Is D&D a Game

[Agamon]

I'll just throw this back out there because I think it was missed the first time.

D&D is a game (fun activity) but not a contest (competative activity).

 

[ryushima2011]

I agree. D&D is an open-ended game where you have a lot of fun, but not a competition where you can compare activity.

 

[MatthewJHanson]

Looking at Wikipedia, I found a definition of game that I like pretty well, created by Roger Caillois:

A game must having the following characteristics:

• fun: the activity is chosen for its light-hearted character
• separate: it is circumscribed in time and place
• uncertain: the outcome of the activity is unforeseeable
• non-productive: participation does not accomplish anything useful
• governed by rules: the activity has rules that are different from everyday life
• fictitious: it is accompanied by the awareness of a different reality

By this list D&D is clearly a game, as are tag and Pac Man.

 

[Janx]

I'll just throw this back out there because I think it was missed the first time.

D&D is a game (fun activity) but not a contest (competative activity).

nah, it wasn't missed. By the 2nd dictionary posting on page 1, I had ammended my personal concept of a game.

@Morrus;'s definition from somewhere in Wikipedia more closely matches my broadened assumption of a game, which was:

a fun activity, with some rules.

I added the "with some rules" part to the dictionary definition which i felt was crap as it described everything a kid does. Even as a kid, if you asked me what I was doing, I wouldn't answer "playing a game" unless I was actually playing a game (even if it was one I made up). I bet most kids would answer similarly.

 

[Agamon]

nah, it wasn't missed. By the 2nd dictionary posting on page 1, I had ammended my personal concept of a game.

@Morrus;'s definition from somewhere in Wikipedia more closely matches my broadened assumption of a game, which was:

a fun activity, with some rules.

I added the "with some rules" part to the dictionary definition which i felt was crap as it described everything a kid does. Even as a kid, if you asked me what I was doing, I wouldn't answer "playing a game" unless I was actually playing a game (even if it was one I made up). I bet most kids would answer similarly.

I agree that the majority of, if not all, games have rules.

My point, though, was that something competative is called a contest (which also has rules), game or not, and D&D isn't a contest....but it can still be a game.