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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 8832669" data-attributes="member: 71699">Perhaps it is in part the contrivances that make the play gameful.It is interesting how RPG play has developed. I've observed a tension between what one could call immersionist play, where the player aims to live within their character and world, and authorial play, where players aim to collectively develop not only a story, but perhaps more importantly opportunities to develop or reveal truths about their characters. For many, the latter is preferably pressured and intense.I have been thinking about whether one way to look at it is that immersionist play places the player-character in a subjective mode, while authorial play is occasionally objective: the player becomes conscious of the mechanics and fiction, and their character as their subject. In a way, immersionist play is what historically much RPG play assumed players would do, while objective play is what much RPG gave to GM. However, perhaps greater confidence and mastery of the medium leads participants to feel they can, and then want to, contribute on both layers. While at the same time a native familiarity with video and games makes the mechanics feel more natural, and less visible and jarring... implying that for them it is not non-immersive to also consider and apply the mechanics. It's access to the full vernacular.That creates a space for gameful contrivances of the sort discussed in the second part of the OP (in relation to TB.) Players with a native grasp or conversance with modern forms of story and RPG as game, can be afforded by game designers who, too, have a strong grasp or conversance, and a body of tools/design-patterns to call on, to better frame and employ contrivances. For example, where they are systematic and not simply random pulls from lists.</blockquote>

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