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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 7214708" data-attributes="member: 71699">I believe that there are reasons the distinction is helpful. Say we want to understand the craft and science of creating a movie? The technical details of light, and lenses, and all such things. We can learn much that will be valuable in producing a great film without even touching on story. So it is important to us that we can separate the story away from the movie-making. Similarly, in telling a story there is much we might learn about language, emphasis, voice projection, pacing and so on that is distinct from the stories we intend to tell. I guess this is really impacts my thinking. We can certainly describe things in various different ways, but I feel it is valuable to have descriptions that have analytical power. For me, making a distinction between process and product is useful.Bringing it back to D&D. We probably agree that we can experience a story without playing a game (although maybe an author plays a kind of game in their head when they write one?) For example, we can read a book. Whenever we play a game however, we perforce produce stories. It's really impossible for us to play without doing that... but this relies on the definition. If a story is a recital or account, then that makes terrific sense. But if the story is a game then everything becomes kind of muddled. Is the story-game the same story as the story-book was? Why does it seem different and how do we talk about that (without teasing story apart from game again!) I feel like it is better to say that playing D&D produces stories. So D&D is not a story, it is something that produces stories. Experiencing those stories is important to enjoyment of D&D. Using this description that preserves meaning in every part feels valuable to me. Certainly from the point of view of pragmatism.</blockquote>

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