PUBLIC MARKS with tags games & "design patterns"

John Kirk has written a book, Design Patterns of Successful Roleplaying Games, in which he tries to catalogue successful game mechanics, why they work, and when (and when not) to use them. Design patterns are a communication tool from software development -- the idea is that successful projects will tend to have recurring patterns, and that by naming and describing them and the situations that call for their use, we can make it easier to turn tacit, experiential knowledge into a teachable skill.

The following is a selected excerpt of Chapter 4 from Patterns in Game Design (ISBN 1-53450-354-8) published by Charles River Media, Inc.