Player Defined Goals

Structured Player Defined Goals are possible by providing mechanics to let players determine the requirements, rewards, and punishments of the goals by having explicit game rules that govern these goals. By specifying the end conditions and evaluation functions within the game as conditions of the game state, these Player Defined Goals can then be monitored by the game system similarly to other goals.

Example: Player Defined Goals are employed in Diplomacy in a way that the players can set their own secret goals and strategies, but the impact of the Player Defined Goals is more evident when some players agree on acting together against another player. However, the goals are only an agreement between the players and they are not explicitly stated in the game mechanics or rules.

Example: SimCity and most of the other Sim -games are good examples of games where Player Defined Goals are possible and also integral to the resulting gameplay. The gameplay is open as there are no winning conditions provided by the game itself and the game system is complex enough to allow huge amounts of different outcomes. The player is free to choose and pursue as a goal almost any possible game state from building the biggest city to making a strong police state to having fun in bulldozing the suburban areas when they are flourishing.

Using the pattern

Players can always decide why they are playing the game, so that in one sense all games have Player Defined Goals. One category of goals that can be particularly easily constructed independently of the game state is Preventing Goals; players may simply decide that hindering other players from gaining Rewards by completing goals are Rewards in themselves.

Game designs can encourage Player Defined Goals by providing additional forms of Rewards in the game that are not explicitly tied to winning or completing the game. Examples of such Rewards are Easter Eggs and Illusionary Rewards, allowing players to perform Collecting or Construction actions for their own sakes. Creating a Character can give players Player Defined Goals already before actual gameplay begins and can be continued by allowing the Character Development to be Planned Character Development.

When creating support for Player Defined Goals, game designers can choose not to explicitly encode the goals in the game or to provide mechanics for allowing players to explicitly define their goals together with Rewards and Penalties. The former case is typically made possible by having a dynamic system governing the flow of the game that is sufficiently complex enough to allow huge amounts of different outcomes. In the latter case, this often means providing many clearly defined closures to choose from and providing Game State Overviews. If the goals can be changed during gameplay through Dynamic Goal Characteristics, these can offer Freedom of Choice but at the same time affect Player Balance.

However, the evaluation function of rewards and penalties does not need to be constrained by the game. The digital roleplaying games, be they single player or massively multiplayer, use Player Defined Goals in this way. For example, in Dark Age of Camelot the players can agree on attacking a powerful monster together, creating a new Mutual Goal for the players through a Negotiation phase.

Consequences

Player Defined Goals allow players to set their own reasons for feeling Anticipation and Tension.

The use of Player Defined Goals allows players not only to have Creative Control of how they play a game, or what they create in a game, but also why they play the game. In all these cases, Player Defined Goals support Constructive Play as well as Freedom of Choice. If the goals are not directly enforced by the game, Player Defined Goals