In the world of roleplaying games, player engagement is both an art and a science. Game Masters dedicate countless hours to crafting immersive worlds and compelling narratives, but there is a subtle psychological principle that can further enhance the RPG experience: the IKEA effect. Coined by Michael Norton and colleagues in 2011, this effect describes the tendency for individuals to overvalue things they have worked to create. In RPGs, this means that players are more likely to value aspects of the game they have contributed to, even if the objective quality of their contributions is no higher – or even lower – than professionally pre-made content.

Understanding and leveraging this phenomenon can help GMs foster stronger connections between players and their campaigns, enhancing meaningful choices, player agency, and overall immersion.

Understanding the IKEA Effect in RPGs

The Psychological Foundations of the IKEA Effect

The IKEA effect is rooted in experiments that demonstrate how labor alone increases a person’s valuation of a product. In one study, participants who assembled IKEA furniture were willing to pay 63% more for it than those who received the same furniture pre-assembled. Similar experiments with origami figures and LEGO sets showed that participants consistently overvalued objects they had constructed themselves, even when the quality of their creations was amateur compared to expertly crafted examples.

These studies underscore a fundamental psychological truth: the act of creation transforms our perception of value. Even when tasks are challenging or mundane, the effort we invest leads us to perceive the outcomes as more meaningful.

Competence as a Key Psychological Driver

The IKEA effect ties closely to the human need for competence – the feeling of mastery over tasks or environments. Behavioral scientist Albert Bandura demonstrated in his 1977 research that successfully completing tasks enhances feelings of control and self-efficacy. In RPGs, this translates into the satisfaction players feel when they contribute to the story or setting. By creating content, players reinforce their sense of competence, deepening their connection to the game.

How Effort Justification Influences Player Perceptions

Effort justification is another cognitive principle underlying the IKEA effect. People tend to value outcomes they have worked hard to achieve, even when those outcomes might not be objectively superior. In RPGs, this bias means that players will cherish and prioritize their contributions, such as developing a character’s backstory or helping to shape the world, because they have invested their time and energy into the process.

Feeling Ownership Through the Endowment Effect

The Endowment Effect, a related bias, occurs when individuals overvalue items they associate with themselves. In RPGs, the sense of ownership players feel over elements they create or influence amplifies the perceived worth of those contributions. While the endowment effect focuses on connection, the IKEA effect highlights how effortful creation deepens that connection. Together, these biases form a powerful dynamic that enhances player engagement.

Players Value What They Create More

At its core, the IKEA effect is a psychological bias where individuals feel a deeper connection to things they’ve had a hand in building. In RPGs, this could be anything from co-creating the game world with the GM to shaping key narrative arcs or even developing detailed backstories for their characters. This connection stems from their sense of ownership and the satisfaction of having shaped the experience. The more effort players invest, the more they perceive their contributions as meaningful effort, which in turn enhances their sense of content value. Their personal investment transforms their connection to the content, making it feel more important, regardless of its objective quality.

This connection isn’t just emotional – it directly impacts how players view the quality of the content itself. A player may, for instance, feel that a backstory they wrote or a setting detail they contributed to is more meaningful than a highly polished plot twist prepared by the GM. This doesn’t necessarily mean their contribution is objectively better, but because of the effort and agency they’ve invested, they subjectively perceive it as more valuable.

The Role of Meaningful Choices

In RPGs, meaningful choices are essential to player engagement. When players feel that their decisions genuinely influence the story, it enhances their immersion and enjoyment. The IKEA effect amplifies this sense of agency. Players who see their decisions shaping the story develop a stronger emotional investment in the game.

Nonlinear structures, where players create plans to achieve their goals or proactively determine the sequence of scenes, amplify this effect. By giving players control over open-ended sequence of scenes, GMs can deepen their engagement and further validate their contributions to the game. These meaningful choices are often directly tied to the player’s sense of ownership. When players have had the opportunity to contribute to the game’s development, the choices they make within that framework feel more personal. This personal investment, again, leads to a perception that the quality of the game is higher than it might objectively be. In contrast, pre-designed elements that players didn’t help shape, no matter how meticulously crafted, may not evoke the same level of attachment or satisfaction.

Objective Quality vs. Perceived Value

One of the most fascinating aspects of the IKEA effect is the way it creates a discrepancy between objective quality and perceived value. In a typical RPG scenario, the GM may spend hours or even days preparing intricate plotlines, designing balanced encounters, and crafting compelling NPCs. These elements, from an objective standpoint, might be of exceptionally high quality. However, because the players had no hand in their creation, they might not view them as being as significant or impactful.

On the other hand, even something as simple as a minor NPC that players helped co-create, or a piece of world-building they influenced, might be viewed as more important and valuable – even if it’s less polished. This difference between objective quality and perceived value is at the heart of the IKEA effect, and understanding it can help GMs better appreciate why their players might favor certain aspects of the game that they’ve contributed to, even when those aspects may not meet the same objective standards.

Harnessing the IKEA Effect to Enhance Player Agency

The IKEA effect offers GMs a powerful tool for increasing player agency and engagement. When players feel they are active participants in the game’s creation, they experience a greater sense of ownership and satisfaction.

For the IKEA effect to work, players must be aware that they are putting in effort, and the tasks they undertake must strike the right balance of difficulty. If a task is too easy, players may not feel sufficiently invested; if it is too hard, they may become frustrated and disengaged. Successful completion of the task is essential for the IKEA effect to take hold.

GMs can trigger the IKEA effect by involving players as much as possible. Encouraging active roles in world-building, character creation, or scenario planning fosters a sense of investment. Giving players an active role in the scenario encourages greater investment in the game. These efforts make the game feel more collaborative and enhance players’ level of agency.

Key Takeaways for Using the IKEA Effect in RPGs

The IKEA effect highlights the power of effort and creation in shaping perceptions of value. For RPG Game Masters, this psychological phenomenon offers a way to deepen player engagement by incorporating opportunities for active contribution and meaningful choices.

By balancing pre-prepared content with elements that encourage player input, GMs can create scenarios where players feel a genuine sense of ownership and agency. Whether through nonlinear structures, collaborative world-building, or player-driven plotlines, the IKEA effect ensures that the more players invest in the game, the more they value it.

While the objective quality of player-driven or player-created content may not always match the GM’s prepared material, the personal investment and effort players put into co-creating elements of the game often make those contributions feel more valuable. Recognizing and harnessing this can lead to more engaged, invested, and satisfied players – ultimately elevating the entire gaming experience.