Perfection is the Biggest Barrier to Mastery

 Perfection is the Biggest Barrier to Mastery

There's, frankly, a ton to which that post title can (and does!) apply. In this case, I want to apply it to game design a little bit. I will preface everything I say next with the following: I have only designed a first draft of one game. So I'm very inexperienced and there's a ton I don't know about game design. But what I'm writing comes not only from a game design perspective, but from an emotional intelligence perspective as well. And from that latter perspective, the evidence really couldn't be more clearly in support of the title of this post and what it means.

Game designers, both aspiring and accomplished, have nearly all said some variation of the following: "Don't worry about your design or prototype being perfect; just finish it and get to testing!" I've read and heard a number of different reasons behind that advice, but the most prevalent one seems to be "if you're trying to perfect the game before you make it, then you'll never make it." I think this is pretty spot-on. But beyond that, research indicates that perfectionism actually prevents one from ever truly mastering a craft or skill. Unsurprisingly, this is counter-intuitive, given that the definition of the word "perfectionism" is as follows: refusal to accept any standard short of perfection.

I'm a geek writing about geeky things; did you really think I'd use the word "perfection" and NOT use this?

One can point to athletes, artists, and scientists who apparently hold themselves to that higher standard. I myself have frequently said that any truly skilled artist can always find something they could have done better on any completed project. It may be small, it may seem big, but there's always at least one more thing. And I stand by that assessment! I've never met a truly talented artist who is ever convinced that a piece of their work is perfect as is. But that's the key: per researcher Brené Brown, perfectionism is not striving to be our best or working toward excellence. Healthy striving is internally driven. Perfectionism is externally driven by a simple but potential all-consuming question - 'What will people think?' And therein lies the reason why good art doesn't come from *actual* perfectionists - good art can't be driven solely by answering that question.

High standards are important! But how we approach those standards is everything, because achieving mastery requires curiosity as well as viewing mistakes and failures as opportunities for learning. And perfectionism prevents us from the latter, which incidentally curtails our capacity for the former. As a perfectionist, one "cannot afford to fall short," which is very different than striving for our best. I can't speak to cultures outside of American culture, but as to American culture, we frankly suck at this. We truly do. We're awful at it. A big part of that deficit derives from how we're taught in school. Grades do not reward us for improvement; grades reward us for the "correct answer." There are instances in which we have to show our work, and thus we are also graded on how we arrive at the "correct answer." But how we arrive there needs to be the way we were taught in order to receive full marks. We're encouraged to "think outside of the box," but we're not actually rewarded for that type of thinking unless the result is "right" or what we deem "useful."

When I was studying theatre at SUNY Geneseo, I was in an Acting III class. I was doing a two-person scene with my friend and roommate. It was from a restoration comedy called THE COUNTRY WIFE. Frankly, my professor was already my mentor at that point and picked a scene that was challenging, but was so chock full of good material that we should have absolutely slayed with it. We didn't. We never once finished that scene. And we rarely elicited even a single laugh. And ultimately, it's because we didn't do the work. We kept saying, "let's just go for it." But going for it doesn't actually mean a damn thing if I don't know how it is that I'm going to go for it! It's just a thing I've said that signals commitment or risk. So that scene failed horribly. I share this because I can draw the direct parallel to telling students to "think outside of the box" without taking any sort of action that supports such an endeavor. It signals investment in new and innovative ideas, but it does nothing more than that. Our American schools and our American culture teach us again and again that there's no graver sin than to be wrong. Not everything else is permissible, per say, but being wrong is embarrassing (which is part of why apologizing is so hard for so many of us, but that's a conversation for another day!) at best and *earns* you shame at worst (I put asterisks around that word because shame doesn't actually accomplish anything and should never be used as a tool, but again, a conversation for another day).

But back to the point!

When it comes to game design, the notion of perfection is foolish at best, but crippling at worst. There will always be something you wish you'd done even slightly differently. And that's okay! You carry that knowledge with you in future endeavors, whether in game design or elsewhere. Again, achieving mastery requires curiosity and viewing mistakes and failures as opportunities for learning. You should absolutely maintain your high standards and strive to reach them! But it's also healthy to sometimes fall short of those standards, acknowledge you've done so, and try to do better next time. Take the lessons you've learned and implement them as you move forward.

Another parallel: I've been watching NHL hockey for the past 12 years or so. In the past year, I've been listening to several podcasts pretty regularly, watching more than I had for the previous 11 years, and reading books about hockey with regularity. I know more about hockey than I did even just several months ago. I am no better prepared to strap on skates and play ice hockey now than I was 12 years ago when I first started watching hockey. I can spend another 12 years consuming hockey content every single day and still not be ready to play ice hockey. Because I'm not going out and physically even trying to do it! It's ridiculous to think I'd just hop onto the ice after spending 24 years learning about hockey and be able to play at even a fraction of how other people play if they've spent any time on the ice at all.

It's easy, I'm sure, for readers to sit there, roll their eyes, and say, "Yeah, Chris, nice analogy and all, but there's a physical component in hockey that doesn't apply to board game design." My response is, "That's true. But it's also a pretty flimsy counterargument." Until you do the thing, you haven't done the thing. I have played a decent number of board games over the past 15 years. And for my very first board game design, I worked everything out on paper. I considered the various angles, documented the mechanics I was introducing and listing the pros and cons of those mechanics in other games with which I was familiar. I had been reading Cardboard Edison pretty regularly (seriously, check them out; they've got outstanding content) and wasn't rushing anything. I had the entire thing mapped out and was confident that there would be flaws, but that I had a decent game in front of me. I built the prototype and set it up for a solo play-through so I could spot some obvious changes that would need to be made. I was very excited that it had all come together so smoothly!

See? Nothing but smooth sailing...

I started playing and got maybe two or three rounds in when I realized I was bored as hell. It felt as though the choices I was making weren't really choices so much as the only obvious choice given whatever hand I had drawn. But worse than playing a game in which I didn't really have any choices beyond "the only logical choice?" I wasn't excited about any of the things I was doing! I might do something that was effective, but I wasn't excited about it. It was all mechanical. None of it felt thematic, none of it felt interesting, and it was clear that I wasn't going to have to "make some changes" so much as I'd have to overhaul and reconsider the entire damn thing.

That was disappointing and I won't pretend it wasn't. I poured myself a generous glass of scotch and drank it while staring at this prototype in disappointment. It sucked and it wasn't what I was expecting. But you know, I could've spent so much more time trying to work through this game concept in theory and I promise that any improvements would've been so incremental as to be laughable. There was no amount of consideration and theorizing that could've made this game (in that form, anyway) playable. Forget good - it wasn't even playable. But because I just put it all together and tried it solo, I learned that for myself without spending even more time on it (mine or that of other people). It wasn't an enjoyable realization at which I arrived, but it was a necessary one. I considered what I learned, documented it, and then shelved the game. Some of the ideas might work elsewhere, but for now, I put this one on the shelf because I was no longer excited about it and I moved onto other projects.

I urge you to strive. I urge you to try hard. I urge you to set standards and try to meet them! It's worth the effort! But avoid perfectionism; perfectionism is self-destructive and paralyzing. Stonemaier Design Day is coming up in October and tickets will go on sale in mid-April. I may or may not have something ready this year. Last year, I wasn't ready and so didn't bother buying a ticket. But it wasn't because I wanted to walk in there with "the perfect game." I chose not to go because I didn't have any game ready and knew I wouldn't by the date of the event! I won't waste a producer's time with "most of a game" and hope they can see how good it *will* be once it's complete. But I won't be paralyzed and miss an opportunity because I'm too afraid to put anything out in the world that will be imperfect. I'm an artist: I put imperfect work into the world constantly. You've read a bunch of that work in this blog! But we learn and we move forward.

And you know what? Sometimes, good enough is good enough. We don't need to look down our nose at "good enough." Let's change our thinking and move away from the harm we inflict on ourselves and others with some misguided notion of perfectionism. Make the prototype and try out your own game already! Go and do the thing so you can make mistakes, learn, and then keep doing the thing, but better than you did it before! Make something great so I can play it; I believe in you!