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Message: <blockquote data-quote="AbdulAlhazred" data-source="post: 7346591" data-attributes="member: 82106">Well, I have no idea how big groups 1 and 2 are. I think group 1 is probably overall relatively small. In terms of 'theory of gaming' or 'practice of gaming' they seem fairly similar to me as well (IE in both cases the practice is to present a fairly cut-and-dried scenario of some length). In case 1 the length is less, the play is more constrained, and maybe characterization is nominal at best. In case 2 the scenario is much longer and to whatever extent the game can diverge from it (though at the cost of sacrificing at least some of the utility of the AP, very similar to the situation with a heavily prepped campaign). I'm not sure what to make of 3, it doesn't seem mutually exclusive to 2 (IE most of these casual groups probably fall into 2, or at least into 'we run modules' even if not a full AP, which seems pretty much like the same thing to me, conceptually).Still, within 2 and 3 every sort of type of play can, and probably does, exist  to one extent or another. I would venture that game mostly start in some sort of mode like this where any idea of RPG practice or theory is non-existent, outside of whatever the rule set in play might convey. I'd note that WotC always seems to trot out some form of their 'types of gamers' theory, which they've rehashed in 3.x, 4e, and now 5e as a type of 'play to the player's interests' kind of advice! They don't go as far as anything like 'scene framing' or narrative play concepts like that, but the advice given is generally consonant with such play. 4e went even further, espousing a type of 'go to the action', although it was never quite couched in terms of player's narrative agenda (instead in terms of player types where these needs were examined at all). Anyway, I don't disagree that most people play RPGs in an unsystematic way. I'd say, however, that most people who play for a while at least have some idea of "playing to the game at hand", that is acknowledging the theory and conceits of the designers of a particular game. I know that was always true for the people I played with. We always tried to figure out how exactly to play D&D "in the way it was written" for example. Not that we did this very systematically or didn't change things to please ourselves, but I at least always felt like it was worth 'going with the flow of the game'.</blockquote>

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