@Scythesickle - I'll do my best to answer all your questions.
I see you are aware of most of the PnP influences at work in the Darklands design, such as Travellerr.
(1) Databases and RPGs.
I probably expressed the concept poorly by using the term "database." Darklands was created long before the concept of "data driven design" was coined. Nevertheless, you have understood the basic idea.
The only sane way to build an RPG is to put nearly everything in the form of data tables - character attributes, weapon stats, armor stats, world stats, etc. All this can be stored in some kind of database, which the program logic accesses to resolve any situation, from conversation to combat. Based on my subsequent professional experience, a "flat file" database system is preferable to a "relational" database. While you can create multi-dimensional links and lookups in a relational DB, the design quickly becomes insanely complicated, especially when a designer has to make adjustments months, or sometimes years, after the original dat a was put into the game.
Personally, for most games, a full-blown database is unnecessary. I use spreadsheets to present the data in human-readable form, and then have csv, xml, or json versions of the same data to make it machine readable (i.e., accessible to program code). While programmers prefer xml or json, I prefer csv, since of the three, only csv can be seamlessly imported back and forth between human-readable and machine-readable form. I can't tell you how many times, on different projects, we've struggled getting data from "quick fix" xml or json files back into the master xlsx spreadsheet. Whenever we failed to do this, we lost sight of what data was really inside the game, leading to all sorts of bugs, mistaken fixes, or major reworks.
Now, sometimes a data value isn't fixed in a spreadsheet (i.e., game data), but instead is a constantly changing game value (like opinion or "faction" values, weather, etc.). In this case, the designer's job is to make sure the ALGORTHIMS (equations, and/or if-then-else logic) is documented, including the meaning of value levels, max and min limits, etc. If the programmers have to adjust this for code reasons, the designer needs to change his documentation. Otherwise, in six months or three years you'll have no earthly idea how to deal with a bug report without consuming a half day to a half week of programming time tracking down exactly what the code is doing.
(2) Game Development Process.
I have worked as a contributing designer, lead designer, and producer on various projects using Scrum. That means I've been both a "worker" and a "leader" at different times. The smallest was as three-person team, and the largest was a 120-person MMORPG with eight scrum teams and a couple art kanban groups. All of these followed the late 2000s to early 2010s style of scrum, recognizable to Certified Scrum Masters (CSM) anywhere. In every case, the project went more smoothly, and was more predictable overall, than ANY other software projects I've worked on in my 33 years of experience in software development. And believe me, I've seen a LOT of different stuff tried, including no formal project management whatsoever.
Of course, any project management system or software development process can go badly, since software development requires teamwork. That means working with other people, which exposes you to all the issues possible in the "human condition." People are imperfect. When they try to work together, imperfections can multiply togetherr as well as cancelled out.
(3) Professional Invitations & Interaction
To my knowledge, nobody from Bethesda or Zenimax has contacted me about design ideas, much less a job. Have some of them talked about Darklands?
I would have loved a senior design or production role in just about any significant RPG project, solo, multiplayer, or massively multiplayer. I tried on and off for such a role at various companies since the early 2000s. But game design jobs don't work like that. You have to fit into their openings, as well as their preconceptions. Senior design roles usually go to friends, since there is no easy yardstick for measuring professional ability.
I have received no job invitations, or even inquiries, based on any of my past computer game design work, with one part-time contract work exception in 2014. I include past work in my resume, so experience does help. But experience has not been an instant meal-ticket. Most times, finding a new job took about six months of hard work responding to ads and openings, crafting cover letters and recasting my resume toward their needs, as well as doing my best to network with professional acquaintances.
Usually, my association with specific past games, Darklands in particular, has been coincidental. For example, a few years back, when I was producer at one company, and then as senior designer at another, a few months into the job a couple different co-workers asked, "Oh, are you the Arnold Hendrick who did Darklands?"
All this is probably because I refused to spend time on self-promotion, propogandize my skills and contributions, or spend time courting the game press for fame. In hindsight, this was a huge mistake. If I'd been more of a blow-hard, I would have had more opportunities to work on really big, challenging projects.
My advice to future game designers is to attach themselves to potentially big-financial-win game projects (of ANY sort). Do enough work on the game to help it get out, and make friends with co-workers, but never neglect to burnish your reputation and public image. Take every possible opportunity to be a spokesman for some part of a game project, preferably as much as possible. Work hard to make your name recognizable, preferably in a positive way, but ANY recognition is better than none (just ask John Romero).
Darklands probably has the best game manual I've ever read. Still love to go through it. I'm sure others have gone over my own favorite features of the game, from the strength/endurance system, to the different weapon attributes, the open-ended adventuring (as opposed to rigid questing that seems popular now, probably because it's easier to catch bugs that way? Less fun, in my opinion), the Traveller style character creation, the as-the-people-would-have-imagined-it perspective, to the alternative way to handle magic and downtime that I feel have yet to be rivaled.
