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posted by [identity profile] benlehman.livejournal.com at 03:55am on 01/07/2008
Rules that don't suck, but fail to be clever: FATE. FATE is deeply non-clever. Just admirably good.

Rules that are clever, and work well, but suck: the first year's worth of revisions of Polaris, to start with. Look at any game with "ashcan" plastered on it and you'll see a collection of clever, well working rules that suck.

When at this stage, many game designers think "oh, I just need to tweak things a bit."

That's when you need to flush everything.

yrs--
--Ben
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posted by [identity profile] matt-rah.livejournal.com at 04:00am on 01/07/2008
Oh dear. That's kind of where I am with Showdown. Must be time to delete the file and start over! ;-)

That said, my one experience playtesting an ashcan, which was Giants at GenCon last summer, does not conform with your definition. Giants, in fact, had a lot of cool rules that didn't quite work. :-)

Matt
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] benlehman.livejournal.com at 04:07am on 01/07/2008
Well, flush your rules, at least.

yrs--
--Ben
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(no subject)

posted by [identity profile] matt-rah.livejournal.com at 04:08am on 01/07/2008
Honestly, I've played it all of twice. I definitely need to playtest it a few more times at least, and get really super confident that the rules are 90% good, before I get rid of them all. :-)

Matt
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