Host-Guest

Frame · Role relationships social

Hospitality as a relationship principle – the host offers protection and provision, the guest respects the rules of the house – both contribute to the relationship. The threshold is sacred.

Design question – In your game someone is a guest. What does the host owe the guest – and what may the guest expect? What happens when hospitality is abused?

Reference example – Animal Crossing: being a guest on someone else’s island and respecting the house rules. Dark Souls: whoever is summoned helps in a foreign world; after the boss is defeated, they return home.

Associations

• Typical Activities – Hosting, Visiting, Gifting, Respecting boundaries

Coherence

Activities: Hosting, Visiting, Gifting, Respecting boundaries. Mechanisms: Asymmetric Information (the host knows the place), Resource Sharing, Threshold/Gate (the threshold as a boundary), Event (the guest brings change). Ludic Organisational Structures: social order (the right of hospitality), spatial order (inside/outside). Ludic Social Structure: asymmetric (different roles with different rights and duties).