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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fenris-77" data-source="post: 9841270" data-attributes="member: 6993955">That really isn't enough to imply anything beyond a vague similarity, which isn't enough for our purposes. They are also both very neatly subsumed into the category of board game. As both Wuthering Heights and, say, Human Occupied Landfill are by the term roleplaying game.This example isn't about roleplaying games generally, but about the shared diegetic space a game inhabits, i.e. the setting. I agree that there is a pretty staggering range of approaches to building that space in RPGs. Shared diegetic spaces are common to many kinds of things, and many kinds of games, but that doesn't make them all roleplaying games.The conversation is the heart of RPG play. The players, GM and PC, come to the table with their individual interpretations of the rules and with the mechanics and expectations appropriate to their various roles. The game then proceeds to recursively explore (build, etc) the setting through the back and forth of conversation where the GM describes/frames/explains and the players interpret/react/act and then the GM interprets/adjudicates/changes. Rinse and repeat with the occasional infusion of fortune to keep everyone on their toes. Obviously, this process is variously bound and directed by the nature of the specific system being used, and there is a lot of detail on top of this, but the conversation remains in all cases.When we talk about narrative play we're really talking about a game/players that supply/enforce/scaffold a certain framework to the conversation, with the framework (dials and buttons, manifestos, directions, whatever) to some extent equating a description of a desired play outcome or experience. OSR play makes the same descriptive claims about a different conversational framework and desired manner of play and outcomes. I think a lot of RPG theory simply ignores the centrality of the conversation and suffers for it. Roleplaying games are also not just the conversation, which in my general description above could also apply to games of make believe between well-spoken toddlers. But the conversation is at the heart of RPG play with the rest of the rules and expectations shaping play in various ways.</blockquote>

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