Hi Halycon,
Absolutely I welcome experience from players not just professional designers. Thank you so much for taking the time to respond!!
You talk about rulesystems and storytelling as if that was somehow the same thing. I think those are very separate entities that of course interact on some level, and I think its a really bad idea to mix those two.
I do not regard storytelling and rulesystems as the same thing at all. When you say it is better to avoid mixing them, I imagine you are referring to a watered-down experience resulting from either side lacking its own fullness? But it is my view that they can exist in a practically inseparable state while achieving their aims to the fullest, even though I cannot think of a single example that achieves this to a satisfactory level to date. Many have tried and failed, yet captured a glimpse of it; it is a kind of holy grail.
You talk as if these people would be "enlightened". But in my experience most rulesystems rather suck. Its incredibly hard to design a rulesystem that offers balance, but also depth and variety.
If they are not enlightened, they are certainly more experienced than I am. And in your case, your perspective on TES games is fascinating for me, because I love TES but never put so much thought into optimization.
I think in many ways, TES is more of a sim than a challenging game system. For example, the XP from merely performing an action over and over. There is a certain satisfaction to this, as you essentially invest in your preferred style of play. To that extent, I feel it achieves its aim, and I certainly enjoyed that feature in my youth. But indeed, it serves no purpose as far as thinking is concerned.
But to speak more broadly about your points, the overall gist I get is that the rules of the game give incentives that make no sense. Sorry if I have that wrong, but I really want to get to the core of it. What would a great TES rulesystem look like, roughly speaking? Are its mechanics an unsalvageable mess, or could it have been great? As a creator of rulesystems yourself, I bet you have many ideas about this, and if they could be put in relation to TES it would really aid my understanding.
