Thursday, May 12, 2016

GURPS day cross post - Appreciating the Work

when my gurps basic set fell apart with the bad binding problem of 2004 first edition copies I had these made. They were for the protection of my originals which SJgames replaced. Since 2004 I lost two of these to players  who borrowed and forgot to return it and this has been what I used where ever I went so my main books were never touched. 
"This is not it even its final form" my main GURPS day cross post is next week.

On of my take away from the GURPS day posts  is the appreciation in the amount of work many of the posts need since its on the data heavy side. For every bit of information on the post there is considerable increase in complexity and the lengthier evaluation in how that bit is placed and validity.

A 400 word post may take about 1 hour to research, compose and edit  (call center metrics of such work) . Doubling that to 1000 words doesnt double the time to compose and edit but it exponentially increases. it may take 3-4 hours. While scaling down may be so exponential oversimplified as to be ignored. See Erooms law and Man month fallacy as an example of complexity exponentially increasing the work.

Then there is the symbolic data bits - data that is representative of more data (like character stats and game mechanics) that is handled more difficulty. these posts take a lot of research and that is a challenge and an example of ideation with limitations.

Sometimes I count the ideas that needs editing and revising based on my poor revision needs and marvel at how they can turn out their posts. Slowly I'm working my own mechanics in predicting or estimating work for the blog and the work others make. Everyone in the gurps day have a day job, even the writers since they dont make money from such posts (but it may help with their readership). One definite pattern is that: these guys are like me, our methods and hard-wiring has given us a working memory able to work with these very dense data elements relating to Games and Real World or Other Mediums as it applies in a more accessible general medium.


Outline

  • Metrics of Composition (research, composition, and editing)
  • Complexity is exponential relative to elements (erooms law and man month myth)
    • add symbolic data: highly dense data bits. 
  • Writing, Researching, and Composition as a GURPS gamer are different from other game systems. 
    • that GURPS has trained observation of genres or real world material and apply it to a more accessible and general medium. 


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