Quote from: flyingmiceBecause a dice system - i.e. task resolution system - is not all the rules. It is a pretty minor part of them, actually, for me.

That's a interesting statement by itself, and likely worth some expansion- i.e. as in designer notes

When it comes to designer notes, I could care less...one way or the other. If they make the thing a better read, then bravo. If they don't, then that's a problem. I guess the editor/proof reader/designer's best friend/whatever didn't do his/her job.

What grates on me is the use of the imperial "we" when it's just one guy who wrote the thing. But that's a topic for another thread...

Back to our regular scheduled programming.

I think they're fine on their own, in a separate chapter where I can read and consider them on their own merits. I just don't like it when they're mixed in with the rules. How can I choose which to ignore and which to take in, then?

I want the following to be kept in separate chapters: designer's notes, game play advice, rules, and setting.

Quote from: SettembriniI love designers notes in wargames, which explain why and which considerations were made and which side was taken in scholarly disputes regarding military history, numbers, effectiveness etc.
Because you can´t judge a model if you don´t know what was going to be modelled.

My feelings exactly.

I like DN which explain why something was done a certain way, especially if it's out of the ordinary for contemporary design. One that I'll always remember is John Hill's for Squad Leader, where he explains all the compromises and abstractions that went into the game, e.g., the chain of reasoning that ended up with flamethrowers having 80 m range in game scale.

You need that stuff even if you already know the subject, so that you can see how the model works.

Other thoughts: I like them in a separate section. I do not like them interwoven or in a sidebar, because that allows sloppy design where DN are then ambiguously part of the rules. I do not like the "personal gaming journey" variety of DN. Though KenHR is right, the DN in the SL expansions were fine. However, it was impossible to mistake them for rules. So maybe if you're careful about that, it doesn't mater if you sidebar or italicize them.

And now I have to run, but also I think there's a place for critical discussion of genre and how it influenced the design. And I see this as different from the stuff in e.g. Sorcerer and Sword or even the GURPS supplements, which pretend to be either authoritative or comprehensive (or both) without entirely owning up to their biases and slants. (Note I like both S&S and GURPS supplements such as Swashbucklers. Well, I may be being a little harsh on Swashers, especially having not read it in years, nevertheless I said it and no time for reflection right now.)

JAGSRevised has designer's notes call-outs throughout the book which are essentially advice that explaines what we were thinking at any particular point in the rules. I think more insight into what the designer was thinking is usually better than less--but I don't know that a big chapter of notes is good for me. I've seen them and had trouble formulating an opinion.

-Marco

I was thinking about this, and one example where designer's notes could have done a lot of good is in SPI's old Dragonquest game. The rules are absolutely clear (esp. in 2e, and allowing for taste WRT the wargamerese style). However, a lot of people seem to have gotten tripped up over the low success chances for beginning spellcasters, and this has led over the years to calls for "fixing" the game by upping those chances. What's ignored is that there are rules for situational bonuses--especially, bonuses for spell preparation, which if properly exploited, will eliminate much of the "problem" and give magic a distinct flavor in the game. If there'd been designer's notes, people might still have argued that there was too high a chance of backfire (you can find discussions of this on RPGnet), but an appreciation of the designer's intent would probably have helped rules-tinkerers fix that issue without unintentionally missing the whole point.

(Granted, it might have been possible to write the rules to show more clearly that in DQ, much magic is supposed to be slow by default unless you're either highly skilled or desperate. But that might have required some nasty mathematical contortions.)

I can't recall seeing any designer notes-but now that I see this I'd be at least interested.

Quote from: MarcoJAGSRevised has designer's notes call-outs throughout the book which are essentially advice that explaines what we were thinking at any particular point in the rules. I think more insight into what the designer was thinking is usually better than less--but I don't know that a big chapter of notes is good for me. I've seen them and had trouble formulating an opinion.

-Marco

see this is the kind of notes i like...nice grey box sorta stuff where the writer can interject things like:

QuoteThe Initiative rules as written work quite well.  In the first draft and playtest, however, we used x, and it seemed great at first but blah blah...

nothing too wordy, and not on every page, but i really dig that sort of thing.

strangely, i've never listened to a DVD Director Commentary, so go figure...

One of my back burner projects is a starship combat game.  So, traditionally, it has designer notes in the back.  Given the comments and observations in this thread (thanks all), I may have re-think my presentation of this, that, and the other bits that I talk about in there.  [insert sfx of gears turning in the ol' skull cavity.]
--
TAZ

Quote from: jrientsIn the last couple of years I've completely reversed my opinion on designer's notes in RPGs.  I used to think they were a great idea because the designer could just come out and explain their thinking behind the game.  Now I'm more of the opion that if a designer can't get their point across without stepping from behind the curtain, then they need to go back and rewrite the rules.

Same here, almost word for word.

The only thing I might add is that I'll have an easier time tolerating designer's notes if they don't editorialise too much. Don't tell me how great this is, just get to the point clearly, swiftly.

But really, these days, designer's notes would be best left for blogs and website support. More for posterity or as discussion fodder than anything else.

I’m finding these threads interesting…but not extremely useful. (since it's one of those topics with an even split)

I’m currently writing a game.  In the introduction chapter I have about 2 pages of designer notes.  In it I outline exactly why I wrote the game and what I felt needed to be accomplished, and how I set about accomplishing it).

I’ve debated taking it out a few times, but to be honest the game is written for two core groups, one of which is probably going to be very interested in the design notes.

I don’t go overboard (trust me, I could write about 20 pages on design notes and reasons why I did everything, not to mention providing mathematical equations as to why things work, are balanced, ect…trust me, I did a lot of work in that area.  One doesn’t need to know it, but when they play the game they will certainly appreciate the work I did, even if they don’t realize that that work had to be done to make things balanced and playable) but I think it gives a very good overview as to why I wrote the game, what it is intended to accomplish, and just what type of person the game is for.  I think it is going to be pretty valuable when it comes time to recommend the game to another online.  Basically, when someone says I’m looking for a game that does “this and that”, someone will be able to instantly say, yes, Dave’s game was specifically designed for people in your situation.

Of course, more on topic, I’ve always loved designers notes, and wish all games had them…and more of them.

I thought the designer notes in Silhouette Core v3 (Heavy Gear's "generic" ruleset) is really good. There is a call out box in the text that describes why a particular rule changed from a previous version. The call out box is unintrusive,  may be read or skipped and the amount of information included is only a couple of sentences. Very well done.

I put some designer's notes into the revisited combat section of the Iron Gauntlets Companion, because people kept asking why I did certain things. Other than that, I've never included them. I may do more of it in future -- I think it's better suited to supplement material rather than the primary sources.

I don't find a big block of Designer's Notes that useful, whether they're up front or in back. It is, as people have said, too easy for that kind of thing to turn into a plain ol' editorial.

I do like the way it's done in Spirit of the Century, where certain rules have designer notes following them indicating what the designer was trying to do by including the rule.

Don't a certain feel in your campaign, and the designer indicated that rule X is in there just to 'play up' that feel? Yank the rule! Or if I want that feel but don't like rule X for other reasons, I can replace it with something else.

I mean, obviously I could do that without designer notes, but they're a handy map to help untangle what *they* were trying to do from what I want to do.

Quote from: grubmanI'm finding these threads interesting...but not extremely useful. (since it's one of those topics with an even split)

I'm currently writing a game.  In the introduction chapter I have about 2 pages of designer notes.  [...]

I've debated taking it out a few times, [...]

I think that if you put the designer's notes in a separate section then you can't go wrong. The people who like them can read them there, the people who dislike them can easily ignore them.

It's when the designer's notes are scattered throughout the text that you annoy people. All of those who dislike them will be annoyed, and some of those who like them will be annoyed, since they're harder to find mixed in the text!

So if you have them in their own little chapter you'll be okay, I reckon.

The other consideration about designer's notes is page count. When writing for someone else, they may have a specific page count in mind, and usually you find you have to cut things out to meet it. So you have to weigh the worth of those notes against the worth of other things in your text.

I mean, I'm writing something for Clash, he wants 15,000 words, that means I have to write 20,000 words for him which he'll cut down - but even so, I've written 10,000 words, cut out 4,000 of them, got up to 10,000 words again, then cut out a different 3,000 words, and so on. Then when I finally struggle up to 20,000 and pass it to Clash he'll chuck out 10,000 of them and ask for another 5,000.

If you're writing just for yourself, think also of your medium. If it's a pdf, then 100 pages is the absolute limit of what people will be happy reading on a screen or printing out. If it's Print On Demand, then each of those pages printed is going to cost you; but just because it cost you twice as much to have 400 pages printed as it cost you to have 200 pages printed doesn't mean you'll be able to charge twice as much!

But if making money isn't important to you then don't worry about that. I recently borrowed Burning Wheel, and it's plain he doesn't care about the money. Firstly, he had it printed in digest size - which costs the same per page as US letter size; but what'll fit in 300 digest pages will fit in 150 US letter pages. So he was paying more than he had to just to get it into print. Secondly, he's made no effort to drop his wordcount. It's conversational writing, like mine here. We see things like, "How? By what means?" He's used three words to repeat the meaning of one, thus using overall four words in place of one. In fact his 600 digest pages could have been 300 with no loss in the meaning or clarity of the text. He obviously just likes crapping on. Which I have every sympathy for but it does cut into his profits.

And his text is full of designer's notes.