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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Mark CMG" data-source="post: 5612699" data-attributes="member: 10479">Just by acknowledging a border you have come closer to understanding my own position.Emergent properties are either a byproduct of how subsystems interact or result from rules applied to various components and the combination(s) of the interactions with regard to the overall results.  Predicting byproducts is tricky and often incomplete, planning for specific combined interactions is part of the design process.  This is not new.  In the case of the former, transparency results for the end user when they can recognize what was foreseen and what was not.  In the case of the latter, the rules should be upfront about the planned interactions so that the effects can be understood by the end user of the game.  An end user might not need to know the motivations behind the creation process (though I think it is helpful if elucidated) but mechanics and emergent mechanics that are a result of rules application should be clear within the rules, if the designer understands what those emergent properties will be.You're lumping design motivations with effects from rules application together in your assertion that a complex system will necessarily be opaque in its process.  I disagree for reasons stated above in this post. You seem to be implying there is something new afoot in the design blogs where some of us are seeing misinterpretation of the tradtional elements (see rogueattorney's post and my previous post regarding ability score uses) being used as claim to new insights while presenting nothing innovative, something you imply by claiming mature design though I am not suggesting that it is claimed in the article(s) nor that it is or is not a goal of this process.  To me, this echoes the design idea behind stripping PC opponents of anything the designer felt was not germane to what could be used or accomplished in a single combat encounter.  It misunderstood the reasoning behind having mutlifaceted opponents in favor of rather bland, IMO, cookie-cutter opponents which produce the grind that many games have come to recognize.  The design motivation seems to have been ease of play and encounter creation but the resultant, emergent properties in gameplay are generally less desirable.  Having occasional opponents be one-dimensional but exteremely effective in their arena is interesting but having most opponents one-dimensional and then countering that planned effect by combining a variety of one-dimensional opponents is a poor substitute for encountering a variety of multifaceted opponents.  It might serve the design goal, and the result might be just as expected, but longterm effect on the play experience seems to wear thin.</blockquote>

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