Player Awareness

Generally, in an actual game, players are often aware of the habits/tendencies of their fellow players which can impact their own strategies. They may react anywhere along a spectrum of:

• Ignore – hold to their principal tendencies.
  • Even though every time they open the door they get a bonk on the head, they keep opening the door.
• Adapt/Morph – change their tendencies to mitigate the effect of their opponents’ tendencies.
  • Every time they open the door they get a bonk on the head, so they stop opening the door.
• Respond/React – change their play style to counter their opponents’.
  • Every time they open the door they get a bonk on the head, so they jump through the door with a shield raised, swinging a mallet.

This dynamic is hard to simulate, so I stick pretty much to an initial Player Type regardless of the other Player Types in the game. (Though some Player Types have adaptation built in, they aren’t changing type). This is one of many reasons why real playtesters are important.