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"Skilled play"? "code breaking" Do you believe in either of those things or just like air quoting? Deciphering the mental pattern of a game is a mental gaming. It requires actual ability Performing the physical pattern of a game is physical gaming. It too requires actual ability Inventing...

I"m not seeing anything to respond to here for the last few posts. I mean, you refuse to wonder why 1000s of books with weighted stats for an intricate design pattern were published for a game and choose to call them story instead. Again, A game is a pattern players play to achieve objectives...

Except is doesn't as can be evidenced by a new "discipline" used to study games as "games have never been studied before", which begins by not treating them actual games, but as narratives. Mass cultural conformity and suppression of ideas. Edwards has disavowed The Big Model as wrong? That's...

Obviously you're wrong. But naysaying isn't helping anyone here. I agree with everything prior to this, but not this. I'm guessing you knew that before you posted. I know I can get off track too, but let's both try and stick close to relevant points. I have to say, this long post is too long to...

You know the Forge was a community attempting to rewrite not just RPGs but all game culture in a closed community not allowing dissent, right? Thank you for the reminder. Yes, the world has changed, but history has not. And yes, I knew when I typed the word a very charged word. But I'm not...

I have said it before, but it deserves to be said again. Game culture is being whitewashed out of existence by attempts to redefine it as storytelling, primarily now by people in enterprises like "game studies" and other narrative absolutists. I fully believe this will continue until gamers in...

It goes directly to your point. And all the proof I need for mine. People cannot play D&D without a design to be deciphered in place prior to play. Gary is saying this explicitly here for those who want to play it as a solo game. A solo "story game" could presumably have a "DM/Player" make...

That's what some did and still do, improvising rules on the spot. But maybe the player is telling you something not covered or covered only algorithmically. If the game code doesn't cover it at all, then like any dynamic situational puzzle it's "irrelevant, so okay" If it is possible within the...

Read my signature from another board: Why we need DMs to play D&D "Although it has been possible for enthusiasts to play solo games of DUNGEONS & DRAGONS by means of 'Wilderness Adventures', there has been no uniform method of dungeon exploring, for the campaign referee has heretofor been...

You are ignoring the role of a referee (umpire, etc.) in a game. They stop the game, usually, to make a call. It can be done while the game continues on, but the actual players who are playing the game to achieve goals in it need to be informed of the judgment calls. Of course, most players are...

Pretending is not a game like running is not a game. Yet running in races at the Olympic Games is gaming. Why? Because they preset the pattern on the field, start the timer, and enable the runners to run in a game. In fact, most competitive games are race games of one type or another...

Of course not, "Game Studies" is. That narrative critical theory treats most everything as a narrative is why we have lost games as a culture.

Okay. I'm not trying to paint with a broad brush. So I don't know who is caught in the confusion. I know there are games where a lot of what designs are in place, like in 3e-5e, allow for a great deal of game play ...until the rules run out. There is just a fundamental misunderstanding of the...

Well, you're saying this first thing and then ignoring all my discussion of it at the end. Your daughter sounds amazing. This is the point though, What rules is your daughter following for any of her pretending? What win/loss conditions is she acting under? What predefined game objectives does...

Please post with more content if you want me to respond to you. Simply saying "No, no no, you're wrong!" isn't doing anything. Think of it. You have a social phenomenon. The most popular game in the world as of the early 80s. And there's an academic and cultural revolution going on...

In D&D, it isn't the skilled GM so much as the design of the game which keeps signal to noise ratio low. The game is built so abstractions are only at the most base part and likely never to be encoutnered. I'm willing to bet everything you understand as an abstraction in D&D isn't so at all, but...

pemerton, for the sake of example, I'll use Tic-Tac-Toe again to describe the differences between games, puzzles, and stories. Tic-Tac-Toe is a game when someone seeks to accomplish an objective within its design. It is a puzzle when someone seeks to solve its underlying pattern by deciphering...

BTW, I think Starfox has it right. Not about the so-called "agenda" stuff, but not coming from the same place. We're not talking about the same hobby given how most it stands today, or even the same practice anymore. For decades D&D more closely resembled a 90s computer RPG than any kind of...

The dynamic pattern that is the game was called a game engine, frequently in the 90s. Just like converting a game module from one computer game engine to another a DM needs to convert a module to the one they are running for the campaign. Then it can be included onto the game board. Use game...

I'd like to respond back, but I think you'd just repeat what you've said again. For the large part, you're simply naysaying what I've said. "You can't do that! You have to do it this way. Everyone has always done it this way." Well, we can run it as I pointed out. And as D&D was designed to...