Okay, my wife has a degree in Psych, so I've got a layman's view of the field. I've often thought about how gambling psychology plays into video games: The most addictive offer an intermittent reward system.

Concrete Example: In Castlevania Symphony of the Night, killed monsters occasionally toss out items for the Player. This is random, but occurs enough to keep me playing for hours, just to see what weird stuff I can get.

How does this tie into roleplaying? An rpg's System can reinforce certain play behaviors. So, my ignorant view of conditioning:

Positive Reinforcement - Giving something good to reward.
Negative Reinforcement - Taking something bad away to reward.
Positive Punishment - Giving something bad to punish.
Negative Punishment - Taking away something good to punish.

I may be wrong here, but the meat of it is:

To reinforce behaviors, a System can Give or Take Away something Good or Bad. Examples:

Real World: Slot Machines, where people lose more money than they get out, because at times they win a big bunch of coins. So here the Negative Punishment (removing money) is far outweighed by the prospect of Positive Reinforcement (winning money)

D&D's Experience Point system is most often Positive Reinforcement because it is constantly increasing (with intermittent bursts of levelling-up) with good results. The Negative Punishment aspect (level-draining) absolutely terrifies PCs, but in a purely Gamist sense.

D&D's Hit Point system is a Negative Punishment because you lose points that keep your PC alive.

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So how does this translate into Game Design? Well, any reward/punishment mechanics you have in your System should take into account the benefits and qualities of the studied psychological affects.

I'm asking any Psych folks out there (I'll talk to my wife as well) what they know about the different conditioning methods. And to correct my inevitable misinformation! All I know beyond what I've written above is that my wife tells me Positive Reinforcement is typically the most effective.

I do know there's something to tying Conditioning into a System! I'll probably combine this with my Unknown Factor thoughts and produce some neat Zak-method of game design.

I know I'm replying to my own post. Yikes! Anyhow, I was looking here at an explanation of Operant Conditioning, and there were four questions that sound like good ones when determining a reward/punishment mechanic:


1. What is the behavior you want to change?
2. Will the behavior be strengthened or weakened?
3. What is the consequence?
4. Is the consequence added or subtracted?


So here's a few rpg mechanic examples:

1. Behavior to change: Attention payed to Relationships.
2. Strengthened/Weakened: Strengthened
3. Consequence: Control of PC's fate
4. Added/Subtracted: Added

This would be Positive Reinforcement, and look! I'm concretely outlining a System (and gameplay) goal!

1. Behavior to change: Killing Monsters.
2. Strengthened/Weakened: Weakened
3. Consequence: Empathy & Humanity
4. Added/Subtracted: Added.

I've concretely outlined by goal to keep PCs from killing monsters by enhancing their Empathy!

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I know this might seem like a "duh," since most of us design games with thoughts like, "How can I support XYZ." I do think it's important to work through these things and figure out why we design the way we do.

Zak,

Check out this thread, where I sort of started hinting at this sort of thing. It may be of some interest to you.

From a game designer's stand point, understanding why players do what they do, and then finding ways to encourage and/or discourage that behavior, seems pretty important to me.

- Moose

Good thread! Only it seems to discuss fixing dysfunctional groups more than getting to my point. Which is, given a functional group, game design can be helped with a basic understanding of psychological conditioning.

There's that great mentioning of Group Psychology in that thread. As in "fear of failure." So I wonder if, on an individual level Positive Reinforcement works best. But perhaps as a group, fear of Positive Punishment/Negative Reinforcement can encourage individual actions?

Rather than exploring dysfunctional gaming, I'd like for this thread to stay on the assumption of a functional group and run from there, with an emphasis on the merits and flaws of the different Operant Conditioning methods.

I also think that exploring the Group vs. Individual results you get from different methods is very intriguing, since most rpgs involve two realms: Individual (Player concentrating on her PC) and Group (Player working with Players and PC working with PC).

There's also the GM vs. Player aspect. It'd be interesting to see thoughts on Conditioning mechanics applied to the GM, rather than the common "GM is god" approach.

This was something I immediately picked up about the mechanics in the Pool... I thought it was interesting that your character could NOT grow unless you chose to gamble to get more dice. Awesome reinforcement there.

The random payoff factor is the best part about the D&D random charts, in that players are praying that they'll get lucky and get the +5 holy vorpal sword of wishes. It's also the same logic behind the random stat rolls and any gambling mechanic.

As far as personally, two things I'm working on where the reward system/psychology factor plays a massive role.

First is the Persona/Forgotten Fist game, where the only reward is story points, which you get only for affirming or revising your character's beliefs, not for succeeding, failing or just showing up. These points give you control over the story, but not for improving your character. Likewise, death/removal from play is also in your hands, so the usual reinforcement of death/powermongering for the sake of avoiding death is removed. Story points also stay with you even if you decide to change characters. In other words, I took out anything that would reinforce anything other than telling a story. All the reward is based on, and reinforces the idea of telling the story.

The second thing, is influenced by a variety of things, D&D, Exalted, Final Fantasy 10, and the LOTR system idea. First, I realized that any game that gives me a preview of my character's growth is like a carrot with a stick on it, leaving my inner gamist adrool. It's a perfect reinforcement if I've ever saw one. D&D and Exalted do this with classes or Charm paths.

Final Fantasy 10 has a massive skill map which really is just a giant class flowchart, but it looks cool, and most importantly highlights the tough choices gamists love, like do I specialize, focus more on this, or that? I was trying to figure out what it was about most point based systems that left me feeling unsatisfied, and it was that there was no reinforcement for you to not specialize and max your character in what you want. when you take a class, or a skill/power path, you're forced to take some abilities you don't care about, and you also have to make choices based on investment(should I single class or multiclass?)

So I've been looking at the LOTR system and building a hack/slash & blast system with tons of extra abilities that I want to fit into a massive flowchart of fun for pure gamist entertainment. Right now I've got somewhere around 50 abilities written and I'm trying to figure out how to set up the paths for maximum reinforcement and balance... arggh! I wonder if there's some sort of sick reinforcement that keeps people like us designing these games :P

Chris

OK, this is from my Psych 102 class, many years ago, so I may be using the Nether Mouth on this one, but:

One crucial consideration in reward/punishment systems is scheduling. That is, how often and how consitently is the stimulus generated?

What makes gambling addictive is *not* that the payout is given a higher value by the player than the far more consistent (and measurable) "negative punishment" of losing money. It is that the payout is at random intervals.

This is nicely exemplified in training my recalcitrant cats to, say, not jump all over the kitchen when I'm trying to prepare their dinner. I used to just squirt them. This made them fear the God Bottle. If they observed (and they are sharp observers) that I didn't have it handy, why, they ignored me.

Next (in my training and theirs) comes squirting them and saying "No!". Their attention is still on the bottle at this point. What works to achieve what I want (getting obedience from the cats for my voice, instead of some gadget) is saying "No!", and squirting them. But only sometimes. Now the cats are taking a negative gamble if they do something I don't like--the powerful conditioning factor here isn't the punishment, which isn't so bad really, but not knowing if you'll get punished.

Similarly, with the arcade game where baddies throw out goodies that are random in character, and in timing, you get a nice addictive response. If the goodies were all the same, or if you knew they'd come out every fourth baddie, it would be a bore.

For especially cruel GMs & designers, there's a marvellously evil thing called the "superstitious reinforcement" (or something like that). This is a reward or punishment produced totally randomly. When inflicted on pigeons, you end up with their doing very odd behaviors--pecking at a partiuclar spot, bobbing their heads in peculiar ways, etc.

Anyway, to go back to gaming in the normal world, we can see why whiffing--not merely negative punishment, but nicely random--is so de-protagonizing. Well, I mean, we can see a different perspective on it that confirms what's known from bitter experience.

This would suggest to me that the way to get a "good player" of whatever kind, you do not set up a schedule of rewards that's regular a la D&D. You would decide how often to reward someone (say, 1 in 3 cool role-playing events, or monster-whackings, or story-advancings, or whatever) and then randomize which particular events get rewarded somehow.

All in all, though, I think I agree with the folks in the above-mentioned thread that feel that trying to condition players to a particular style is a bit unwholesome. However, behavioral psych can provide a good tool to see when a system rewards weakly, or, worse, rewards behavior that goes against its stated goals, sometimes very powerfully.

--TQuid

TQuid wrote: One crucial consideration in reward/punishment systems is scheduling. That is, how often and how consitently is the stimulus generated?

What makes gambling addictive is *not* that the payout is given a higher value by the player than the far more consistent (and measurable) "negative punishment" of losing money. It is that the payout is at random intervals.

TQuid wrote:
...It is that the payout is at random intervals

--SNIP!--

This would suggest to me that the way to get a "good player" of whatever kind, you do not set up a schedule of rewards that's regular a la D&D.

Keeping with the assumption of a functioning player group, I would say Positive Discipline interrelates into this. I'm going to suggest that players, like children *s* respond better to being told what to do rather than being told what not to do. Other ways of encouraging specific behaviors with Positive Discipline are:

"Do As I Do" aka teaching by example
Respectful tone & good eye contact
Set necessary, clear, reasonable limits & consistently enforce them
Offer the opportunity/freedom of choice whenever possible
Positive behavior increases when it receives positive attention

According to the theories of positive discipline, new and annoying but not harmful behavior can be discouraged by effective ignoring- not talking to, looking at the player or using any body language that indicates attention or interest. Other ways to discourage something would be redirection and allowing consequences.

Zak wrote:
Assuming a functional gaming group, how can we use Operant Conditioning with our Mechanics to support our Premise/Design?

The past two posts are good advice for modifying group behavior, but I want to concentrate on design. If the design is done well, the group shouldn't have to resort to "fixing" the game. (remember: Assume functional Players).

I'm going to number your list, Laurel, to make it easier for me to address.

Laurel wrote:
1. "Do As I Do" aka teaching by example
2. Respectful tone & good eye contact
3. Set necessary, clear, reasonable limits & consistently enforce them
4. Offer the opportunity/freedom of choice whenever possible
5. Positive behavior increases when it receives positive attention

TQuid wrote:
It's been my experience that knowing one is being conditioned
-- SNIP! --
makes it clear that one has a program for change, and this can be very positive.

Zak wrote:
TQuid, you're drifting towards fixing dysfunctional gaming. Your quote here ties into discussion of Design. The best part: "knowing one is being conditioned," is something I see equivalent to "everyone has read the rules." So how do you feel we can design our games to enforce the Premise?

Bankeui already mentioned Forgotten Fist in his own post, but since I've had a chance to see it in action, I'll mention it too as a system that uses a random but self-perpetuating, positive reward system to encourage and it seems extremely effective.

I think that's the key... a random element that nevertheless builds upon itself. So that even if players don't get the "goodie" each time, the goodie itself perpetuates the behavior. In the case of Forgotten Fist, its Story Points- and when a player earns a Story Point for imaginative roleplay, they are given an opportunity to affect the game at a later time, creating an opportunity to potentially earn another Story Point by being very clever in how they spend the original. There's no guarantee this will happen, however; the GM controls the output of Story Points into the game.

While it's a piss-poor example of roleplaying in the computer realm, at least in the single-player game, Diablo II is the most Pavlovian game I can imagine: press a button, get a treat, press a button, get a treat... ad infinitum. Any negative reinforcers are pretty minimal (lose gold carried, possibility of having to re-do the level, loss of followers).

A simple way to look at this issue is: What buttons do you want to offer the player? What treats?

Best,

Blake

Blake Hutchins wrote:
A simple way to look at this issue is: What buttons do you want to offer the player? What treats?

Zak,

You're absolutely right.

Let me add a point of clarification as to why I made my comment. My experience is that you get better results in game design (and other areas, such as child-rearing) with positive reinforcement. Diablo II is a simple model that encourages simple behavior. However, it's bloody addictive, as evinced by the titanic sales figures. I suggest a starting point for design focus on determining what behavior you're targeting for reinforcement (buttons) and what reward systems you want to offer (treats). Then I'd move to fill in any gaps with the negative consequences.

I echo the comments about this being an exciting thread. Good stuff here.

Best,

Blake

On a purely gamist viewpoint, its also interesting to note some of the different reward systems and their psychology.

1) D&D's Level System
Gaining Experience by itself does you no good, but when you get enough, you gain a significant goodie in going up a level. While you know how many points you need to get there, you have no idea what you'll get this session(random intermittent reinforcement). You are also gambling that the choices you made in your previous levels as far as choosing skills, feats, spells, will allow you to survive to the next one(negative reinforcement, losing all the work you've put into this character). As a gamist mechanic, you start thinking about how you'd like your character to develop over time(positive reinforcement, potential advancement, remember Pavlov's bell?

2) WhiteWolf's xp system
Experience is immediately useful to you as you gain it. You may spend it whereever you like(strategizing), but it provides diminishing returns as you raise any stat higher and higher. Experience tends to come more regular and predictable, and benefits accured are gradual, in many cases, its hard to see how the benefits affect you("yaay. an extra die. whee."). On the other hand, being given the freedom to specialize gives the players a lot more strategizing to do, but also tends to make the concept for characters more blurry as they advance(levels provide distinct decision points, buying attributes an open choice at any time). Experience is not tied to any specific action, and therefore rewards do not enforce any particular action in the game.

3) Chaosium's skill system
As you use abilities you get the chance to increase them. Obviously the increases are random, but based on the act of using that skill. Therefore the reward is reinforces using your skill. On the other hand, the reward is only a percent or two, so again the growth is gradual, and perhaps not very satisfying. Since it only matters that you use the skill once, this system encourages you to use a variety of your skills rather than focus on a few.

It is also interesting to note that all three reward systems "bank" any goodies in the character rather than the player.

I also think that Scattershot's (I think it's in Scattershot) idea of having a mechanical reward that follows the player rather than a particular PC is really brilliant.

Bankuei wrote: It is also interesting to note that all three reward systems "bank" any goodies in the character rather than the player.

I also think that Scattershot's (I think it's in Scattershot) idea of having a mechanical reward that follows the player rather than a particular PC is really brilliant.

I also did this in Persona/Forgotten Fist, primarily because the negative reinforcement of losing everything with character death is avoided. It's interesting to note that as long as everything invested is reliant on the character, players are encouraged to be overprotective of their characters and also reluctant to change characters.

In this way, death becomes the biggest negative reinforcement, regardless of its likelyhood in the actual game.

I talked with my wife about this, making sure I understood the theory behind Operant Conditioning. Most importantly, she talked about the merits of each type.

Positive Reinforcement - (Adding a consequence to support a behavior) - Example: Giving a tasty treat for pressing a button. This is shown to be the most effective, short- and long-term. Intermittent (read: sometimes you are rewarded for the behavior, sometimes not) Positive Reinforcement is the most effective. In either case, Interemittent or regular Positive Reinforcement has the strongest effect.

Negative Reinforcement - (Removing a consequence to support a behavior) - Example: Introduce an eir-piercing squeal that only stops if you press a button. This works in the short-term, but has little long-term benefits. This and Positive Punishment are on par with their benefits.

Positive Punishment - (Adding a consequence to stpo a behavior) - Example: You press a button and you get a mild shock. The effects are similar to Negative Reinforcement.

Negative Punishment - (Removing a consequence to stop a behavior) - Example: You get a bowl of treats; if you press the button, you lose a treat. This is the least effective, and is not very effective, even in the short term.

How to tie the effectiveness into game design? Your Premise will demand certain behaviors. For example, I'm working on a game, Divine Right, where the players are exorcists (kind of the opposite of Sorcerer :). The Premise: "What personal sacrifices would you take help others?" Tying Exorcism into the Premise: "You have the rare ability to help others at great personal sacrifice, how far will you go to use this ability?"

Going with this Premise, I outline behaviors I want to increase:
* Sacrifice Self
* Perform Exorcisms

When want I increase these behaviors, it is Reinforcement. When want I decrease, it's Punishment.

Increase self-sacrifice: Positive - More power to perform the Exorcism. Negative - Loss of safety & well-being.

Since I know that Positive Reinforcement (giving Exorcism power) is more effective than Negative Reinforcement (removing safety), can I assume that even if you gain an equal amount of power as a loss of safety, players will still prefer to gain power? This is what I'm hoping.

Perform Exorcisms: Positive - Emotional release of tension & Player satisfaction. Negative - Expenditure of power.

Positive Reinforcement (emotional release) will far outweight the Negative Reinforcement (expenditure of power). That's a fine assumption, especially when the Player invests an entire playing session gaining power to perform an Exorcism.

Now what other behaviors does the above imply?
Preserving Self has the consequence of denying power. So Preserving Self has Positive Reinforcement (no loss of safety) and Negative Reinforcment (no gain of power). As long as I design with the benefits of Gaining Power over Self Preservation, my Premise should be kept.

Same goes with Not Performing Exorcism. You would earn all this power and not use it? That would be silly, but the design should weigh against this behavior. So to remove the Positive Reinforcement (keeping power), a Player's power diminishes over time. It's now a resource that must be spent or lost.

In a nutshell: Combining Premise with Operant Conditioning, I've located the areas my design should tackle. Namely, Self-Sacrifice comes at the cost of well-being, but gains the Player temporary power, which can be used for Exorcisms within a set amount of time.

After this initial setup comes the Unknown Factor part of design, but I've already talked about it in this thread: D/F/K and the Unknown Factor.

So everyone, does this make good sense in game design? I'd hate to think that I'm going in a lousy direction. I feel like I'm on the cusp of some grand Zak's Game Design Theory (as in, it works for Zak. Don't know if it works for anyone else).

Hey Zak,

It sounds like you're looking for some ....

(wait for it, oh God I'm so funny)



...



... POSITIVE REINFORCEMENT?

Boohahahaha!

Well, here it is. Operant conditioning is controversial stuff, as I'm sure your wife has told you. All manner of protests and debate have arisen, regarding the "self" (a dubious quantity) and cognition (a much more interesting notion) and even, the evolutionary biologist said shyly, underlying principles of why we learn at all.

All that aside, however, as long as we're talking about plain old reward systems (not themselves especially controversial), I think you're on a fine design track. This thread has demonstrated any number of diverse responses, all enthusiastic, so quit lookin' for Pavlov to feed your motivational center and get to it.

Best,
Ron

Ron Edwards wrote:
All that aside, however, as long as we're talking about plain old reward systems (not themselves especially controversial), I think you're on a fine design track. This thread has demonstrated any number of diverse responses, all enthusiastic, so quit lookin' for Pavlov to feed your motivational center and get to it.