What is the most important goal of a game design doc? For me it’s getting the team to grok the game we’re building — to understand it at a fundamental level. A design doc with lots of details on everything won’t result in anything good if the team doesn’t grok the design, but a team who really groks the design will improve upon it and make a great game even if the design doc is lacking details.
What is the number one hurdle that prevents people from grokking your design? Not reading the design doc. Writing long, boring design documents makes people unwilling to read it, and unlikely to grok it.
That’s why I dislike long, extremely detailed design docs: people don’t read them. Design docs should be just complete enough that everyone groks what the game is about, no more, no less.