Play Is Paramount: Discuss

[FrogReaver]

ENGAGEMENT is paramount.

The original concept of the thread - "Play is paramount" - was literally restated in the OP as "the most important thing in TTRPGs is the actual experience of play." Whether someone agrees or disagrees with it, that’s an unambiguous value driven statement - it claims a specific activity is the most important thing, and everything else is subordinate.

I think @Reynard has clarified his stance to be a bit softer since the OP, but that’s how it was originally framed.

When I try to apply the same structure to "Engagement is paramount," it ends up reading as "the most important thing in TTRPGs is engagement." But "engagement" includes essentially anything someone does related to the hobby. So the statement becomes something like “the most important thing is anything related to the hobby.”

At that point, the reframing feels more like a tautology than a thesis. It doesn’t really distinguish or prioritize anything in the way the original claim did.

 

[SableWyvern]

The original concept of the thread - "Play is paramount" - was literally restated in the OP as "the most important thing in TTRPGs is the actual experience of play." Whether someone agrees or disagrees with it, that’s an unambiguous value driven statement - it claims a specific activity is the most important thing, and everything else is subordinate.

I think @Reynard has clarified his stance to be a bit softer since the OP, but that’s how it was originally framed.

When I try to apply the same structure to "Engagement is paramount," it ends up reading as "the most important thing in TTRPGs is engagement." But "engagement" includes essentially anything someone does related to the hobby. So the statement becomes something like “the most important thing is anything related to the hobby.”

At that point, the reframing feels more like a tautology than a thesis. It doesn’t really distinguish or prioritize anything in the way the original claim did.

Engagement is paramount doesn't make much sense as a stand-alone position -- as you point out, it just means the important thing about doing the thing is doing the thing, and then lets you define "doing the thing" any way you want.

However, it can make sense as a response to the OP:

OP -- Play is paramount.
Counterpoint -- No, however you choose to engage is what's paramount.

For the record, I take no real position on the original question. ; I can see how others may enjoy the theory debate that goes with it, but I don't see any practical application to my gaming.

 

[FrogReaver]

Engagement is paramount doesn't make much sense as a stand-alone position -- as you point out, it just means the important thing about doing the thing is doing the thing, and then lets you define "doing the thing" any way you want.

However, it can make sense as a response to the OP:

OP -- Play is paramount.
Counterpoint -- No, however you choose to engage is what's paramount.

For the record, I take no real position on the original question. ; I can see how others may enjoy the theory debate that goes with it, but I don't see any practical application to my gaming.

I agree there. I rather liked the idea especially as an isolated counterpoint to the OP. It's just as a true replacement for it, I don't think it can stand on it's own.

I'd also add that expanding the definition of play so broadly that it is essentially synonymous with engagement runs into the same issue highlighted in my post, it's not so much wrong as that it stops saying anything important.

 

[Fenris-77]

My feeling is that it's more than just game adjacent. Depending on the game being played, the DM prep is part of how the DM plays the game. It's solo aspect play to be sure, but people play solitaire and other games solo. That solo play then becomes something that the PCs may or may not encounter during group play.

I have no idea why people feel this need to insist on the word 'play' here. No one is arguing that DM prep isn't valuable, and a fun way for GMs to engage with the game, but it's not 'playing the game'. We don't need it be play to validate its importance either, we all know it's important.

If anything, prep is design, not play. RPGs are perhaps somewhat unique in that they are designed as games and then the person who going to run the game then further designs smaller elements on an ongoing basis to continue to scaffold ongoing play.

To call that design 'play' just confuses the issue once actual game play starts to be discussed.