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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Umbran" data-source="post: 8443801" data-attributes="member: 177">So, I ask: useful or meaningful... for what? All definitions are communications. All communication has an intended audience and purpose. And yes, if you use a term that is defined for one purpose, and use it for another, you will have failures in communication.I suggest that very broad genre definitions (like "sports" or "sandwich" or "literature" or "RPG") are not useful for critical analysis, but they were never really intended for critical analysis.  They're general use, introductory words.Since literary analysis was brought up at the start, let us keep going with that - we have already noted that literary analysis is not one thing.  It is several disparate frameworks.  And when applying them, we usually break down the overall literature space into conceptually manageable chunks.  We do Psychological Analysis of Postmodern American Literature, for example.Well, there's a question to be asked, related to what overgeeked said above - Are we clear to ourselves about how our discussion really cannot be general to all RPGs?  Are we up-front to others about it?  Do we forgetfully elide into discussing as if our framework is universal, or is meaningfully applied to all RPGs?Hint:  A lot of RPG theory-talk does forget its limitations, and either stakes out an explicit claim of being TEH TRVTH! or slides into taking a position of general validity that it does not deserve.  And then folks are understandably put out that that... arrogance, for lack of a better term.This is why I advocated for starting with what playstyle or goals of play you intend to discuss.</blockquote>

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