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<blockquote data-quote="Fenris-77" data-source="post: 7630183" data-attributes="member: 6993955"><p>I think there are enough examples that we might not need to drill all the way down to a scientific definition of 'role playing' assuming that such a thing even exists (probably not). The key is defining what happens when you set the term <em>game</em> next to the term <em>role playing</em> and then play portmanteau. You certainly do have roleplaying to the left and games to the right, but we are, I think, interested in both of those things at the same time.</p><p></p><p>Roleplaying in general shouldn't be too hard to get a broad fix on, issues in this thread non-withstanding. You adopt the persona of a particular person or type of person for the purposes of acting out that persona in the context of a conversation and/or activity imagined or otherwise. That's the whole range between just talking and performing physical actions. This covers everything from therapy sessions to improv to exciting bedroom sports. The game part is when you use rules and possibly randomization of some kind to stand in for actual physical action and to describe the stakes and consequences of those actions. Also generally part of a broad definition of game is the idea of teleos, of a starting point and an ending point, and possibly a winner and a loser - a characteristic also shared by most RPGs.</p><p></p><p>So, adopting a persona and using a set of rules and randomization to describe and measure actions and consequences along some sort of sequence of (generally) imaginary connected events.</p><p></p><p>I know that some posters who already have issues <em>vis a vis</em> definitions aren't going to be happy with my broad strokes answer. I'm not that concerned about the nuances of definition though, so I'm happy to go with what sounds broadly correct and has a certain occam's razor type of usefulness in describing the things I like to do as a hobby. I'm not 100% happy with the above, but it gets pretty close for my purposes.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Fenris-77, post: 7630183, member: 6993955"] I think there are enough examples that we might not need to drill all the way down to a scientific definition of 'role playing' assuming that such a thing even exists (probably not). The key is defining what happens when you set the term [I]game[/I] next to the term [I]role playing[/I] and then play portmanteau. You certainly do have roleplaying to the left and games to the right, but we are, I think, interested in both of those things at the same time. Roleplaying in general shouldn't be too hard to get a broad fix on, issues in this thread non-withstanding. You adopt the persona of a particular person or type of person for the purposes of acting out that persona in the context of a conversation and/or activity imagined or otherwise. That's the whole range between just talking and performing physical actions. This covers everything from therapy sessions to improv to exciting bedroom sports. The game part is when you use rules and possibly randomization of some kind to stand in for actual physical action and to describe the stakes and consequences of those actions. Also generally part of a broad definition of game is the idea of teleos, of a starting point and an ending point, and possibly a winner and a loser - a characteristic also shared by most RPGs. So, adopting a persona and using a set of rules and randomization to describe and measure actions and consequences along some sort of sequence of (generally) imaginary connected events. I know that some posters who already have issues [I]vis a vis[/I] definitions aren't going to be happy with my broad strokes answer. I'm not that concerned about the nuances of definition though, so I'm happy to go with what sounds broadly correct and has a certain occam's razor type of usefulness in describing the things I like to do as a hobby. I'm not 100% happy with the above, but it gets pretty close for my purposes. [/QUOTE]
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