Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;581395Are 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.

That's all stuff for him to list out.  I'm curious to see what his goals are for a pair of gloves, and see that if all of those goals are met, are they a good design as per his logic.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;581385If 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.

Again, that is you reaching. You're the one who posits that at some point someone is going to intentionally write up a game that serves no other purpose than to be bad. That sounds ridiculous because it is, but keep in mind that you are the one who brought it up. If you think it is ridiculous to even fathom perhaps you can come up with an example that supports your point but isn't absolutely ridiculous.

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;581395Are 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.

Hahaha no. Don't let Sacro bait you.

Quote from: MGuy;581411Again, that is you reaching. You're the one who posits that at some point someone is going to intentionally write up a game that serves no other purpose than to be bad. That sounds ridiculous because it is, but keep in mind that you are the one who brought it up. If you think it is ridiculous to even fathom perhaps you can come up with an example that supports your point but isn't absolutely ridiculous.

I brought it up because you set designer intent as measure of good design. I was just pointing out that under that measure, a designer who deliberately designs a bad game is engaged in good design.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;581414I brought it up because you set designer intent as measure of good design. I was just pointing out that under that measure, a designer who deliberately designs a bad game is engaged in good design.

Yes. If the person who sets to make a bad game successfully makes a bad game then his design was good for making bad games and anyone else who wants to make a bad game can follow those designs and also make bad games. If you set your goal to making a bad game and you successfully do it then what exactly is the problem?

Quote from: MGuy;581421Yes. If the person who sets to make a bad game successfully makes a bad game then his design was good for making bad games and anyone else who wants to make a bad game can follow those designs and also make bad games. If you set your goal to making a bad game and you successfully do it then what exactly is the problem?

:popcorn:

This is awesome, like watching a game design version of Ubu Roi.

Quote from: Benoist;581424:popcorn:

This is awesome, like watching a game design version of Ubu Roi.

.... Been looking at those two smilies for ... a while, and agrees, this argument is a show now, and i almost expect a cop coming in and arresting them both for being "silly" ....
At least the argument's bodycount is down to 2, one on each side, since the other ones either has seen both sides of the point, or decided to vary the argumentation in a better way.

Technically, it doesn't even matter if any "side" is correct, the answer to the main question is still "Not as much as some may think".

As pointed out:
A more complete, effective, and working game can still be completely ignored by people that only play D&D, simply because D&D holds potentially as much nostalgia as Monopoly by now.
Not many D&D-players care if the game is broken, they used to play it, so they continue playing it.
In the US, no Rpg can even hope to compare to D&D.

No, the question may be more valid if one compares "all the other" games:
Does good game design really matter when comparing ...
* CoC, Trail of Cthulhu, and any other horrorgame?
* Different editions of Shadowrun?
* HERO, Heroes Unlimited, and Aberrant?

.... and so on.

Not many attempts at answering that has been done yet. ... at least not in this thread.

This is a very odd thread, or at least that's how it has devolved.

Should a design that allowed you to meet all your design goals be considered a good design?  Well...it should be considered a successful design at least.  

However, does that mean that a different design could have met those goals better, more efficiently, with less cost, etc?  Well...yeah.

If I want to exterminate human beings from a distance, will a throwing knife do?  Yeah, but a sniper rifle will do better, and an ICBM will do it on a mass scale.  But I can't enter your average nightclub with a sniper rifle or an ICBM.

Thus, conditions enter the equation.

Now add in the fun factor that when we're talking about game design, a certain level of it is totally subjective.  For some people, Barbarians of Lemuria is the best design for Conan gaming.  For others, Hero.  For yet others, RQ6.

Some aspects of game design are objective.  In order to successfully model firearms reality, a .22 bullet should be able to kill in one shot, but it should be rare, while a .50 caliber machine gun bullet should be survivable, but it should be rare and probably not without serious injury.   The subjective part comes in because there are a thousand ways I could do that and no matter which way I went, some would love it and others hate it.

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. 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.

Design is the process. The game is the product.

If I were an engineer and made a weapon to destroy the Earth, it wouldn't be a failure of engineering, even though I made an awful thing. If I were a graphic designer and made a really slick website for the KKK, it wouldn't be bad web design. If I pointed myself towards the edge of a cliff and ran, the problems I'd have wouldn't be a failure of my ability to run. Likewise with game design, you can set an unworthy goal and still strive for it well.

A good game is a fun game for many people. Good design is the process of making a game for a specific set of goals.

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.

If it clarifies things any, I consider processes outside rules design part of a larger process of development. Getting feedback, directing iteration, changing goals to suit the audience, etc. aren't things I would classify under rules design, any more than I'd expect the market research that generates a company's graphic design needs to be handled by that company's graphic designers. Though graphic designers and market researchers do work together towards a common goal, they still have different jobs.

Quote from: Catelf;581447No, the question may be more valid if one compares "all the other" games:
Does good game design really matter when comparing ...
* CoC, Trail of Cthulhu, and any other horrorgame?
* Different editions of Shadowrun?
* HERO, Heroes Unlimited, and Aberrant?
 
.... and so on.
 
Not many attempts at answering that has been done yet. ... at least not in this thread.

Trail of Cthulhu is...an interesting case. I hate this system violently because of its whole "spend skill points on rolls and then they're gone" mechanic, which just makes no sense to me whatever. Compared to CoC its proponents consider one of its major innovations that you can find clues automatically and so avoid scenarios grinding to a halt, but it has been argued this is something better addressed by better scenario design. Managed to convince the GM who wanted to run this to run Realms of Cthulhu (Savage Worlds) instead.
 
Different editions of Shadowrun may be arguable as to which of these is better designed, if any. I'm only familiar with 1st and (very marginally) 4th, but it seemed that 4th has just crazy dice pool sizes, whatever other improvements were there...not crazy about the character generation either, though I might be able to handle it for a long-term game.
 
Out of HERO, Heroes Unlimited, and Aberrant, Aberrant is I think the best-designed game in many respects since its basically the revised Storyteller system with universal game mechanic, levels of achievement and so on, but it does suffer from a number of crippling limitations e.g. everyone has to be a mutant, a bad setting (or at least, I didn't like it) and characters that vary between vapourizing if you look at them funny and being nigh indestructible.
Heroes Unlimited is also completely unbalanced and has the standard Palladium system, but at least you can built what you like (not just mutants). HERO probably beats Palladium in terms of design goodness, but fairly fiddly and min/maxable - of the three I'd probably pick Heroes Unlimited as the one I'd most enjoy playing...

Quote from: beejazz;581454Design is the process. The game is the product.

If I were an engineer and made a weapon to destroy the Earth, it wouldn't be a failure of engineering, even though I made an awful thing. If I were a graphic designer and made a really slick website for the KKK, it wouldn't be bad web design. If I pointed myself towards the edge of a cliff and ran, the problems I'd have wouldn't be a failure of my ability to run. Likewise with game design, you can set an unworthy goal and still strive for it well.

A good game is a fun game for many people. Good design is the process of making a game for a specific set of goals.
.

I dont know that parsing over these details is going to get us very far as we are getting into very pedantic points, but just to respond to this. the issue is people cant agree what constitutes good design. One measure proposed was good design = meeting design goals. In both your above examples, meeting design goals isnt the sole criteria for success. Both those items have inherent purposes that demand certain design goals over others. If you set out to make a giant death ray of the earth, and your design goals have nothing to do with earthly destruction...then that is bad design. Meeting design goals matters, but it also matters what those design goals are. I think good design goals haveto consider the purpose and function of the thing you are designing. The purpose of a game is to be played by people. So i just dont see how you can seperate that from your measure of good design. If my design goals produce a game that no one wants to play, i am just not seeing how we can call that good design. You have succesfully met your design goals. But should we call that an example of good design? It seems that designer meetsdesign goals very important when evauating design. I absolutely dont dispute that. I just question if it makes sense as the sole measure of good design.

I do agree with others that this thread has gotten a bit weird, and I am at least partly responsible for it going down that course, so i will leave this as my final point on the design goal part of the debate (and i am starting to repeat myself which isnever a good sign

Quote from: Bloody Stupid Johnson;581461Trail of Cthulhu is...an interesting case. I hate this system violently because of its whole "spend skill points on rolls and then they're gone" mechanic, which just makes no sense to me whatever. Compared to CoC its proponents consider one of its major innovations that you can find clues automatically and so avoid scenarios grinding to a halt, but it has been argued this is something better addressed by better scenario design. Managed to convince the GM who wanted to run this to run Realms of Cthulhu (Savage Worlds) instead.
 
Different editions of Shadowrun may be arguable as to which of these is better designed, if any. I'm only familiar with 1st and (very marginally) 4th, but it seemed that 4th has just crazy dice pool sizes, whatever other improvements were there...not crazy about the character generation either, though I might be able to handle it for a long-term game.
 
Out of HERO, Heroes Unlimited, and Aberrant, Aberrant is I think the best-designed game in many respects since its basically the revised Storyteller system with universal game mechanic, levels of achievement and so on, but it does suffer from a number of crippling limitations e.g. everyone has to be a mutant, a bad setting (or at least, I didn't like it) and characters that vary between vapourizing if you look at them funny and being nigh indestructible.
Heroes Unlimited is also completely unbalanced and has the standard Palladium system, but at least you can built what you like (not just mutants). HERO probably beats Palladium in terms of design goodness, but fairly fiddly and min/maxable - of the three I'd probably pick Heroes Unlimited as the one I'd most enjoy playing...

Hm, i think i'd not like Trail of Cthulhu for the same reason ... and i agree it would be better solved with some better planning.

SR seems to be a bit of a mess, and i recently looked at a thread on preferred SR editions ... seems most there preferred 2e.

Back on subject, though:
You seem to think that Aberrant is best designed all in all, yet it fails, and so does HERO, despite that too seeming better than Heroes Unlimited.
.... That can mean a few things:
* You are used to Heroes Unlimited, so that its flaws are more easy to overlook for you.
* Options/Visible Choises trump good design.
* Setting trump good design (again).
* Heroes unlimited is, despite its flaws, better designed.
* Good game design doesn't matter as much as some may think.

Which one(s) of these would you agree on?

.... Personally, i'd rather tweak Aberrant than play HU.

Quote from: Catelf;581469Back on subject, though:
You seem to think that Aberrant is best designed all in all, yet it fails, and so does HERO, despite that too seeming better than Heroes Unlimited.
.... That can mean a few things:
* You are used to Heroes Unlimited, so that its flaws are more easy to overlook for you.
* Options/Visible Choises trump good design.
* Setting trump good design (again).
* Heroes unlimited is, despite its flaws, better designed.
* Good game design doesn't matter as much as some may think.
 
Which one(s) of these would you agree on?
 
.... Personally, i'd rather tweak Aberrant than play HU.

Can't fault you for that. I played a whole campaign of Aberrant many years ago; have played a reasonable amount of Palladium back in high school mainly (only 2 sessions of true Heroes Unlimited, however) and have never played HERO.
HERO is I think better designed objectively, but just doesn't suit my preferences- over my preferred complexity threshold. I picked up 6E fairly recently just since it was a gaping flaw in my RPG education but I found it a hard read.
 
Palladium does have a number of little features and things I appreciate, despite being a mess aesthetically speaking (e.g. various subsystems, large swathes of things not covered by rules) and I guess part of it is that I would have enough mastery of the system/own enough supplements to work around many of the holes. So partly that, although the options are also part of it.

Quote from: beejazz;581454If it clarifies things any, I consider processes outside rules design part of a larger process of development. Getting feedback, directing iteration, changing goals to suit the audience, etc. aren't things I would classify under rules design, any more than I'd expect the market research that generates a company's graphic design needs to be handled by that company's graphic designers. Though graphic designers and market researchers do work together towards a common goal, they still have different jobs.

This is true of what we call the pilot phase, where it goes out to a limited group of users.  But my role is included in the design process because the process isn't finalized until they get my sign off, and I'm included in working with the other two groups around redesign.

It would be like if I was part of alpha D&D playtesting before it was released to everyone else, and had an equal say in what rules should be implemented and which should be changed or removed.

Quote from: MGuy;581413Hahaha no. Don't let Sacro bait you.

How is that baiting?  You said you could design a glove, and you said that if it meets your goals, it's a good design.

So I'm asking you, tell me what your goals are for designing a glove.  If you have any conviction in your arguments, I'm sure this is a pretty easy thing to do.  I mean, we're talking about a glove here, not a car.