Rulesets as artforms - writing a game never intended to be played?

[NichG]

I had this odd thought that it might be an interesting exercise to write a game from a perspective of not worrying at all about how the game would function in play, just to see what sort of things one might include if not for 'there's no good way to do that at the table' or 'that's going to mess with party dynamics at a metagame level' or things like that. Even though its sort of silly, I wonder if there would be something to the exercise. Maybe one would see some things laid out that were being ignored because they just seemed totally intractable to actually be part of a functioning game - but if you have the parameters of what you'd like them to be clear, it might be easier to actually go and make them function than if it were just like 'yeah that can't work'. Now you have the spec, so searching for better implementations can be done independently, that sort of thing.

There's also maybe an aesthetic or an artistry to that sort of project I guess, which might just be appealing in its own right - to read it but never actually attempt to play it.

Crazy, or is there something to it?

Edit: I almost think this might be the perfect way to appreciate really heavy, detailed simulationist systems. Reading the details and seeing 'aha, thats how the author organizes these things' is maybe more interesting than actually using those rules to actually evaluate anything.