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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Xetheral" data-source="post: 8660927" data-attributes="member: 6802765">I suspect you may be right that few have gone into the "fine structure", but I think that's mostly because different types of analysis (and different styles of play!) hinge on differing levels of generality.The fine structure analysis by Edwards, et al., definitely led to novel structures of play, and that fine structure analysis is crucial to explaining how those novel structures differ from previous structures. So it makes sense that those whose gaming preferences include those novel structures are heavily focused on the fine structure analysis that defines them.But for those whose gaming preferences do not include those novel structures, it makes sense to me that they would focus their analysis at a higher level of generality. After all, if the games they're interested in all have similar fine structure, fine structure analysis isn't going to have anything meaningful to say about the differences between them (or the differences in preferences of the people who play them). I think that's why fans of what GNS labels as simulationism (SIM) tend to perceive the GNS view of SIM as overly reductionist: by working at GNS' low level of generality, the fine structure analysis elides the diversity found within SIM at higher levels of generality. Conversely, I think that's why fans of what GNS labels as narrativism (NAR) perceive analytical frameworks that don't take into account the fine structure differences between NAR and SIM as necessarily incomplete.And of course, when it comes to conceptual structures, no level of generality is privileged over any other. (As a trivial example we could go to an even lower level of generality than GNS which would elide all of the diversity in RPGs found at higher levels, which I think everyone would agree would be unhelpfully reductionist.) Both those whose gaming preferences are most usefully unpacked at a lower level of generality and those who preferences are most usefully unpacked at a higher level of generality have perfectly good reasons for focusing on the level of analysis that is most useful to them personally. (But thanks to some of the less flattering aspects of human nature, it's not surprising that people vociferously defend the utility of the level of analysis that is most useful for them personally. At this point I think it's fair to say that both camps feel attacked by the other.)Returning to the original point, if I'm right that GNS as an analytical approach is most useful specifically to those whose gaming preferences include the types of games that GNS enabled, then I think it makes sense that academic treatments of the hobby as a whole tend to focus their analysis at a higher level of generality than GNS. Preference among types of games aren't evenly distributed, after all. That could mean that the academics in question aren't as familiar with the fine structure analysis of GNS as its proponents are, or it could mean that they frame their analysis to appeal to the largest possible audience. Either way, I think the comparative absence of academic treatment of GNS's fine structure analysis is understandable (regardless of whether or not it is justifiable) as a reflection of the distribution of interests of the RPG player base at large.</blockquote>

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