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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Campbell" data-source="post: 6733039" data-attributes="member: 16586">[MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION],What follows is entirely my own perspective on what mechanics bring to the table. It's totally cool to see things differently. I'm simply laying out biases - where I come from. We probably agree in more areas than we disagree, but I'm still going to lay the whole thing out on the table.I think there is more than a difference in mental models going on here. I think the way we talk about these things matters. When you give the mechanical bits and pieces as separate things you give them independent value and consideration that I don't believe they should have. They only have value in a particular context. Something like them might have value in other contexts, but not independently of them. Here that context is the game we are sitting down to play. Outside of play they have no value. I don't believe mechanics can be judged independently of a particular game. They might be judged based on some other game you have in mind and their possible fitness for that game, but not independently.Consider the layout of a book. You might value the artistry of the layout. You might take ideas from it how to lay out your own book, but from a design standpoint the layout only has value in communicating the content of the book and should be judged in that context. A layout does not have an independent existence. It exists to serve its content. Similar layouts might serve the needs of different books, but they also totally belong to their books and should be celebrated for what they are.There's a reason why I refer to the mechanical bits and bobs as artifacts of play. First, they are the tools we use to play the game and the vestigial remains of playing the game. Also, they are not the game, and should not be mistaken for it. They represent things and help us communicate about things, but they are not those things. Your character sheet is not your character. Your prep is not the world, fiction, play space, whatever, etc. The mechanics are not the game. They are tools used to play the game. Their value is entirely contextual.Their contextual value is however tremendous. A character sheet helps us to say things about our characters in a concise way. It aids us in the play of the particular game we are playing right now, and serves as a helpful reminder after play how things have changed for the character. Experience points serve as a way to communicate to a player that they are playing the game well however we choose to define it. After play they serve as evidence of how well a given player played their character. The moves in Apocalypse World serve as a way to quickly communicate what happens when a player has their character do a thing. The stuff I write down away from the table serves as a reminder and prompt for what situations to present in play, and afterwards I can look at it and reflect on what actually happened.This is huge because it helps to make play functional. It provides a way to talk about the things that are actually involved in playing the game - presenting situations, having our characters do things in response to those things, finding out what happens and how the world is changed. Like an effective layout they help us do the things we were going to do anyway in the process of playing the game. They tell us nothing about the what and the how. Don't get this twisted - I think they should be developed in tandem with the rest of the game to ensure they effectively communicate what the game is about and serve as useful tools for doing so. I'm just saying they derive their value from the rest of the game, not as a thing unto itself.Play procedures and directives tell us the what and the how. Play procedures are the how and directives are the what, but the conceptual bleed here is pretty high. When your character does something that corresponds to a skill, roll 1d20+ skill and succeed if you beat the TN is an obvious play procedure. To do it - you have to do it is also a play procedure, although less obviously so. Play your character as if they were a real person is an obvious directive. Introduce your character by name, look, and outlook going around one at a time bleeds at the edges because it involves both how and what. Together these form the meat of any game. This is where we get to things that shape the game and get us to do things we would not do if left to our own devices. That's crucial to me. If I just wanted to role play and not play a role playing game I wouldn't need this stuff. I want an experience where I have actual stuff to go after from either side of the GM's seat, where I get to subvert the stuff I as a person value and instead value other things. I also want to be told how to go about it so that with different games I can go about it in different ways. I want play to represent a skill we can improve at so we're not just doing a thing to do it. Sometimes that's deciphering puzzles and managing resources in a dungeon bash. Other times its finding a place in the world, playing a character as a person who wants things and goes after them with vigor in Apocalypse World while trying to outsmart the people who have what I want as played by a semi-adversarial MC.</blockquote>

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