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Message: <blockquote data-quote="DEFCON 1" data-source="post: 5715821" data-attributes="member: 7006">Which is itself a rule.The implicit rule that all the players are agreeing to is 'stay within genre'.  It might not be explicitly written out in the game handbook because it seems like a pretty obvious 'well, duh!'... but there is in fact a rule there.I think this is what Monte is referring to with his statement about 'rules'.  He's not talking about specific game rules spelled out in a handbook... he's referring to all the rules (or negotiation) that come with social convention and communication.  When we talk with other people, there are rules.  Who talks first, who talks next, how do you change from one to the other, what does our body or face do as we talk, what does our voice do to inflect what we are saying with emotion, etc. etc.  Those are rules of social communication.  And in order for us to communicate with each other as human beings, we are 'playing the game' of talking.Roleplaying is exactly the same thing... except that we aren't talking as ourselves but another character, plus we layer on top of that additional rules that help us focus in on the creation of a shared story.  But these rules of communication (explicit to model a particular game, and implicit in the social convention of not being dicks and wanting to help each other in the creation of this shared story) all exist, and are all important.  And you can't have this shared reality without these rules.</blockquote>

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