The Forge Archives

[Cracks his knuckles and begins typing...]

Okay, today's the first asymptomatic day I've had since I got that cold; I think I'll celebrate by trying to unravel what I've wrought.  If you want to understand the point I was trying to make, keep reading.  If you think it's all a bunch of hooey, the door is right over there.

Anyway, as the title suggests, the realm I've been meaning to discuss is that of elegance and deliberateness in role-playing game design.  In this discussion, any relationship between elegance and deliberateness in design isn't relevant.  Furthermore, it should be very clear that elegance means different things to different people at different times.  However, I think we can say a lot more than "write elegantly" and "good luck with whatever that is."

To me the concept of 'what kind of elegance' in role-playing game design is like the presence of a 'neon sign' outside a 'stained glass window.'  You can always tell that 'something is out there' is shining in, but you can't always read the message (even if you get real close to the window).  What I've been trying to get at is the internal consistency or coherence of the elegance (and any 'statement' that might make).  It's important to separate this from your garden variety 'coherence essays;' they're basically talking about making a good 'stained glass window.'  (Nothing wrong with that, so let's assume that you've got that under control as much as you like.)

The thing about a 'stained glass window' is that light is supposed to pass through them.  During the day, all you see is the 'window' and the totality of its image.  At night however, what 'neon signs' cast their glow becomes more evident.  As the designer, you can control both the 'window' and the 'sign' (this is deliberateness; simply affecting these things would be otherwise).  As a deliberate designer, I really feel that some advice is needed and possible, but often cannot find the words.  If you can, why not create both 'neon' and 'stained glass' in concert?  I seek to discuss issues regarding the 'neon sign' here.  (If you only 'play during the day,' pray, don't continue reading.)

So let's jump into a few examples, shall we?

Let's say you editing a list of spells and you've come across one called 'Pebbles into Jelly Beans'

and you've decided to keep it because 'it fits' what you want.  There are a number of elegance-based choices you could make:[list=1][*]Relate this spell to the spell 'Create Food' in terms of quantity, nutrition, sustenance, and pleasingness
[*]Consider how often and how much 'impact' use of the spell will have on 'game play as you imagine it' compared to others
[*]Make it 'optional' and ignore it
[*]All three
[*]None of the above; just call it miscellany[/list:u][/list:o]All of these choices each create a 'different kind of elegance.'  I don't see any of them as particularly better or worse, but a few create a 'neon sign' that would (if I can see it) turn me off of the game.  Now there are a few issues going around here.  (And many other potential choices, this is just an example.)

First is how the choices relate to each other.  I'm sure some thinkers have gone, "That one's a physics-based choice, that one is game balance, and that one...."  I believe still others seek to pigeonhole the whole list in GNS terms; "Gamism, Narrativism, Simulationism, Incoherentism...."  These are all fine analyses, but the miss the overall point.  I'm not talking about so superficial a point as 'keep your game design consistent,' I'm saying 'what message does your consistency give?'  I'm suggesting looking for that 'neon sign.'

The second issue is how well they relate to similar choices made throughout the game's design.  This then becomes more than a simple issue of 'stick to the same priorities throughout,' but accepts the fact that for different aspects, different priorities apply.  For example, some designers would simply cut a spell like this because it superficially looks like 'filler,' others might keep it out of some concept of 'color,' still others won't consider any cool idea worth cutting regardless of what the 'neon sign' winds up saying.

And finally, the issue I've been 'reaching for,' how does the presence of a 'Pebbles into Jelly Beans' spell in general, suggest an agenda for the overall game and how does that relate to your choice of how to make use of it.  This goes a little deeper than 'control the color aspects of your game' and gets at a kind of presentation agenda.  In this example, if we include lots of these spells, it suggests certain things about completeness of listings, eccentricity of 'game world,' how much of a 'suggestive text' the game should be considered (as opposed to 'nothing else exists' texts), and so on.  I take this to a 'higher level,' by suggesting that each of these agendas might actually together relate to the 'neon sign' of the game.  That is to say that 'having spells like Pebbles...' and using it to illustrate the 'eccentricity...' together say something in the overall 'movement' of the design; what this says is the message 'written in neon.'  (And it's a different message from 'having spells like Pebbles...' and 'completeness of listings' or sidelining 'spells like Pebbles...' and making it 'suggestive text.')

How about another example?

You've decided to include a listing of 'the popcorn grenade.'  This is a prop that, when activated, fills the room waist-deep with popcorn, three will blow out doors and windows.  Again, you're faced with a number of elegance-based decisions:

[list=1][*]Will this make use of mechanics that slow the game while the characters sort out the problems of being half buried?
[*]Should there be mechanics to determine what happens outside of the assumed room?  How complicated should those be?
[*]Should the results be considered trivial so that both the players and the characters can press on to the next unlikely event?
[*]Will 'leftovers' even be considered once the scene of the explosion is left behind?
[*]Because the '...grenade' is just example text, should you just leave these details to the imaginations of the participants?
[*]How well does the game suggest that this is a frequent/infrequent/rare circumstance?[/list:u][/list:o]As before, these equally valid questions to consider and each makes a statement about 'what the game is about' both on the 'stained glass' way and in the 'neon sign.'  The 'stained glass' works on 'what it is like in the game for the characters,' but also what kind of 'style agenda' the game pursues (cartoony, wacky, post modern, or counter-culture, to name a few).  The 'neon sign' speaks about how 'just having' popcorn grenades relates to the 'style agenda.'

Whether you choose to 'mechanize' or 'flavor-text'ize this material is not always controlled by your choice to include it.  It is the combination of these factors that begins to bend the glass tubing for the 'neon sign.'  It may seem inelegant to resort to mechanics for wading through popcorn or to force calculation of volumes, but taken with the possibility of popcorn grenades (and suitable rules) it can make for a certain kind of elegance in you choose to pursue it.  To not consider what kind of elegance you are creating runs serious risk of making the game seem 'slapped together' in the bad way.

An additional possibility also results; keeping the elegance in keeping with the 'stuff' in the game is a good thing I think.  I do this deliberately, others easily rely upon ready talent.  An example would be slapping together a Tank Girl game and depending upon the 'slapped together' feel of the elegance to carry forward the 'presentation agenda' of the overall impact of the game upon its audience.  Abandoning a certain 'completeness' would work in favor of the elegance of the game.  Conversely simply depending upon crude construction would run the risk of simply turning off the audience because of poor 'ease of use' issues.  Furthermore, each designer has different opinions upon what is crude and what isn't that varies depending upon issues relating to 'what the game is about.'  The consideration of this is what I'm calling the 'neon sign.'

Let's take this a different direction:

Say you're creating a game with superpowers.  You've decided to allow things like web-shooters in the game.  These are minor things, you think, which allow 'more design freedom' in character generation.  How you handle them becomes a different set of elegance-based issues:

[list=1][*]How broadly do you want to interpret the capabilities of different types of these gadgets?
[*]What about the 'relative' consequences of possessing these unique items to others similar?
[*]Are you going to mention consideration of the high-tech applications and marketing of the underlying technology?
[*]Should the technology needed to create, maintain, repair, and use these items even be a consideration to ongoing play?  How will you manifest that in the text?
[*]How much of a headache will it be to detail out all the possible technological applications?[/list:u][/list:o]This is another set of equally valid questions that not only deals with both a consistency of structure, but one of authoring as well.  The level of sophistication which the rules and game apply themselves to this sophisticated type of prop says something more than 'this game is consistent' or 'this game is realistic.'  It 'switches on' that 'neon sign' when the players 'get familiar' with the game.

Are you going to be saying that play should be as unrealistic as the rules are about web-shooters without intending to?  Will you want the game to play as detailed as you make the rules regarding web-shooting, maintenance, and repair?  Do you want the range of game play to contrast the range of gadget selection?  The inclusion of web-shooters may say something about the quality and depth of the 'game world,' but I'm talking about how both the "inclusion" and the "depth" 'work together' to make a 'neon sign' representing your game's 'type of elegance.'

This is why I'm having so much trouble discussing the whole issue.  Practical applications of design tend to obscure discussions of any 'overall movement' of elegance.  We get so caught up in talking about things relating to the 'stained glass' and that terminology so that it throws us repeatedly back into 'stained glass' discussions, that I haven't seen any discussion of what you can use elegance for.  Topics like the application or 'properness' of the inclusion of something overshadow the 'big picture' result of its inclusion.  Discussions of the functions of things within the game 'drown out' talking about the relativism of how that functionality relates to the functionality of the overall game and what 'ease of use' aesthetics are felt from that relativity.  Analyses of the relationship between 'things within the game' and 'the larger game' tend to block how that reflects and affects how players should relate to the game.

It's all a matter of elegance (and for me, deliberateness) in game design.  I'm thinking we can talk about looking at it, but obviously haven't the language yet to get past discussions of 'stained glass window' issues to get at 'what shines through.'  I'd like to think this is more than just an accident of talent or a topic of obscure interest that cannot practically be considered.

But in that, I might be wrong.

Fang Langford

In Laymen's terms, would this be:

Yeah, let's talk about the game as it relates to the larger picture of gaming, but let's also accept a game for what it is and talk about the finer points that it has to offer in the context of the game itself.

So a game about Aardvarks and the French Revolution could be discussed on a Stained Glass level about whether or not it's GNS and how it measures up to historically based games?  While the neon sign of the game is how well the aardvarks overlapping plates can withstand random gun fire (considering on not considering that games mechanics)?

JOE--

So, Fang, I'd like you to clarify what you mean by 'elegance' here.  I think I'm seeing something behind your post, but I'm getting hopelessly mired in your examples and frenzied topic-switching.  I'd really like to know what's going on.

If I'm not mistaken, you're bringing up a question of how the game interacts with its players, NOT how the players interact with the game, which is the 'stained glass' component of the discussion.

Hey Joe,

Very thought provoking addition...

Quote from: dragongraceIn Laymen's terms, would this be:

Yeah, let's talk about the game as it relates to the larger picture of gaming, but let's also accept a game for what it is and talk about the finer points that it has to offer in the context of the game itself.

Actually, I haven't even thought of taking the idea up to the level of comparing the role-playing game to others like it.  Hmm...a difficult question.  I was speaking strictly within the game itself, but I can see how experience with other game systems will color this consideration.

Quote from: dragongraceSo a game about Aardvarks and the French Revolution could be discussed on a Stained Glass level about whether or not it's GNS and how it measures up to historically based games?  While the neon sign of the game is how well the aardvark's overlapping plates can withstand random gunfire (considering on not considering that games mechanics)?

No, those are both 'stained glass issues.'  The 'neon sign' for that would be how the absurdity of dropping a few well-heeled aardvarks into a fairly 'true' rendition of the French Revolution compares to the detail of organic plate protection rules.  Something is asked when a French Revolution game incorporates such a non sequitur as talking aardvarks as it's centerpiece; this is answered somewhat by the presence, absence, or treatment of bullet wounding rules.  Such a dialogue makes a 'neon sign' statement about what the game is about provided that it remains constant throughout the game.

This gets beyond the usual arguments of 'why have such detailed rules, when you're using something as unrealistic as talking aardvarks?'  I don't think it is bad to have both when the combination gives the participants a certain impression, the text of the 'neon sign' (which is impossible to guess at without actually seeing the Cerebus: the Aardvark game).  Thus we can get past knee-jerk reactions like 'don't over-detail preposterous set-ups' and talk about what that dichotomy lends itself to.

I dunno, is it possible I may have explained my point?  Too soon to tell.  Thanks for the input Joe, you're great.

Fang Langford

Hey Shreyas,

Wow, I wish I'd thought of that angle.

Quote from: Shreyas SampatI'd like you to clarify what you mean by 'elegance' here....

If I'm not mistaken, you're bringing up a question of how the game interacts with its players, NOT how the players interact with the game, which is the 'stained glass' component of the discussion.

Yeah, you've really got something there.  Be careful though, "game" can be taken to mean several things.  In this discussion I believe it means, simultaneously: the presentation of the material, the functional play of the game, and affect the material has upon both the participants and their play of it.  Your well turned description only lacks the "on the whole" clause.

Similarly I can see a lot of 'stained glass' issues do have an effect on players, but it usually somewhat compartmentalized or (relatively speaking) superficial, like "Hey, these initiative rules are so cool," or "It took me a long time to adapt to the player-character protagonism the game caused."

I'm not sure one can write a role-playing game to have a specified effect on its readers, but I do think you can write things in 'big neon letters' whether they 'get it' or not.  I think it happens and a lot (unconsciously at least); I just don't see much commentary on this happening or discussion of using it.

Thanks for providing a very fresh perspective; this is another thing I need to seriously consider.

Fang Langford

Just trying to understand.  Deliberateness then is a matter of the purpose of a game's elements.  The inclusion of aardvarks into a French revolution setting should be meant to have an obvious(Neon Sign) purpose for the point of the game, like a symbolic representation of a Traitorous nature.

Stained glass efforts mire the purpose by focusing on less important issues such as combat effectiveness, organic plating, favorite foods, etc.

Elegence in this then is how well the idea is delivered.  If the mechincs and writing of the game reinforce the idea that the Aardvark is a symbol and all else being equal the focus of the game is the idea of realtionships and betrayal.  The aardvark used as the symbol for this becomes an aesthetic designer based decision.

JOE--

Fang,

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but the 'Neon Sign' is the overall message of the game that gets transmitted through the 'Stain Glass' of the game itself?

Put another way, the sum total of interactions, comparison points, and contrasting points within the game add up to the Elegance of the game, which is the 'Neon Sign' that the designers are putting across (either intentionally or unintentionally).

I'm not equating 'message' here with Premise/Theme and their analogues.  The message may be as simple as 'this is how this game is player or this is what this game is about'.  The message can also be a shared asthetic feeling as well, on a real emotional or visceral level, as I see it.

Assuming my statements above are anywhere near true - how would a designer go about deliberately putting up a Neon Sign that says specifically what they want it to say?

Cheers,



Jason

Hey Fang,

What your talking about does seem to resemble theme and symbology to me. Orwell put the hogs in charge of the farm for a reason (neon), regardless of his grammar (stained glass).

Doesn't this really dip deep into the area of talent and artistry though? A craftsman must be well familiar with the materials and the tools if there is any hope of the product being finely made.

-Chris

Hey Joe,

Quote from: dragongraceDeliberateness then is a matter of the purpose of a game's elements.  The inclusion of aardvarks into a French revolution setting should be meant to have an obvious (Neon Sign) purpose for the point of the game, like a symbolic representation of a Traitorous nature.

Deliberateness is the way I design games, not necessarily how games should be designed.  I recognize this and how it limits what I can design; I also try to remember it while discussing design theory issues.  I cannot talk about a design practice that I cannot practice.

'Neon signs' are supposed to be anything but obvious (they're hidden behind 'stained glass' after all).  Choosing to put aardvarks into the French Revolution is very much a 'stained glass' piece, a big one at that.  Choosing that it represent traitorousness is also a 'stained glass' piece.  What it might mean for the game (beneath any 'stained glass' interpretations like 'this is a Narrativist facilitating game' or 'things mean other things') is that the game will be played on multiple levels.  The same would happen if you placed the aardvarks in Pre-Revolutionary France and used much in the way of personal manipulation rules; the 'stained glass' is that it is a game of royal intrigue plied within the courts of Louis XVI, but so is 'this is a Gamist game of power intrigues, even though there are few open conflicts.'  The 'neon sign' might reflect that the non sequitur of the aardvark may echo the 'chess piece on the checkerboard' situation implied by the rules, which can appear again and again by implication throughout the rules; this gives the sensation that 'exceptions rule the day.'

Quote from: dragongraceElegance in this then is how well the idea is delivered.  If the mechanics and writing of the game reinforce the idea that the Aardvark is a symbol and all else being equal the focus of the game is the idea of relationships and betrayal.  The aardvark used as the symbol for this becomes an aesthetic designer based decision.

Hmm...that might be true.  Perhaps I meant to say that the elegance is where the message is delivered, but I suppose how it is too, now.  While the above is definitely an aesthetic decision, that's not what I was talking about (hence the earlier confusion).  I submit that all game design decisions could be termed aesthetic, thus the term is of limited value in this discussion.

The issue I'm trying to get at has to do with both the designer's aesthetic decision and the way the rest of the design either 'goes along with it' reinforcing it or 'goes against it' throwing it into sharp relief.  The loss of the 'neon sign' is when this relationship meanders.  If the elegance of the aesthetic symbology seems 'out of step' with any other elegance in the rest of the rules, the game has a muddled 'neon sign' (one obscured by foggy 'stained glass').  How the 'multiple elegances' (if I may call them that) of a game interact and how that interaction can affect the players is the issue I've attempted to bring up.  (With a lot of help now; thanks!)

Fang Langford

Yow Jason,

If you put "elegance" as plural, it really sounds like you've got what I'm talking about.

Quote from: deadpanbobAssuming my statements above are anywhere near true - how would a designer go about deliberately putting up a Neon Sign that says specifically what they want it to say?

I can think of three ways, so far (remember this is a new revelation for me).

Start with it.  This is why I brought deliberateness into the discussion.  According to my spouse, I am a

very deliberate person; everything I do seems completely submerged in ulterior motives when I stop and explain myself.  If you start out going, "I want this game to 'pound into the ground' the sensation of being 'cut off' or being 'alone' at every instance of play."  Then you can, not only design that into each game component, Personae, Backgrounds, Relationships, Circumstances, and et cetera, but also you could design the random element in an elegant fashion such that absolutely only the players get to roll dice (and sometimes wish that others could).  You could further make death not as much a problem as 'becoming normal' (and therefore out of play).  (This was a 'neon sign' I picked off of White Wolf's fairy game, but didn't find throughout.)

Find it.  Once you've (re)designed your game so much that it is second nature to you (remember, I can only speak of deliberate design), go back through it both in overview and line-by-line fashion and see if anything jumps out at you as the 'neon sign' of the game.  Go back with this agenda and see what fits, needs fixing, or is missing; lather, rinse, repeat.

Add it.  So you've got all these neat rules and bits all jumbled together and you're really starting to come up with a 'neon sign' for it all; now you go back and retool everything (right down to chapter order) to align with the 'neon sign.'[/list:u]Can anyone add any?

If you do this in pronounced enough fashion (like I started to with the 'abandoned' example above), your 'stained glass window' becomes more and more transparent.  Artfully done, you can get aspects of 'glass' to interact with aesthetics of 'sign' in new and (at least for me) fascinating ways.

Wow, this is really starting to sound neat.  I hope I design up to such a lofty goal.

Quote from: C. EdwardsWhat your talking about does seem to resemble theme and symbology to me. Orwell put the hogs in charge of the farm for a reason (neon), regardless of his grammar (stained glass).

I definitely agree that it parallels the use of theme, symbology, and message in novels, very much so, but I'm trying to say that novels don't really give that 'designed' feeling.  Novels give that 'authored' feeling and you sometimes sense the author wagging his figure at you from 'behind the metaphor.'  I don't see that as being very practical in a role-playing game design; thus I alter it to take into account that not every game has theme or symbology issues.

Like I was saying with the 'abandoned' example above, you can create a feeling just by 'how things work together.'  The novel author can't do this, but you can't do a lot of what he does either.  (The novel gives the feeling of loneliness often by first creating 'identification' with a character and then placing them is lonely situations; games take this to a new level by interacting with your reaction to loneliness, not by supposing it.)

Quote from: C. EdwardsDoesn't this really dip deep into the area of talent and artistry though? A craftsman must be well familiar with the materials and the tools if there is any hope of the product being finely made.

I don't really want to start up an argument about the measures of talent and craft in a work, but I will say I always try to make up for my lack of talent by what I can learn as a craftsman.  Leaded glass can be laid to fit near any picture and the same is true of neon; their alchemy together is an art for which I question my own talent.  Lacking the talent that causes the 'neon sign' to 'shine through' just right, I sure can plan for the effect if I study it enough.  (I hope.)

Fang Langford

Um, I think people already do this. To the extent that they fail it's not because they don't understand it intuitively, they do. It's because it's an art, and part of a developing hobby. That's why, IMO, you can't find a way to discuss it. As designs improve so too will success here inevitably.

It all sounds to me like you're suggesting "have a plan and go with it." How do you achieve a plan? Well, Start, Find, Add. Which is sound advice, but not particularly new.

But then I'm probably grossly misreading this one, too.

As for Elegance, I wish you had used a different term. Not that it's way out of whack here, but it already has an application to all areas of design. That being greater simplicity without reducing quality. If this term sticks, we'll have to speak of Design Elegance, and Stylistic Elegance, or something.

Mike

Hey Mike,

Good to hear from you.  It's always good to hear another side of an issue.  You seem to be right on top of this idea too.  (I'm not surprised, you're a good designer; you probably 'write in neon in your sleep.')

Quote from: Mike HolmesI think people already do this. To the extent that they fail it's not because they don't understand it intuitively, they do. It's because it's an art, and part of a developing hobby. That's why, IMO, you can't find a way to discuss it. As designs improve so too will success here inevitably.

Well, lacking talent, it's left to me to either conceive of these ideas explicitly or leave yet another chance at quality to my abominable luck.

Quote from: Mike HolmesIt all sounds to me like you're suggesting "have a plan and go with it." How do you achieve a plan? Well, Start, Find, Add. Which is sound advice, but not particularly new.

Abstraction is the death of originality, but I see what you mean.  I was only hoping to add another venue of overlooked consideration to the already voluminous quantity of advice.  Although, if you don't feel it's that new, could you help out some of the rest of us with a few other alternatives to "Start, Find, and Add?"  I for one am searching for even more new ideas along these lines for my work.

Quote from: Mike HolmesAs for Elegance, I wish you had used a different term. Not that it's way out of whack here, but it already has an application to all areas of design. That being greater simplicity without reducing quality. If this term sticks, we'll have to speak of Design Elegance, and Stylistic Elegance, or something.

Hmm...I suppose you may be right, but when I thought of the idea of calling them elegances, this actually was what I had in mind.  The whole 'seeing a neon sign through a stained glass window' analogy was meant to suggest that, with all the valuable economies (elegances) you could put into a role-playing game, 'aligning them' may add additional value.  Perhaps that might be a kind of 'above all' elegance.

You know, that's a very well placed idea of yours Mike.  Perhaps I am talking about a way to bring "greater simplicity without reducing quality" to the whole effect of the game upon it's participants.  Wow, I like that; perhaps you could even use a 'brighter neon sign' to imply sections of the rules that could go without saying (creating unwritten rules through the synergy between 'stain' and 'neon;' thus simplifying content).  Very cool, Mike; I really appreciate your taking the time to point this out (relative to all the content so far).

This is all getting me quite jazzed.  Perhaps this will help kick-start my design work again.  ('Simplify by parallel implication' or 'how to write unwritten rules,' ingenious.)

Fang Langford

I think I see what you're going for, Fang, and I agree that elegance is perhaps not exactly right, nor exactly wrong.

To parse it in my own words, you're looking at the quality of communicating something - your 'neon sign' - through the characteristics of all elements of the piece.  Their unity, dissonance, coherence, incompleteness, etc. as part and parcel of the work.

And what you're wanting to do is talk about ways to promote, analyze, and cross-check these meta-characteristics.

An analogous act in novel-writing might be to convey a theme of 'endless repetition' by making every chapter exactly the same length, always begin them on a left-hand page, always open a chapter with dialogue and follow with action, and so on.

I'd suggest that looking at them as meta-characteristics is, at least in a limited mode, useful.  (Endless regression of "meta's" and efforts to separate their levels rigidly is always pernicious taxonomy.)  Not only should the details of the piece (the rules content, the setting description, the chargen process, etc) reflect your themes, but the characteristics of those details (the length of the rules section, the completeness of the setting, the pacing of chargen) should do so as well.  And, moreover, that the relationships between those characteristics, the meta-characteristics, should also reflect your themes... in a game about growing from innocent childhood to a brutally regimented maturity, the chargen process might be free, easy, and quick, but the conflict resolution system might be coldly rigid, and the contrast between the two would support the feel of the game.

This can regress infinitely, because every facet of a datum, every relationship, is itself a datum.  As you point out with your Tank Girl example, the very inelegance, the blithering incoherence, of the design could be considered elegant, because it does so to an end and with clear purpose.  The elegance of the design is a meta-characteristic of high order, stemming from the interactions of meta-characteristics of lower orders, and is itself part of the message the game sends, just as is every other characteristic of the game, meta- or otherwise.

A pity the word has been coopted, because 'coherence' would be a much more appropriate word here, as I understand it, than elegance.  Not just GNS coherence, but coherent message-sending from the whole body of the work, so as to reinforce whatever it is the designer is trying to say.  Holistic coherence of the game.

Elegance in the sense of greater simplicity without affecting quality is one route to this end, but only one.  If you could improve the holistic coherence of the Tank Girl RPG by adding a layer of random complexity to chargen and changing nothing else - to help convey a sort of helplessness in the face of a bizarre and whimsy-ridden universe - this would not affect simplicity, but it might improve holistic coherence.  In this case, elegance in the sense Mike is suggesting may not be the design goal.

Elegance in the mathematical sense is, IMO, a little harder to pin down; one solution could actually be simpler, but another one more elegant, though it's rare.  The distinction would be that the second one crystallized its concepts better, had them fit together seamlessly and without extraneous detail.  It's the mathematical equivalent of making an acrobatics trick look easy.  

As such it's definitely related to your original conception, but there is still perhaps a distinction to be drawn between a holistically effective game and an elegant one.  A holistically coherent game applies all its elements to its message, achieving maximum communication from designer to reader via all available avenues.  An elegant game communicates with the reader - again via all its avenues and meta- levels - in a way which is seamless, smooth, and pleasingly consistent.  If the message which a holistically coherent game wishes to convey is, itself, inelegant, then the two diverge, the game feels evocative, but inelegant.  (Kill Puppies For Satan may be an example; I haven't read it.)  A minimum level of each one is required for the other one to be visible, but elegance pertains to the level of style in the communication of a message, and holistic coherence to the interaction of the various elements within that communication.

All of that being said, I have one suggestion for another way to look at Fang's deliberate-design guidelines, which is as "filters".  Take each element of the design, and treat it as a 'filter' through which you view the rest of the design.  Observe interactions which help you, and ones which contradict the themes you're looking for.  Then come back at it with those interactions themselves as filters through which you view the design.  If you're talking about a game of disunity, then perhaps having every element of the game be unified in talking about disunity might produce a less effective message than a little disunity at the meta-level... let's try letting one section be unified throughout its text as written, and use the dissonance at the meta-level to stress our themes instead.

Finally, Fang, this talk of deliberateness and elegance does flag exactly my own issues with Scattershot, which I find perhaps the most interesting thing of all in this.  The play content of Scattershot is designed to be highly variable and customizable... but the presentation is not holistically coherent with this, because the very deliberateness and methodical quality of the design shows through, and is a 'neon sign' which signals (to me, on some subtextual level) "Everything has been thought through in this, there are no loose ends left hanging."  Which feels like it contradicts the level of variability the game strives to support - stress on feels like because it's exactly on the difficult-to-pin-down level we describe with terms like elegance.

(Edited shortly after post to fix BBCode errors.  No other content changes were made, but the meta-content improved dramatically. Grin.)

- Eric

Eric,

I just want to say that I think your post is absolute poetry, not only in content but also in structure and use of vocabulary. I guess that would be reinforcing meta-characteristics. Great stuff, man.

-Chris

I think I see what's being talked about here, and I'd like to try to apply a real world example. This is based on an article "How James Wallis ruined my character's life" and Wallis' response on Critical Miss. (Warning for those who don't know the site; it's not appropriate for young folk.) Basically, in a Warhammer Fantasy Roleplaying campaign, the 'zine's editor had some bad things happen to his character, and asked the game publisher why this happened.

In Wallis' reply, he says this about Warhammer FRP:

Quote
... you note that Warhammer FRP isn't like D&D, and the monsters don't automatically carry gold and magic items. D&D is about quests for glory and riches; WFRP pretends to be the same, but in fact is about the PCs' day-to-day fight for survival in a universe that hates them.

At first glance, WFRP looks like a D&D clone, although the mechanics are supposed to lead to very different, gritty results. (It's a game I own but haven't played. However, that's the description the articles suggest.)

Now, if the thing being communicated (the 'neon sign') of the game was to "pretend to be the same, but..." then it does a good job. At first glance, the stained glass window of the rules seem very arbitrary and not unified, like a D&D heartbreaker, but that's a deliberate attempt to fool people into thinking it's similar.

If, on the other hand, the sign is supposed to say "day-to-day survival in a universe that hates them," the game rules obscure the sign. The stained glass window suggests that the characters will be the same mighty wizards and mighty dwarven warriors that they are in D&D.

With one goal, the game is "elegant and deliberate/holisticly effective," or  The other way, it might be "elegant," as in playable, but not designed to deliver its ultimate message.

Is that right?