09-13-2026, 05:31 AM
Quote:Misha: "I don't think the definition draws a distinction between the player characters and rest of the game world when saying "define the world". When I say that "my character gives the elf a thumbs up", that's me making a claim as to the state of the world--and that's something I'm still completely capable of within a GM-less game."
Sam: "I don't think Montola's definitions care about the distinction between PCs and the rest of the game world."
While I agree conceptually, my only argument would be against the phrasing of the Rules in regards to this. There is a clear distinction made between "participants" in Rule 2, and "player-participants" in Rule 3, which implies that Rule 2 is applicable to all participants in the game, regardless of their potential status of player in said game.
This leads to a sort of flow-chart of requirements that must be satisfied for one to be considered a Player in a Roleplaying Game. For instance, such a person must:
A] Be involved in an interactive process of defining and redefining the state, properties and contents of an imaginary game world
B] AND recognize the existence of a power hierarchy within that process and be allocated some degree of that power by the game structure or any number of other participants
C] AND be capable of exercising that power through the means of a personified character construct, which itself conforms to the state, properties and contents of the game world.
I like this in that it means that you're a P-P even at character creation, but I dislike it because it means that in the case of solo games as discussed, the game itself is also a P-P, which Misha addressed as still workable, but I find circuitous and counterintuitive.
Which leads right into:
Quote:Misha: "Is unconsciously wielded power still power?"
Sam: "...voluntary action requires at least some degree of foreknowledge and awareness, and so if you aren't aware there's a game you cannot play it."
I agree with both of you, power is power, whether aware or not, but awareness is required to play a game. A game can possess neither foreknowledge nor awareness, thus it must either be disqualified from consideration as a Player-Participant in the Game that is itself, or allocation of power being a determining factor for status as Participant must be reassessed. I tend to favor the latter case, and I believe the reassessment should emphasize power and agency being coequal. If the former is the case, then the Rules cannot apply to all existent Roleplaying Games, and thus either fail totally as an all-encompassing definition, or become needlessly exclusionary.
One final point:
Quote:Misha: "...in almost every game there's also both collaborative storytelling (even if just in the form of picking your character's name and gimmick) and board-gaming (fussing with the mechanical backend). I think the claim is that roleplaying games are ones orienting around players roleplaying, not that they're games in which the only action taken is roleplaying."
Sam: "I think in general, it's more accurate to describe most RPG sessions as a series of overlapping and interlinked games, rather than one strictly distinct game that we can clearly define."
While I tend to agree, doesn't this imply that Roleplaying Games are inherently only "Games of One"? Can we never be said to be playing the same Roleplaying Game in the same sense as when we play a game of chess, or badminton? Are the parts we call "The Game" and which we all agree we are playing together only the collaborative storytelling or board-gaming parts, while the true Roleplaying sits only with each individual participant and can never be truly shared?
Thanks for the awesome responses! Much food for thought.