Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 8994695" data-attributes="member: 4937">Regardless of the stated culture of play, and regardless of the RPG you are playing, my experience is that players that come into RPGs prior to age 12 and with a background that is directly of out childhood &quot;make believe&quot; have the approach to RP you are describing.&nbsp; I've observed that process of play with younger players, and especially much younger players as far back as the early 1990's, where they are very much 'make believe first, rules second' in their approach.&nbsp; What you describe as your initial experience on forums is very much akin to LARPing or cyber-LARPing, and in some ways resembles the early uses of MUSHes in the early 1990's.&nbsp; In your six cultures of play, it's actually &quot;Nordic&quot;.&nbsp; The main difference here is only that the LARPers and MUSHers were devising processes of play already being very familiar with TTRPGs and adapting from them, where as it doesn't sound like your forum were in any way constrained by traditional RPG mechanics, but the use of judges and other factors reminds me of LARPS and MUSHES and some of your processes even match Amber Diceless MUSHes of the period (or even the often judgeless unofficial play at something like Elendor MUSH).&nbsp; I mean, this is just straight up &quot;make believe&quot; play right down to the vague dissatisfaction with the fact that combat can't be handled objectively and in a way that is strongly connected to the characters you are playing.And this for me really gets down to where essays like &quot;Six Cultures&quot; break down, because the culture you are describing existed as far back as the early 1980s just in what I'm aware of.&nbsp; In particular, I met a GM in the mid 1980s who refused to give players character sheets or access to the rules because he wanted to preserve the purity of and priority of &quot;make believe&quot; over interaction with the game.You say things like:And I'm not at all surprised, because how you think about playing the game is vastly more important than the actual rules of the game.&nbsp; The process of play (how you use the system) always dominates over the system.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 8994695, member: 4937"] Regardless of the stated culture of play, and regardless of the RPG you are playing, my experience is that players that come into RPGs prior to age 12 and with a background that is directly of out childhood "make believe" have the approach to RP you are describing. I've observed that process of play with younger players, and especially much younger players as far back as the early 1990's, where they are very much 'make believe first, rules second' in their approach. What you describe as your initial experience on forums is very much akin to LARPing or cyber-LARPing, and in some ways resembles the early uses of MUSHes in the early 1990's. In your six cultures of play, it's actually "Nordic". The main difference here is only that the LARPers and MUSHers were devising processes of play already being very familiar with TTRPGs and adapting from them, where as it doesn't sound like your forum were in any way constrained by traditional RPG mechanics, but the use of judges and other factors reminds me of LARPS and MUSHES and some of your processes even match Amber Diceless MUSHes of the period (or even the often judgeless unofficial play at something like Elendor MUSH). I mean, this is just straight up "make believe" play right down to the vague dissatisfaction with the fact that combat can't be handled objectively and in a way that is strongly connected to the characters you are playing. And this for me really gets down to where essays like "Six Cultures" break down, because the culture you are describing existed as far back as the early 1980s just in what I'm aware of. In particular, I met a GM in the mid 1980s who refused to give players character sheets or access to the rules because he wanted to preserve the purity of and priority of "make believe" over interaction with the game. You say things like: And I'm not at all surprised, because how you think about playing the game is vastly more important than the actual rules of the game. The process of play (how you use the system) always dominates over the system. [/QUOTE]

Verification