Is D&D a Game

[Janx]

Forked from the "Is D&D Art" thread.

In it, a approx 61% majority answered the poll that D&D is just a game.

I would argue that D&D has been mis-classified as a game. Just like the "game of tag" is not really a game.

Here's my simple definition:
Game is a competitive activity in which one side wins and one side loses or in which a player has 2 possible outcomes Win or Lose, then Monopoly and just about every board, card, sports game is covered.

I suppose a lawyer could add some more fluff about rules and stuff. But that statement seems to cover all the traditional games that people have played through-out time.

Playing Tag (where one child is It and must race around to tag another child so they become It) has no winner. No score is kept. Nobody really loses. It's a game in name only.

I don't think letting people back-door clause extra crap so their favorite activity also counts does the definition any good or the activity.

Take Magic the Gathering. Though ESPN may cover it, it ain't a sport. I don't know why, I just know that sports are games that require physical skill, and probably some physical exertion.

Since its inception, D&D has always had a forward that says "this ain't like normal games" and "there's no winners or losers".

if my definition is correct, that's because D&D isn't really a game. Its an organized activity with game-like qualities. But it is also differs from a true game and is something more than a game.

 

[Aeolius]

Entirely subjective. To me, Football is "just a game", as I have no interests whatsoever in sports. There are others, however, who can talk of little else.

The same goes for art. Is a scrap of canvas with three random blobs of color "art"? Not to me, but then again I have almost no appreciation for the abstract genre.

That being said, I would answer yes.... and no

 

[Janx]

Just extra commentary. By my definition, if it is correct, many video games also don't count as games.

Pacman, Space Invaders are like solitaire card games. The player can win or lose.

Playing Halo in death match, you may win or lose.

Playing Halo's campaign or Elder Scrolls IV, you can't really lose. You keep respawning to resume until you reach the end of the story (because its more like an interactive movie than a game).

One could argue, with infinite lives, that's less "able to lose" than what happens when your PC dies in D&D and I make you start a new one.

 

[Ahnehnois]

Well, here we have it. I'll repost this:

As to the actual issue you brought up, I think D&D is a game in a very loose sense (perhaps the same way it is an artistic endeavor if such is loosely defined). I tend to think of games as having more specific goals and outcomes than D&D does. If you play chess, someone wins or there's a tie. If you play Scrabble, everyone has a score. If you play Mass Effect 2, there's a mission objective at the end of the level. That said, kids making their hands into a gun shape and running around the playground shouting "pyoo pyoo" at each other can also be called a game, and that's more in the direction of D&D (freeform, but clearly intended to be fun).

and this:

activity engaged in for diversion or amusement

If you define a game this widely, I think D&D qualifies. D&D is a noncompetitive, open-ended game.

Game is a competitive activity in which one side wins and one side loses or in which a player has 2 possible outcomes Win or Lose, then Monopoly and just about every board, card, sports game is covered.

If you use this (commonly understood and more restrictive) definition, D&D is not a game.

Forked from the "Is D&D Art" thread.

In it, a approx 61% majority answered the poll that D&D is just a game.

I would just like to reiterate that "game" and art are not mutually exclusive. "Just a game" was one of the popular posts for "no" responders, but I suspect that many of the "yes" people might say the same thing. I would say D&D is nominally a game, but more than just a game.

 

[Yesway Jose]

I voted 'Yes' because I label D&D and any other roleplaying game to be a game. The Wikipedia entry for tag defines it as a playground game. So I already forsee that the poll results is clouded because it can be read as one of 2 ways: Is D&D a game, or is D&D a "game" [as defined by Janx]?

 

[Corathon]

Janx, because your definition of "game" excludes tag as well as computer games, I consider it to be too narrow.

 

[Umbran]

if my definition is correct

That's a big "if". Or, perhaps more accurately, there can be more than one "correct" definition of a word. I'm looking at a bunch of dictionaries, and the first definition they give for "game":

dictionary.reference.com:
1. an amusement or pastime: children's games.

merriam-webster.com
1. a (1) : activity engaged in for diversion or amusement : play (2) : the equipment for a game

dictionary.cambridge.org
[C] an entertaining activity or sport, especially one played by children, or the equipment needed for such an activity

thefreedictionary.com
1. An activity providing entertainment or amusement; a pastime

So, while your definition is not incorrect, it also isn't the only or sole accepted definition. When so many sources list this as the primary definition, it seems pretty weak to argue "it is not a game".

 

[wrecan]

Game is a competitive activity in which one side wins and one side loses or in which a player has 2 possible outcomes

That sounds like a "competition", not a "game". I'll agree that D&D is not (necessarily) a competition. But I wouldn't limit "game" to competitive activity. It excludes too many things generally considered games, like "Peek-a-boo" and "Sims".

To me, a "game" is simply an enjoyable diversion with no direct practical application. (It may have indirect applications, like games that are used to help train people.) And under that definition, D&D is a game.

 

[Janx]

Janx, because your definition of "game" excludes tag as well as computer games, I consider it to be too narrow.

actually, the definition I gave didn't exclude computer games, it excluded SOME computer games.

Now to demonstrate my power of changing my mind.

Taking Umbran and Ahnenois's handy research, they found this:

merriam-webster.com
1. a (1) : activity engaged in for diversion or amusement : play (2) : the equipment for a game

As a programmer, I see the intent, and the flaws in that statement. Reading a book is "activity engaged in for diversion or amusement" yet it is clearly not a game. The definition is not exclusive enough.

A better definition would be:
activity engaged in for diversion or amusement that has rules of engagement.

Reading a book (which uses a skill) doesn't really have any rules. Waging war, which has rules of engagement, isn't really meant to be done as a diversion or for amusement.

Anyway, with that modified definition (which still closely resembles the other dictionaries), then D&D has to be a game.

The original definition I gave, is really an extension of the dictionary definition, with the added clause that it must also be competitive (the winning/losing thing).

By the dictionary definition (even with my modification), lots of things get to qualify as a game. i do need to accept that "even the dictionary says I'm wrong"

However, I also posit that the dictionary's answer is just too broad.

If you ask any non gamer what a game is, they'll probably give you my original definition. its only us gamers that have broadened the scope. Normal people (and I use that term loosely) don't overthink this stuff.

In any event, I suspect Game needs categories, and Competitive and Open-Ended would probably be 2 of them.

Monopoly being Competitive
tag and D&D being Open-Ended


Part of my intent, is to question people's thinking that D&D is a game, just like Monopoly is a game. By dictionary, yes. But they are worlds apart. So far apart, that ideas you have about Monopoly do not necessarily apply to D&D. As was the case of "Is D&D Art?" or the unbiased nature of GMs in sandboxes.

D&D is a fuzzy animal, and there's stuff to it that make it more than a normal game.

 

[MrMyth]

There are simply so many games that the definition provided by Janx would exclude that... I can't really put any weight into it.

D&D is a game - I can't see any real interpretation of it where that would not be the case. It isn't just a game (and that's why I couldn't vote on the last poll), but I can't see any way to deny there is a game at the heart of it.