09-18-2026, 05:05 PM
Okay, I think your stance makes more sense to me now. Is it that games are largely defined by having rules and goals, while TTRPGs generally have open and ever-changing goals and rules that vary wildly by group in actual implementation/shift throughout play and are so incomplete that this variety is inevitable, so even when two groups use the same rulebook their goals and rules are different enough that they aren't really the same 'game'?
Like, if we were playing basketball but I changed the rules to allow for running without dribbling, it'd be fair to say that the game was no longer 'basketball' but some different-but-related game? And if three groups were playing D&D and all decided to build a defensive wall, one group might hand-wave it (you just do it), another might call for a single skill check, and another might turn it into an episode-long minigame (where are you sourcing the stone?). So, if I'm understanding your argument right, it'd be fair to say that those games have rules different enough that they're effectively different games?
I think I'd half-agree with that claim, in that I think it's technically correct but I think that getting all the players oriented towards the same style of play is enough of a challenge that having a rulebook you can point at as a shorthand is useful and calling it a 'game' is more likely to communicate your intentions than confuse them. The distinction between book and all of the system of forces that create actual play is very important, and I can see how framing the activity of roleplaying so hard about a book can blur that distinction, but I don't really have a better alternative at hand.
Like, uhh, if we tried to move all study of TTRPGs to the theater department of schools I think you'd lose way more than you gained.
Like, if we were playing basketball but I changed the rules to allow for running without dribbling, it'd be fair to say that the game was no longer 'basketball' but some different-but-related game? And if three groups were playing D&D and all decided to build a defensive wall, one group might hand-wave it (you just do it), another might call for a single skill check, and another might turn it into an episode-long minigame (where are you sourcing the stone?). So, if I'm understanding your argument right, it'd be fair to say that those games have rules different enough that they're effectively different games?
I think I'd half-agree with that claim, in that I think it's technically correct but I think that getting all the players oriented towards the same style of play is enough of a challenge that having a rulebook you can point at as a shorthand is useful and calling it a 'game' is more likely to communicate your intentions than confuse them. The distinction between book and all of the system of forces that create actual play is very important, and I can see how framing the activity of roleplaying so hard about a book can blur that distinction, but I don't really have a better alternative at hand.
Like, uhh, if we tried to move all study of TTRPGs to the theater department of schools I think you'd lose way more than you gained.