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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7422947" data-attributes="member: 4937">So, the game is specifically the experience of play that occurs at the table.   It's composed of a bunch of stuff - rules, metarules (how we think about play often unconsciously), procedures of play (how we decide to apply the rules), how we prepare to play, and the individual social characteristics and goals of the player.The author appears to be focusing on the game world as an element of play, and how the game world might inform play.   I think that's both a very board and very narrow topic.  Narrow in that there is so much else going on that makes up 'the game' that the gameworld is at best only a small piece of that and at some tables might not even be much of a piece of play at all, and that largely by choice because there is so much else about play they prefer to focus on.   So there is a certain amount of bias going on in the author's assessment of what 'the game' actually is.   But it's very broad in that if we choose to make the setting a part of the play, then there are all sorts of ways that it can impact that.  It can change the metarules, in that players will have different expectations of how they should play depending on there expectations about the genera or the specific setting or by prioritizing a particular challenge that might otherwise be neglected.  It can certainly change how we prepare to play, and it's possible that part of that preparation could be tying the specific elements of the gameworld to the rules in some sort of tightly woven fashion.On the other hand, the usual route is the opposite - figuring out what the world is really like by closely examining the rules of play.  And there is nothing wrong with that either.A pretty much infinite variety.  Those categories are so broad so as to tell you almost nothing.   For example, where do you put a Live Action Role Playing game into that?   Wouldn't you think there is a big difference between a story line set largely before the first session was played, and a story line propelled by player agency?   On one hand you might have the classic 'Adventure Path' where the DM's story whisks the characters away on some largely linear adventure to thwart some sort of disaster.   On the other hand, you might have some sort of dynastic play where the PC's act out political and intra-party intrigue between influential families that spans generations.   And what about character development?   There is a big difference between a table that perceives character development as progressing to twentieth level and completing some imagined build, and a table that sees character development as spending hours role-playing out intimate personal drama and never prioritizing the advancement of player skills and mechanical benefits.Games are defined by a huge amount of things, and two tables ostensibly playing with the same rules can end up playing dramatically different games by thinking about the game that they are playing differently.Yes.  Exactly.  Although I should say that this insight would be considered heresy in some quarters, but I will here agree and say that the successful game is never pure, but meets multiple aesthetics of play.</blockquote>

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