thread: 2013-09-03 : Ordering the Conversation: How do you choose?
On 2013-09-11, Ken Filewood wrote:
Hi Vincent.
It's an interesting question.
What follows describes how I decide among options.
I decide by weighing the options against my design goals and make a synthetic judgement about which seems to be the best fit.
My design goals are usually numerous and diverse. They are seldom completely explicit and seldom completely harmonious. I clarify, articulate, change and re-priotise them during the design process.
How I assess and compare options varies a lot. I tend to spend more time on what I judge to be important, difficult decisions. Specific methods that I use to assess or compare options include (in no particular order):
1) weighted scoring against my general criteria for the design criteria, or against specific criteria I make up for this procedure;
2) thought experiments and mental rehearsals;
3) talking to other designers;
4) asking or observing my audience;
5) recalling my past experience with the same, similar or radically different procedures in my own or others' games;
6) claims about similar procedures made by others;
7) reports of actual play using similar procedures;
8) play testing;
9) gut feel;
10) switching to another another activity for a while before returning to the decision;
11) considering how each option would interact with the other procedures or candidates for procedures in the game;
12) considering how much of my design/ text would need re-working;
13) asking the opinions of players;
14) pairwise comparison of attractive options; or rankings of a set of contrasting features;
15) shortlisting;
16) detailing the specifics of how the procedure will work;
17) doing calculations, if dice or figures are involved;
18) imagining the typical and extreme cases;
19) estimating frequencies, durations, word counts, group sizes
I work freehand, with a word processor and spreadsheet, by conversation or in my head.
How I decide is a mystery. The way it seems to happen is that after some assessing and comparing, one option becomes more impressive (clear, salient, attractive, compelling) to me than the others. So I note the decision and move on.
But if I suspect that I have not put enough effort into the decision I may deliberately put aside the most impressive option and resume assessing and comparing.
If none of the available options seems impressive, or I am torn between a few impressive options, I sometimes make a tentative decision and move on to something else. Other times I may apply different ways to assess and compare, look for more options to consider or restore an option I put aside earlier.
Alternatively, I sometimes adopt an earlier tentative decision by default because it becomes 'locked in' by subsequent decisions, or I judge reviewing it a low priority.
The process is non-linear, discontinuous and messy. I do not usually regard my decision as final until I decide to stop work on the design.
Cheers
Ken
