Reducing elegance to mere efficiency does it a grave disservice; I think it might be more accurately characterized as the beauty that can at times be found within efficiency, or perhaps more simply, beautiful efficiency. I find myself troubled by this semantic quibble, but the actual ideas expressed here are good and worthy of pondering.
Have you read Seeing Like a State? Its core thesis touches on much of the above, with the idea that that trying to rationalize messy human structures actually destroys a hidden efficiency. The idealized city you discuss, built to be efficient, is in many cases far less efficient than the naturally developed town in which small shops are intermingled with houses. That system has a shorter walk to the shop, and integrates it into the community, which helps people get jobs, prevents crime, etc., and makes the city both efficient and beautiful (once you've overcome the higher learning barrier).
In the context of RPGs, the irreducible nature you describe would suggest that part of the reason good RPGs are a rarity is that the core essence of an RPG must be grokked cohesively, rather than developed piecemeal. Not only is that harder to understand, but it would seem enormously more difficult to create in the first place, requiring a comprehensive framework to come into being before any of it truly works. Likewise, playtesting may suggest dramatic shifts required to adjust that vision, a daunting challenge in its own right.
The "elegance" that is being discussed here is not the virtuous ideal that the term can represent at its zenith but the degraded usage and subtle modern connotations, which have implicitly abandoned the "beauty" core. I strongly believe in the "elegance," in the highest sense of the term, of the town over the city for exactly the reasons you described. Though perhaps seeming like an attack on the concept "elegance" itself, this work is ultimately an attack on failures in modern thinking, and I chose (possibly confusingly) to do so from that perspective.
I have not read "Seeing Like a State," but it sounds like they've identified the same problem. Oversimplifying a problem to make analysis easier or possible is a common refrain in many fields. But BELIEVING the oversimplification leads to ruin! I wish I had put it that way now, after saying it.
I am nearing what I perceive as the final stage of the work on the First Blood release of BMD. Having seen how the interconnected systems demand much attention and inter-dependent consideration across the game's different parts, I indeed have come to the conclusion that a game built around a real center cannot be efficiently split into "parts" to be solved independently. This means a lot of work for the designer, especially if we want to limit the work required for the player to get started!
We'll see how it behaves in playtesting, but I have a sense that the structure, if built up more correctly, will be more resilient to small changes. It's the binding threads that cause the development complications, the blue lines rather than the nodes.
Firstly, if you have ever watched the TV show "Meateater," the host Steve Rinella likes to talk about the distinction between easy fun and hard fun. Easy fun is quick and cheap and is short lived because the enjoyment is experienced most strongly in the moment, e.g. a roller coaster. Yeah, that experience was enjoyable in the moment but it does not provide years of enjoyable memories. In contrast, hard fun is rarely enjoyable in the moment but provides many years of enjoyable memories and reminiscing with friends, e.g. climbing a mountain.
The game designed to be easily digested and played can be fun in the moment but rarely evokes deep enjoyment, think Candyland. On the other hand, something like Arkham horror is difficult and, in the moment, not tons of fun but does provide satisfaction in the relative long-term.
So something like AD&D possesses that difficulty that provides "hard fun," in this sense.
Secondly, the rejection of metaphysical reality has made beauty either wholly subjective or mechanistic. Elegance in a mechanical system can be captivating but is not sublime. Insisting that the mechanical is a worthy substitute of the metaphysical is an error of a fool's mind. And any deep satisfaction the fool claims he gets from his mechanistic system is a sad insistence on his foolishness and we ought to pity him. He misses the true goodness and beauty of existence.
Tangentially, Robert Farrar Capon, in his book "An Offering of Uncles," writes about the oblation of things. Oblation being the act of offering something as worship. Man is a priest of God by dint of his existence as a being made in the Lord's image. We are metaphysical as well as physical. We have, Calvin writes, a sense of the divine. And as such, we naturally worship. To then insist that the mechanical and physical is all there is is to reject what we are. To insist that the elegant system is the height of human creation is to reject our duty as priests and sub-creators. We have a moral obligation to seek and create beauty in what we do.
The stark division between "instant gratification" and a deeper satisfaction is reflected in all human affairs. For someone who's time horizon is tomorrow, heroin might seem like a pretty decent prospect. On the other hand, for someone who's horizon is 10 years down the road, even skipping the daily walk could summon up a feeling of dread, forget heroin! It's even more garishly apparent to those mindful of spiritual health vs. degradation.
The tough part of these observations is how to put them into practice with respect to game design. If I say, "elegance is not a good metric for game design," and then go on to fill my game with disorganized content whose relevance is in question, I have used a reasonable conclusion to justify a degraded outcome. It's still important to think about efficient communication and organization. It's still important to question the inclusion of anything and weigh its added complexity against the utility to players.
The ancient wisdom, as always, wins out in the end. To try making something good, you have to take the hard road. You have to put in the reps. Nothing is guaranteed to work, but you have to trudge through that dark forest assuming it has an end. This mindset works for both the designer and, perhaps, the TTRPG player.
Reducing elegance to mere efficiency does it a grave disservice; I think it might be more accurately characterized as the beauty that can at times be found within efficiency, or perhaps more simply, beautiful efficiency. I find myself troubled by this semantic quibble, but the actual ideas expressed here are good and worthy of pondering.
Have you read Seeing Like a State? Its core thesis touches on much of the above, with the idea that that trying to rationalize messy human structures actually destroys a hidden efficiency. The idealized city you discuss, built to be efficient, is in many cases far less efficient than the naturally developed town in which small shops are intermingled with houses. That system has a shorter walk to the shop, and integrates it into the community, which helps people get jobs, prevents crime, etc., and makes the city both efficient and beautiful (once you've overcome the higher learning barrier).
In the context of RPGs, the irreducible nature you describe would suggest that part of the reason good RPGs are a rarity is that the core essence of an RPG must be grokked cohesively, rather than developed piecemeal. Not only is that harder to understand, but it would seem enormously more difficult to create in the first place, requiring a comprehensive framework to come into being before any of it truly works. Likewise, playtesting may suggest dramatic shifts required to adjust that vision, a daunting challenge in its own right.
The "elegance" that is being discussed here is not the virtuous ideal that the term can represent at its zenith but the degraded usage and subtle modern connotations, which have implicitly abandoned the "beauty" core. I strongly believe in the "elegance," in the highest sense of the term, of the town over the city for exactly the reasons you described. Though perhaps seeming like an attack on the concept "elegance" itself, this work is ultimately an attack on failures in modern thinking, and I chose (possibly confusingly) to do so from that perspective.
I have not read "Seeing Like a State," but it sounds like they've identified the same problem. Oversimplifying a problem to make analysis easier or possible is a common refrain in many fields. But BELIEVING the oversimplification leads to ruin! I wish I had put it that way now, after saying it.
I am nearing what I perceive as the final stage of the work on the First Blood release of BMD. Having seen how the interconnected systems demand much attention and inter-dependent consideration across the game's different parts, I indeed have come to the conclusion that a game built around a real center cannot be efficiently split into "parts" to be solved independently. This means a lot of work for the designer, especially if we want to limit the work required for the player to get started!
We'll see how it behaves in playtesting, but I have a sense that the structure, if built up more correctly, will be more resilient to small changes. It's the binding threads that cause the development complications, the blue lines rather than the nodes.
This article provokes many thoughts.
Firstly, if you have ever watched the TV show "Meateater," the host Steve Rinella likes to talk about the distinction between easy fun and hard fun. Easy fun is quick and cheap and is short lived because the enjoyment is experienced most strongly in the moment, e.g. a roller coaster. Yeah, that experience was enjoyable in the moment but it does not provide years of enjoyable memories. In contrast, hard fun is rarely enjoyable in the moment but provides many years of enjoyable memories and reminiscing with friends, e.g. climbing a mountain.
The game designed to be easily digested and played can be fun in the moment but rarely evokes deep enjoyment, think Candyland. On the other hand, something like Arkham horror is difficult and, in the moment, not tons of fun but does provide satisfaction in the relative long-term.
So something like AD&D possesses that difficulty that provides "hard fun," in this sense.
Secondly, the rejection of metaphysical reality has made beauty either wholly subjective or mechanistic. Elegance in a mechanical system can be captivating but is not sublime. Insisting that the mechanical is a worthy substitute of the metaphysical is an error of a fool's mind. And any deep satisfaction the fool claims he gets from his mechanistic system is a sad insistence on his foolishness and we ought to pity him. He misses the true goodness and beauty of existence.
Tangentially, Robert Farrar Capon, in his book "An Offering of Uncles," writes about the oblation of things. Oblation being the act of offering something as worship. Man is a priest of God by dint of his existence as a being made in the Lord's image. We are metaphysical as well as physical. We have, Calvin writes, a sense of the divine. And as such, we naturally worship. To then insist that the mechanical and physical is all there is is to reject what we are. To insist that the elegant system is the height of human creation is to reject our duty as priests and sub-creators. We have a moral obligation to seek and create beauty in what we do.
Anyway, very good!
Wonderful thoughts, and thank you.
The stark division between "instant gratification" and a deeper satisfaction is reflected in all human affairs. For someone who's time horizon is tomorrow, heroin might seem like a pretty decent prospect. On the other hand, for someone who's horizon is 10 years down the road, even skipping the daily walk could summon up a feeling of dread, forget heroin! It's even more garishly apparent to those mindful of spiritual health vs. degradation.
The tough part of these observations is how to put them into practice with respect to game design. If I say, "elegance is not a good metric for game design," and then go on to fill my game with disorganized content whose relevance is in question, I have used a reasonable conclusion to justify a degraded outcome. It's still important to think about efficient communication and organization. It's still important to question the inclusion of anything and weigh its added complexity against the utility to players.
The ancient wisdom, as always, wins out in the end. To try making something good, you have to take the hard road. You have to put in the reps. Nothing is guaranteed to work, but you have to trudge through that dark forest assuming it has an end. This mindset works for both the designer and, perhaps, the TTRPG player.