D&D 4E Ben Riggs' "What the Heck Happened with 4th Edition?" seminar at Gen Con 2023

[Micah Sweet]

I mean, it is more limited, by design. A game is a process for people to have fun together: having more limited fun for fewer people doesn't seem like better design to my mind, certainly.

Designing for different sorts of fun, certainly, but once a target us set figuring out how to maximize the fun does seem to be a solid measure of success. B/X does seem like a better designed game than AD&D, from my rear view mirrror, for example.

Not everyone likes the same things. Sometimes there are more people who like one thing than there are people who like a different thing, and the two are not especially compatible; mechanics over fiction versus the other way round, for example. Are you saying that designing for the group that is likely smaller is objectively bad design, and one should always seek to bring in the bigger group at the expense of the smaller one?

 

[Micah Sweet]

Exaxtly: better for being played and enjoyed by as many people as possible.

I don't understand this response.

 

[Thomas Shey]

Knives aren't games.

Tools are tools. They're there to serve the end users need, and a tool that serves more people but a fair number more poorly (or not at all) is not an intrinsically better design than one that serves less people but better.

 

[darjr]

Tools are tools. They're there to serve the end users need, and a tool that serves more people but a fair number more poorly (or not at all) is not an intrinsically better design than one that serves less people but better.

So throw out all the sowing machines then!

 

[Thomas Shey]

Exaxtly: better for being played and enjoyed by as many people as possible.

This seems to be a circular argument. Something that supplies a basic purpose by a hundred people is not intrinsically a better design that supplies a more specific purpose by ten. Quantity is not the only measure of value; quality matters too.

 

[Thomas Shey]

So throw out all the sowing machines then!

Note I did not state or imply the inverse is true. A specialty knife and a Swiss Army knife both serve a purpose; one is not intrinsically a better design than the other, because they're not being designed for the same purpose.

 

[darjr]

Note I did not state or imply the inverse is true. A specialty knife and a Swiss Army knife both serve a purpose; one is not intrinsically a better design than the other, because they're not being designed for the same purpose.

I know. I was just kinda ribbing ya. I just saw the veritasium video on sewing machines.

 

[Parmandur]

Not everyone likes the same things. Sometimes there are more people who like one thing than there are people who like a different thing, and the two are not especially compatible; mechanics over fiction versus the other way round, for example. Are you saying that designing for the group that is likely smaller is objectively bad design, and one should always seek to bring in the bigger group at the expense of the smaller one?

OK, designing two games that play to the same type of fun, say 5E versus Fantasy Heartbreaker # 2000, designing to appeal to as many people as much as possible is the only thing that makes sense to me. Not that Cll of Cthulu has to be appealing to fans of pulp space opera action or something. Like to like, making as much fun for as many people is the only measure for whether a game is designed "good" or "bad" that I can see.

 

[Parmandur]

I don't understand this response.

I don't understand what you don't understand: being "well designed" and "being fun for people" are synonymous near as I can reckon.

 

[Parmandur]

Tools are tools. They're there to serve the end users need, and a tool that serves more people but a fair number more poorly (or not at all) is not an intrinsically better design than one that serves less people but better.

But what about walking around the square ifopposition, and a game that both serves more people, and better...?