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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 9844663" data-attributes="member: 42582">Sure. They're probably not (as) constitutive of the activity. But I don't think being constituted by rules is necessary for an activity to be a game. Field sports, for instance, aren't constituted by their rules in the same manner as a "logical" game such as chess is. I think  you may have misunderstood what Suits is saying. He is not talking about efficient or inefficient gameplay. He is talking about efficient or less efficient means of brining about a state of affairs - such as the arrangement of pieces on a board, the passing of a ball between two posts, a group of people all imagining an account of certain protagonists' doings, etc.Well, the most efficient means to arrange the pieces on a chess board, such that the black king is checkmated - which is the state of affairs that the player of black is aiming at - is to place them into such a position. But - as per Suits's account of a game - chess adopts a less efficient means of doing so, namely, the moving of pieces on the board, and their removal from the board, turn and turn about, in accordance with the rules.So likewise, the most efficient means of establishing a state of affairs that is an account of the doings of certain protagonists is to author such an account. But RPGing adopts a less efficient means of doing this: namely, the allocation of participant roles that dictate what is said, and how. Even freeform RPG - if it has distinct participant roles - fits this description.No. I assume that the goal of freefrom RPG play is to bring about a state of affairs which is a group of people all imagining the doings of certain protagonists.</blockquote>

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