I've been reading Vincent Baker's Apocalypse World rulebook over the past week or so, and noticed this. I didn't have it in mind when I started this thread, and as far as I remember I hadn't yet read it when I started this thread. But I've owned Apocalypse World for a while now and have skimmed the rulebook in the past, so maybe I have seen this and it was lurking somewhere in the back of my mind.
Anyway, from p 11 of the AW book under the heading "The Conversation":
You probably know this already: roleplaying is a conversation. You and the other players go back and forth, talking about these fictional characters in their fictional circumstances doing whatever it is that they do. Like any conversation, you
take turns, but it’s not like taking turns, right? Sometimes you talk over each other, interrupt, build on each others’ ideas, monopolize. All fine.
All these rules do is mediate the conversation. They kick in when someone says some particular things, and they impose constraints on what everyone should say after. Makes sense, right?
To me, that seems a pretty good description of what RPGing is. It's communicative. It's imaginative. It's mediated by a rules structure. But it's not about
producing nice performances or
saying things well. This is one reason why people who are terrible writers and pretty mediocre speakers (and I've gamed with such people) can be great roleplayers.
And between writing this post and getting a chance to actually post it, I noticed this further bit a few pages later. On pp 16-17, Baker answers the question "Why to play":
One: Because the characters are ****ing hot.
Two: Because hot as they are, the characters are best and hottest when you put them together. Lovers, rivals, friends, enemies, blood and sex . . .
Three: Because the characters are together against a horrific world. . . . Do
they have it in them? What are they going to have to do to hold it together? . . .
Four: Because they’re together, sure, but they’re desperate and they’re under a lot of pressure. . . . Who do you trust, and who should you trust, and what if you get it wrong?
Five: Because there’s something really wrong with the world, and I don’t know what it is. The world wasn’t always like this, blasted and brutal. . . . Who ****ed the world up, and how? Is there a way back? A way forward? If anybody’s going to ever find out, it’s you and your characters.
That’s why.
I think it's not mere coincidence that all those reasons go to
protagonisim and
situation, and none of them speaks to the aesthetic qualities of the conversation as such. There's no suggestion that one reason to play is because your friends will entertain you with the quality of their performances.