Resolution

[adamdray]

I have been thinking more about elements of my Social-Play Model, especially the IIEE pieces of it, and doing a little reading. I found Victor Gijsbers' old post, Shared Imagined Space, Shared Text (April 2005) to be very enlightening. I know next to nothing about Derrida, structuralism, semiotics, and the like, so I tread on thin ice here, but

Comments

[adamdray]

I'm reading what you said a little closer, and see this: "the fact that Bob and Laura argue about killing the hobgoblin (in the functional 3rd example) does not, to me, indicate a fundamental issue with how RPGs are done right."

I latched onto the stuff that came after that (Italian food again) and missed the "fundamental issue with how RPGs are done right" stuff.

I get you. I think you're saying that an RPG ruleset is just fine if it doesn't pick a narrowly-defined CA and jackhammer on just that one CA's techniques and what-not. I suspect you mean that fun is no more reliably guaranteed by a CA-focused game than by a CA-agnostic game. By CA-focused, I mean full of structure and techniques to support and encourage (or reward) playing that CA. By CA-agnostic, I mean full of structure and techniques that support all kinds of stuff, but containing little or nothing to encourage one CA over another (it probably rewards something though, but it might reward more than one CA or no discernible CA). Do I read you right?

My experience leads me to disagree. I've had the most fun playing CA-focused games the way they were meant to be played. I've had very disappointing play when trying to make a CA-focused game do something different (notably, making D&D 3E do Narrativism over long-term play, but also making Cyberpunk 2013 and 2020 do Narrativism, and also watching other players try to make Dogs in the Vineyard into a Sim game). I've had a series of disappointments when trying to make CA-agnostic games (like D&D 2E) do Narrativism but maybe I need to try out other games like JAGS. Gonna be at GenCon this year?

[marcochacon]

I'd love to do Gen Con one of these years! We'll see. If I had the truly rocking Archetypes books done in time (Ha!) I might be likely :)

-Marco