Dev Take Tuesday – Stranger Things and MAXimizing Player Choice

Warning! I will be discussing some spoilers for the recently released second season of Stranger Things. If you didn’t binge watch the nine episodes like my wife and I did, you might want to postpone reading this blog post until you finish the whole season.

As mentioned in the warning above, we watched the entire new season of Stranger Things in more or less one sitting. Needless to say, my wife and I are fans. Despite how much we both loved the second season and its new characters, my wife raised a valid gripe about the addition of the skateboard-riding, arcade-record-breaking Max: what’s her role on the team? She has an obvious role in the season’s narrative, breaking up the group dynamics and creating competition between Dustin and Lucas. But it’s unclear until partway through the last episode—when she’s able to drive a car despite her age—how she can help the band of kids fight against the horrors of the Upside Down.

Lucas, Dustin, Mike, and Max in Stranger Things Season 2 (screencap from show found here)

Personally, my concerns were mollified during that car-driving scene. Max was the “zoomer,” as she describes it in an earlier episode. But I think it was a valid question all the way up to that point. When Max was added to the team of demigorgon-defeating kids, viewers expected her to contribute to the team once the supernatural baddies returned. This expectation reminded me of a similar gripe I’ve heard from gamers about leveling in RPGs. When a character gains enough experience to level up in an RPG, the player can often choose a new ability for that character. Usually there is a pool of available abilities to choose from, each offering tantalizing new opportunities for that character to become more powerful and useful.

Various ability choices in the RPG Kingdoms of Amalur (screencap found here)

However, it’s not always clear in the moment which abilities will be useful. Maybe one of the new skills offered to the player says that you get better at hacking robot enemies. Seems cool, right? But if it turns out that not many robot enemies exist in the game, the player might end up with an ability that never ends up fulfilling the expectations he or she had for it. And that’s (obviously) disappointing. Some gamers, worried that they’ll end up making one of these disappointing choices, eschew personal choice entirely for internet guides whenever their character levels up.

I understand the connection might be a bit tenuous here, but my point is that both TV show viewers and RPG gamers have expectations when a new element is introduced to the equation. If a show writer adds a new character to a group of kids known for battling monstrous baddies, viewers will expect the new character to be useful to the group in some way. Likewise, if a game designer provides a new ability for a character, gamers will expect that ability to be useful—just like the other abilities the character already has. Offering a sub-par choice might open up roleplaying decisions for specific types of players, but if the drawbacks of that choice aren’t clear, many players will end up disappointed. Offering carefully balanced abilities every time a player levels up is a tricky task, but a worthwhile one for maximizing player choice and contentment.