I'm no expert on the 'magic circle', the Wikipedia 'lusory_attitude' article linked to a "Magic Circle" article, and I did skim it earlier. They don't appear to be the same thing at all, IMHO
I just Googled "game studies magic circle" and found a link to this:
Games and the Magic Circle
It defines the "magic circle" as "the area within which the rules of the game apply, a special space, ideally but not necessarily demarcated by the rules within which play occurs. It need not be a physical space, but can instead be virtual or a frame of mind." A
frame of mind is, for present purposes, the same thing as
an attitude - it establishes a (metaphorical) space within which play occurs, ie within which normative credence is given to the rules that constitute and govern the game.
I'm prepared to accept that, within the field of game studies, there are differences to be drawn between a
lusory attitude approach and a
magic circle approach, but I don't think those differences are going to tell us much about RPG play or design, at least not in the context of this discussion.
I can see that the points "players agree to a set of rules which they treat as binding on them when they join a game" and "games have rules and processes which define them as such" as being kind of fundamental building blocks of ideas about games. I agree though, they're so basic that they are not going to tell us much in general. Your use of these concepts to question the 'gameness' of RPGs with omnipotent (unbound by the rules) GMs was kind of amusing. It made sense as an argument and seems like a useful observation, but it was hardly necessary to get so technical to arrive at what is a common observation in many circles.
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that simply brings us to a matter of taste really, is an informally defined game sufficient? I think I'm personally willing to allow it the label of 'game' (or else my gaming activity only started many years after I thought it did!).
I agree on both points. It is not necessary to use the Suits framework to reach the conclusion I did about "GM decides" play. Vincent Baker reached the same conclusion through
his contrast of conflict with task resolution: "Task resolution, in short, puts the GM in a position of priviledged authorship. Task resolution will undermine your collaboration."
And I have no objection to calling that play, nor children's imaginative play, a
game, even though it does not involve the adoption of less efficient means.
I can easily tell the difference between chess and D&D. In fact, at the age of 13, in 1975, when I heard about the IDEA of D&D, I instantly and immediately grasped this exact difference! It was like an electric shock, the implications were instantly apparent! Now, had I been conversant at that time with Free Kriegsspiel or Dave and Co.'s Braunsteins I might have been less shocked, but it was definitely a revelation to my naive brain, and the 'openness' of D&D was exactly what I immediately saw as its most salient characteristic.
I think this points towards a key issue.
The issue is most straightforwardly set out by drawing clear contrasts, although - in actuality, at any given table and in any given loungeroom - the contrasts may not have been so clear.
In free kriegspiel, play has a fairly simple goal. And the participants have (relatively) straightforward means: treating the model battlefield as a representation of a real one (although in fact they know there is
no real one - this is the "lusory attitude"), they issue the commands they believe would be fitting to achieve victory on that real battlefield. The judge is not a participant in play, and does not adopt the "lusory attitude". The judge's function is to reason about how things would go on a real battlefield having the same characteristics as the one that the model notionally represents. In other words, the judge provides
expert derivation of consequences.
A Braunstein, as I understand it, works like free kriegspiel.
In both sorts of play, and in an Arnesonian/Gygaxian dungeon as well, there are also hidden/secret elements, established in advance of play, which come to light only when the judge's reasoning indicates that a move performed by a player would, in the "reality" of which the model is a representation, bring that information to light. In a kriegspiel, I can imagine that being the depth of a river, or the strength of a wall against shell fire. In a Braunstein, that might be whether or not a "NPC" being held hostage is prone to scream loudly when provoked. In a dungeon, that is whether or not there is a concealed pit trap, or silent bugbears behind a door.
This capacity of the expert judge to reason about the modelled "reality" is a way of achieving "openness" of the game.
But that openness obviously makes possible the imagining of "realities" about which no one at the table is an expert, or about which no one could ever be an expert. It also invites an approach to the imagined reality in which
what would really happen becomes a less interesting question than
what exciting or engaging thing might happen?
When the point of play - the prelusory goal, if you like, or the creative agenda - alters in such a fashion, the whole setup changes. The "judge" is now a participant in play, taking part in the creation of this shared fiction. The notion of the map, board, playing pieces etc as a
model of a reality, and of play as essentially reasoning about that reality, is gone.
Expertise is irrelevant except to the extent that, among participants, it helps support some suspension of disbelief.
To me, "rule zero" seems like a cludge that has the purpose of achieving the second sort of thing without having to change your basic presentation of the game (rules, procedures of play, etc) from what they were when play was aimed at the first sort of thing. Whereas Dungeon World (and many other RPGs) don't even pretend to be oriented towards the first sort of thing, and set out procedures of play and rules that are designed from the ground up to achieve the second sort of thing. This is how they become complete rule sets for open play.
