Play Is Paramount: Discuss

SableWyvern · 2026-04-24T02:20:48+0100

You can certainly make an analogy where play is cooking. It just means for those who say prep is not play, prep becomes shopping (which is not cooking) and writing recipes (which is not cooking).

aramis erak · 2026-04-24T04:24:39+0100

Maxperson said:
If you think it's silly, then I think you don't really understand what I'm saying.

I understand just fine, and I think you've taken the analogy all wrong. Most play is primarily consumption. Most players are NOT doing high improv drama. (If they were, there'd be ZIP-ALL demand for Critical Role and other such.)

Maxperson · 2026-04-24T05:36:15+0100

aramis erak said:
I understand just fine, and I think you've taken the analogy all wrong. Most play is primarily consumption. Most players are NOT doing high improv drama. (If they were, there'd be ZIP-ALL demand for Critical Role and other such.)

If you think I'm talking about improv, you very much do not understand. A meal is the finished product. Game play is very much not a finished product by any stretch of the imagination. Game play is not the equivalent of a meal. Game play is cooking. It's all the ingredients, which includes the PCs getting together and through game play coming up with a finished product(The meal). That product is not finished until the end of the night.

The only kind of game play that is a meal is a railroad. The players are forced to consume the finished product that the DM is shoving down their throats.

Lanefan · 2026-04-24T11:26:31+0100

Maxperson said:
If you think I'm talking about improv, you very much do not understand. A meal is the finished product. Game play is very much not a finished product by any stretch of the imagination. Game play is not the equivalent of a meal. Game play is cooking. It's all the ingredients, which includes the PCs getting together and through game play coming up with a finished product(The meal). That product is not finished until the end of the night.

The reason [play = eating] is because that's the part when people other than the [cook = GM] get involved.

And in both cases those others are in effect consuming what the [cook = GM] has prepared, even though the consumption of a meal is considerably more passive than players playing through what a GM has prepped.

soviet · 2026-04-24T13:08:02+0100

Lanefan said:
The reason [play = eating] is because that's the part when people other than the [cook = GM] get involved.

And in both cases those others are in effect consuming what the [cook = GM] has prepared, even though the consumption of a meal is considerably more passive than players playing through what a GM has prepped.

Your games may involve players passively consuming what they are given, but mine do not.

soviet · 2026-04-24T13:08:41+0100

aramis erak said:
I understand just fine, and I think you've taken the analogy all wrong. Most play is primarily consumption. Most players are NOT doing high improv drama. (If they were, there'd be ZIP-ALL demand for Critical Role and other such.)

My experience differs

prabe · 2026-04-24T14:42:11+0100

soviet said:
Your games may involve players passively consuming what they are given, but mine do not.

As I've said before, this is where the metaphor breaks down at least a little. The metaphor is fundamentally about where the point of the activity lies, and the point of cooking is the meal at the table, same as the point of whatever GM prep there is, is the play at the table. The fact people have managed to shift the discussion to being about the metaphor--by misunderstanding it with some violence, mostly--is an example of why we can't have nice metaphors.

Maxperson · 2026-04-24T15:49:46+0100

Lanefan said:
The reason [play = eating] is because that's the part when people other than the [cook = GM] get involved.

And in both cases those others are in effect consuming what the [cook = GM] has prepared, even though the consumption of a meal is considerably more passive than players playing through what a GM has prepped.

Not necessarily. You could be railroading the players, in which case eating is when they get involved. All they can do is consume what you are forcing down their throats and nothing is truly being played.

The rest of the time the DM mixes a bunch of ingredients and then towards the end of that process adds the PCs ingredient. Then the DM and players mix and cook those ingredients through play(the adventuring portion) and you end up at the end with some food. Usually the food tastes good, but occasionally it doesn't taste so good, because a PC ingredient died during the cooking process, killed by one of the dragon ingredients the DM added earlier before the PC ingredients were put into the mix.

Maxperson · 2026-04-24T15:55:54+0100

prabe said:
As I've said before, this is where the metaphor breaks down at least a little. The metaphor is fundamentally about where the point of the activity lies, and the point of cooking is the meal at the table, same as the point of whatever GM prep there is, is the play at the table. The fact people have managed to shift the discussion to being about the metaphor--by misunderstanding it with some violence, mostly--is an example of why we can't have nice metaphors.

The metaphor is about where the activity lies, yes. The point of cooking(as a metaphor) is for everyone at the table to enjoy adding to the food being prepared. Cooking so that at the end they hopefully have a great meal(adventure conclusion) that was jointly prepared by everyone involved.

My wife and son enjoy real cooking together. Usually cookies or pizza. Cooking is often not a solo exercise. Once the meal is prepared, though, the people at the table MUST eat what was cooked, exactly as it was cooked, because it's too late for them to add much that has meaning to the dish. The best they can do would be a bit of salt, pepper, ketchup, etc. That in RPG terms would be a railroad.

prabe · 2026-04-24T16:02:07+0100

Maxperson said:
The metaphor is about where the activity lies, yes. The point of cooking(as a metaphor) is for everyone at the table to enjoy adding to the food being prepared. Cooking so that at the end they hopefully have a great meal(adventure conclusion) that was jointly prepared by everyone involved.

My wife and son enjoy real cooking together. Usually cookies or pizza. Cooking is often not a solo exercise. Once the meal is prepared, though, the people at the table MUST eat what was cooked, exactly as it was cooked, because it's too late for them to add much that has meaning to the dish. The best they can do would be a bit of salt, pepper, ketchup, etc. That in RPG terms would be a railroad.

Yeah. This is why we can't have nice metaphors. As someone else has said well upthread, if we're going to treat cooking as the equivalent of play--if it's the group activity--then shopping or recipe finding/writing will be the equivalent of prep.