Recent content by Fenris-77

So yes, this is true, but by the time SD borrowed it that mechanic had spread to all kinds of games and well outside any basic 5E corral.

Bring you offering here my friend.

See, I think the answer to all three is that game play is the central concern of RPGs. Not to everyone in every instance at all, but generally? Yes. The game is meant to be played. Some people do other things, sure, no problem, but that doesn't change what's true generally, which is what's at...

No, no, no. RPGs are also meant to be played, regardless of what some people may or may not enjoy doing with them. I feel like you're working to defend your own interests, which is unnecessary. I'm not judging anyone's engagement, I'm just saying that the principle that organizes most engagement...

Organizational, maybe? Play is what connects all the parts we're talking about, for most people anyway.

How individual people engage with the hobby is, oddly, pretty unimportant to my point (plus we aren't striving for a definition based on edge cases). Games are indeed meant to be played. Most gamers who are reading RPG books are going to play RPGs, designers design their games to be played, and...

That's interesting. I wouldn't put it like that at all. 'Important' is an idea that's pretty subjective and up to the individual. My point was more that RPGs are games, and games are supposed to be played (that is their specific purpose). From this it follows that all the non-play RPG...

Or the completely unexpected fourth person.

You can disagree all you like. I don't think that the idea that the core telos of games is to be played is even remotely controversial. Nor was this an assault on anyone's enjoyment of the non-play aspects of the hobby like worldbuilding, session prep, or whatever.

What the 'point' of RPGs is. Like in the thread title.

I don't actually think it matters it what ways various different RPG hobbyists find their happiness. Some people read, some people write, many actually play, it's all fine. But these are games we are talking about, so the index here is to play, regardless of whether or not that's everyone's...

Anything that would surprise folks when you invite them to play x is probably a good general guide.

I don't think it's obvious at all that engaging with the game outside of the narrower definition of play (i.e. the conversation) is play at all. When I'm planning a session I don't consider myself to be playing the game for example, nor when I'm thinking about what a PC of mine might do in an...

People interact with the hobby away from the table, there's no doubt about that. I'm not sure how much of that activity actually counts as 'playing' the game in any meaningful sense, as opposed to planning or something else. Perhaps I'm not thinking of something specific that you meant, or...

Yup, that sounds correct. Pin this and we'll move on. :LOL: