Every moment of a science fiction or fantasy story must represent the triumph of ideas over mechanics.
Mechanics are dull. Mechanics literalize the urge to direct. Mechanics give unneccessary permission for acts of game development (indeed, for acts of playing). Mechanics numb the player’s ability to fulfill their part of the bargain, because they believe that they have to do everything just so if anything is going to get done.
Above all, mechanics are not technically neccessary. It is the great clomping foot of nerdism. It is the attempt to exhaustively survey an action that isn’t there. A good gamer would never try to do that, even with an action that is there. It isn’t possible, and if it was the results wouldn’t be playable: they would constitute not a game but a library of action divorced from meaning and context ever built, a wretched place without dedication or emotional impact. This gives us a clue to the psychological type of the rule builder and the rule builder’s victim, and makes us very afraid.
