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<blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 8500549" data-attributes="member: 71699">Indeed, but we are discussing symbols onto which we have conferred meaning. I generally discern two layers of meaning in game symbols.The top layer is the evocative: what does this symbol make me imagine? Say a game piece looks like a doctor. Certainly the piece is not a doctor (it is a shaped and coloured piece of resin), but it might make me imagine a doctor. The evocative is redoubled by the immediate context of the rest of the game materials.The other layer is the mechanical: what does the piece actually do in the game system? Is there anything doctorish about what it does? What ideas about what it is to be a doctor are expressed by it's mechanics and mechanical positioning?I think you are just setting criteria for a good story, rather than a story. Things happen. The board changes. Each next change relates to those before it, and foreshadows those after it.On that level, there is a single canonical story. Once we add our own fictional layers to it, you are right that there is no canonical story? How is that a problem exactly? Are you pointing to some shortfall in every RPG that lacks a canonical story?</blockquote>

[QUOTE="clearstream, post: 8500549, member: 71699"] Indeed, but we are discussing symbols onto which we have conferred meaning. I generally discern two layers of meaning in game symbols. The top layer is the evocative: what does this symbol make me imagine? Say a game piece looks like a doctor. Certainly the piece is not a doctor (it is a shaped and coloured piece of resin), but it might make me imagine a doctor. The evocative is redoubled by the immediate context of the rest of the game materials. The other layer is the mechanical: what does the piece actually do in the game system? Is there anything doctorish about what it does? What ideas about what it is to be a doctor are expressed by it's mechanics and mechanical positioning? I think you are just setting criteria for a good story, rather than a story. Things happen. The board changes. Each next change relates to those before it, and foreshadows those after it. On that level, there is a single canonical story. Once we add our own fictional layers to it, you are right that there is no canonical story? How is that a problem exactly? Are you pointing to some shortfall in every RPG that lacks a canonical story? [/QUOTE]

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