Systems

[andrewducker]

This started off when talking to Mike about his tweaking of the AI in Fable to make it work. I then realised that the principles applied to any system which tried to encapsulate higher order behaviours of complex systems in a simple ruleset. This includes everything from roleplaying systems to legal systems to software and I'm sure many others as well.

All feedback appreciated, as usual (as well as pointers to other things on the same topic).


Andy's first rule of systems: No system works in all situations.
Real life is complex (in the scientific meaning of the word) and fractal. At any level above the quantum, while it can be vaguely approximated by rules, there will always be situations where the results that rules produce aren’t what was originally expected or desired.

Andy's second rule of systems: Adjusting the system will take more time and money than you have.
There are an (effectively) infinite number of possibilities, tweaking the rules to each one in turn will therefore take forever, or until your budget runs out, whichever happens first.

Andy's third rule of systems: The result/effort ration decreases logarithmically as time goes on.
Your first rule will work in 90% of situations. The second one will fix 90% of the remaining solutions (and break 1% of the solutions you had fixed). Each successive rule will fix 90% of the remaining solutions (an ever decreasing amount) and break 1% of the currently fixed ones. It will not take long to reach the point of diminishing returns.

Andy's fourth rule of systems: One man's crust is another's complexity.
Eventually all systems reach the point where their complexity causes people to shudder when they think about changing them. Nobody will be able to understand them apart from a few people who have devoted their lives to them. These people will have almost certainly lost the ability to communicate with people who aren’t also heavily involved with the system (lawyers and computer programmers both fall into this category). However, before ripping it out and replacing it, remember that each of those rules is there because they fixed a problem. Any replacement system will need to cope with all of the situations the old one did. And it almost certainly won't until it reaches a similar state of crustiness (unless the situation the old system was designed to deal with has changed significantly).

Comments

[nosrialleon.livejournal.com]

That IS funny!

I'm fairly comfortable with rule 1: there are glaring differences between writing music with an instrument versus with a computer.

I am currently the living embodiment of rules 2 and 3.

My last post is the desire to not become rule 4!

[broin.livejournal.com]

RPGwise, don't forget that game systems don't have to be used solely for determining the result of conflict. They can also be used to produce conflict.

Take humanity in Vampire. Ever found yourself disagreeing with the moral code outlined there? Or ever find that the rules for aiming, or ammo, or initiative break down?

Well, instead of trying to codify a complex issue (defining what it means to be human - ouch!), you can you can have systems that (in a sense) produce behavior. Have a look atMy Life With Master.

Er, I'll explain this better in a bit. Gotta go make spagbol.

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

I think that you need to take the "above the quantum level" bit out of rule one.

Think about it.

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

Also, yet again I find myself thinking "Yawn, Andy's stating the obvious again, I've thought pretty much that for years, had big discussions on it with people, written it somewhere at some point and shaped a lot of my life/work accordingly".

But then I think that some of the best and most useful writing in the world and in history consists of precisey that - stating the 'obvious' in a way that everybody can take in.

can i disagree

[aberbotimue.livejournal.com]

"Andy's first rule of systems: No system works in all situations"

i'm not acedemic enought to argue it, but somthing around case statemens having else clauses, and programs having exception handeling, means all_other options are covered??

or am i missing the point?

[kpollock.livejournal.com]

and lots of systemising people don't realise that systems can't cover all eventualities

Wow. Really? Taht explains a LOT. Here was me thinking that everybody was pretty much au fait with the basic untameableness of existence and were just being dickheads to annoy me.

Will I ever learn that assuming people think even remotely like me is doomed to abject failure?