Episode 27: The Invisible Rules of Roleplaying

[jared]

We've had this argument before,

We definitely have, and you're a true friend for suffering my horrible one-man parade as often a you have. (Also, as an important side note, I really didn't intend to drag the conversation too far away from the text-at-hand, I just found some interesting bits of language in the replies here and wanted to throw my little hat in the ring. Feel free to move on and leave me to my pseudo-mystical babbling anytime.)

but I think that relying on play at the absence of game requires a stringent definition of play—which, to me, seems significantly more difficult and elusive than a definition of game.

Does it, though? I agree it would be significantly more challenging to strictly define "play" than it would be to do so with "game" (not least because "game" is kind of a floating signifier, at base), but I'm also entirely comfortable leaving "play" as ill-defined as theology leaves "God" and aesthetics leaves "art." Which is to say, we can and should strive toward definitions (plural) of play, but with the understanding that it's always a local, limited version of the absolute envased bouquet that play encompasses. Similarly, we could attempt to approach play through its necessary qualities, or those it necessarily lacks, or by looking at its effects on the world or on people, or even God help me through metaphor—all the various strategies we use to talk about other things that are too expansive for thought or language.

For what it's worth, you're the one person who has gotten me closest to accepting that perhaps "game" is a real category with like... members. But it remains elusive, for me. I'm glad folks are out here attempting to do the damn thing, fwiw, even if I can't really get my head around it much of the time.

I admit I'm not very sure what that has to do with rules, in this context. I don't intend to claim that rules magically congeal into games.

No, of course you don't claim that. Sometimes when I'm talking, it moves from my mouth to my ass without me realizing. I think I only meant to gesture at a way that I've found useful to reframe the question—around rules instead—in a way that doesn't risk instantiating some needless platonic "game," because rules aren't sufficient for "game," it seems. That's all. 

How much I agree with you depends almost entirely on how you define game, I think. I definitely see things like RPG rule books as being only a single ingredient of the big mix of forces that create a RPG session, and would argue that basically every table of players is creating their own game on the fly (albeit with assistance from any rulesbooks and modules used).

Yes, I agree with this. That's part of what I mean when I propose that perhaps "game" is an emergent property of play. Remembering, of course, that play is very often play-with: for role-play, that generally includes play with books. 

Whether what they're creating is truly a 'game' or not just depends on what definition of game we're using. It feels like you have a specific definition of game in mind here that I haven't entirely picked up on yet

It's possible! I'm doing my very best not to assume some strawman "game," but I'm not immune to mistakes. I'm trying to imagine something (that is, some actual thing) that could exist separate from the book on the one hand and play on the other, and I'm always coming up short. I've had related conversations quite often, and I always end up concluding that we're either talking about play or about books, but insinuating this other category ("game") onto the subject in an attempt to... well, it depends, but to accomplish some kind of sleight-of-hand generally. It's not always as nefarious as that makes it sound, but sometimes it can be!

This all feeds at least a little into my hot take that there's only really one RPG system, and that all the books and goals and techniques people use are just plugins being added on top of it.

Yes! And maybe, hear me out now, maybe that "One RPG System" is just play.