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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Gorgon Zee" data-source="post: 9460204" data-attributes="member: 75787">All,First of all, thanks for the comments and especially the tone in which they have been conveyed -- a lot of "yes and" and "yes, but also" that is as helpful in discourse as it is in roleplaying and improv.At this point I don't feel I have much new to add to the convo. If you'd like me to address a particular point, let me know, but overall I'm not seeing much in the way of solid differences -- it's more definitional and concerned with emphasis on importance. <ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I tend to draw a strong distinction between "freeform roleplaying" and a "roleplaying game". For me there needs to be some form of codified structure to make roleplaying a game. But I think others don't see any substantial difference, and certainly there are games with very light rules that test the distinction I draw. </li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">I do think of "rules" in the context of a discussion of games as being more than a social contract or advice on how to do an activity well. I tried to express this with examples of things I think of as rules (written down, penalties for disobeying) but wasn't clear that those were not meant to be defining. I was probably thinking too heavily about competitive games like bridge, chess, MTG and similar where the rules and penalties for breaking them are very forward. Hopefully I got my main point across, which is that I think of "rules" as a fairly formal thing in terms of RPGs.</li> </ul>I play a wide variety of RPGs, and like a variety of styles, so it's really helpful to get a good feel for what people mean when they talk about game rules, etc. I have found that in the same way that I enjoy poetry with minimal structure (e.g. <a href="https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poetrymagazine/poems/44212/the-love-song-of-j-alfred-prufrock" target="_blank">the love song of j alfred prufrock</a>) and ones with strong structure (such as sonnets) but don't really like completely unstructured poetry -- in that same vein I'm happy to play DramaSystem or D&D4E, but a pure freeform game doesn't appeal.So thanks for the comments!</blockquote>

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