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Message: <blockquote data-quote="howandwhy99" data-source="post: 5783595" data-attributes="member: 3192">I'm not looking to win. I'm not looking to tell a story. I'm not looking to "interact with the game world". Yeah, I think from different perspectives all of those things could be happening during play, but they are more cherry-on-top pleasures for me than why I show up.What I crave and find certain RPGs can give more than any other form of entertainment is the "eureka moment". It's that moment when your anticipations are gratified, when your long work and labor to comprehend pay off, when you have sudden understanding of a previously incoherent concept and want to run outside naked down the street like Archimedes. (Tip: Don't do this by the way.)It's quite a simple thing, but it's difficult to pull off without a good game referee. When everything they say is in referential code, not to our real world but to the fantasy one, then the entirety of their script is clues. Piecing the clues together is the game and eureka moments the payoff. These things start small too. For instance, when you go into that dungeon and start counting paces. You come to a 4-way intersection and walk forward 50 paces, then left 50, then left again 50, then left again until you reach...? What? The key to a great RPG puzzle game is the players don't tell the DM "Say we're in the same 4-way intersection!" What happens is the ref describes something the players are anticipating, without having been told to do so, and Bang! there's the pay off. Anticipation is built into the world. And, if you have a particularly good and capable referee, those eureka moments pile up and up and up and tie together more and more. But, and this is also key, no player ever reaches an absolute decoding of the fantasy world. Not in part, not in whole. Those overwhelming realizations keep on happening over and over as more pieces fall into place as you simply focus, listen intently, and attempt different actions into what is being shared. There is no end to the magic or the mystery. And that is why a game of D&D or any reality puzzle game designed and run to this end is the greatest game ever created. Well, at least for me.</blockquote>

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