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FreyjaKatra
@FreyjaKatra

So this post isn't about it, but Dragon's Dogma 2 has some absolutely wonderful elements that make gameplay more complicated. You go to an elf city and, surprise, you don't speak the language... and it doesn't hold your hand. Menus are in elvish. Shopkeepers don't speak your language. You can't order anything at a restaurant. It's a huge pain. DD2 is full of friction elements but, in true DD faction, they don't feel that frustrating. So what do we do with that information?

We talk about TTRPGs and Friction

There's two types of friction, and for simplicity I will call them Bad and Good. Bad friction is any kind of gameplay element, incongruity with the fiction and broken fictional promises that takes you out of the game. These are mechanics or elements that "get in the way of the story." Almost universally, when someone says they want mechanics that "get out of the way," they're actually speaking from experience with bad friction. There's subtypes.

Bad Friction

Ludonarrative dissonance (I know, I know) is a common one. The game's fiction says something should let you do or be something, like a cool action hero. The mechanic, or the mechanical environment of the game, doesn't deliver that. That's fiction friction.

Gameplay elements that are really tedious and annoying without actually adding anything are commonly referred to as "bookkeeping." This can include encumbrance mechanics that don't actually have a payoff other than to punish you. This is tedium friction.

Unfair feeling mechanics, like rolling 10 times for climbing and any single failure means you failed the entire challenge, or not being able to hit anything for multiple turns, generate frustration because they're not actually a gameplay challenge at all, they're just generating bad luck and therefore bad feelings. This is frustration friction.

A lot of ttrpg analysis ink has been expended in the (incorrect) conclusion that mechanics are therefore bad and should get out of the way. That doesn't hold up to scrutiny, because then there's the good friction.

Good Friction

The problem with dismissing the game side entirely is that good friction is why we make and play games. It's one of the core things that generate the feelings we routinely conflate into a generic category called "fun."

When you overcome something that's clearly difficult but also clearly not unfair, you get a feeling of satisfaction. A finely-tuned challenge that takes effort and thought but has a nice fictional or mechanical payoff at the end is balanced difficulty friction.

When your specific "build" takes off and delivers on the fictional promise it gave you, you feel really good and empowered within the niche it carved out for you. This is the rarely discussed counterpart to dissonance: Ludonarrative Harmony. In order to get to that point, however, the game needed to put gated friction in the road as a stepping stone, to make sure that not every character can do the same thing or to insure they don't step on each others toes.

When you work around a limitation and achieve success, it feels like you're smart, special or that your effort paid off in bypassing or overcoming that limitation. Encumbrance is kind of boring, but what if wearing better armor and balancing your loadout was rewarding because your equipment matters significantly? Deciding what to keep and what to leave and feeling rewarded for cleverly working within that limitation is limitation friction.

And there's a purely narrative one, of course: defeating a villain who's been hounding you, getting to the end of a long dungeon, finishing a campaign... that's fictional friction. Except good this time. You need a good villain to feel like a hero, after all.

The act of game design is the act of balancing what friction you design for.

It's not about getting out of the way. It's about figuring out what elements enhance the feeling and don't detract from it. Embrace friction in your fiction.


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in reply to @FreyjaKatra's post:

Incidentally, this is why "game balance doesn't exist" is a fake phrase that fundamentally misconstrues the entire concept of game design and should not exist in your vocabulary. It not only exists, it's why a game is a game. Never speak it aloud unless you want to embarrass yourself.