In the first article I outlined some rules of thumb I think are important to keep in mind when designing games. Here's a few more.
The second one is something you can do more to control.
So that's my list.
Your Turn: What have I missed, in your experience?
As a reminder, these rules of thumb are not listed in any particular order. I consider them all important, and speaking of which, here's my two contributions:
Laws of Management
Tn these two statements chaos is by definition undesirable. The first one:In other words, the bigger the (design) group the more complex things are going to be. Four people (=16) are less than half as chaotic as six (=36 units of chaos).
The second one is something you can do more to control.
You don't have to have very many people in charge before you increase the chaos a great deal, and the lesson here is have just one person in charge. One person = 1, two persons =8, three persons = 27 (units of chaos).
Law of Problem-Solving
This rule of thumb is actually a scientific observation. Think of adding up a column of numbers manually. Would you rather have a group do this, or one person, especially keeping in mind the group costs a lot more money? If you have one person who is good at adding columns of numbers, that's usually all you need. Use groups to solve problems only when that makes sense.
Laws of Productivity
I hope this is obvious. You've got to start somewhere, and any game has to be created to be played.
This is not to say that you shouldn't play games. You need to have played enough games to know them generally, but game design is not about you playing games. For many (but not all) designers, being a designer makes them look at the inner workings of a game, which often results in less pleasure in playing.
Law of Ideas
Ideas are worthless in some sense, because everyone has game ideas just like virtually “everyone” has fingers. Even the best idea can be poorly executed and often is. Many would say there are no great ideas only great games. and we usually don't know they’re great until years after publication. Further:
Yes, there are exceptions. But in general, there's a big difference between coming up with ideas and acting on them.
1-10-100 Rule
This rule which comes from W. Edwards Deming and is part of what's now known as Total Quality Management (TQM). It’s a rule of thumb. Find the problem, something that needs fixing, early in a production process, and it costs one unit of effort, money, whatever to fix. Find it after production but before it's released and the cost to fix is 10 units of whatever. When the product is out in the public's hands, a problem costs 100 units to fix. Deming was interested in assembly-line manufacturing, but it applies to game design as well. And that's of course why we playtest games. We try to playtest them a lot, to find problems early in the process.
Law of Emotion
This one is very difficult for game designers who have spent so much time and energy invested in a game. You may feel that way, but to everyone else it’s just another game amongst many. If you treat it like it was your baby, you are more likely to screw it up by retaining things that should be ditched. And by not seeing flaws because it’s Yours.
Law of Exhaustion
The rules of a board game can be too long, but this primarily applies to RPGs. This mileage may vary depending on the kind of game you're trying to create, but generally speaking if you want to make a game broadly appealing, the more complex and comprehensive the rules the less the audience willing to play it. The longest RPG ruleset I’ve heard of is 700,000 words, the equivalent of more than seven novels of average length. Not something I’m going to read to play a game . . .
Law of Separation
I think it's important to keep these separate in your mind. Including a setting or adventure (or both) with a set of rules helps players get going, but those are not part of the game. The game is a set (description) of mechanics. You can have a good setting and a poor game (tabletop Dystopia Rising). Or a bad setting and a good game.
So that's my list.
Your Turn: What have I missed, in your experience?
