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 to 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.

 

[A_Carrington]

The most important thing in TTRPGs is the actual experience of play.

So like... what's the alternative? Is there something else I'm supposed to have been doing while running or playing my games that isn't running or playing the game?

 

[Reynard]

So like... what's the alternative? Is there something else I'm supposed to have been doing while running or playing my games that isn't running or playing the game?

Keep reading.

 

[Reynard]

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

Again, the point of the thread was to explore the idea and move it around in my brain with the aid of you fine folks.

 

[Reynard]

As an aside: this actually dovetails with the Guns in5E thread because in that thread, i have made the argument that the design of firearms mechanics should serve play first, not "realism" or "simulation" and I think that is broadly true of everything you design (homebrew or pro). Does the design serve play as its primary master, rather than some other thing like verisimilitude (drink).

 

[SableWyvern]

As an aside: this actually dovetails with the Guns in5E thread because in that thread, i have made the argument that the design of firearms mechanics should serve play first, not "realism" or "simulation" and I think that is broadly true of everything you design (homebrew or pro). Does the design serve play as its primary master, rather than some other thing like verisimilitude (drink).

From where I'm standing, design won't ever serve verisimilitude/realism/simulation simply for the sake of verisimilitude/realism/simluation divorced of all other context. On the other hand, it might serve a desire for verisimilitude/realism/simulation in play.

Ergo, I think you're wrong to suggest that serving realism is something that is inherently in conflict with or different than serving play. Of course, if a particular kind of simulation isn't important to you, then a design serving that kind of simulation is not facilitating the sort of play you want.

 

[Maxperson]

My problem with that is that if GM prep is play, then so is adapting a system to a setting, which is essentially rules design, which means that designing a game is playing the game. Which can't be right.

I don't agree with that. It conflates game design with game prep.

The DM is prepping the game for group play, which is part of his job as DM and so is part of his game play. The DM making rules changes to adapt a system to the setting isn't prep for group play. It's different from creating an NPC or dungeon. Design and prep are two different things.