Quote from: BedrockBrendan;581177(which is I think the big lesson of 4E: solid design goals, solidly executed, but not aligned with the needs or desires of their existing target audience).

Yes, but that just means they omitted to design towards one of their more important goals, incidentally one of the commonly accepted basic goals, which in this case was sales. I see what you're saying though, a part of the process is to refine your design with advice from others. I'm not really talking about some lone gunman designer labouring in secret in his hermitage-basement until the day he emerges moses-like with the system to end all systems.

We're splitting a fine line in definitions here, between desired sales and appealing to a niche, I guess by their nature these games have to appeal to at least two other people, but these are different yet related goals.

Quote from: StormBringer;581188But the point of "...for something to happen and it happens the way  you want it to" is that the designer is going to have the perfect set of rules, and no one will need (want? dare?) to change anything about them.  If something needs to be changed, they have failed as a designer.  

Thats just onetruewayism though, the forge is indeed an excellent example of that.

On the other hand take for example the guy that did Phoenix Command. That isn't playable for me, its not even slightly fun. But I recognise it as a monumental design effort towards a vision which reached its goals, and I respect it, even admire it, for what it is. Its not sloppy, he put his best into it and it shows.

Now he had to know he was playing to a pretty small niche here, and isn't deluded about the fact since he isn't storming up and down the internet trying to denigrate other games in the name of his masterpiece. This would be an admittedly extreme example of good design that didn't trip over the problem you outline. These are seperate phenomena.

Quote from: MGuy;581204I think people are relating "good game design" to "enjoyable game experience". The first doesn't necessarily lead to the second nor does the latter necessarily suggest that the former is true.

I agree with this, but keep in mind that for some a game is impossible to categorise as well designed unless its an enjoyable playing experience. Which is itself a bit silly, I mean what's the cutoff point? Half the market enjoys it so its good design? A sixth of the market? A hundred people? Ten people? Whats enjoyable for some might be miserable for others. As such its too arbitrary to be a useful yardstick, which is why I'd downplay it in terms of defining good design.

Set your design goals, try to achieve those goals, if lots of people like it great. If not it doesn't mean the design was bad, unless you're specifically aiming for mass appeal with your design.

Quote from: Spinachcat;581238Setting trumps system...but it helps to have a good system.

When I look at the success of Vampire, Shadowrun or Deadlands, I am seeing really engaging settings with functional systems (some with barely functional sub-systems), but players and GMs are so engaged with the world and characters that system issues are secondary.

But many people love GURPS and HERO which have no setting, so who knows?

I think GURPS and HERO has "Setting trups System", too.
See, GURPS = You make your own setting, or use any setting you like, remember that GURPS has a multitude of supplements, as well.
... And isn't HERO supposed to emulate Superheroes and different Action-series and -movies?
Everyone into those genres knows what setting is intended if one say, for instance "Batman" or "X-Men", or similar.

Quote from: The Traveller;581245Thats just onetruewayism though, the forge is indeed an excellent example of that.

On the other hand take for example the guy that did Phoenix Command. That isn't playable for me, its not even slightly fun. But I recognise it as a monumental design effort towards a vision which reached its goals, and I respect it, even admire it, for what it is. Its not sloppy, he put his best into it and it shows.

Now he had to know he was playing to a pretty small niche here, and isn't deluded about the fact since he isn't storming up and down the internet trying to denigrate other games in the name of his masterpiece. This would be an admittedly extreme example of good design that didn't trip over the problem you outline. These are seperate phenomena.
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Set your design goals, try to achieve those goals, if lots of people like it great. If not it doesn't mean the design was bad, unless you're specifically aiming for mass appeal with your design.

For not seeming to like The Forge, you sure do seem to use similar language, not to mentioning getting a bit caught up in theory.
Ok, to you, you are just responding to someone else, but still.

I do agree with most of what you are saying, but it is ... (now i will obviously disprove my own point) ... hard to see why there would be a reason for a system that only attracts a very few ... but if that is the case, one could ask if there is any point with rpgs at all ...? (finished disproving my own point, will now make another.)
So, it seems i agree with you fully on that point as well, since i like rpgs, and that is reason enough for me.

However, during the time i was on The Forge, i only saw a few who were clearly into "onetruewayism" (and i myself was one of them), though, since there were several who pointed out other ways that might work as well, for one reason or another.
I like to think i learned at least a little humility there.
(I still think my system is the best when it comes to multi-genre and ease of play, though  )

Quote from: The Traveller;581245On the other hand take for example the guy that did Phoenix Command. That isn't playable for me, its not even slightly fun. But I recognise it as a monumental design effort towards a vision which reached its goals, and I respect it, even admire it, for what it is. Its not sloppy, he put his best into it and it shows.

Now he had to know he was playing to a pretty small niche here, and isn't deluded about the fact since he isn't storming up and down the internet trying to denigrate other games in the name of his masterpiece. This would be an admittedly extreme example of good design that didn't trip over the problem you outline. These are seperate phenomena.

Minor point of detail on the PCCS:  When Barry Nakazono and David McKenzie created the system, they were working on making a computer based simulation game using US Government software that was designed to simulate the effects of damage to the human body.  They WERE engineers (Barry N is working for NASA's satellite program now) and the game was targeted at the simulation crowd, in fact, it's not really an RPG at its core, it's a tabletop minis game (which makes it even worse for how clunky it can be).  

They did a lot of successful marketing of it though, which is why they picked up licenses for Aliens, Lawnmower Man, Dracula, and (although they never published it) Predator 2.  However, in the early 90's the production companies weren't getting enough revenue out of the games and yanked their licenses, which tanked the company.  The reason the game system wasn't perpetuated was because there's some question as to who actually owns the rights (LEG ceased to be a company and the rights to the system reverted to the co-authors and somehow were also claimed by the movie company.  It's muddy) to the system.

I think that the amount of effort that they put into the movie licensing shows that they were trying to make a game that would hit a mass-market appeal, as opposed to just a small niche.  It failed, but that was likely due to having engineers working on the game system; they just didn't make it fully accessible enough for people who don't want to spend time using lookup charts for everything.

Quote from: MGuy;581204The thing about design is you can have design goals all over the place. If I have a design goal that is "Appeal to people X" if I fail to do that then I need to redo my design because I've done it badly. "Good Design" doesn't necessarily lead to everybody having a good time it means you've designed something that reaches your target design goals. Worrying about reaching a broad audience is a design goal (a broad one) and it doesn't get you far because you need to ask yourself then "what kind of audience do you want to appeal to?" and then "what does that audience want?".

You always have a target audience. If you don't, then why on earth are you designing a game? It may just be your own campaign group, but it is still a target audience. My point is your mechanical design goals can come into conflict with the feedback and wants of your target audience. When that happens, no matter how beautiful you feel your perfect mechanics are, good design re-evaulates. Sometimes this leads to mechanics that strain against your initial design goal (maybe you wanted gritty, but your hp system is too gritty for most people, even if they like gritty games).

Broad appeal is a legitimate design goal, but also one of the hardest. I dont make games like that, but D&D is such a game. When you appeal to a broad audience i think the last thing you want is hyper focused design (i.e. This game is going to be super realistic, or this game is going to be all about weeabo dragonborne, this game is going to have perfect class parity across the board, etc). It is like anything else, if you are writing for a broad audience for exampe you don't litter your writing with obscure references write in a style that might appeals to the new yorker crowd but not others. Knowing your audience is an important part of good writing, and it is an important part of good design.

Quote from: Catelf;581256For not seeming to like The Forge, you sure do seem to use similar language, not to mentioning getting a bit caught up in theory.

I've no experience with the forge, except for witnessing the damage they've caused.

Quote from: Panzerkraken;581257I think that the amount of effort that they put into the movie licensing shows that they were trying to make a game that would hit a mass-market appeal, as opposed to just a small niche.  It failed, but that was likely due to having engineers working on the game system; they just didn't make it fully accessible enough for people who don't want to spend time using lookup charts for everything.

Well, clearly one of their design goals wasn't accessability. They tried to shoehorn mass market appeal in by acquiring popular licences, but it didn't work because it wasn't designed with that in mind, as you said. I just look at the rules and what they are trying to achieve rather than the real world history of the game.

If they were in fact trying to design it with mass appeal in mind, I'd have to mentally demote the game as far as good design goes.

"Good" is a very vague term. I think MGuy is technically correct -a system is a well-designed one if it does what its designer intended. Condemning a game thats perfect for a particular playing style that is, however, not your style is kind of being a jerk - not that I haven't done this at times (*cough* any 4E discussion I was involved in, for the first year or so after I joined).
 
Quite often, you don't always know what the designer intended exactly and can only assess something from your POV as to what's good/what's bad, of course. Occasionally the design goals themselves make no sense - Forge GNS theory may classify gamers as G, N or S and suggest a good game is one that strongly serves a particular paradigm, whereas most gamers muddle along in the middle somewhere.
 
Most of the time when people talk about "good" design however, they're not so much talking about reaching goals, as much as they're talking about implementation of the various current trends in best practice. Game balance, universal core mechanics, comprehensive character-building and to an extent tight rules for every situation seem to be the current trends, just as hyper-realism was the thing back in the 80s and story/personality focus was in around the 90s.
 
On D&D specifically: AD&D is a crazy hodge-podge of subsystems, but the system has been tinkered with over the years to function OK, whereas 3E and 4E look better engineered but were both total redesigns which meant new problems. 3E which on the surface looking prettier inherited now-useless chunks (e.g. ability scores as distinct from modifiers), failed to duplicate functions exactly due to streamlining (a universal mechanic giving too much bonus to HP, and not enough bonus to Open Doors; fighters getting one good save instead of five), added bits without realizing the full extent of what they were doing (Feats, Prestige Classes, monster ability scores, skills), or replaced a system that looked like it didn't work with a completely different system that really didn't work (multiclassing, ability boosting items), and nerfed a bunch of things that were problems in the older system that now weren't any more anyway (Weapon Specialization, elves, two-weapon fighting).

Quote from: Melan;580954Who knows. Maybe there is more to designing a game than number-crunching - compelling ways of fostering healthy group dynamics, setting interaction and content creation, that kind of stuff. Kinda far-fetched, isn't it.

Put simply, a lot of gamers fixate on mechanical stuff because they are number-obsessed people who equate design with mechanical optimalisation problems. Optimalisation is an important part of design, but only a part. There are a lot of soft factors which do not fit the narrow definition a lot of people are using. Game structures (or blueprints), for example, are a non-mechanical element of design. A game may have suboptimally designed mechanics but a clear presentation of useful game structures which make it very accessible and smooth in spite of mechanical weaknesses. A game may also have a generous amount of premade building blocks which can fit into those structures to facilitate easy and rewarding scenario-building. A game may also have interesting aesthetics.

Game structures and the like I consider mechanical. They're poorly understood mechanics, but still mechanics.

Not all mechanical discussion or tinkering revolves around balance. It'll be easy to forget that in light of recent discussion, but ease of use, new interesting decisions, and a higher number of possible outcomes all become goals for some new mechanics.

QuoteI am finding that online rhetoric can be very picky about hard mechnics to the point of hysteria while neglecting soft design, while actually running an enjoyable game has more to do with setting up a good group dynamic, and mechanics only do a little part of the heavy lifting there.

On a session by session basis I think GM prep has a huge impact. But I'd hardly call the discussion on adventure design a quiet one. Especially here.

QuoteNaturally, elements of design are not mutually exclusive, at least not within sensible limits. For some kinds of players, though, too tight mechanics may work against the open-ended nature of RPGs. This is a potential weakness of tightly integrated systems, as we discovered with 3.0.

As I said elsewhere, I see character building and open ended adventures as peanut butter and jelly. It's great to be able to both select the abilities that are useful in this campaign and select the challenges you feel you can handle.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;581157Design goals are great, but they do need to account for what the customers want. 4E met most of its design goals, but in doing so drove away a number of existing D&D players. You also have to account for why things that appear to detract from the "goal" of a game like D&D are deemed essential or fun by many players. For a game like D&D narrow design goals are a bad idea. For a game like "Draco-Warriors: The Optimized Weeabo Heartbreaker" you narrow design is okay because you are appealing to a specific demographic of the gaming community. "good design" in isolation from considerations like who actually plays the game is somewhat meaningless.

Nobody said that no matter what your goals are, people will like a game if you've accomplished them. If I set out to make an unpleasant game and succeed, I may have designed well but set my goal poorly.

Quote from: StormBringer;581162The major problem is "In a nutshell good  design is when you design for something to happen and it happens the way  you want it to."  Good design is when you make a (flexible) mechanic that increases enjoyment of the game.  If you can't tolerate the idea that people aren't going to play your game exactly they way you intended, perhaps RPG design isn't up your alley (third person 'you', of course).  I don't think Edwards' mis-step is entirely accidental; it seems to be the outcome of that kind of game design.  "Good design is easy to contemplate when your arguments aren't bogged  down by people who don't want the same thing you do" only means you should be writing a game for you and your friends exclusively; that was another modus operandi over at the Forge.  Write for that one tiny audience that has the exact tastes or preferences you do.

Flexibility is a common deign goal, but if you're talking approach to the rules or likelihood of house-ruling, I half wonder if that isn't more of a formatting and advice thing anyway.

Quote from: beejazz;581263Nobody said that no matter what your goals are, people will like a game if you've accomplished them. If I set out to make an unpleasant game and succeed, I may have designed well but set my goal poorly.
y.

This is the problem with having "did the designer meet his design goals" as the only measure of good design. Setting and meeting design goals is very important, but designers ought to account for their target audience. good design isn't just about meeting design goals. Games are judged good or bad by the people who play them. Same as anything else. One can make a "designers game" meant to appeal to designers with particular principles or sensibilities in mind, but in that case you are still considering a target audience.

Good design=design goals achieved, ignores the fact that these games are meant to be played. It is only part of the equation.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;581268This is the problem with having "did the designer meet his design goals" as the only measure of good design. Setting and meeting design goals is very important, but designers ought to account for their target audience.

That just means pleasing the audience is one of your criteria for good design. I don't agree as far as my own personal definition goes; where does that leave cutting edge design, new concepts, and so on that might not yet have an audience? Less so for mechanics since most of the possible broad strokes have been covered already, but certainly in terms of art, fluff, and premise, which have an infinite variety of options, and which are an intrinsic part of design.

Quote from: The Traveller;581277That just means pleasing the audience is one of your criteria for good design. I don't agree as far as my own personal definition goes; where does that leave cutting edge design, new concepts, and so on that might not yet have an audience? Less so for mechanics since most of the possible broad strokes have been covered already, but certainly in terms of art, fluff, and premise, which have an infinite variety of options, and which are an intrinsic part of design.

Cutting edge has an audience. There are gamers out there who look for innovative and new designs. Presumably though when you innovate it is to create something that will enhance gameplay for people. Innovation is part of the design process, it isnt the sole purpose of design though.

All i am saying is while meeting design goals is important it isnt the final measure of good design. The design goals themselves matter and it also matters if the game resonates with an audience. The point of games is to be played, a measure of design that doesn't consider that is problematic i think.

Just to throw my $0.02 in again.

I do software testing in real life.  Every day I run into examples where something was designed and/or coded based on the requirements (goal), yet still is a bad design.

For example, the line of business may set out a list of goals of what they want the software to do and what functionality it has.  The developers take those requirements and design the changes/adds around them.  Technically, it was designed exactly to the goal's specifications.  However, once you're in practical application (my job) pretty much always there are issues.  Either user functionality has been adversely affected in a way that's unacceptable, other things may have been broken or adversely affected because one requirement might not align with a pre-existing functionality, or the design may be completely inefficient and a more streamlined change needs to be made to coding,  etc.

It's dangerous thinking to assume that if you met your requirements, it's a good design.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;581288Just to throw my $0.02 in again.

I do software testing in real life.  Every day I run into examples where something was designed and/or coded based on the requirements (goal), yet still is a bad design.

For example, the line of business may set out a list of goals of what they want the software to do and what functionality it has.  The developers take those requirements and design the changes/adds around them.  Technically, it was designed exactly to the goal's specifications.  However, once you're in practical application (my job) pretty much always there are issues.  Either user functionality has been adversely affected in a way that's unacceptable, other things may have been broken or adversely affected because one requirement might not align with a pre-existing functionality, or the design may be completely inefficient and a more streamlined change needs to be made to coding,  etc.

It's dangerous thinking to assume that if you met your requirements, it's a good design.

It is interesting to see how peoples' backgrounds shape their attitudes to design. Sacrosanct, how technical is the software testing you do ? (do simply use tge software as a regular user would or do you get into stuff like coding). I am curious if you have found the techniques/procedures you use to test software helpful when testing RPGs or boardgames.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;581289It is interesting to see how peoples' backgrounds shape their attitudes to design. Sacrosanct, how technical is the software testing you do ? (do simply use tge software as a regular user would or do you get into stuff like coding). I am curious if you have found the techniques/procedures you use to test software helpful when testing RPGs or boardgames.

I do a little of both.  I don't actually do any of the coding, but I need to know how the coding works because when I'm in there as a user, from a user's perspective and something isn't working, I need to troubleshoot.

One thing about working in a job like I do is that I have to be bilingual.  What I mean by that is I have to be able to speak the language that the business users and managers use, and translate that into the language developers (code monkeys) use and vice versa.  I.e., when a developer starts doing SQL speak, I have to tell the business what that means in the context of how it will affect their user experience.

I also need to know how the users actually use the software.  If I just tested out the code the way it was designed, I'd miss a ton of potential problems.  Actually, most of my testing each release isn't around the actual changes, but around all the other functionality in regression testing to make sure something else wasn't broken.  Essentially my job is to try to break it, and predict all the different ways a user might do something.

The similarities to rpg testing are really only there for mechanics, and not for rpg design around things like setting, layout, art direction, etc.  When you build a set of mechanics, like character classes and skills, it would be very much in alignment with my real job to test out every single variation.  And just like my real job, occasionally you'll have a broken or unbalanced risk factor that might have to go through to production anyway if after doing risk assessment you figure that the % of that occurrence happening weighted against just how broken it is weighted against how much time and effort is needed to redo everything.

I'm going through this right now with my playtest/design packet on weapon creation for my Bleeding Sky RPG.  My charts might not allow you to completely replicate a certain weapon, but if that weapon is pretty rare and if including it meant I have to redo the system all over again when it works for 95% of weapons, is it really worth it?

Anyway, my point is that having something designed the way you wanted it designed doesn't mean it was designed well.  Sometimes, yes.  But it's a false sense of security.  It's not designed well until your target audience says it's designed well and it holds up under practical application, regardless if it hit the designers goals or not.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;581268This is the problem with having "did the designer meet his design goals" as the only measure of good design. Setting and meeting design goals is very important, but designers ought to account for their target audience.

Brendan, if your design goal is "appeal to an audience" and you fail to do that then your design is bad. If your goal isn't necessarily to appeal to an audience then it doesn't matter whether people liked it. It is true that big name designers ought to appeal to an audience because they want to move product, but seriously your target audience can be as small as one person. When you hear someone state that they want to appeal to an audience the first thing they start to do after saying that is telling you about their intended goals that will help them reach that.

Example: In 4E they said they wanted to do away with clunky combat and stated that they streamlined everything from character to monster generation. However they failed to make combat less clunky because of the proliferation of interrupts, ongoing abilities that end at different parts of the turn, padded sumo, monsters having unique and many times odd abilities, etc etc. So while their goal is something that would appeal to many audiences they failed to deliver because their designs failed to do what they intended it to do.

I dont think 4Es failure was a failure to meet design goals, it was a failure to understand what their audience wanted. If clunky combat was 4Es only issue it wouldn't have split the base the way it did.

Like I said Mguy, you always have a target audience (even if it is one or two people). I dont see why a designer simply meeting his design goals should be what defines good design. You have to include tge judgment of its intended audience. You also have to consider the merit of the design goals themselves. I can decide to make a car that looks like a triangle, has a safe max speed of 20 miles an hour and flashes green lights. That doesn't make it a well designed vehicle (even though my design goals were met). I can say it is safe, but it totally misses the point of what the 'safe car' customer wants. Cars are meant to driven, games are meant to be played. How people judge their performance matters. That is why its critical to know your audience.