Ludic Desiderata

Ludic Desiderata are the design intentions of a game: what is desired, what is to be achieved - a particular Ludic Fabula, Ludic Experience, a particular Ludic Ductus, Ludic Effectus. They are what is aimed at in the four results that arise in the process; not the method by which one designs, and not the justification of a project.

They belong neither to the game nor to the agents. They are set by whoever determines: before the process by the designers, in the process by whoever determines by virtue of Ludic Sovereignty - the game master who wants a scene to feel threatening, the children who make up a game. Where design happens they are always there, but not always spoken; they can stand at the beginning or condense only while building. They are tested against the playing: the desiderata say what was intended, Fabula, Experience, Ductus and Effectus what happened.

In everyday language

• “goal” (related): what the design sets out to achieve (“design goals”). Does not distinguish the task the game sets, the intention of the designers and the drive of the players.

Place and design access

Place: outside the axis (INTENT) - the desiderata belong neither to the game nor to the agents; they aim at AGENT–PROCESS, where the four results lie. They do not belong there themselves: on AGENT–PROCESS stands what arises in the process and is borne by the agent.

Design access: none - the desiderata are set, not designed; they are what one designs towards.

Relations:

• AGENT–PROCESS: they inform Fabula, Experience and Ductus and evaluate the Effectus - they are its yardstick; the bracket of every evaluation holds for all four results.
• CORPUS: they inform the determinations and give them their direction - the choice of Frame, Objectives, Argumentum and Narrational Structure, of Regulation, Entities, Activities and Organisational Structures. The determinations cannot be derived from them.
• PROCESS: they inform the design of a Ludic Process - beforehand the desiderata of the designers, in the process those of the game master.
• AGENT: what is aimed at is to occur for the addressed agents - described by the expected manifestations of Human Agent Capacitas, Habitus and Motivation and the expected Ludic Agent Situation. There are no edges of their own for this.

None of these edges is obligatory or single-valued: desiderata inform none, one or many determinations and results, and every target comes about without desiderata - in spontaneous play - or is informed by several.

Delimitations

Delimitation from Ludic Experience

Against Ludic Experience: what is aimed at and what is experienced. What the designers want to have experienced - “tension to the end” - is a desideratum; whether it is experienced is shown by the experience. The experience cards serve both: in ideation they formulate desiderata, in evaluation they ask about what was experienced.

Delimitation from Ludic Effectus

Against Ludic Effectus: what is aimed at and what is brought about. What is to remain - “the players understand how an ecosystem tips over” - is a desideratum; what actually remained is the effectus. Together they form the bracket of every evaluation: the desiderata say what was intended, the effectus what happened - including the unintended that no desideratum foresaw.

Examples

• Journey: what is aimed at is an experience - connectedness with a stranger, without a single word. Everything else serves it: no chat, no names, only a tone with which one calls the other.
• A learning game about ecosystems: what is aimed at is an effectus - the players understand how an ecosystem tips over. It is tested after the playtest: can they explain it? And what happened that nobody wanted?
• A cooperative game with a message: “cooperation is stronger than competition” - the message, too, is an aimed-at effectus.
• The Last of Us and Dwarf Fortress: the one aims at a particular fabula, choreographed to the last scene; the other at none in particular, but at stories arising.
• The game master at the table: in the middle of the session she wants the scene to feel threatening and determines that the lights go out. A desideratum about the experience, set in the process, by virtue of Ludic Sovereignty.
• Monopoly: it goes back to The Landlord’s Game by Elizabeth Magie (1904), which was meant to show how land ownership heaps wealth on the few - an aimed-at effectus that the later game hardly achieves any more. Desiderata can be reconstructed from a game, and what is aimed at and what is brought about can lie far apart.

Explanation

Before a game comes into being, there is a question: what should happen in play? Which story should unfold, what should the players experience, how should it develop over time, what should remain afterwards? The answers are the Ludic Desiderata - your design intentions. They are like a compass: they give every further decision a direction - which rules, which world, which tasks.

You do not have to know everything at the start. Some games begin with a clear intention, others with a hunch that condenses only while building. And whoever determines something in the middle of play - the game master who makes a scene more threatening - has desiderata too.

In the end you ask: did it work? Did what you wanted happen - and what happened that you did not want? In this comparison the desiderata meet what the players actually experienced and took away.

Usage context

Dimension	Classification
Phase	Ideation (primary: formulate the intention - the roof of the ideation worksheet); development (compass: does this determination serve the intention?); evaluation (yardstick: what was aimed at against what happened in all four results - a systematic deviation means revising); analysis (reconstructed from an existing game, even if they were never formulated)
Tool type	reflective - the intention has to come from the team. Mini-stack Desiderata (DES-01 to DES-05 and a divider card); reference: the ideation worksheet. The procedure that starts from the desiderata is the approach Desiderata-driven - a procedural model, not the term

Theoretical foundation

• Horace, Ars poetica: prodesse et delectare, to be useful and to please - the ancient formula for the double intention of design. The desiderata can comprise both but need not.
• Biggs and Tang, constructive alignment: learning objectives, methods and assessment in alignment. The desiderata correspond to the intended learning outcomes; testing happens in the results, above all in the effectus.
• Hurwicz, Myerson, mechanism design: whoever designs a set of rules pursues an aim distinct from the preferences of those involved. The desiderata are the aim of whoever determines.
• Design practice, design pillars: the pillars of a project as spoken design intentions; the desiderata capture this practice.
• Huizinga, Homo Ludens; Caillois: play can be purposeless. Therefore the desiderata are not always spoken; but whoever determines aims at something, be it only pleasure.

What is aimed at

Aimed at	Guiding question	Example
Fabula	Which story should unfold?	an escape that barely succeeds; or none in particular - that stories arise
Experience	What should the players experience?	tension to the end; connectedness with a stranger
Ductus	How should the experience run?	a crescendo to the last round; a game meant to lead to calm aims at a plateau
Effectus	What should remain afterwards?	understanding how an ecosystem tips over; “cooperation is stronger than competition”

The message of a game is an aimed-at effectus (until v2.0 Propositum). Not among the desiderata is the justification of a project - market, need, drive (until v2.0 Ratio); nor the addressed agents for whom one designs (§3). The four stand side by side, not in a ranking; which ones come to the fore depends on the game - in a learning game mostly the effectus, in a narrative game the fabula.