thread: 2014-07-16 : When is a game a game?
On 2014-07-18, plausible.fabulist wrote:
You should certainly have the option of thinking of your "game" as a game. But that doesn't mean it is limiting or impoverishing to be able to think of your game as a toy, or as an artwork, or as a component of an artwork (the way a script, props, and costumes are components of a play).
"Game" is a category which very snugly fit, say, boardgames whose object is to win (competitively or collaboratively) by optimizing numbers, and whose fiction, if any, is decorative. That is, if the object of an activity is "maximize these numbers", then the natural set of interesting places to look for inspiration is well-described by the set of things we call "games". If the object is "entertain yourself by fooling around with the thing" or "find out what happens narratively", the natural set of interesting places to look for inspiration is somewhat different; toymaking and art become, respectively, suddenly relevant. (If the object of the game is "produce some delicious food", cooking becomes suddenly relevant)
I don't think it's fooling ourselves to say (to admit?) that RPGs are something of a hybrid form. By historical accident, RPGs started out as boardgames and added theater gradually: but it's equally possible that in an alternate timeline we could have evolved, say, Fiasco, by starting with theatrical improv and ultimately adding some dice. In doing so, sure, we'd be drawing from games—adding mechanics from games—so mechanics from games would be an interesting place to look—but our natural inclination might be to primarily frame what we were doing in terms of writing stochastic theater pieces, with games as a side course.
"If you compare RPGs, board games, sports, solitaire puzzle games like Sudoku, card games, gambling games, video games, New Games, and those weird things your uncle used to do to make you laugh and/or trick you, you discover fundamental similarities." Yes: also, if you compare RPGs, novel-writing collaboration, improv theater, improvisational dance, themed shared world anthologies, and telling each other ghost stories around the campfire, you will discover fundamental similarities. Whereas I don't think there's a route from Sudoku to novel-writing collaboration, as activities, that doesn't go through RPGs—that's what I mean about them being a "hybrid form".
So: sometimes it might be useful to *stop* thinking of an RPG as a game, and think about what the same tools and behaviors would look like if you regarded them purely as part of, say, a theatrical or creative-writing enterprise (similary, calling Minecraft a toy is an abdication of your analysis only if your analytical toolset for game design is richer than your analytical toolset for toymaking).
I guess I'm asking, if I amend Tim's original question to "I'm not convinced it's useful to RPG designers to [always] think of their games as games", can you take it seriously?
This makes BR go "or rather your paraphrase of Tim's question"
