Ludic Social Structure

The Ludic Social Structure orders the agents of a game towards one another - with whom: with, against, in a team. It determines how many agents take part (numerus), in which basic relation they stand to one another (relatio) and how they group themselves (formatio). All who occupy a participant’s seat are counted - humans, animals and the Ludic Robot: the chess computer in black’s seat.

It is a coordinate structure: every game has one, at the zero point if need be - alone, with no counterpart. The concept is the range of values, the social structure of a game the choice set within it; the values are set by Ludic Regulation. Regulation, appearance and ascription adhere to its places - to the role, not to the person who takes it: the seer may look at a card at night, whoever plays her.

It orders the agents without constituting them; an agent is whoever takes part in the process and decides within it. A place that only the rules produce - the dragon in the dungeon, the disease in Pandemic - is not a participant’s seat.

Place and design access

Place on the axis: CORPUS - a coordinate structure of the corpus. Its values are determinations; those who take the seats are the agents.

Design access: designable - how many seats there are, who plays with and against whom, how teams form, how affiliation appears and what it counts as. How the agents use their alliances is not designable.

Relations on the axis:

• CORPUS: Ludic Regulation sets its values. Its object is the places of the social structure - the role with its rights and duties, not the agent who takes it. Ludic Appearance and Ludic Fiction determine at the places how affiliation appears and what it counts as. With the Ludic Spatial Structure it corresponds in the places that belong to someone - the tableau in front of each person, a team’s shared store; with the Ludic View Structure in the for whom: something is perceivable for places of the social structure. Pattern structures are laid over it: reputation orders trust in the social structure; the faction system is a named combination of fixed teams, asymmetric regulation and ascribed identity.
• AGENT: it orders the Ludic Agents towards one another without constituting them - every social structure at least one, at the zero point the one person who plays alone. A Ludic Robot in a participant’s seat counts. What the agents want, feel and how they decide it does not determine.
• AGENT–CORPUS: the social frames of the Ludic Frame - guild, family, conspiracy - say how relationships are read; who actually plays with whom is ordered by the social structure.

The trias at this concept

In a coordinate structure the three terms take hold at the places - at this role, this team, this seat. The question of appearance becomes: how is it recognisable?

Regulation - the choice set: two teams of eleven; the seer may look at a card at night; one agent plays hidden against the rest. Appearance - how affiliation is recognisable: shirt colours, the colour of the pieces, the seating order, the team display in the lobby. For whom it is recognisable is determined by the Ludic View Structure: with secret roles the role card has an appearance, but only whoever holds it sees it. Ascription - what the place counts as: in Werewolf the village stands against the werewolves; in Pandemic the players count as a disease team with roles; teams count as factions.

In the social structure appearance has more consequences than elsewhere: who belongs to whom must be legible at all times - for all who may know it. Where the game lives on concealment, the view structure regulates who does not know.

Process formula. The determinations adhere to the places and hold for a process:

A Ludic Social Structure has a Ludic Regulation for a Ludic Process. A Ludic Social Structure has a Ludic Appearance for a Ludic Process. A Ludic Social Structure has a Ludic Fiction for a Ludic Process.

Delimitations

Delimitation from Ludic Agent

Against the Ludic Agent: the order of the seats and the participation of the individual. The Ludic Agent tuple carries a dimension “participation” - activity, regulation, design: how one person takes part, playing, refereeing, coaching. The social structure says how the agents stand towards one another. An agent without a counterpart remains an agent; the social structure then stands at the zero point.

Delimitation from Ludic Frame

Against the Ludic Frame: how relationships are read and who plays with whom. The social frames - alliance, guild, family, conspiracy - are content frames: they lead one to expect relationships. The social structure determines who plays with and against whom in the game. The frame alliance leads one to expect that alliances are possible and fragile; whether the teams are fixed or shift is social structure.

Delimitation from Ludic Organisational Structure

Against the Ludic Organisational Structure: the seats and what happens on them. The social structure sets who plays with and against whom. The patterns of the ordering domain “relation and conflict” decide fights, form alliances and award standing - they are laid as pattern structures over the coordinate structure. That in Diplomacy everyone plays against everyone is social structure; how agreements come about and break is a pattern.

Delimitation from Ludic View Structure

Against the Ludic View Structure: who plays with whom and who knows what. The social structure sets the places - roles, teams, seats -, the view structure what these places perceive. Secret roles lie at the joint: in Werewolf the role is a place of the social structure, the fact that the others do not know it a value of the view structure. That the werewolves know each other also belongs to the view structure; that they are a team, to the social structure.

Examples

Game	Numerus + relatio + formatio
Chess	Duo + competitive + individual - also against the computer: the robot occupies black’s seat
Football	Large group + competitive + fixed teams
Catan	Small group + competitive + individual
Pandemic	Small group + cooperative + individual - the counterpart is the disease, a place that only the rules produce, not a seat
Scythe, solo with the automa	Duo + competitive + individual - the automa occupies the second seat: a deck specifies its behaviour, a human carries it out
Dead of Winter	Small group + semi-cooperative + individual, with a secret role
Werewolf	Large group + asymmetric + fixed teams, hidden
Scotland Yard	Small group + asymmetric + one against many
Descent	Small group + asymmetric + one against many, with asymmetric roles
Diplomacy	Small group + competitive + shifting alliances
The Sims	Solo

Explanation

Every game determines who plays - and how the players stand towards one another. The Ludic Social Structure describes this with three questions that you answer independently of each other:

How many? One person, two, a small round, a large group - or is the number open? How towards one another? Against each other, with each other, both at once or with unequal means? In which formation? Everyone for themselves, fixed teams, shifting alliances - or one against all?

Choose a basic form and then check the additions: where does resistance come from, if not from fellow players - from the rules, from the terrain, from figures steered by the rules, or from a robot in a seat? Do you need unequal roles, secret roles, a number of players that can grow and shrink, a semi-cooperative streak? It is a decision of direction - you write the exact rules later.

Usage context

Dimension	Classification
Phase	Ideation (primary: decision of direction, five to ten minutes); development (secondary: the rules for it)
Tool type	reference - building blocks - and structuring - securing results: which social structure does your game have? Seventeen cards: six basic forms (AP-01 to AP-06), eight additions (AP-07 to AP-11, AP-14 to AP-16), plus the guide card AP-12, the blank card AP-13 and the divider card AP-00 (stacks/corpus/social-structure/)

Theoretical foundation

• Tracy Fullerton, Game Design Workshop: seven player interaction patterns - single player versus game, multiple individual players versus game, player versus player, unilateral competition, multilateral competition, cooperative play, team competition. They can be read as values of numerus, relatio and formatio; “versus game” is not a seat in LUNA: the resistance comes from regulation, the spatial structure or entities.

Subdimensions

Numerus: solo (one person; the game lives on the relation to the rules, not to others) · duo (two; duel) · small group (three to six) · large group (seven and more) · open (the number is not set) · flexible (the number changes during play, and the game adapts).

Relatio: competitive (conflict of goals) · cooperative (a common goal of all seats) · semi-cooperative (common basic interest and goals of one’s own) · asymmetric (unequal abilities, rules or goals).

Formatio: individual (each for themselves) · fixed teams (affiliation stable across the match) · shifting alliances (affiliation negotiable throughout) · one against many.

The three are orthogonal: large group, competitive and fixed teams yield team sport; small group, asymmetric and one against many yield Scotland Yard.

Basic form and addition: the stack distinguishes basic forms - a complete social structure: solo, duel, free for all, team versus team, cooperative, one against many - and additions applied to a basic form: the counterpart by regulation, by spatial structure, by entities or by a robot, asymmetric roles, secret roles, scaling, semi-cooperation. This is a difference of the tool, not of ontology; basic form and addition are values of the same three subdimensions or lie outside them. Three counterparts occupy no seat: rules that do not secure victory, terrain and course, figures steered by the rules - they are determinations of the corpus, and the relatio holds between the players. The robot occupies a seat and counts in the numerus - the automa of a board game too: a deck specifies its behaviour, a human carries it out; the place decides, not the technology. Scaling is the numerus flexible together with the rules that carry it. Secret roles combine a place of the social structure with a value of the view structure. None of these needs a fourth subdimension.