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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Galloglaich" data-source="post: 4758884" data-attributes="member: 77019">Frankly I think you need both (as I pointed out upthread) but I think if you are making a game which is not specifically intended to be nonesensical (ala Paranoia) then blowing off the Historical research (which most game designers do) almost inevitably leads you to a broken system.  Mathematical analysis can answer questions for you, but unless you have a really simple game (checkers) it's going to be quite rare that you will think of all the right questions.It's the rare genius indeed who will correctly guesseverything players will do in their mathematically designed Universe, most designers won't really find out until a lot of people have actually played their game, and by then it's often too late -your system is broken.History is the test-bed of real combat systems, societies, etc. , which is why if you use that as your guideline for your model, you will find many of the things you didn't even consider actually work anyway.All these factors are important in successful game design, research, knowledge of the real world, math skills, and beta testing, but I personally believe in a Fantaasy genre research and knowledge are the two most important factors for the reasons I have cited ad nauseum.G.</blockquote>