Abstract where needed: in favor of procedures
I love when something makes me think. It doesn't need to be the most innovative thing ever, it just needs to spark something in me and I'll start talking about it and discussing approaches to new (for me) ideas.
Recently, I was reading Worlds Without Number, by Kevin Crawford, an I thought it was an interesting OSR proposal. However, there was something, algo, in my mind that was scratching the back of my head: why do I want to have this set of Skills.
WWN has an interesting attribute+skill system and a set of backgrounds, it reminds me a litle bit of 5e, and includes stuff like Perception or Administration of organizations as a skill-type abstraction. These skills are very useful in freeing cognitive load for the referee and, admitely, it adds a little bit of hype to the dice-roll enjoyers.
In some sense, these abstractions allow to us to skip player choice, time, character effort in any occupation they have.
De-abstraction and new simulationism
While abstraction is useful in freeing the referee and the players of some of the responsibility they have, Procedures woprk in the opposite way. Using procedures can help in populating a sandbox, not only of people living in it but also of colour and motivations, and make players to take more informed/detailed choices.
Unabstracted play can be really rewarding: instead of just rolling to do some sort of business deal, try to present the players different kinds of requirements for a deal to be struck. Suddenly, you have different paths of adventure for the players and characters to go on. Of course, this shines more brightly when playing in a more sandboxy way.
Unabstracted play can also be a drag: "what do you mean I have to rob a cargo coming from the Mytrhil Mines for the 10th time in order to get weapons for the rebels?". That's why I think it is necessary to "Abstract where needed", allowing us to avoid repetitive and uninteresting stuff.
Abstraction, of course, is needed at some point. I won't be describing the movements an enemy does when slicing your character in half with a sword, for that we have hit points (or similar). But unabstracted play, can be gold. In fact, I think that the ICI doctrine applied to traps is de-abstractionist in essence.
Moreover, I believe that talking about Game, Simulation and Narration (a la GNS) veils the abstraction vs procedure axis and I prefer the SamSo three axes Taxonomy.
How do Procedures enter this scope of de-abstraction? I think that is a question for later on, but there is something of interest for that question in PbtA movements, and a thread that Baker wrote recently. There are games that do some good proceduring, like His Majesty The Worm.
But still, I have much to read and learn.
Random suggestion: Since this seems a, kind of, serious post I reckon that I could leave here something funnier
References
Sam Sorensen Bastionland, Chris McDowall Vincent and Meguey Baker