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Message: <blockquote data-quote="payn" data-source="post: 9781439" data-attributes="member: 90374">I enjoyed the essay but im not one that agrees with this recent notion that words are made meaningless. We still need to discuss things to understand each other. The context matters and you will never distill words into entire concepts on their own. "RPG" covers a lot of ground, but its still a common ground.Ninja'd by Umbran's "sports" analogy.  I've encountered a few games that do a good job of narrowing their focus and funneling players into it. I've also seen the D&D effect derail that process. Sometimes a group comes apart without any fault of the game at all. There is much to the dynamic of an RPG play group to consider. Divergent playstyles require compromise and adjusted expectations. A good example for me was when I played organized play with PFS. I enjoyed meeting people and seeing how they enjoy the game. Sometimes I really hit it off, and sometimes I hit a roadblock. That was often abotu emchanical applicaiton, but some of it was persoanlity. What I needed was good expectation that the game wasnt going to be consistent and that I needed to understand that to make it enjoyable.When it comes to my own private games at home or online, im a bit more picky (particualrly now with online). I get to curate my group into a closer fit of mechanical expectation and persoanlity. I dont expect to have to compromise here and focus more on exactly what I want. How did I get there? Well, organized play and conventions taught me the power of the one shot. A try before you buy routine. I have one rule abour RPG group forming and its never join a long term campaign with folks I have never played with before. I always work up to it through one shots and maybe the promise of more gaming to come. What I have come to relaize is that you can try and lock down a commonality with language such as "role play focus" but you wont really align until you see the execution in play. RPG is a nebulous term for a hobby that can include multitudes of play styles and interests. Like a discussion, you need a greater context for it to be cosnturctive than to expect total understanding from a single term. YMMV.</blockquote>

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