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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 9203802" data-attributes="member: 71699">I haven't said anything so far in this thread as I agree with your core argument. As others have observed, games may be diagrammed out as boxes containing functions with relationships defined between them. In TTRPG, at least one of those boxes is [imagine]. Importantly, [imagine] is not indescribable. TTRPG draws upon specific features, such that it can be productive to move on to discussing them. For example, it seems evident that at least five things matter<ul> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The set of what will be imagined as part of play is not wholly known at the outset.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">The set of what may be imagined during play is open-ended.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Norms apply to what is accepted into that set: among the more powerful are a) mimetic norms, b) those established by game text, c) those established by preceding play.</li> <li data-xf-list-type="ul">Very salient to conversation here and elsewhere, are the mechanical promptings for [imagine], that compel and structure the ludonarrative.</li> </ul>Additionally, it might be right to differentiate between [character-imagine] and [world-imagine]. Not just because those can be assigned in different ways, but also because the relationship between them is that the latter contains the former, along with differences in representation.Folk have discussed pawn-stance, and should see that TTRPG pawn-stance is not akin to the pawns in Chess that it reminds of. In each case we may very well have a representational token. In Chess, the moves that token can make are wholly known at the outset. (I assume for the sake of argument that players are grasping and upholding the FIDE Laws of Chess.) In a TTRPG, even furnished with a figurine and character sheet, the moves that token can make are open-ended etc. Moreover, it makes those moves within a game world that itself is open-ended etc. Unlike the wholly known confines of a Chess board. In this regard, I found a close study of the use of tokens in the Blinding Light episode 5 video of Stonetop, about an hour in where the players are addressing a creature and a stone stela in an algae-scummed pond, revealing.Rather than resist what seems to me to be a hugely powerful and coherent way to recognise TTRPGs as a sub-category of the Games super-category, the real work is surely to say something accurate about [imagine], rather than leaving it as a mystery. What are its features? How are they best drawn upon? Are there perhaps subdivisions - sub-categories of TTRPG - that depend on such choices? An interesting example there is Thousand Year Old Vampire. The reason I would call it a TTRPG is because it's play loop contains [imagine], but that doesn't mean it is the same kind of TTRPG as other TTRPGs, necessarily. Perhaps an analysis is possible that classifies TTRPGs according to how they treat that most defining attribute?Anyway, I wanted to chime in with support for the thesis, and perhaps turn some folk's thoughts to its implications rather than its veracity.</blockquote>

Verification