Are numbers bad?
Here’s a great post from Paul Gestwicki about Grok?! and Crown and Skull, two recent tabletop games where taking damage removes player abilities rather than reducing hit points. This is a powerful emotional design choice: Losing an ability somehow feels more real than losing hit points, creating hard choices and compelling story beats. It’s also practical: Without hit points there’s one less annoying little number players need to track.
Would games just be better without all the annoying little numbers? Will hit points be consigned to the dust bin of board game history, alongside skipping a turn as punishment and rolling dice to move on a map?
All game mechanics have upsides and downsides, and before we toss one out we should ask why it was popular to begin with. Why do games so often represent the very ability to live as a dry, boring, lifeless number? One reason might be that numbers are emotionally safe, in at least three important ways:
1. People already know how to think about numbers
100% of the time, a larger number is bigger than a smaller number. This might sound obvious, but it’s profound: Numbers let players compare options without ambiguity. For example, weapons can be compared in terms of how many hit points of damage they do. Simple numerical comparisons can be boring, but players will tolerate a little bookkeeping if it helps them smash monsters.
Without a numerical point of reference, comparing player abilities requires careful reasoning. Which is better, the invisibility ring or the time cube? This can feel unfair: Without playing hundreds of times, how could I know whether one player ability is better than another? If these comparisons are not the focus of the game, players can see them as an obstacle to fun. Designers need to show players that learning out how to compare the incomparable is a good reason to play a game hundreds of times.
2. Numbers can keep game systems separate
When game systems are separate, a change in one system doesn’t affect other systems much. For example, in most games losing hit points doesn’t limit your ability to buy items. One number tracks your health and another number tracks your wealth—these systems are separate. But if you can spend hit points to buy items, or if enemies steal your money in combat, then these systems are not separate—they are coupled.
Coupled systems can be volatile. This is the core insight of complexity theory (or ”chaos theory”)—the study of systems where small changes in starting conditions can have unpredictable effects. If a small change in one part of a game touches many other parts of a game, players will be constantly surprised by the consequences of their decisions. The design challenge is to turn this surprise into delight instead of frustration.
3. Numbers make games easier to balance
This may also seem obvious, but numbers can be changed by just a little bit. With numbers, making an in-game item more powerful simply means making its number a bit bigger. But without numbers, making an ability more powerful usually means fundamentally changing how it works. And in a game where the systems are tightly coupled, making a change to one ability can necessitate many further changes to other systems and abilities. This can create a complex tangle of work for designers while unbalancing the game.
Numbers are safe
In short, numbers let players and designers know exactly where they stand. Without numbers, players and designers must think in new ways about complex systems, running the risk of being completely wrong. This can create captivating narrative tension, but it can unbalance games and make players feel inadequate.
Consider an extreme case: Chess has no numbers, so the quality of a move is determined by how all of the pieces interact. Game balance is achieved by putting players in basically the same position at the start. This is an emotionally vulnerable situation! If a player misunderstands how the pieces interact, that failure might be immediately punished by their opponent and onlookers might think them foolish. Although games with lots of numbers (like complex Euro-style strategy games or Dungeons & Dragons) can present an intimidating surface, the many numbers and procedures provide a profound sense of emotional safety.
But emotional vulnerability can also create a profound sense of closeness. Making a hard choice with unfathomable consequences can be an act of micro-heroism, taking a real emotional risk to tell a captivating story on the table. To enable these moments, designers must convince players that the emotional risks are worth it.