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<blockquote data-quote="Leviatham" data-source="post: 5984432" data-attributes="member: 50740">The word elegance has been thrown around recently a lot to refer to game mechanics and games systems. For some reason, &quot;elegant&quot; is the thing to be.Considering that the definition of Elegant by the dictionary is &quot;Pleasingly graceful and stylish in appearance or manner&quot; or also &quot;(of a scientific theory or solution to a problem) Pleasingly ingenious and simple.&quot; I think it can't be argued that game mechanics and mechanisms can be elegant.Games mechanics can be made out of many elements. For example a game can be designed to be more orientated towards combat than storytelling. Or vice-versa. Thus the first one could have mechanics that will handle combat very elegantly, while the ones to resolve diplomacy or stealth might lack somewhat. These are just examples, of course.In my gaming experience I find Gumshoe to be a very elegant system. It helps keep the flow of the story going easily and provides with plenty of opportunities to shine, specially if you get to know the character ad the system well, though I have tried it at conventions with complete neofites and it went down very well. However some of my friends have commented that it doesn't handle combat or complex manoeuvres&nbsp; very well. Yet I love it.What other systems would you consider to be elegant? What makes them elegant?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Leviatham, post: 5984432, member: 50740"] The word elegance has been thrown around recently a lot to refer to game mechanics and games systems. For some reason, "elegant" is the thing to be. Considering that the definition of Elegant by the dictionary is "Pleasingly graceful and stylish in appearance or manner" or also "(of a scientific theory or solution to a problem) Pleasingly ingenious and simple." I think it can't be argued that game mechanics and mechanisms can be elegant. Games mechanics can be made out of many elements. For example a game can be designed to be more orientated towards combat than storytelling. Or vice-versa. Thus the first one could have mechanics that will handle combat very elegantly, while the ones to resolve diplomacy or stealth might lack somewhat. These are just examples, of course. In my gaming experience I find Gumshoe to be a very elegant system. It helps keep the flow of the story going easily and provides with plenty of opportunities to shine, specially if you get to know the character ad the system well, though I have tried it at conventions with complete neofites and it went down very well. However some of my friends have commented that it doesn't handle combat or complex manoeuvres very well. Yet I love it. What other systems would you consider to be elegant? What makes them elegant? [/QUOTE]

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