Creeping Normality

tim-cain game-design scope-management design-limits fallout arcanum vampire-the-masquerade-bloodlines wildstar overton-window

Abstract

Problem: How do games gradually lose their identity and coherence when design boundaries are incrementally pushed beyond their original limits?

Approach: Tim Cain defines "creeping normality" — the deliberate, incremental expansion of a game's boundaries — and illustrates it with examples from Fallout, Arcanum, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, and WildStar.

Findings: Every game Cain has worked on has suffered from creeping normality. Designers push small changes past established limits; once accepted, the new baseline enables further pushes. This erodes a game's theme, tone, and identity, and wastes development time on features that don't belong.

Key insight: Game directors must define hard limits early, get team agreement, and then be "the bad guy" who enforces those limits — because incremental boundary violations compound into a game that no longer feels like itself.

Source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N3mX9ySWz6o

What Is Creeping Normality?

Creeping normality is the process of achieving major change through small, incremental steps. It is not the same as the slippery slope fallacy (an argument that one small change will inevitably lead to catastrophe). Creeping normality is deliberate: someone pushes a boundary just slightly past its defined limit. Once that's accepted, the limit has moved, and they push again.

In politics, this is related to the Overton window — the range of ideas considered acceptable shifts over time as positions near the edges get normalized. Cain uses this analogy but notes creeping normality is a distinct phenomenon he's observed repeatedly in game development.

The Simpsons Example

Cain references an interview (likely with Conan O'Brien) where Simpsons writers described how Homer Simpson shifted from a mean, aggressive father to a profoundly stupid one. A producer initially pushed back on a joke as "too dumb for Homer," but after other dumb lines got laughs and were accepted, the originally rejected joke no longer seemed too far. The limit had crept. Homer's character fundamentally changed through accumulated small shifts.

Fallout: From Clunky Robots to Synths

In the original Fallout, robots were deliberately designed as chunky, mechanical, and obviously non-sentient — inspired by Robbie the Robot from Forbidden Planet. A team member who loved Terminator repeatedly tried to introduce skinny endoskeleton robots. Cain pushed back: "That is not Fallout."

But later Fallout games introduced exactly that. Fallout 4 features Nick Valentine (an endoskeleton detective), synths that are supposedly indistinguishable from humans, and the Institute's advanced technology. Each step normalized the next. Cain argues this incremental creep means Fallout risks eventually looking like a completely different game.

Arcanum 2: The Ore That Would Destroy the Theme

The Arcanum 2 design document (an amalgam of several designers' ideas) included a magical ore that could combine magic and technology into single items. Cain argued against it because the tension between magic and technology is Arcanum's entire identity — elves who reject tech, dwarves who hoard it, humans who want to spread both. An ore that merges them undermines the core premise.

Worse, it's a gateway to creeping normality: once you can combine magic and tech in one item, you can have magic guns, tech-enhanced spells, and the unique identity of Arcanum dissolves.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines: Caine and Scope Creep

When Cain joined Bloodlines two years into development, there was a push to include Caine (the original vampire) as an active presence in the story. Cain helped pull this back, arguing it would:

  • Diminish player agency (your character matters less next to the most powerful vampire in existence)
  • Open the door to including other ancient, powerful figures (the Nephilim, elder vampires), shifting the game away from its core: a fledgling vampire navigating clan politics

WildStar: When You Can't Enforce Limits

At WildStar, Cain struggled with creeping normality because as programming director, he had less authority over design. When he became design director, he found that peers and superiors pushed back against his attempts to define limits. Without enforceable boundaries, the game lacked a coherent theme — players couldn't quickly grasp "what this game is" within the first few hours.

Practical Advice for Game Developers

Cain's recommendations:

  • Define hard limits early. Write them down. State explicitly what is and isn't in the game.
  • Get team agreement on those limits before production begins.
  • Enforce ruthlessly. The game director's job is to say "no" to anything that crosses the boundary, even if it's a small crossing.
  • Recognize the cost. Features that push past limits require extra work to feel like they belong — work that could have been spent making the core game better.
  • Watch for the pattern. Designers often introduce something near-the-limit that isn't their real idea. Once it's accepted, they propose what they actually wanted, which now seems reasonable by comparison.

Why It Matters

Without limits, two things happen:

  1. Overscoping — too many features, too much content, the project balloons
  2. Identity loss — the game stops feeling like a coherent experience with a clear theme, tone, and style

Creeping normality is dangerous precisely because each individual step seems small and reasonable. It's only when you look at the accumulated drift that you realize the game has become something entirely different from what was originally envisioned.

References