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Message: <blockquote data-quote="hawkeyefan" data-source="post: 8123605" data-attributes="member: 6785785">So this may be a bit rambly, but I have a few thoughts about some of the topics in this thread. I find the focus of a discussion on imagination in RPGs being the ability on the players' parts to mentally picture what the GM is narrating to be a bit odd. Is it a measure of the players' imagination, the GM's, the designer of the module or other published work? It's unclear, and each of these carries a lot of assumptions. I think there are many areas we can examine imagination in gaming, and each would have a different focus. Imaginative game design is likely a different thing from imaginative GMing which is different from imaginative play. Yet, all three of these things clearly can influence one another. But at the same time, I think strong imagination in one area can overcome a shortcoming in another. So a GM and or the players can overcome a shortcoming in design, or the design can strongly encourage imaginative play in folks who would otherwise just take the prescribed actions offered (i.e. "I hack it with my sword" or "I cast fireball").Given the greater variety of game design today, and the varied approaches to play that have both fostered that design and also been shaped by it, I don't see how we can say that there is less imagination in gaming today. I do think choice of media is a factor that really matters. And I think such a choice will have pros and cons. I think the OP and many in this thread are focusing on the cons as opposed to the pros. So, give a kid a pile of legos and tell him to make something. Give the same kid a pile of clay and tell him to make something. The medium is going to influence what is made, so you will see different things being made with legos than with clay. The kd may build a house with the legos and a volcano with the clay, for example. There may also be some overlap of things that can be built using either medium.I think this is more just a matter of the limits of media than an overall lack of imagination. I don't think anyone here would look at a kid who showed you his lego house and say "That's pretty good.....but a volcano would have been more impressive!"</blockquote>

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