How game freedom imprisons players — A cognitive load story
In the world of games, nothing is nerdier than Dungeons and Dragons (aka DnD) and for good reason, there’s so much information that newcomers need to learn to just create their own character, and there’s no better example than Spells:
If you are overwhelmed by this image, don’t worry, you are not alone.
It all started after I finally convinced my wife to play DnD with me, thanks to me and the other players she was able to understand and play the game quite well. It was until a couple of game sessions later that I noticed she was only using 1 of her 15 Spell options.
Puzzled by this, I asked her about it at the end of the game, and she told me:
“I don’t know what all these Spells do while we play… I actually want to know what I can do, but I stick to what previously worked for me”
After hearing her explanation something just click, and I noticed that I heard this problem before, she’s experiencing cognitive overload!
So I review her Dungeons and Dragons experience as a UX Designer would do, and well…
Freedom is this game beauty and curse.
Different from other board games, you can play DnD with just a piece of paper and dice, so everything that happens in the game is in our imagination.
This is why the Spells of the game are written this way, they are trying to help players image how the spell works by describing and giving as much information as possible, except, that doesn’t really work for new players like my wife.
To check what a spell does she will have to look at her Spell List on a piece of paper, pick a spell, then search for more details online (or in a book), and repeat the process if the spell doesn’t suit the situation.
So I took her Spell List and an afternoon to create this:
If this is not very obvious, I created a new beginner-friendly Spell List!
Basically, I took my wife’s Spell List, eliminated all unnecessary information, made it fit on one single page, and organize it to match the flow of the game.
Now if something happens in the game she can read one line and gather all the information she needs to make a choice, for example:
1st — What can I do? Shoot a small ball of fire
2nd — How far? 120 feet
3rd — What do I tells others what I’m doing? Firebolt.
Shoot a small ball of fire (120 feet — 2D10 Damage) — Firebolt
Ok cool, but did this make any changes to my wife’s DnD experience? Well.., yeah!
On our next game session, I gave her the New Spell list, and she not only used 4 different Spells, but I immediately noticed how her play style changed.
Now she’s engaging with the other players, scheming plans of what she could do with her Spells, and even remembering better what we did in past games because
She had more brain power to actually play the game.
Thanks for reading!
I know my quick Spell List is not the prettiest compared to other DnD materials, but if want to say hello or just want me to make a better-looking template or even redesign other stuff you can find me here. Regardless, I hope you enjoy something out of this.
