What types of situations can players engage with? What does success look like for each of those situations?
How well are a problem and the solution understood or defined?
- Known goal, known solution
- Known goal, unknown solution
- Unknown goal, known solution
- Unknown goal, unknown solution
How static/dynamic is the goal/desired outcome?
- There are situations where the goal changes with time (or some other factor), so the solution must change to continuously adapt to the current goal.
Is the situation something you have had time or training to prepare for?
- Preparing for a category of problems with a range of factors and possible situations
- Problem that arises suddenly that you are prepared for
- Problem that arises suddenly that you are unfamiliar/unprepared for
- Problem that you know is coming and are already prepared for
- Problem that you know is coming, but aren’t yet prepared for (or don’t yet understand how to prepare for)
- Problem that you know is coming, but can’t possibly prepare for in any way
Is the problem something that improves with each step of the solution? Or does the problem require all elements of the situation to be solved before any result is noticeable?
Does interacting with one element of the situation change the other elements in a positive, negative, or neutral way? Does it change them or does it not change them?
Who benefits or suffers from the problem being solved? Does who benefits or suffers depends on how the problem is solved?
Is the problem something that is possible to solve, given the current capabilities of the world, society, or the characters involved?
Are people:
- encouraged/incentivized to solve the problem
- encouraged/incentivized to avoid the problem
- discouraged/disincentivized to solve the problem
- discouraged/disincentivized to avoid the problem
Does the problem reoccur? Do people understand the cause of the problem?
Does the nature of the problem mean that a solution must leave one involved party better off than before and one involved party worse off than before? Is compromise possible, and how far is that compromise from the desired outcome for each of the involved parties?
Does the solution create a new problem?
Does solving the problem require multiple parties to work together? Do the parties cooperate easily or do they struggle to work together? Do they like or dislike working together? Does their relationship enable or prevent them from solving the problem?
Is what is perceived as the problem actually a solution to a different problem? Will solving, changing, or removing the “problem” result in unsolving the previous problem? Do the characters understand the cause of the problem and why the situation exists in its present state? Are they trying to solve it without understanding how the situation came to be?
Is it dangerous to try and solve the problem? Is it dangerous to the person attempting to solve the problem, or to a third party?
Is there a moral obligation to solve the problem if it is encountered? What are the ramifications, internal or external, for a character who chooses to ignore the problem? What are the ramifications for a character who does not ignore the problem?
Combat
Social
Material
Creative/Artistic
Organizational