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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8299186" data-attributes="member: 42582">On what basis is it being said that these players are playing the same game? To put it another way, what are the individuation criteria for games that underpin these claims?I mean, consider a game of 500. I might be sitting down to practice a new set of bidding conventions with my partner, and see if I can count all the offsuit that gets played; while someone else might be sitting down to while away half-an-hour and see if they can win a few tricks.I can say from real experience that this will produce a social mismatch: the "casual" player is apt to feel a bit cruelled; and the play is apt to be dominated by me and my partner. But in a purely formal sense the game will work: hands will be dealt, auctions undertaken, tricks played, scores tallied, games won.And that's because even the "casual" player will still uphold the basic expectations of play: sincerely trying to win the auction so as to play a winning hand; sincerely trying to win tricks; etc. Only if the "casual" player gives up and starts playing randomly or destructively are we into the "griefer" territory. But that possibility doesn't tell us anything very interesting about five hundred as a game; it does tell us something about the limits of human tolerance for others wrecking their leisure time.These - griefers, and cheaters - are degenerate cases. (1) They're not approaches to play that universalise; they depend upon there being other game participants who are playing sincerely. (2) They are not sincere attempts at playing the game. They're more subtle versions of accidentally-on-purpose knocking over the board if you're losing a game of chess. If we're studying the psychology of those who participate in games, and the sociology of gaming circles, then they're interesting case studies. But if we're asking about the play of games from a broadly critical perspective (which takes as a given the normative underpinnings of the shared human activity of playing a game together) then I don't think they're relevant. I mean, I don't think it's a meaningful musicological critique of the length of a Wagnerian opera that the longer the music goes, the more likely someone in the theatre is to cough or fart.But I don't think any of the MtG players - perhaps beyond the first naive interpreters - was sincere. It's just a case of a poorly expressed rule.People can do what they like with a D&D book. Maybe they use it as a coaster - that doesn't tell us much about RPGing, though. Maybe they use the list of weapons and monsters to inspire their free imagination play (I've certainly heard of that happening) - that doess't tell us much about D&D play, I don't think, but might be useful information for the marketing team at WotC. Maybe they use the rules for stat generation and classes to create characters, and then free roleplay a game of strolling through fairs, running taverns, etc. I think plenty of that happens too, and goes under the label D&D, but it can hardly tell us anything distinctive about D&D as a game given that exactly the same thing could be done using RQ, RM, C&S, T&T, Fantasy HERO, etc, etc.When I talk about Gygaxian skilled play, or DL/2nd ed AD&D play, I'm not making an empirical generalisation about how those rulebooks and their contents were incorporated into RPGers' game play. I'm talking about concrete traditions of play that are characterised by certain tolerably clear conceptions of what the goals of play are, what the appropriate principles and techniques are, how action resolution and PC development factor into that, etc.I don't know what your point is. Are the "younger players" you refer to strong-minded people who are able to put forward their informed preferences very confidently? Or do they contrast with them? I couldn't tell from your post.And I also don't understand what you take to be the connection between being a strong-minded person able to put forward informed preferences very confidently and seeking an understanding of games. In philosophy, I'm a reasonably strong-minded person. I have opinions on many issues across epistemology, metaphysics, philosophy of mind and language, and moral and political philosophy, and I can put those forward fairly confidently. I can also understand a range of views in those fields, including ones I disagree with. I frequently supervise research students whose views differ from mine, and who cite my work in their work so as to disagree with it.When [USER=16586]@Campbell[/USER] says that he prefers gaming with a shared purpose he is not denying an "inclusive understanding" that "gives consideration to how each player choose to play" rather than "how [he] expect<s> them to play". He is stating a preference. In fact the basis for that preference seems to be that he has, in fact ,noticed and participated in groups in which that purpose is absent and has not enjoyed it! He could hardly have reached that conclusion if he hadn't first recognised the underlying facts.But in any event, it tells us little or nothing about Gygaxian skilled play that some players ostensibly playing in that style are there not because they want to beat the dungeon with the rest of the group, but because they really enjoy imagining being a powerful warrior who cleaves Orcs like Boromir did. I think that player would probably have a better time, all things being equal, playing Burning Wheel or Prince Valiant or even maybe RuneQuest than doing a run through White Plume Mountain, but ultimately that's that player's problem, not mine.</blockquote>

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