single session can be rather daunting. This is one of the main dilemmas, I believe, of megadungeon and other large scale design with a focus on game play. Part of designing in a ‘mega’ context has to do with being constantly in a flow of creation, either iterating on ideas or making new ones as play proceeds and new nuggets of information are generated. Invariably, there will be multiple cohorts of players in how they engage with information at the various phases of the game. When you present narrative information, it is unlikely that all of it will be retained, and unless there is a mechanical system in play to encourage players to document what it is they found, then the end result is what the Megastrata project ended up with, which is document soup. Information management and design is not a unique subject to the game design space, but the majority of people do not find great reward in tracking down information that they might not even know exists in a variety of information systems. Here’s a brief examination of what was used in the Megastrata Project and some takeaways: - Discord. Previously used for active discussion and semi-static documentation, this actually was just a really dumbass idea because Discord is awful at information presentation. It’s great for holding conversations, but in mixed player cohorts and no specific guidelines for discussion, conversations tend to veer off into irrelevancy or get to the point where information is lost in hundreds of lines about all kinds of other discussions. This penalizes players who are less active for whatever reason. - Google Docs. This has the opposite issue of Discord in which information is contained in one or more docs which are not well indexable or searchable unless you create a landing document for everything, which must then be manually updated with new information, creating a large upkeep gap. The amount of information generated in various documents also becomes less accessible over time, because it’s unclear when a key term is leveraged in one document to another, and things that would be assumed common knowledge, even if they are in centralized documents, actually get ignored or flat out missed. - Confluence. This is moving in the right direction. A centralized wiki with a robust search index and cross-referenced multimedia pages is something that is great, but Confluence itself is a paid piece of information management software (or cloud hosted), which means unless you are running an actual business, maintenance costs over time get somewhat unwieldly. That said, it is enterprise-grade software with all the ups and downs that entails. Disclaimer: I work on and support Confluence as part of the company that produces the software. - Trello. Aside from tool porn, this is useful as a measure of workflow transience but not actually practical for most to all cohorts to participate in. Meaning, it would be great if people actually leveraged it, but everybody needs to leverage it, and if they don’t it’s easy to miss changes because each information node (cards and lists) is transient by design. - Tabletop Simulator. This is as close to a physical pinboard that you can get that displays the information to people, but it requires a host and session to be active for people to review information, which is not accessible if the host is not available, someone manipulates the data by flipping the table or weird physics interactions, etc. - WorldAnvil or similar. This takes the idea from Confluence and provides a web-accessible wiki that has more specific tools for information management with a generally cheaper license. The editor is more task oriented but also a bit confusing, which means anybody curating the information has a learning curve compared to the other details noted above. - Roll20. If you’ve ever tried to have multi-tenancy in Roll20 and multiple people updating documents at the same time, you know how much of a nightmare this is, in addition to a confounding UI. Asset management in particular is abysmal unless you do things in a very specific way. It also requires some level of money if you want to leverage certain features, but I don’t consider that personally to be a limiter, it’s mostly the ease of use and access that drives me up a wall. - Physical notes. Mostly self explanatory, but not tenable for sharing in an online medium. It would work fantastic in a live in-person setting as long as the information was accessible in a common space in between sessions. Ultimately, I think unless the information architecture and design is in multiple systems it rapidly decreases accessibility and increases frustration proportionally. The most cohesive framework would be WorldAnvil or Confluence, and based on price and specific features for game design, WorldAnvil and its similar derivatives seems to win out even if its editor is not that great. In failing to consider the information design and presentation this also means that things that happen rapidly get forgotten as soon as there are delays in gameplay, or easily missed if there are major things like multiple Mysteries and so on. I think having a truly centralized information hub is the most key thing that can be offered, but the lift while the game was running was simply too great to undergo not just one or two but three information rearchitecture and refactoring.
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Jul 5, 2021 07:37
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 08:35 |
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ive been running ptolus for a dedicated group for the last year, and other than the banewarrens (which theyre only about 60% of the way through and are currently locked out of further progression in because someone else has the key and is waiting for the heat to die down) they havent actually done much dungeoneering at all. they took one attempt at it, got kind of owned but still won, went back to the surface and never really went back. which is funny because they got a lot of treasure from their one incursion into the dungeons, but theyre always like "we feel so poor" and when i reply "well you could delve. 2 of you are registered paying members of the delvers guild" they just fart around instead. in fairness, theyre pretty locked into many, many threads. ive been keeping every possible ticking clock in the setting running, along with a few i added myself. its funny to see them completely no sell the plot hook that would take them into the night of dissolution, but 1000% excited for the debut of a musical starring the grandchild of the citys mafia boss in 9 in game days from where they are now. how did you get your players to actively seek out things in your games? i feel like a lot of the time mine expect important stuff to just come to them, when the point of this setting is for them to be in this place where they can dictate terms. if they wanted to stop adventuring for a few years and open a pub, then sure. but they just sort of go "uhhhhhhhh" waiting for someone important to show up and tell them what to do. though in fairness, 3 of the 5 are pretty new to roleplaying.
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Jan 24, 2022 13:45
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In a mega-dungeon setting you just need to be clear that nothing is going to come to them. The mega-dungeon is an entity that waits for things to come to it, and if they're hard pressed for things to do in there since there's stuff going on outside of it, that's kind of not really about that place and situation anymore, it's more of a general advice and game. In a megadungeon context if you get "the heat" you should be able to go somewhere else in that space to go explore and loot while that heat dies off. It is narratively interesting to have a dynamic and random encounter where the heat instead increases but also has corresponding additional rewards, like abruptly bringing the story to a head. If they need someone to tell them what to do, that someone should say: "Go to the megadungeon". If they don't want to go, it's time to hit pause on that game and talk out of character what the table wants and to realign expectations, because passive playing in a megadungeon is absolutely not going to cut the mustard. Instead of plot hooks, give them things with clear reward structures, all of which require exploration in the megadungeon or ultimately lead back to the megadungeon. From a referee standpoint there is nothing actually wrong with players being fixated on tidbits instead of "the main game", but there should be mechanical reinforcement to spur players to doing what they want, and positive mechanical reinforcement, eg. rewards to do so is a cornerstone of that. Also, as the referee, you can just unlock poo poo. It's a narrative that you have a direct hand in shaping. Just say that thing that's locked is unlocked and play to find out what happened after that. "I thought there was only one key to unlock this thing. Why is this open? Uh oh."
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Jan 24, 2022 15:05
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If the PCs are actively seeking out things that aren't murderhoboing, it's a blessing. It sounds like you need to put something they've just gotta have down in the dungeon.
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Jan 24, 2022 16:02
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At the end of each session, ask them what they want to do next session. Present a small number of options. Two ticking clocks is an interesting choice. Thirty ticking clocks and there's realistically no way the players can ever get to them all, so why bother? It requires "telescoping" the schedule, but things the players are interested in should generally happen soon, rather than forcing them to wait a certain number of in-game days. This may not be suitable for the kind of plot heavy, clock driven game it sounds like you're running. But based on your post it sounds like the players may not be interested in a plot/clock heavy game either.
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Jan 24, 2022 18:28
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| # ? Apr 28, 2024 08:35 |
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Another possible dynamic, which is not specifically related to a megadungeon, is that your play group may lack a member willing to step up and make decisions for the team when nobody has a strong opinion about what to do next. Some folks may feel like just telling the rest of the group what they're going to do next is rude; if everyone feels that way, a group can wind up lacking decisiveness. There are tricks and tools you can use to sort of press the players to make a decision: things like, rotating a Party Leader role; reducing choices to a small number with "nothing" not being an option, the way a choose-your-own-adventure book does it; having a "threat" pool that gains tokens every time the players waffle, and it triggers a dangerous encounter whenever the pool is full; just charging the characters rent that they must adventure in order to not wind up out on their ears; or perhaps just the classic out-of-character table discussion in which you explain the party need to get better at reaching decisions or the game won't work and then asking them for suggestions.
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Jan 25, 2022 02:20
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