Recently, I have felt like my designs are of subpar quality. Not in the scale of the example of Bad Design provided in the intro, but leagues away from the Good Design example. That is why I would like to post something that might be useful to improve the quality of designs and propposals and,if proven useful, might be handy for other arms race games.
After a design or propposal gets rolled, eS grades it from 1 to 10, and briefly comments on the things he liked the most (to-the-point writing, reasonable demands…etc.) land the things that annoyed him the most (poor research, unclear proportions…etc.). This will ensure the quality designs and revisions gradually increases from the constant input of criticism.
However, we players cannot entirely rely on eS to improve our skills. We need to make an active effort to ensure quality carries on through turns and games. That is why I believe we should compilate in a doc all the intended design propposals, as well as the roll, dificulty, eS veredict and his comments on it. This would serve as a reference database to further develop our submissions and look for inspiration in past designs.
Our final objective would be the establisment of a comprehensive guide so new and old players can have a set of guidelines that eases the burden on the GM. While different arms races have different QMs and preferences in the design propposals, I believe that making one for semi-serious arms races (ground in reality but with some tongue-in-cheek tones) such as the ones eS and Sensei should be our objective for now.
I would appreciate some discussion abou it in this thread. Also, I believe it will be better if we don´t discuss it over the discord, since I find it often derails discussion without producing any meaningful results. We would also ensure everything we say gets recorded and not lost in the margins of a chat.
As a first propposal for the guide, I believe it would be helpful for the QM to link the sources we hae consulted in order to redact our design, if we have consulted any. Even linking the Wikipedia page directly would make the task easier for the QM.
As a final note, this system requires will from both the players and the QM. So eS, Toskesh, vile capitalists dogs , are you on board?