Play Is Paramount: Discuss

[Fenris-77]

I care about setting and verisimilitude more than play at the table, and believe the mechanics should follow and be informed by the fiction. Once those areas are addressed to my satisfaction, then I will turn to play experience at the table as a priority.

Yup, that sounds correct. Pin this and we'll move on.

 

[Micah Sweet]

I imagine that people who do hundreds of hours of solo worldbuilding, for example, will say that it adds depth to the game and therefore adds to the experience of play.

It certainly adds to my general enjoyment of the hobby as well as the depth of the world, which increases immersion for me.

 

[prabe]

So when the OP says 'play is paramount' your interpretation is that it means 'every part of the hobby is paramount'?

I think the play a given person or group does is paramount for that person or group. Someone who doesn't play HERO at a table but still does chargen for fun is still getting some pleasure from the game, I don't know that it's play but I don't really care, either. I think if that person played HERO at a table, that'd almost certainly be more important overall than the chargen someone might do without any expectation for those characters.

I think it's obvious that people can seek whatever pleasures they want wherever and however they want, whether it's all "play" is maybe less relevant.

 

[Reynard]

Eh. Chargen is definitely something, and it's engaging with the rules. It's lacking the interactive and social aspects, but so (arguably) is something like Thousand-Year-Old Vampire. (Yes, the latter is specifically written for solo play, there's still no social interaction happening.) Session prep seems to be something similar, though given that it's intended and expected to land on a table where people are playing the TRPG, it's probably harder to argue for it as "play," though there are certainly people who derive a good deal of pleasure from it.

I think character generation fits into the paradigm of the OP.

If you are making a character, it is of the top order importance that the character you make enhances play at the table. that means a lot of things, and may include things like making a character that works with a poarty, and doesn't abuse the rules to the detriment of play, and enhances play through character building choices.

With respect to the OP, just making characters is NOT play.