Game Design and Personality Type

[Andrew Martin]

I've been taking a personality test over the net and came across one that labelled me as: INFP, which is either "The Searcher" or "Healer", depending upon what site one looks at. I'm wondering about personality and game design.

Do game designs reflect their designer's personality?

If so, does the game encourage that style of behaviour in players as well?

[Jared A. Sorensen]

I've been taking a personality test over the net and came across one that labelled me as: INFP, which is either "The Searcher" or "Healer", depending upon what site one looks at. I'm wondering about personality and game design.

Do game designs reflect their designer's personality?

If so, does the game encourage that style of behaviour in players as well?

I wrote Schism and Sex & Violence.
I also wrote Clown Cops and Amazing Monkey Adventures.

You be the judge.

[Clinton R. Nixon]

Andrew,

Most definitely. (I think this ties in with Ron's groundbreaking - and wildly unanswered - post on the second page of The Forge as a community, where he said "say what you want to say with your game. Have it play the way you want to play it. Make sure that it speaks to you, not to some group you want to please.") I'm not sure where you're going with this, but I definitely agree.

I will give the caveat that game design tends to reflect a facet of the author's personality or experience. In Jared's post above, I think you'd find a piece of his personality that fits each of the games he mentioned. Paladin and Donjon definitely come from two different parts of my heart.

[Valamir]

Sure.  I think Universalis definitely displays certain aspects of my own ideology...in the sense that the whole thing is an attempt to bring a rules structure to what is often left very free form.  Even the old chestnut "feel free to ignore or change anything you want...its your game" is codified as an actual rule with mechanics rather than just left to fancy.  Refering to "do whatever you want" clauses as a "cop-out" has always been a soap box of mine and that's certainly reflected in the game.

[Christoffer Lernö]

Just a quick question: Is there anyone else here (aside from Andrew and me) who has taken the Keirsey (or is that Myers-Briggs?) test? It would be interesting to know if there is any easily readable correlation.

[Seth L. Blumberg]

I'd just like to point out that personality tests are a tiny little ghetto of psychology, and that real psychologists mostly don't take them seriously.

[Green]

Pale Fire> I'm an INTJ (poor me, Anti-freeze pumps through my veins), and one of the things that sticks out in my mind about my personality type and RPGs is my excessive need for efficiency and an almost obsessive fascination with systems.  It's easy to see what comes of that.  I create and tinker with systems that do what I want them to do in the most efficient way possible.  Whether it's tinkering with the Storyteller system for the various World of Darkness games to more closely emphasize certain themes or creating my own games to focus on a particular idea, I always find my attention drawn to systems.  People can assume it's because I dislike them, but in reality, if I find something contemptible, I do not waste my time on it.  After all, that would be the height of inefficiency, and I am a pragmatist to the core.

[Eric J.]

ENTP, and to say that personality tests aren't taken seriously might be slightly innacurate.  It could be better to say that they aren't considered as good a tool for assesment than a psycologicists opinion.

Anyway-

I totally agree.  Every thing that one creates (by feats of controll) indicates one's personality.  Heck, even chess can be used.  My games all share a very very important quality.  They're all incomplete.

[Alan]

Hi all,

My name is Alan and I'm an INFJ.

<Hi, Alan!>

Ah, Myer's-Briggs types, one of my favorite ways to understand people!  The MBTI and Kiersey indicators are normative, describing range of healthy preferences, rather than dysfunction.  As such, they're useful to me in everyday life.

Jared: I'd really like to know what MBTI result you would score.  It would be interesting to correlate it to your game designs.  

Here's an informal and short test I found with a quick web search - http://www.personalitypathways.com/type_inventory.html

(For an explaination of MBTI jargon, see the end of this message.)

Eric: Incompleteness correlates to perceptive ("P") types, but also happens in judgers ("J") for different reasons.  Perceptive: there's always something more to learn.  Judger: it must be perfect before I call it finished.  My projects fall into the second category.

RPGers I've encountered tend to be intuitives - about three-quarters in my observation.  Also, I'd say that three-quarters are also introverts.  In contrast, statistical studies indicate that intuitives appear only 25% of the time in the general public of the US.  Likewise, introverts are only 25% of the sample population.  I would suggest there's self-selection happening - the overall activity of sitting around a table creating an imaginary story tends to appeal to introvertsed intuitives.

What might be interesting is to look at the non-"IN"s who play, and inquire what interests them about the activity.  In particular, what do Sensors ("S" vs. "N") who make up 75% over the US population, like to play?

The Kiersey Temperaments sort the 16 MB types into four categories.  These cateogories may relate to GNS preferences.  Here's some hypotheses:

SP - Gamist preferences
SJ - Simulationist preferences
NT - Simulationist preferences
NF - Narrativist preferences

I wish I could do a survery of RPGers, comparing their MBTI type to GNS.

- Alan


GLOSSARY

Keirsey Temperaments and the 16 MB types

Dionysian = SP    - ISTP, ISFP, ESTP, ESFP
Epimethean = SJ  - ISTJ, ISFJ, ESTJ, ESFJ
Promethean = NT - INTJ, INTP, ENTJ, ENTP
Apollonian = NF    - INFJ, INFP, ENFJ, ENFP

I - Introvert - gains energy from alone-time
E - Extrovert - gains energy from interaction
N - Intuitive - one who prefers abstract thought
S - Sensor - one who prefers concrete thought
F- Feeler - focuses on people
T- Thinker - focuses on logic
P - Perceptive - one who likes to gather more information
J - Judger - one who prefers a decision

[Eric J.]

Very intriging.  I do prefer simulationism.  I've always thought that GNS has deep roots in psycology, and that it is just a more practical tool for RPGers and system creators.

Anyway- my best player is probably Anthony, who is an INTP.  For some very very very strange reason every one I know, who I consider a close personal friend, who has taken the test, is either an ENTP, or has only one difference.  My mom is an ENFP, I think.

Anthony says he has a narrativist prefference, but it may be because of a conflict in termonology.  I think that he enjoys RPGs more than any other player than myself.  He also happens to be the party's second most often used GM.

I don't know psycology very well, but I'm very interested in it.  Hopefully I can find the things that GNS is psycoloically derived from.

[M. J. Young]

I wish I could do a survery of RPGers, comparing their MBTI type to GNS.

About a year or so ago someone was collecting a tremendous amount of psyche info for a paper; I can't remember his name, but with the number of Internet gamers he contacted I'd wager that several people on these boards answered his questions at some point.

Oh, I'm an INTP (I think I said this on another thread), according to the test at http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp">http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp.

--M. J. Young

[Jared A. Sorensen]

Jared: I'd really like to know what MBTI result you would score.  It would be interesting to correlate it to your game designs.  

The test you posted and the one MJ posted said I'm an ISTP. That would make for a funny license plate ("I STOP").

[Mike Holmes]

Huh, I'm one more data point that the NT = Sim.

IIRC, the largest problem that psychologists have with such tests are that they are self administered, and as such seem to show a bias in that the results tend to show more what the test-taker would like to be than what they actually are.

For example, I admit that I might actually be more of a "Feeler" than a "Thinker" in actuallity. As such, it might explain my closet Narrativism? ;-)

Mike

[Adam Cerling]

: de-lurk :

Sorry, an INTJ here who tends most often toward Narrativism.

: re-lurk :

[Eric J.]

Uh.. Welcome to the forge!  

It must be an important topic to get you out of lurking.  How new are you to GNS?  How do you think it relates?