(Strategy) Should the player know the numbers behind the curtain?

Hi everyone,

In my current game you as the player are trying to create a ''city state'' and survive in a post apocalyptic world.

You construct buildings, contact other leaders and assign your workers to different jobs.

At the same time decision making is also very, very important and I'm curious if I should tell the player what each choice will affect.

An example would be...

One day one of your creatures finds a copy of the bible and they ask you if God exists.

At this point you have 4 options:

- ''No, God doesn't exists. Everything can be explained with science.''

    Effects: Cannot build temples. Productivity and Education increase. May cause bad relations with other leaders.

- ''I am your only God, if anyone tells you otherwise he is lying.''

    Effects: Unrest decreases, Additional income in the form of gifts and sacrifices. Happiness decreases if education is good enough.

   Temples will provide Wealth.

- ''Yes, he's the quintessence of compassion and understanding. Fear not, for he loves you.''

    Effects: Happiness increases. Productivity decreases as your citizens need to dedicate time to religious rituals. Pacifism increases while Militarism decreases. Temples will provide happiness.

- ''Yes, he's the quintessence of power and destruction. Obey him or prepare for eternal pain.''

    Effects: Unrest greatly decreases, Happiness decreases. Productivity decreases as your citizens need to dedicate time to religious rituals. Militarism increases while Pacifism decreases. Temples will decrease Unrest.

So, do you think that the player should know what each choice will affect before making the decision or should it only be clear when he or she looks into statistic the day after that?

If you make the choices TOO meaningful, all you're doing is creating

a save/reload cycle until the player gets the choice she wants.

Make her do this too often, and she may stop playing...

It depends on the focus of the game and the resulting effects.


Basically what the player needs is the knowledge how to win the game. What he does NOT need is the knowledge how to get the maximum number of points of how to do it in the fastest way.


So check those options yourself.


If they are extremely important and have a lot of affects on winning, then the player should be informed full.


If they affect a main branching but not the winning decisions, the best option might be some paraphrased hints on what the results may be.


If they affect only the point numbers and don't change anything as winning or strategies are concerned, then a warning that the decision will change aspects of the game but not in which way would be enough.

I find the title of this thread to be extremely misleading since your entire example can have your 1-4 numbers taken away and mean the exact same thing, AND be more relevant since most rpgs don't even assign numbers to the player-made choices like that..

When I see the title I assumed it would be asking things like "should the player be able to see that the spell magic missile does 250% caster intelligence - 125% target magic resistance +-10% random -> damage?

Anyway to answer your question...It's kind of up to you. However IMO a game should either show players everything, or show them nearly nothing. It really drives me nuts when games show me the consequences to certain actions for a long period of time, and then suddenly it gives me a choice without saying anything. Naturally I assume there are no long-term gameplay consequences cuz the game would tell me right? (based on the rest of the game before I mean), but eventually I find out that there WERE consequences.

So in the end, I'm sure some players would like one method, and dislike the other, and vice versa, and some don't care. But I cannot imagine a greater # of people liking some half-way system which leads them into thinking  they know how the game works only for it to do stuff on the sly.

Usually when making these type of choices in games, it's good to look at it in these ways:

1) Is this a choice that my player is probably questioning about before I even ask it? (which would be a good thing)

2) Is this a choice that players would probably want to choose based on how the game portrays it's setting/characters?

3) How far in the game is the player, and how much does the player know before giving this choice?

4) Is there any previous events known to the player that can affect the choices being asked?

5) If the choice results in something long-term or unchangeable, have you hinted that to the player yet? (You should) And/or does it take several choices of the same path route to finalize the decision? (with new info given to the player over time between these choices)

A good game to play when it comes to choice-making would be the Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Survivor series. (mainly the 2nd game) Lots of meaningful choices and rich character personalities that lead into like 5+ different endings.

Also as a previous person said, the title is misleading. But yes you can align an invisible point system for choices that determine outcomes. (Points awarded for various things/choices, unknown to the player)  Of course it should still seem obvious though. Befriending one character over another means you should end up supporting their ideals later on, instead of going against them for some random reason.