The Kronos Project: techniques for streamlining complexity and increasing player immersion in role playing games

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THE KRONOS PROJECT: TECHNIQUES FOR STREAMLINING COMPLEXITY
AND INCREASING PLAYER IMMERSION IN ROLE PLAYING GAMES

by

Uel Jackson McMahan III

A Thesis Presented to the
FACULTY OF THE USC SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
In Partial Fulfillment of the
Requirements for the Degree
MASTER OF FINE ARTS
(INTERACTIVE MEDIA)

May 2010

Copyright 2010 Uel Jackson McMahan III

ii
Dedication
This paper is dedicated to my family, the USC IMD faculty, and the faculty and
staff at the Neurobiology Departments at Stanford and Harvard for their support
over the decades.

iii
Acknowledgements
I whole-heartedly thank the following for their support:
Thesis Committee: Chris Swain (Chair), Scott Easley (Secondary Advisor),
Julian Bleekeer (Outside Advisor).

Artwork: Bayard “Butch” Colyear, http://www.bcolyear.com/
Also, Dawn McMahan, for allowing the use of an excerpt from her PYTHIA's "A
Portrait by Means of the Sun", (2008), in The Chippewa Crier.
Music: Andrea Chang
http://www.andreachangtube.com/Andrea_Chang_Music.html
Playtesters: Chris Swain, Scott Easley, Anne Balsamo, Mark Bolas, Andreas
Kratky, Perry Hoberman, RJ Layton, Josh Green, Ethan Kennerly, John Brennan
III, and a host of others who have contributed to the insights used to develop the
project.

iv
Table of Contents
Dedication ii
Acknowledgements iii
List of Figures v
Abstract vi
Introduction 1
Project Description 5
Prior Art 15
User Experience 17
User Tests 18
Discussion 20
Conclusion 21
Future Work 22
References 24

v
List of Figures
Figure 1. Players Sit Across from a GM at a Table on which Images are
Projected from a Computer Controlled by a Button System at the
GM's Feet. 9

Figure 2. GM's Feet Operate Foot Buttons to Control Computer 1's Images. 10
Figure 3. Generating a Call to a Land Line Phone Attached to a Computer. 12
Figure 4. The Chippewa Crier Clues Players into the Lady in White and the 13
Lethal Green Mist—Key Elements of the Narrative.

Figure 5. Random Dot Red-Blue Anaglyph with the Word "TEXT" embedded. 16

vi
Abstract
The Kronos Project is an experiment in reducing the formal elements of a
classical style role playing game (RPG) in order to get players engaged and
immersed in its system as rapidly as possible. Unlike typical pencil and paper
RPGs, it eschews dice-rolling, statistics, and lengthy character generation. This
is contrary to current tropes about how role-playing games should be
experienced.

The experience is manipulated through multimedia and interactivity in general to
enhance the level of immersion and engagement of the players. The following
techniques are utilized:
1. Statistics Removal (SR): Typical number-generating schemes of the
genre have been eliminated in favor of players being the in-game
characters themselves with their normal skills. No hit points, no mana.
2. Computerised Visual and Audio Mediation (CVAM): Overhead
projections of maps and other important informative devices, including a
music delivery system, are used to enhance the ambience.
3. Indoctrination: In the fifteen minute rendition of the game, a game
master (GM) spends the first five minutes familiarizing himself/herself with
the players in order to enable the procession of the game within the
context of the virtual milieu and the players’ real abilities.
4. Magic: There is a foot-operated push button device (PBD), hidden from
the players, which is used by the GM to control images…and possibly
vii
music. This will allow players to focus more on game-play than the GM’s
mechanisms. In the past, adding music and images to an RPG was done
through integrating and swapping media via recording/playing devices
(like tape recorders) and drawings on paper. Although it is recognized
that producing media changes typically alter game-flow in RPGs, they are
generally tolerated by players…to a degree. The PBD is intended to
reduce that degree. “Magic” also adds to the mystique of the game and
contributes to its eccentric flavor, and hence increases players’ immersion
and engagement.

By removing the paper and pencil elements from the game, and by coordinating
visual and auditory media, an attempt has been made to ameliorate the cognitive
loads of the players by diminishing cognitive dissonances, but no formal
examinations have been conducted to confirm the efficacy of this strategy.

Also, still with streamlining complexity in mind, the brunt of the context and
content of the game is shouldered by the GM, so the players can rapidly learn
the rules of, and settle into, the game through a guided balance of simplicity and
complexity.
1
Introduction
One of the major challenges of game designers is to balance simplicity,
accessibility, and complexity in their product to increase the immersion of
players. Streamlining complexity engages and immerses players in a game by
incorporating sufficient stimuli to maintain their interest. (Slobodkin 8)

Classic RPGs played on tabletops, unlike RPGs played on computers, are
directed by a game master who has license to operate with an adaptive set of
rules to maintain the engagement and immersion of the players. Computer
RPGs, including those of vast scope like “Elder Scrolls: Arena” and “World of
Warcraft,” are relatively maladaptive: e.g. if a player decides that a backdoor
should naturally exist in a bar, and the designer hasn’t planned for one, the door
will never exist; the narrative has been inflexibly constrained by the team who
created the program. In classic RPGs like The Kronos Project, the GM can
manipulate the flow of game play in real time: a door not on any map may exist at
any time to support the narrative.

In role playing games, learning is a fundamental part of the process of character
and narrative development: players explore their game-world in a constructivist
sense, whereby they not only build their knowledge of their own characters
through individual imaginative ingenuities, but also via scaffolding from a game
master and other experienced players.

2
The classical-style role-playing genre is mostly recognized as consisting of
games like “Dungeons and Dragons” and “GURPS”: typically, turn-based fantasy
games played face-to-face among people around a table with one of the people,
the game master, guiding the game play with a set of dice and explicit rules. The
form is highly portable (such games aren’t restricted to one venue) and influential
to the degree that it has been integrated into nearly every game genre, including
computer-mediated RPGs and first person shooters, family games like
“Charades” and “Taboo”, and even free-form play like “Cowboys and Indians”.

Constructivism is prominent in Cognitive Load Theory (CLT) and instructional
design. (Sweller, van Merrienboer and Paas 251-296; Plowman et al. ; Cooper )
CLT is concerned with efficiently using multiple sensory pathways in people to
reduce the impact of information overload as they process transduced stimuli
from the peripheral nervous system into working memory and then into schema
to be stored in long term memory.

The theory revolves around the concept that humans have a working memory of
limited capacity, just enough to operate with detailed immediate experiences, and
a long term memory that contains rules (schema) built from working memory. It
holistically considers the human sensorium not just in terms of peripheral nerve
transduction mechanisms (visual, auditory, haptic, proprioceptive, etc.), but also
in terms of how information is integrated and constructed, and dissonances
resolved, within the mind. CLT is certainly not the only extant cognitive model,
3
but its concepts and implied methods seemed suitable to the author’s approach
to RPG gaming because of the ways it suggested to rapidly immerse and engage
players through a commonsense simplification of concepts and the use of non-
competing/reinforcing stimuli.

Most RPGs involve complex character generation techniques and subsequent
number generation in-game through dice rolling as well as frequent references
having to be made by the GM to an assortment of tables (e.g the GM shields
(cardboard lists of rules and statistics that the GM rolls dice behind) used in
“Dungeons and Dragons”, “Aftermath”, and ”Paranoia”). The author attempted to
avoid these formal gaming aspects of RPG play in The Kronos Project by
eliminating many of the statistical elements typical of such games by allowing
people to play as themselves (as opposed to playing as fictitious characters) and
not have to roll dice.

In The Kronos Project, the GM performs estimations of who can do what, when,
and where based on a five minute “Indoctrination” of the players while
considering an anticipated flow of narrative within the game. Players are asked
about their profession, athletic experience, and RPG experience. This is done to
quickly establish a rapport between the GM and the players and to determine
whether actions the players take within the game are reasonable (Should player
one be allowed to ride a horse if she has never ridden one before?), and helps
with the “Statistics Removal” technique by fostering a cooperative atmosphere
4
that doesn’t rely on dice rolls (much like in free-form game play). The “Magic”
technique contributes to this by adding a mystique to the experience, and the
“Computerised Visual and Audio Mediation” technique” contributes to its
immersiveness. Subsequently, normal RPG mechanics can be backgrounded in
favor of a more imagination-based experience.

The Kronos Project is also not a turn-based system, in the sense that players can
communicate the movements and intentions of their characters without the limits
of structured game procedures. This is unlike in established RPG games such
as Dungeons and Dragons which have more structured procedures. The Kronos
Project functions without a turn structure as one result of the Statistics Removal
technique. For example, dice rolls don’t determine who takes what action first.
Another result of the Statistics Removal technique and removal of a formal turn
structure is that players can speak out their intentions at will. This makes it so
the GM can respond to the players in a way that he/she judges will best keep the
story flowing. These techniques facilitate a more fluid interaction among the
players, and with the GM, which, because the GM directs the overall dramaturgy
of the game, then reduces the amount of cognitive load the players have to
manage. As a result, the players become more readily immersed in the game’s
environment.

The four techniques formalized by this thesis—Statistics Removal, Computerized
Visual and Audio Mediation, Indoctrination, and Magic—streamline complexity
5
and increase immersion by not only modernizing the RPG to garner the interest
of players, but also by eliminating some of the formal elements that can be
distracting to players.

Project Description
The Kronos Project creates a compelling narrative experience that
accommodates one to five players. The players sit opposite the game master
with imagery from the story beamed in front of them on a table from a projector.
The imagery is controlled by the GM. The GM also controls the ambient music
and guides the narrative of the problems the players must solve.

The players are in an imaginary man-made island resort on the Mississippi river
in Illinois designed to resemble a 1930’s era town. The players have taken a
ferry that runs down a portion of the Mississippi River and have stopped to rest at
a bar, above which they have been assigned a room. The GM, as is typical in
RPGs, proctors the dynamic and dramatic interactions between players and
NPCs. The players wake up at midnight, after curfew, and the GM hands them a
phone which tells them they have been poisoned and have 10 minutes to find the
cure; they are already familiar with the existence of a mysterious poisonous gas
associated with a “Woman in White.” A green vapor escapes the room through
an open window.

6
The developing story quickly becomes more complex, including the players
mutating. Some of the mutations involve being able to see strange anaglyph
messages, so at least one player wears red/cyan glasses.

In the 15 minutes of play, the first 5 are consumed by a discussion between the
GM and the players to see what abilities they normally have (horseback riding,
animal training, bouldering, etc.) to get a sense of how they might play.

From a promotional ad recently printed by Kronos Entertainment, which owns the
island: “You are a visitor on a man-made island resort on the Mississippi
River...Kronos Island, a short distance south from Mississippi Landing, Illinois.
Although the time is the present, the local historical context has been designed to
resemble a very dark and eerie depression era town, Chippewa. The island has
been enhanced with animatronics and holograms.

"This island is a hoot," they claim, "Nobody ever really gets hurt here; it's all part
of the show."

To increase the level of engagement of the target demographic (people 13 years
old and greater), some technology is employed as follows: a computer-driven
projector used to replace paper drawings with media clips projected onto the
7
tabletop, a pushbutton media selector hidden under the game table that is
operated by the GM surreptitiously using only his or her feet. The GM can
control both imagery and music with the hidden selector.

The intent is to combine technology with an engaging narrative cooperatively
developed by both the players and the GM. The technology (Statistics Removal,
Computerised Visual and Audio Mediation, and/or Magic) is managed by the GM,
who additionally, through dramaturgy, dynamically manages the level of cognitive
load players in the genre would normally experience. So, paper and pencils
have been eliminated in favor of projected images, character generation has
been discarded, statistics aren’t calculated, music has been employed to
enhance the ambience and mood of various places and situations within the
game, and the controls for the images have been hidden so the GM can use foot-
operated techniques to “magically” change images without overtly distracting the
players from the game play.

Hardware
1 digital projector, 2 PCs, Bluetooth-enabled cell phone, replica of a 1930’s
telephone, Bluetooth router, iMic, 10-minute hourglass, and a pushbutton
USB control box, (Figure 1)
Software
Max/MSP/Jitter, iTunes, Skype. (Figure 1)

8
Operating the System
A control box with six buttons is hidden under the table. It is used by the GM to
interface with Max/MSP/Jitter software on a computer to select images for five
players and one central display (Figure 1). There are a finite number of images
that can be shown at each display, so the software on “Computer 1” has been
designed to allow the buttons to select images to be projected via a combination
of button presses (Figure 2): “button 1” followed by “button 2” results in player
one receiving the second image in the list prepared for player one by the GM. All
of the players at this point have the same lists of images, so it’s simple for the
GM to memorize the combination of button presses to get the desired results.

9

Figure 1: Players Sit Across from GM at a Table on which Images are
Projected from a Computer Controlled by a Button System at the GM's
Feet.
10

Figure 2: GM's Feet Operate Foot Buttons to Control Computer 1's
Images.
11
The Red Phone
After the GM has situated the players within the context of the game space, a red
replica of a 1930’s phone suddenly rings. The GM answers the phone. Then,
with a look of despair, hands it to one of the players, “It’s for you!”.

An Asian voice on the line says, “You have just been poisoned…You have only
ten minutes left to live.“

At this point, the GM slams a ten-minute hourglass onto the table and describes
a green gas issuing out of their room and asks, “What do you do?”

12

Figure 3: Generating a Call to a Land Line Phone Attached to a
Computer.

Maps
The town of Chippewa on the imaginary man-made island, “Kronos,” which is
south of Mississippi Landing, Illinois, on the Mississippi River.
Newspaper
A copy of “The Chippewa Crier.” (Figure 4)

13

Figure 4: The Chippewa Crier Clues Players into the Lady in White and
the Lethal Green Mist—Key Elements of the Narrative.

14
A projector beams pertinent images independently to each of up to five players
as they sit around a table, with a central image usually holding a map that
conveys only enough information about the lay of the land as needed for each
player. This design is effective for presenting relevant information in clear, easy
to understand terms. As the information designer Edward Tufte asserts: “What
matters—inevitably, unrelentingly—is the proper relationship among
informational layers. These visual relationships must be in relevant proportion
and in harmony to the substance of the ideas, evidence, and data conveyed.”
(Tufte)

Visual clues in the game can be conveyed through still or moving images,
including phantograms and random dot anaglyphs.

Music
The project employs 1930s-ish techno music to unobtrusively but hauntingly add
to the ambience to further immerse players in an imaginary world that combines
appropriate historical tropes with modern and potentially lethal uncertainty. This
is in line with the thinking of Bill Thompson in his work “Evoking Terror in Film
Scores.” Thompson says, “We have a thirst for fear, and we go to elaborate
means to experience it.” (Thompson)

15

Prior Art
Commercial Games
Aftermath, Space Opera, Bushido, Dungeons and Dragons: These are classic-
style RPGs that involve complex and lengthy character generation and
movement/combat dynamics. They all require number generation during game-
play which break the immersiveness of the experience by reminding the player
she playing a game.

Performance Art Games
“Host a Murder Mystery”games —In this genre, the Host (GM) has the overview
of the game and gives players clues, identities, and instructions to immerse them
in a mystery to solve within one brief evening.

Stereograms, especially random dot anaglyphs—These can be used to encode
information. (e.g. http://www.garybeene.com/stereo/rds-over.htm and Figure 5)

16

Figure 5: Random Dot Red-Blue Anaglyph with the Word "TEXT"
embedded.

Fiction
“White Heat,” “Angels with Dirty Faces,” “Public Enemy,” “West World.” These
are films pertinent to the ambience of the game. Most of the films listed include
imagery of the noir genre reflected in the way Kronos appears on the surface.
“West World”, reflects the modernistic gimmicks and sinister underpinnings of the
imaginary theme park.

17
User Experience
Target Demographic: Players are expected to be in the at least 13 years old, due
to some of the mature themes prevalent in the 15 minute game.
Exploration space: rapid immersion of players into an RPG.
Aesthetic: 1930s looking room with game master dressed as a gangster.
Music: Eerie 1930’s-ish combined with modern techno, piped out of one of the
computers.

The following papers have been useful in designing the user experience:
The usefulness of externalizing imagery. (Tudoreanu 105-ff): Relates to the
implementation of visual imagery in cognitive economy. According to Tudoreanu,
the visualization of information extends cognitive resources by shifting the burden
of internal representations of information to external media. By providing maps
and other images, Kronos reduces cognitive load.

Reducing visual distractions. (Lowe 247-262): Lowe avers that adding motion
(temporal change) may increase cognitive load by raising information processing
demands and reducing the amount of relevant data that a participant consumes.
Such temporal changes as transformations, translations, and transitions possibly
increase the overall complexity of information while simultaneously directing the
attention of subjects away from relevant material. This all results from a split-
attention effect usually associated with combining text with animation. In
18
Kronos, an attempt has been made to reduce such an effect by avoiding using
text and animation in a dissonant fashion.

One of the more obvious implications of The Kronos Project applies to prevalent
computer-mediated RPGs: how to find the most salient balance between
simplicity and complexity to reduce the cognitive load of players in order to
engage and immerse them as quickly as possible.

User Tests
User tests were conducted on the game’s dynamics and dramaturgy via a series
of iteratively evolving paper prototypes. These tests were performed and
analyzed over months using simple paper maps with the goal of streamlining
complexity and increasing the immersion of the players.

The designer experimented with various formal elements, including giving
players the ability to mutate, and used different strategies for creating a
compelling dramatic experience. Part of the craft of this includes creating
opportunities for the the players to succeed. Eliminating players from the game
obviously diminishes their level of engagement and immersion instead of
maintaining a sense of urgency that will keep them in the game.

The goal was to keep the map(s) simple: just a “God’s Eye” view of the town and
outlying areas. The interior structures of various buildings were omitted and left
19
up to the discretionary descriptions of the GM. This proved useful in tests when
adapting to the whims of the players. Corralling players was issue, especially
when trying to keep them together: in a few instances, players wanted to
segregate themselves from the others. In such games of the genre, players can
oftentimes sacrifice cooperative interaction for an illusion of self-reliance.

Visual complexity has been streamlined by eliminating all but the data essential
to the players as they moved within the environment.

Success was measured by the players’ survival, their willingness to engage in
discussion of the project after playing, and their desire to either play the same
scenario again or delve further into the Kronos world. The results were
overwhelmingly favorable.

Some highlights from a few the many playtests are included here:
- 12/18/09: Cyborg dogs were allowed to detect certain player skills, and rules
were adjusted to allow for the physics implied by increased player-strength
(try running on gravel when your legs suddenly enable you to leap twice your
height) presenting new, if not humorous, challenges.
- 02/08/09: Cyborg dogs were slain then the player decided to find a solution to
the mystery in a building other than the GM had planned. The cure was
found there. This prompted the designer to create more alternatives to
finding the solution. The player wanted to explore more of the game-space.
20
- 01/28/09: A player decided to leave the active game space on horseback.
- 01/19/09: Cooperation among the players allowed them to scale walls and
leap over alleys to find the solution.

Discussion
Streamlining complexity in the project was an exercise in reducing the game to
its essential elements (primarily the dramatic and dynamic elements) and then
iteratively building on those to create a system that sufficiently engaged and
immersed the players as rapidly as possible. Strategies implemented during
user tests involved all four of the techniques formalized by this thesis - Statistics
Removal, Computerised Visual and Audio Mediation, Indoctrination, and (in the
future) Magic. Dice rolling and statistical charts/GM shields were eliminated with
the aid of the five minute indoctrination, and computerized audio/video media
was coordinated to reduce cognitivie dissonance,

It became clear as the user tests proceeded that the maps worked well, but an
overly descriptive five minute preamble to the game confused the players. Also,
some players - particularly those who frequently played video games- initially
wanted more constraints despite being told by the GM that they had their own
natural abilities and that normal rules of social conduct applied in the game (the
reasons for this could be the focus of a future study) . This appeared to be a
matter of taste, as was the desire by one to have a smaller, more restricted,
environment. Most players enjoyed the idea of there being a larger world to
21
explore, if time allowed for it, because of the depth and breadth of narrative made
possible.

Specific tests for meaningful learning weren’t conducted to support a CLT
approach of the game design. Thus, there were no studies conducted by the GM
to reveal whether any knowledge constructed by players were meaningful
outside the success of the dynamics and dramaturgy of the game.

Meaningful knowledge is of a kind which can be retained and transferred.
(Mayer) With the narrative guidance of construction provided by the GM, more
experienced players, and the structure of the project, it was expected by the
designer that there would be an overall active process of meaning making.
(Plowman) The user tests revealed that this was, in fact, the case: players were
generally able to quickly understand and successfully operate/cooperate within
the game system with little confusion.

Conclusion
Streamlining complexity to increase engagement and immersion in roleplaying
games has been achieved via the four techniques formalized by this thesis.
These techniques are: Statistics Removal, Computerised Visual and Audio
Mediation, Indoctrination, and Magic. The techniques have worked within the
envelope of Cognitive Load theory. This is evident based on the results from the
many playtests that have been conducted on the game.
22

Players become engaged in a complex system within a few minutes by reducing
some system elements in favor of others. Without dice rolling, GM shields, and
statistics in general, an engaging and immersive RPG was, contrary to the
normal ideology and practice of the genre, successful.

Future Work
Although by using some of the equipment employed in The Kronos Project
obviously defies the portability usually associated with pencil and paper RPGs,
the overall concepts used to streamline complexity and reduce cognitive load to
increase engagement and immersion remain solid.

Game Masters often “cheat” on dice rolls to maintain the flow of a game: they
generate numbers to satisfy and propel their idea of a game’s narrative.
Techniques used in the The Kronos Project empower future systems of the genre
to eliminate the need for such sleight of hand techniques and also to reduce the
cognitive overhead that calculations for character generation, maintenance, and
in-game play, typically levy on both the GM and the players.

Future considerations for the techniques include implementations in larger
convention-like venues, more intimate person-to-person game play, and a
diversion from the numeric quantizations employed in many RPG computer
games.
23
Kronos techniques could be sublimated to a form of play that does not require
any maps or technical appurtenances (which might inadvertently increase
cognitive dissonances), but just a shared vision guided by a GM.
24
References

Cooper, Graham. Research into Cognitive Load Theory and Instructional Design
at UNSW. Vol. 2006. School of Education Studies, The University of New
South Wales, Sydney, NSW 2052, Australia, 1998.

Lowe, R. K. "Animation and Learning: Selective Processing of Information in
Dynamic Graphics." Learning and Instruction 13 (2003): 247-62.

Mayer, R.E. Multimedia Learning. Cambridge University Press, 2001.
Plowman, L., et al. "Designing Multimedia for Learning: Narrative Guidance and
Narrative Construction." SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in
Computing Systems: The CHI is the Limit (CHI '99). Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, May 15 - 20, 1999.

Slobodkin, Lawrence B. "Simplicity & Games of the Intellect." Simplicity & Games
of the Intellect.Harvard University Press, 1992. 8.

Sweller, J., J. J. G. van Merrienboer, and F. G. W. C. Paas. "Cognitive
Architecture and Instructional Design." Educational Psychology Review 10
(1998): 251-96.

Thompson, B. “Evoking Terror in Film Scores” M/C: A Journal of Media and
Culture 5, no.1, M/C, 2002.

Tudoreanu, M. E. "Designing Effective Program Visualization Tools for Reducing
User's Cognitive Effort." Proceedings of the 2003 ACM Symposium on
Software Visualization (SoftVis '03). San Diego, California, June 11 - 13,
2003.

Tufte, E.R. Envisioning Information. Graphics Press, 1990.

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University of Southern California Dissertations and Theses

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Creator McMahan, Uel Jackson, III (author)

Core Title The Kronos Project: techniques for streamlining complexity and increasing player immersion in role playing games

School School of Cinematic Arts

Degree Master of Fine Arts

Degree Program Interactive Media

Publication Date 05/05/2010

Defense Date 03/25/2010

Publisher University of Southern California (original), University of Southern California. Libraries (digital)

Tag cognitive load theory,complexity,multimedia learning,OAI-PMH Harvest,role-playing games,Simplicity

Language English

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Advisor Swain, Christopher (committee chair), Bleeker, Julian (committee member), Easley, Scott (committee member)

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