@BobGoblin said:
This is a thought I have for the community at large:
How much 'code' is too much code? Is there a point where using code to do 'things' (Economy, Space, etc etc etc) becomes too much? I know this is a long standing debate in my circles, that too much code causes people to 'game' rather than roleplay but on the flipside it also can put the burden of activity on the players moreso than the GMs. Thoughts?
i think that this, like the vast majority of design considerations, depends almost entirely on two things: 1) the kind of game you want to run and stories you want to tell; 2) the kind of players you want to attract and keep.
I can be very malleable when it comes to this sort of thing as a player, but as a storyteller and game runner, I prefer narrative-focused games that don't pay too much attention to the minutiae (economics, resource management, etc). This is either largely because I don't have patience or because it doesn't interest me when I'm the one in charge.
I can see the appeal as a player (even though I haven't played in games like that in a while) and would probably enjoy them a great deal once I got into them. But it's about what your players and you want for the game.
As a community we're almost always discussing what's better and the claim of it "depending on the context and what the players and staff want from the game" is often dismissed as a platitude without no argumentative merit. I think this is a huge mistake. I think we should be encouraging different types of games, with different goals and different player demographics, to exist simultaneously, so that the community at large can have access to a gamut of gaming experiences and everyone has something they can play and enjoy.