thread: 2013-09-03 : Ordering the Conversation: How do you choose?
On 2013-09-04, Gordon wrote:
So the core questions (as to which rule and evaluating suitability) are about this particular game, involving wizards and winning/losing?
I'm going to want to establish some context about the game, in terms of who's going to play it, the logistics of playing it, why I'm interested in designing it (artistically and otherwise), what form it's going to take as a product/work, what accumulated expectations might exist among people likely to play such a game, and etc. I probably won't have (or even try to develop) a full understanding of all these up-front - maybe never, on some of 'em - but I need some level of clarity about them to move forward.
As an extreme, I might decide (might be forced to decide, in a not-Vincent-indie design environment) that whatever is "the way spellcasting has always worked" is the rule I must pick, and that de facto means it is suitable. Any issues with that will have to be dealt with elsewhere in the design.
I guess the pithy version of this is to add "know why you want the player to do that thing" and "make sure you can (or at least are likely able to) make the player do that thing" to Ben/Emily's answer.
Back to this game, though. I think the key is that "bringing the world to its supplicant knees" is an imprecise condition. Spellcasting need not be the primary design area where that imprecision is developed - heck, the imprecision could be dealt with up-front by saying "this is Highlander, There Can Be Only One, that's the world on its supplicant knees."
But once we understand how this particular game is going to deal with that issue (each player defines world-on-its'-knees for their character, a GMish type does so globally, precision develops in play, partial versions of all the above, and more), I'd like spellcasting to reinforce that process in some way.
Which is plenty tricky even WITH context and clarity (in this case, about a supplicant world). Without 'em, I think I'm lost.
