Filtering player temperament through game design

[Kestrel]

For people who have either created games, or are at any stage of the creative process to attempt it, I’m wondering:

Are there aspects of your game design that exist almost as an intentional net to filter certain player temperaments?

Some examples might be an arbitrary chargen requirement meant to excite/repel certain players out the gate. Or purposely overdeveloping social skill options, because you find Might Is Right style players offputting.

For my part, I recently found myself deep-diving some studies on how preferences for certain genres and literary themes correlate with certain personality traits. It has me second-guessing the genre I want to focus on, and looking into ways to incorporate themes that might better appeal to players I’d like having.

I remember also talking to a game dev who was very hurt by how badly some bad actors had spoken about a game they’d made. On the other hand, I said it was actually a very good sign that such shitty players find the game unplayable, and a sign of good game design — since it didn’t have the kinds of tools they needed to fully enable shittiness, but was rife with prosocial and storytelling tools they found pointless.

[Apos]

@Kestrel For me it is less about intentional exclusion and more just being fine knowing that a lot of people won’t play a game of X, Y, or Z. A lot of these are just mutually contradictory. For example, I think a collaborative game and an unrestricted pvp game aren’t completely exclusive but the degree of work you would need is just something I’m not willing to do, vs just doubling down on the former. A lot won’t play that and that’s fine.

If I make collaborative story telling the only way characters advance, people not interested in that leave, and that is for the best.

[Faraday]

@Apos said:

For me it is less about intentional exclusion and more just being fine knowing that a lot of people won’t play a game of X, Y, or Z.

Same. I design my games a certain way: Co-Op PVE, minimal “carrots” for advancement, an emphasis on self-sufficient storytelling, etc. I acknowledge that this is going to cut out a segment of players, but that’s not why I do it. It’s more about making it clear who the game is for than deliberately excluding folks it’s not for.

[Ominous]

@Kestrel said:

For my part, I recently found myself deep-diving some studies on how preferences for certain genres and literary themes correlate with certain personality traits.

Game design theory is right up my alley. Care to share the sauce?

In response to the main question of the thread, I am not sure anyone intentionally incorporates game design elements to weed out specific subsets of players. I think people just try to build the best game for what they’re looking for, and if that weeds out certain groups that the designer didn’t want playing the game anyways, that’s a bonus, as Apos and Faraday said.

[hellfrog]

I mean, there was some of this for sure. For player helpers on Arx, one of the questions was 'name a woman who is not fictional or dead who is smarter than you are."

And it did drive some assholes away, fully intended.