Game and Life Pataphor

[citizenbrown]

Somebody posted a link to this: bit.ly/aDmAYR in the Facebook and I found it interesting. Essentially, the speaker is saying that Gaming can save the world, if we start doing it right. Or something. Anyway, she was very earnest.

I got to thinking, though, about how I would live my life it was a game. I know I'm not the first person to think of this

Comments

[rsheslin]

There are far worse philosophies to live by.

PS. Hi! Welcome to LJ!

[doctorray]

Herodotus is a book about how games were invented? Gee, and here I thought it was a book about why the Persians tried to invade Greece, and why they failed... I also love how she spins the desperation of mass Lydian colonization into an 'epic adventure'. Gah - save me from the historical analogies of the exuberantly uninformed

[hagdirt]

Hello, and welcome! (It's Kirsten.)

I think the number of gamers whose lives would improve by treating life as a game are probably balanced out by the number of gamers whose games would improve if they treated the game a little more like life. (Rules lawyers and mercenary dungeon-crawlers, I am looking at you....)

Jane McGonigal is full of it

[doctorray]

So, I have to confess that I didn't exactly buy Jane McGonigal's description of the invention of games in Lydia, so I went to Herodotus to see what he actually says about things. Just to refresh, McGonigal tells us that when the great famine that prompted the Lydians to invent various games as a distraction went on so long that even their game-playing couldn't distract them any longer, they played one last game, and the *winners* got to go off 'on a great adventure' to colonize a new land (basically Etruria, if Herodotus is to be believed

welcome

[aaronjv]

FYI: I registered for the "Evoke" game that McGonigal mentions, but I haven't had time to save the world, alas.

Also, I invited her to WyrdCon (twice), but never get a reply.

To your thesis:

I want to believe it, and to a certain degree to certain people, it is true. But it really depends on the game system. What about...

Five Things I learned from Call of Cthulhu1. The more you play, the greater the probability you will die or go permanently insane

Re: welcome

[citizenbrown]

Well, yes.

I think it comes down to finding the world view that inspires you and keeps you interested in the world around around you.

Or, alternatively, picking the world view that you find most entertaining and stimulating. I like the fantastic, hence my focus on D&D. But a CoC world view has a gritty, unforgiving, consequence-ridden POV that would be very... um, motivating(?) to some.

-Christian

Re: welcome

[aaronjv]

Absolutely.

I often wonder if I pick games that follow my world view, or my world view is affected by the games I play. I'm pretty sure it's a bit of both.