Quote from: The Traveller;581358.


A blanket golden rule to consider your audience first is not the way to go.

Keep in mind, we are only talking about the measure of good design. We are not listing procedural steps all designers should follow. I think desigers need to begin with what comes most naturally to them. Some might begin by thinking about their audience, some might begin by thinking about what kind of game they want to make, some might begin by thinking up a cool core mechanic. I dont think there is a best way to design. My only point is that i dont think designer meeting design goals automatically equals goid design.

Personally i start by asking myself what i do well and how i can apply that to a concept i want to work on. Then i establish design goals and as it takes shape i consider who this game would appeal to. For me it is very important to get feedback along the way from players who come from my target audience. But it isnt step one.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;581362Uh, no.  When you play a video game, you probably never look at the cover again.  When you play an RPG, you're constantly using the book to reference things.  

Hmm, not the games I play. In fact, having to look something up in a book during play is one indicator for me that the game isn't to my taste, like any barrier that rules create between playing a role.

But even taking such into consideration, there's still a marked distinction between a system and the presentation of a system. I suppose they can both be grouped under the title "game design", but I suspect that when most people use the term they are reffering to system design specifically, which is distinct and has nothing to do with the presentation of the rules.

I disagree, for two primary reasons.  One, I've frequently heard complaints of bad game design when the book is laid out horribly.  Secondly, I've never heard of a game designer who didn't consider layout and presentation part of game design.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;581364But here you are still considering your audience. You just said it yourself, you are creating a clever new mechanic to wow them.

This is what I meant by it being a complex question, it becomes a chicken and egg situation if you consider it for long enough. Are you creating something new in spite of or because of your audience? How would anyone know one way or the other? Maybe audiences feel they had a role to play in the creation of something new, perhaps the feedback is inspirational, or maybe its the drive to escape the expectations, all of the above can be true and simultaneously as well, this is a bottomless rabbit hole.

I've already laid out what I feel are the basic criteria to consider in good design, I agree that audience requirements can be a factor, but it influences each part of the criteria I mentioned if that is the case, rather than being an independent element in and of itself.

Quote from: TristramEvans;581361In the same way box cover art is a part of videogame design, I guess.

Actually, not at all, because the box the actual CD you put in your computer to play the video game has an infinitesimal impact on the actual experience playing the game on the computer, whereas the way a tabletop role playing game is packaged, layed out, whether the book lies flat on the table or can be annotated or not because the pages are glossy and whatnot, the art it features, including the covers of the books the players will be constantly looking at on the table while playing the game in their imagination, how it is written using what type of language and grammar, bullet points or full sentences, examples or no examples, explicit game structures or not, etc has a TREMENDOUS impact on the way people will react to it, read it, prep the game with it, and actually play it afterwards. These elements of form, ergonomics, impact on the imagination and so on are certainly part of actual game design, or should be, in any case.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;581349You are reaching. Do you really want to assert this would be good design?

Not reaching that is just how it is. If your design goal is to make shit then if you accomplish that you did a good job at making shit. I'd say you were reaching considering it is your idea to posit that someone wants to intentionally making shit as the counter to my assertion.

Quote from: The Traveller;581371This is what I meant by it being a complex question, it becomes a chicken and egg situation if you consider it for long enough. Are you creating something new in spite of or because of your audience? How would anyone know one way or the other? Maybe audiences feel they had a role to play in the creation of something new, perhaps the feedback is inspirational, or maybe its the drive to escape the expectations, all of the above can be true and simultaneously as well, this is a bottomless rabbit hole.

I've already laid out what I feel are the basic criteria to consider in good design, I agree that audience requirements can be a factor, but it influences each part of the criteria I mentioned if that is the case, rather than being an independent element in and of itself.

Pretty much this. As I stated earlier "How do I appeal to group X" is too broad to base actual design on so you start there and ask yourself other questions and design your game around that.

There's an easy way to do this.

MGuy, what are you design requirements for a pair of gloves?  It's important to detail all of your goals.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;581370I disagree, for two primary reasons.  One, I've frequently heard complaints of bad game design when the book is laid out horribly.  

I've heard complainst of bad game design because people didn't like a certain playable race, or because they thought the author was a tool on some forum, or because the game wasn't some othergame the critic liked. I don't think any of those have to do with the merits of a system, myself.

QuoteSecondly, I've never heard of a game designer who didn  't consider layout and presentation part of game design.

Gary Gygax?

Quote from: MGuy;581375Not reaching that is just how it is. If your design goal is to make shit then if you accomplish that you did a good job at making shit. I'd say you were reaching considering it is your idea to posit that someone wants to intentionally making shit as the counter to my assertion.

If you dont see the problem with this, I really don't know what to say here. You are trying to establish a measure for if something is good design. But you have created one that will evaluate bad design as good.

The question isn't did you do a good job of achieving your design goals but did you execute good design.

Quote from: TristramEvans;581383I've heard complainst of bad game design because people didn't like a certain playable race, or because they thought the author was a tool on some forum, or because the game wasn't some othergame the critic liked. I don't think any of those have to do with the merits of a system, myself.

I've heard plenty of people complain about how spells were organized, or why in the world would you have setting way at the end, or why have races or classes after the equipment section, or the wording and clarity was horrible.  Hell, surely you have been aware of all the complaints people have about how the AD&D1e manuals are laid out.

QuoteGary Gygax?

Did Gary ever say that he didn't consider layout design or graphic design not part of a game's design?

That would seem awfully strange.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;581387Did Gary ever say that he didn't consider layout design or graphic design not part of a game's design?

That would seem awfully strange.

That would seem to be the only explanation for every edition of D&D prior to the 80s.

Quote from: Sacrosanct;581378There's an easy way to do this.

MGuy, what are you design requirements for a pair of gloves?  It's important to detail all of your goals.

Are we talking oven mitts, fingerless gloves for popstar wanabees, or were you planning on handling liquid nitrogen with them? Either way you're going to have to prioritize lookin' cool, insulation and flexibility. And cost, since the All Purpose Superglove is possible, but is going to be expensive - and is still going to be more useless than something specialized e.g. you hadn't realized someone would be trying to handle radioactive substances with it.

Quote from: Catelf;581341I have now seen the exact same off-topic going on fr several pages now,

There is a user control panel where you can set your posts per page number to something that is not insanely low.

Quote from: TristramEvans;581390That would seem to be the only explanation for every edition of D&D prior to the 80s.

Sure. All these creatures illos in the MM, the first page or so of the DMG that shows an actual bell curve graph along with the text discussing dice and probabilities, the maps in the modules that were part of the cover you could use independantly from the booklet of text, the dice and crayons in the boxes, or the format of the supplements of OD&D you could neatly put *gasp* in the box of the original game... none of these things were thought through at all. They appeared and/or happened by pure coincidence.

Look. I'm all for a jab once in a while, but that's some pretty dumb comment you just made, you gotta admit.