The more moving parts a character sheet has, the less likely a player is to use them all. People gravitate towards specific options they like- that's why Starbursts sells an All-Reds pack, but not one for yellow & orange
I think the best piece of TTRPG theory/advice is actually just the Same Page Tool: It's revolutionized and simplified the way that I handle group expectations and setting up a new table. Not a lot of people tell you how to herd cats but it's an amazing thing in that direction!
When doing any kind of worldbuilding it's tempting to fill in all the gaps, but exploring those gaps is where so much of the fun at the table is! If you have a player with a great world idea the last thing you want is to say "sorry, that doesn't work here".
Rules should be intuitive and easy to remember. Every time someone needs to interrupt play to look up a rule in the rulebook, the designer has made a small failure.
re: rulebooking: that's also my personal preference, but it's a heuristic at best -- far from universal. some people legitimately enjoy more rigorously simulationist or formalized rulesets, which often end up with more edge cases, so there's more rulebooking for those.
1. If your game is inaccessible to new players, what are you even designing the game for?
2. "Perfectly balanced" is a pipe dream and a fool's errand. Better game designers than you have tried for decades and failed. Just make the game engaging to actually play.
Basically! The hard part is that it's a different meaning to everybody; players, designers, reviewers, fans, etc.
Whatever the designer's personal definition is, playability and engagement should come before trying to strike the perfect harmony between different game elements.
Aight, Noctis Labyrinth is an adventure/game that basically explores my thoughts on "games are a conversation" & what would a fantasy exploration game be. I wrote about comversations here:
Which is my clumsy way of saying, I am happier when I judge a particular ttrpg take not by how true it feels, but rather by what game designs it inspires in me.
Like, I see someone accurately and succinctly describe all the fundamental working elements of a D&D and how they relate to one another (absent players or players assumed, it's hard to tell) and I'm like, "Impressive. Yes. Well done."
But then I read the intro to a book on functional programming that says it won't focus on the affordances and constraints popularized by functional languages, but instead will focus on the skills developed by programmers using them, starting with...
...the ability to recognize the difference between data, calculations, and actions; and I'm like, "HOT HOLY FUCK, this is the greatest text on ttrpg design I've read since that book about how music relates to the psychology of expectations and surprise!"
That first example is true (within its context), but doesn't exactly excite. You nailed it. What else is there to say or do?
The second example cannot be true (it's not even about ttrpg) but it excites! If I wedged all my ttrpg thoughts through this paradigm, what will pour out the other side?!?!
Design broad rules that logically extend to a given situation.
1) Few enough major rules that they fit on a 1-page cheat sheet
2) Examples of play that illustrate how to apply rules to common situations (instead of situation-specific rules)
3) Coherent so GMs can easily make rulings on their own
Comments
Rules should be intuitive and easy to remember. Every time someone needs to interrupt play to look up a rule in the rulebook, the designer has made a small failure.
2. "Perfectly balanced" is a pipe dream and a fool's errand. Better game designers than you have tried for decades and failed. Just make the game engaging to actually play.
The best approximation I'll tolerate is players feel approximately equal to one another. Anything else is too much.
Whatever the designer's personal definition is, playability and engagement should come before trying to strike the perfect harmony between different game elements.
https://mrdrhobo.itch.io/noctis-labyrinth/devlog/462678/everythings-design-3-powered-by-the-apocalypse
The second example cannot be true (it's not even about ttrpg) but it excites! If I wedged all my ttrpg thoughts through this paradigm, what will pour out the other side?!?!
1) Few enough major rules that they fit on a 1-page cheat sheet
2) Examples of play that illustrate how to apply rules to common situations (instead of situation-specific rules)
3) Coherent so GMs can easily make rulings on their own