thread: 2013-10-08 : Recipe vs Game
On 2013-10-09, Josh W wrote:
Ok, thought of a simpler explanation; I do love solving puzzles in games, getting through obstacles and learning systems.
But if that is what games represent in this particular schema, then rpgs are also structured creativity. They can also be (as Ron said about dust devils a while ago) "more like a blank canvas with a well-chosen arrray of paints and brushes. So playing it won?t yield a ?mere curiosity,? but rather your group?s own original western, measuring up as well or as poorly to the existing texts as you can manage."
As an aside, I've noticed when playing games with less gamer types who don't quite get them, an interesting pair of attitudes: There are those who focus on creating immediate changes, but don't think in terms of long term strategy, and there are those who focus on a long term strategy, but a creative one not aligned exactly to the win conditions of the game.
In other words, one is engaging with the system itself, feeling it out, seeing what it does, but isn't thinking ahead to an overall goal. The other is seeking an overall goal, but has found the goal of "get so many victory points" underwhelming, and has gone for something more imaginatively interesting like "get a big pile of money", "build loads of stuff" "get an empire from sea to sea" etc.
The trick with people who are interested in games in themselves is that they keep their eye on the goal, but because of the value of the journey of seeking it. You don't really care about having points, but you care about how the game or the other player makes it hard to get points.
And in fact this is something that I think makes rpgs more accessible than many other games; the end state you are aiming for is not something banal like points, but something that people can legitimately want in itself, bringing together the journey/obstacle people and the creative outcome focused people.
This makes JMW go "Ah the inevitable formating errors! Sorry Ron."
Weirdly, this time my text was fine, and the text copied from this website went wrong.
This makes VB go "'Smart quotes' are an invention of Satan."
This makes SM go "All web forums should integrate the demoroniser"
(A script that fixes "smart quotes" for you, automatically.)
http://www.fourmilab.ch/webtools/demoroniser/
This makes VB go "Testing..."
"In order to do that, you'll have to..."
This makes VB go "Thanks, SM!"
I didn't implement the demoroniser, but at least I think I killed the smart quotes.
