"Good game design" evidently means different things to different people.

When I read this thread and see definitions of "good game design" that amount to a strict design of the game's mechanical bits, and that I further read some thoughts that divorce the concept of "good game design" from the primary goal of a game, which is to provide a consistent entertainment value, or "fun", to the people that play it, I think to myself I have landed on the planet Mars, or some alternate dimension somewhere where words don't mean what they're supposed to mean anymore.

Good game design is about designing a game, i.e. creating some material, packaging it, laying out, shaping it into a desired form that enhances its characteristics, etc, in order to be played by some people who buy the game, and enjoy it at the end of the day.

So you set yourself a set of goals, in terms of what the shape of the game is, what the rules are, how they are explained and presented, what you keep in, and leave out, what is up to player agency, and what isn't, keeping in mind that the ultimate goal is to see this material played by a variety of people, or a specific subset of these people/customers, and package that experience accordingly.

In other words, it's not just about rules and mechanical this and that. Designing a game is about designing a play experience, which includes a lot of different dimensions in which the actual text of the rules play a part, certainly, but only a part. Things like the language being used, the art and tone thereof, the feel of the page or the covers of a book, whether you make it a book or a boxed set, whether you decide to add a board to your game or not, some cheat sheets or not, some dice or not, what components you'd include in that boxed set, how they would be used by your prospective players, etc... all these things are "game design" to me.

So "good game design" consists in creating a game where all the components thoroughly thought out play together to create a consistently fun experience for the people that use it. That's it.

Any talk of "good game design may lead to crappy play experiences because that's not the point of game design" is frankly mind boggling to me. It's a testimony to how far the twisting of words and theoretical wanking can go into la la land, as far as I'm concerned.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;581294I 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.

Brendan, just because 4E has more design issues than one doesn't draw away from my point. You don't "have" to do anything for any particular audience. I could write a game just for myself. Whether other people like it or not is incidental to whether or not the design was well done. If your design goals on your triangle car were met and it works then you did well with your design. It doesn't matter whether other people liked it or not if impressing other people was not your design goal. You are now equating good design as having one design goal. This is not the case as you can aim your designs to do multiple things at once. That much should go without saying but I will elaborate. When you design a car you have more design goals than "make it safe". Compatibility, convenience, aesthetics, etc are all part of designing when it comes to motor vehicles. The fact that you successfully met "one" design goal doesn't mean that you met "all" design goals. However if you have a single design goal and you effectively meet it then your design was fine for that goal. The fact that your design doesn't meet other goals is fine if you don't care about those design goals. If I made a cyberpunk game it doesn't matter if it doesn't do well for high fantasy, modern, etc games because that's not what I was trying to design

I couldn't disagree with you more Mguy.

Quote from: MGuy;581311Brendan, just because 4E has more design issues than one doesn't draw away from my point.

You are missing the point about 4e, they met their deign goals. They were tring to make a balanced game where the different classes contribute and everybody had something cool to do in any combat. It was a response to the perceieved excesse sof 3E. I think ot is fair to say they met most, if not all, of their design goals for the product. They just didn't realize their design goals were not aligned with their audience.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;581314You are missing the point about 4e, they met their deign goals. They were tring to make a balanced game where the different classes contribute and everybody had something cool to do in any combat. It was a response to the perceieved excesse sof 3E. I think ot is fair to say they met most, if not all, of their design goals for the product. They just didn't realize their design goals were not aligned with their audience.

Umm no. 4E didn't meet its design goals and you should feel really bad for thinking that it did. I'm willing to bet you can't name 2 design goals they actually met. They failed at, quite possibly, everything they set out to do.

Quote from: MGuy;581311. You are now equating good design as having one design goal. This is not the case as you can aim your designs to do multiple things at once. That much should go without saying but I will elaborate. When you design a car you have more design goals than "make it safe". Compatibility, convenience, aesthetics, etc are all part of designing when it comes to motor vehicles. The fact that you successfully met "one" design goal doesn't mean that you met "all" design goals. However if you have a single design goal and you effectively meet it then your design was fine for that goal. The fact that your design doesn't meet other goals is fine if you don't care about those design goals. If I made a cyberpunk game it doesn't matter if it doesn't do well for high fantasy, modern, etc games because that's not what I was trying to design

I am not equating good design with having a single goal, I am saying the purpose of games is to be played by people, a game whose design does not factor in the needs of its audience is designed badly. That audience could be small. You could be making a game for just your own group for example or a niche market. I am not saying it has to be a smash success or gain a large following. Bt if you make a rules light cyberpunk game, it ought to appeal to a rules light cyberpunk audience (or if you are trying to bring the joys of rules light cyber punk to rules heavy fantasy rpg fans, then you need to consider that audience as well). Any game should have several design goals. And those always need to be tested against your audience.

What you are arguing is like saying a poem or movie is well crafted as long as meets the intentions of the author. In order for a poem or movie to be good, people have to judge it to be good. If I say, I want to sit down and write a 1000 line poem about flowers and butterflies that uses simple language, that doesn't make it a well crafted poem just because I meet those goals. Part of being a good poet is having enough control over your medium that you can achieve what you set out to do, but that isn't all there is to good poetry.

Quote from: MGuy;581315Umm no. 4E didn't meet its design goals and you should feel really bad for thinking that it did. I'm willing to bet you can't name 2 design goals they actually met. They failed at, quite possibly, everything they set out to do.

First off, i am always happy to admit if I am wrong. I dont play 4E (i have played it and read the books but not very much) so it is fair that my analysis of it could be off. However, the idea that I should feel bad for thinking they met their goals, strikes me as bizarre and juvenile.

Second, just because the den has decided 4E didn't meet its goals, doesn't make it so. Even the game's harshest critics tend to agree it met most of its design goals (though I think there is a lot of confusion over what their design goals were and what the marketing was for the product).

They sought to make a balanced system, and I think by any reasonable measure they succeeded. They tried to make it easy to Gm, and everyone I know who GMs it says it is easy to run (The way they set up monsters, while not my cup of tea, is a good format if you want to make the GMing simple). They wanted to incorporate board game and video game design elements and they succeeded.

Also this just another derailment. 4E is just an example for the larger point that audience and play matter.

Quote from: MGuy;581315Umm no. 4E didn't meet its design goals and you should feel really bad for thinking that it did. I'm willing to bet you can't name 2 design goals they actually met. They failed at, quite possibly, everything they set out to do.

Could you elaborate on that? Because I have a lot of friends who play and enjoy 4E. So it obviously works quite well for a specific audience.

Quote from: TristramEvans;581319Could you elaborate on that? Because I have a lot of friends who play and enjoy 4E. So it obviously works quite well for a specific audience.

I believe he is talking about this: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=131706

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;581316I am not equating good design with having a single goal, I am saying the purpose of games is to be played by people, a game whose design does not factor in the needs of its audience is designed badly.

What you are arguing is like saying a poem or movie is well crafted as long as meets the intentions of the author.

K you're really missing the point. It doesn't matter what your design goal is. If you are an artist and you're putting your stuff up for other people then one of your design goals will take the audience into consideration. If you are designing a game for other people than part of your design process is going to take into consideration what other people might do/think of it. None of what I said is divorced of other people unless none of your design goals are for other people.

Quote from: MGuy;581321K you're really missing the point. It doesn't matter what your design goal is. If you are an artist and you're putting your stuff up for other people then one of your design goals will take the audience into consideration. If you are designing a game for other people than part of your design process is going to take into consideration what other people might do/think of it. None of what I said is divorced of other people unless none of your design goals are for other people.

No, the issue is whether achieving design goals alone determines good design. You would argue a man who sets out to create an unfun, unplayable game, and does so has achieved good design, because your only metric for good design is whether the designer meets his design goals. I am saying judgment of the audience is more important than whether he met his design goals. Meeting design goals is important, i would argue it isnt. But even more important is knowing your audience and being able to make something they will enjoy. Meeting your design goals doesn't guarantee that. Good design includes setting and meeting design goals, knowing and listening to your audience, incorporating audience feedback into the design, etc. Htink about what you are arguing. You have set up a metric that says the worst game in the world is an example of good design, if the intent of the designer was to make the worst game ever. This shows he has control over his craft. It doesn't mean he executed good design.

Let me rephrase the question: Do good procedures in play really matter?

Yes.

The 'design' only exists to the extent it is implemented in play. Nothing else matters. If the game has 'bad' design you never implement, then it doesn't become a problem. If the game has 'good' design you never implement, then it creates a problem.

An RPG system is nothing more than a list of procedures that if followed lead to a specific kind of experience. And nobody is telling you you HAVE to follow them, but if you don't you're on your own.

Quote from: Spinachcat;581238Setting trumps system

Setting IS System.

Folks, don't put too much stock into the opinions of someone who hasn't designed anything, let alone RPGs.  There's a fundamental lack of understanding on basic design principals going on, and until that gets admitted to (which probably won't), arguing is a moot point.

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;581320I believe he is talking about this: http://www.tgdmb.com/viewtopic.php?p=131706

Hmm, the second reply to that post seems to disagree with the premise at length. I personally don't know the game well enough to judge as the intentions of the system don't line up with my style of roleplaying; I played in a Gammaworld game which used the 4e rules and it felt like a boardgame to me, very contrary to immersion. But what I hear from the people I know who do play it (one of my regular players has been DMing a 4e campaign weekly for about 2 years), it does provide a certain experience very well: "balance " between classes, specified roles for each player in a group, combat encounters tailored to a group's level, etc. All of which are anathemic to how I GM or the types of games I like to play/run, but for the audience that does want that...well, it's hard for me to understand how it's "bad design" to provide the exact experience that it promises.


(I tend to put balance in quotations because personally I think it's an illusion)

Quote from: BedrockBrendan;581322No, the issue is whether achieving design goals alone determines good design. You would argue a man who sets out to create an unfun, unplayable game, and does so has achieved good design, because your only metric for good design is whether the designer meets his design goals. I am saying judgment of the audience is more important than whether he met his design goals. Meeting design goals is important, i would argue it isnt. But even more important is knowing your audience and being able to make something they will enjoy. Meeting your design goals doesn't guarantee that. Good design includes setting and meeting design goals, knowing and listening to your audience, incorporating audience feedback into the design, etc. Htink about what you are arguing. You have set up a metric that says the worst game in the world is an example of good design, if the intent of the designer was to make the worst game ever. This shows he has control over his craft. It doesn't mean he executed good design.

It doesn't matter if what you designed for someone else doesn't fit for people you didn't design it for. If I make a glove for myself it doesn't matter what other people I did not design the glove for don't think it works well for anybody else because I designed the thing for myself. If it works well for me and no one else then it is well designed (for me) because it does everything I designed it for (to satisfy me). If I want to design something for other people and I fail to design something that works for a good portion of those people than I have failed. If something is the "worst" designed thing in the world then that just means it didn't do what it was supposed to do.

What you're saying seriously doesn't detract from what I've said at all. I am honestly losing what you're even trying to say. You keep saying that somehow someone can design something, have it do exactly what they want it to do, and it is still bad design. I defy you to give me an example of what you're suggesting.