Players Don't Care About Counterfactual Success

One game I am working on right now is a social deduction game with a drawing element. Players conceal subtle details in their drawings in case they are randomly selected for a secret club, so other members can identify them. I learned yesterday through playtesting that, since they draw pictures before knowing whether they are in the club, they may create something clever, only for no one to notice. Their art might have been amazing had they been chosen, but players struggle to care about rewards that only exist in counterfactual worlds. The absence of feedback makes their effort feel wasted.

We can see this problem in the real world all the time. Prevention is cheaper and more effective than treatment, but preventative policies are cursed by the fact that if they succeed, people think they aren't necessary, and if they fail, people think they aren't effective. Even though humans are good at imagining alternate futures, we still undervalue those that never occur.

Games make this problem worse because players expect their actions to provide tangible rewards. If the reward for a strategy is insurance against a particular outcome, you need a backup reward in case that never happens, or you risk disappointment. In Dominion, there are several cards you can reveal in reaction, but they all include an effect when played. For instance, you can reveal the Moat to ignore the effect of another player's attack, but you can also play it to draw two cards. Though getting two cards is weak for a draw effect, it still ensures the card does something.

One common issue with contingencies is their time limit. Removing this turns them from a gamble into a persistent resource. In Spirit Island, you can place wilds tokens that stop one future explore action and remain until triggered. Isolation effects accomplish the same goal but only for one round, so players often isolate a land only for the invaders to explore a different land instead. The frequency of exploration almost guarantees that wilds will trigger eventually, but even if they don't, their presence provides concrete evidence of security.

Contingency plans can be a lot of fun. They make players feel very clever when triggered. But they also lead to unrewarded effort. You can address this by giving a backup reward or leaving contingencies in play until used. In both cases, the principle is to give players visible feedback rather than invisible insurance. As for my social deduction game, I still haven't figured out what to give non-club players for the effort put into their drawings, but now at least the problem is clear, even if the solution isn't.