Manbearcat
Legend
Has it? I think those are all simply very different games and each person plays the ones they're interested in. They might also, as you say, 'play the other next time'. OTOH I see little kids mushing things together all the time. I remember kids whacking a kickball with field hockey sticks, and other kids kicking it back at them, etc. Yeah, they had to make up 'rules' on the fly, but whatever they did was working for them!
Anyway, I think there are some fundamental differences in these activities (RPGs vs field sports) which account for the difference.
I don’t agree (obviously!).
All of these games involve significant creativity, self-expression, cognitive horsepower, working through social contracts, self-esteem issues, time spent on activity (a ball game and round of golf is the same as a D&D session), and working both inside structure and outside of it (including managing edge cases).
The overlap on the Venn Diagram is much more significant than what lies outside of it. And I think the signal of “being a kid” is much more a factor on the lack of structure/“bleed of play”/“propensity for Calvinball” that you’re speaking about above moreso than anything fundamental to TTRPGing. And I also think an amplification effect on that “being a kid” baseline is being picked up due to the opaqueness /rules-heaviness of most TTRPG design during the AD&D era.
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