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Worlds of Design: There is No Spoon
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<blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9197075" data-attributes="member: 6790260"><p>Is there <strong><u>ONE</u></strong> right way to play? No, not at all--that would be patently foolish.</p><p></p><p>Is there <strong><u>A</u></strong> right way to play <em>for a specific game?</em> Yes, absolutely, so long as the people who made it tested it to make sure it works.</p><p></p><p>The difference? The former says, "Any way that isn't <em>this specific</em> way is necessarily wrong."</p><p></p><p>The latter says, "We can only say with confidence that this specific way <em>is</em> right."</p><p></p><p>Unfortunately, a lot of people--including many designers--think that the latter and the former are identical, when they absolutely are not. This leads them to the conclusion that you shouldn't bother with having confidence that <em>any</em> way is right. That you should just shrug and give up when faced with evidence that the systems you designed for might not actually do whatever they're designed to do when people use them. Just throw out whatever makes sense in the moment, design be damned; DMs will figure it out, it's fine, nobody really cares anyway.</p><p></p><p>You cannot stop people from choosing to use your rules in ways you didn't intend. You cannot stop them from, as you say, potentially misremembering, misinterpreting, or simply <em>missing</em> parts of your rules. That is simply a fact of life with anything at all.</p><p></p><p>But you <em>can</em> do the work to say, "Yes, these things <em>do</em> in fact work as intended when used as presented." And if you make mistakes, you can <em>fix them</em> rather than just shrugging and saying oh well, mistakes happen, people will just figure it out themselves I guess.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="EzekielRaiden, post: 9197075, member: 6790260"] Is there [B][U]ONE[/U][/B] right way to play? No, not at all--that would be patently foolish. Is there [B][U]A[/U][/B] right way to play [I]for a specific game?[/I] Yes, absolutely, so long as the people who made it tested it to make sure it works. The difference? The former says, "Any way that isn't [I]this specific[/I] way is necessarily wrong." The latter says, "We can only say with confidence that this specific way [I]is[/I] right." Unfortunately, a lot of people--including many designers--think that the latter and the former are identical, when they absolutely are not. This leads them to the conclusion that you shouldn't bother with having confidence that [I]any[/I] way is right. That you should just shrug and give up when faced with evidence that the systems you designed for might not actually do whatever they're designed to do when people use them. Just throw out whatever makes sense in the moment, design be damned; DMs will figure it out, it's fine, nobody really cares anyway. You cannot stop people from choosing to use your rules in ways you didn't intend. You cannot stop them from, as you say, potentially misremembering, misinterpreting, or simply [I]missing[/I] parts of your rules. That is simply a fact of life with anything at all. But you [I]can[/I] do the work to say, "Yes, these things [I]do[/I] in fact work as intended when used as presented." And if you make mistakes, you can [I]fix them[/I] rather than just shrugging and saying oh well, mistakes happen, people will just figure it out themselves I guess. [/QUOTE]
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