half-thought game philosophy thing
Friday, October 25th, 2024 09:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stepnixwarning: the kind of (game) philosophy that's arguing about definitions. this will not make you a better GM, this will only maybe possibly make you a better designer, and that's only if you're the same kind of freak i am.
i forget exactly what argument I saw that made me feel like this was a necessary point to have to make, but it's going to bounce around in my head until I exorcise it, so here goes: "Playing a game" can occur independent of "play," in the truest sense of the term. Think of it like playing the piano: A kid taking lessons for the first time or a performer on stage isn't necessarily doing it for fun, they can have other goals and priorities that bring that to that point. So in that sense, "play" becomes an inaccurate term, although we still call the activity "playing an instrument."
The same applies to games. You can be "playing a game" of poker, desperate to win some money you need, or you can "play a game" of football with the goal of humiliating a rival. But you're not there to make friends or have fun, so I'd struggle to call that "play" outside of reference to "playing a game."
We *could* switch to calling that kind of thing "gaming" instead of "playing a game" to try to resolve the ambiguity, but my point here isn't really to change the language we use. Sometimes in game studies you run into the concept of a "lusory attitude," a certain kind of approach or mindset that lets you treat a game as a game. I think this is a useful idea. I do not think it can be reduced to "I'm here to have fun." This would exclude professional sports from "games," and while I'd be happy to hear about how pro sports create a different culture from amateur ones, I think it's overreaching to push them out of the category entirely. What I'm trying to suggest here is that while fun and games have a lot of overlap, games don't have to be fun at all! "Fun" does not have the right to be the exclusive or highest goal of games, nor of game-players/gamers/Those Strange Fell Beasts. I enjoy a beautiful painting, I'd even say I prefer beautiful paintings, but I wouldn't position "Beauty" as the exclusive or highest goal of paintings. Thus with games and fun.
I read a very good book this month called The Well-Played Game, by Bernard de Koven. This book might help you become a better GM. However, its approach was, more or less, all from the perspective of "how a game help us have fun." This is a very practical concern, but I Am The Freak and must resist. So it goes.
the bit that reinforced pro sports as "true" games is the part i really felt like needed to be said, the rest is just what ended up bundled with it.
i forget exactly what argument I saw that made me feel like this was a necessary point to have to make, but it's going to bounce around in my head until I exorcise it, so here goes: "Playing a game" can occur independent of "play," in the truest sense of the term. Think of it like playing the piano: A kid taking lessons for the first time or a performer on stage isn't necessarily doing it for fun, they can have other goals and priorities that bring that to that point. So in that sense, "play" becomes an inaccurate term, although we still call the activity "playing an instrument."
The same applies to games. You can be "playing a game" of poker, desperate to win some money you need, or you can "play a game" of football with the goal of humiliating a rival. But you're not there to make friends or have fun, so I'd struggle to call that "play" outside of reference to "playing a game."
We *could* switch to calling that kind of thing "gaming" instead of "playing a game" to try to resolve the ambiguity, but my point here isn't really to change the language we use. Sometimes in game studies you run into the concept of a "lusory attitude," a certain kind of approach or mindset that lets you treat a game as a game. I think this is a useful idea. I do not think it can be reduced to "I'm here to have fun." This would exclude professional sports from "games," and while I'd be happy to hear about how pro sports create a different culture from amateur ones, I think it's overreaching to push them out of the category entirely. What I'm trying to suggest here is that while fun and games have a lot of overlap, games don't have to be fun at all! "Fun" does not have the right to be the exclusive or highest goal of games, nor of game-players/gamers/Those Strange Fell Beasts. I enjoy a beautiful painting, I'd even say I prefer beautiful paintings, but I wouldn't position "Beauty" as the exclusive or highest goal of paintings. Thus with games and fun.
I read a very good book this month called The Well-Played Game, by Bernard de Koven. This book might help you become a better GM. However, its approach was, more or less, all from the perspective of "how a game help us have fun." This is a very practical concern, but I Am The Freak and must resist. So it goes.
the bit that reinforced pro sports as "true" games is the part i really felt like needed to be said, the rest is just what ended up bundled with it.
