Fun and Play

[drcpunk]

nancylebov asked what I thought all games had in common. I said, "Fun. Play."

While this was a bit flip, I think it's also basically true.

"Play" means a couple of different things, but I think most of them boil down to being an active participant. If I read or watch television, I am not "playing" in that sense. I am being a passive audience, even if I'm mentally taking notes, even if I'm physically taking notes.

Of course, here one immediately gets into trouble. If I write my notes down after reading a book, and I'm doing this strictly for my own amusement, is that play? What if I share my notes with others and we have a delightful session of literary analysis? I don't think it's "play", but I'm not sure how to explain why. Perhaps we need an unreal element for something to be "play"? If we were criticizing an imaginary book, then, maybe it is "play"?

I also distinguish between sports and games, and I am not sure if this is correct. Is a basketball game a different sort of thing than a board game or a roleplaying game?

In any case, "play" involves active participation. If I agree to play a board game, I am, or I should be, making a commitment to play the game. I should not have to be nudged every time my turn comes around.

In theory, I should play well. Slap dash play does a disservice to everyone. Or, does it? I find that I do not want to do to much strategizing in board or card games. Fast, slap dash, incorrect play is better than taking ten minutes trying to figure out the options, at least for me, at least with those games where I'm not much more likely to have a better play at the end of those ten minutes. This has to do with the element of "fun" as well. I don't have fun trying to untangle certain kinds of complex strategies, and players are often impatient with those who make a game less fun by taking forever to make their move. This is also true in rpgs, even if we don't think in terms of formal turns.

A game also has to have "play" to it. mnemex did not care for a recent multi-player game based on Lord of the Rings because it did not have enough play for him. kent_allard_jr described a game where the characters are competing to become Miss America. Characters are generated randomly, and the character with the best numbers wins. There is no play to this. That was part of his point, as the game was a commentary on other games with similar problems, although I might argue that if the game is a satire or a statement first, it's not really a game.

Fun should be an element of all games. If a game is not fun, why on earth are you playing it?

In practice, however, it is important to recognize that one will not be having 100% fun 100% of the time. If I am starting lose a game of Settlers of Catan, I may not be having much fun, but it does not necessarily follow that I should drop out of the game in the middle. On the other hand, mnemex and I did once walk out of a roleplaying game that was dragging on and was not fun at all. It had also started late, and we wanted to spend some time that evening on other activities which we had reason to belive would be fun. The filksing was a'calling. I don't think a filksing is a game, although it should be fun, and those who sing are certainly active participants.

"Fun" is something that the whole group should be having, and this means a certain amount of compromise on an individual level. What amount that should be will vary. mnemex absolutely refused to cut telynor's son any slack in Medieval Merchant, playing more cutthroat than I would have in his position. In retrospect, I think that mnemex made the correct decision.

Where it won't compromise the game, mnemex gives people his best advice, especially in situations where initial set up is critical. It's not as much fun for mnemex if he isn't playing against people who can give him a run for his money.

In rpgs, people have to compromise on the amount of time the game focuses on them, and on the in character / out of character issue. This is not dissimilar to the authenticity / fun issue in groups like the SCA, where, as The Known World Handbook pointed out, people in the fun camp would have less fun if people didn't at least try for some level of authenticity. On the other hand, the chiurgeons explained to me that, while tetanus and other ailments are quite authentic, they did not want that level of authenticity, thank you very much.

Too little In Character stuff and it doesn't feel enough like roleplaying to me. Too much and everything drags to a halt. The example I like to use is from a game I played years ago at a convention, "Breakfast of Eternal Champions". We were all playing the children who would grow up to be various incarnations of Michael Moorcock's eternal champions.

I was playing the young Randolph Carter. He's a Lovecraft character, not a Moorcock character, but he fit in just fine. He was wise-beyond-his-years, but also fragile, high strung, and aware that he was DOOMED.

As the adventure neared its climax, he realized that if the group followed the next logical step, it was likely that the Outer Gods would get a tactical advanatage that would mean bad things for humanity. Understandable, he didn't want to take the next logical step.

I did not want to drag the game to a halt, but neither did I want to break character. Over the years, I've gotten better at finding ways around that, but I was stymied for a couple of minutes. Then, one of the other players had her character say, "Um, Randolph? If you don't do this, we'll never get home."

I had enough sense to decide that this was good enough. Okay, sure, in the scheme of things, six lost kids should not outweigh the fate of the human race. But in the scheme of the game, a couple of moments of in character hesitation followed by agreeing to go along with the group increased the fun quotient. There's the in character bit, long enough to make its point and add to the fun in that way, but not long enough to drag things out.

One factor in the above example is that this was a convention game, a one shot four hour game with people I'd never met before and whom I don't think I've run into since. The dynamics are different depending on whether you're playing in a ten minute demo, a 2 hour demo, a longer demo, a one shot convention game, a 2-3 part convention game, an annual convention game, a series of one shots at conventions with a lot of the same people year after year, a one shot with friends, a short campaign, or a long campaign. There are other variations, of course, and we're not even getting to the larps.

Some years back, Sandy Antunes and others ran a one hour demo of Cthulhu Live, carefully designed so that the characters were almost guaranteed to survive. Sandy explained that he wanted people to have a positive experience with this demo, and I think that makes sense. There was probably a goal of selling the game to people who'd played in the demo, and shifting things in favor of their "winning" is a good marketing strategy.

"Winning" is an interesting issue in rpgs. In one-shot four-hour adventures, there should probably be a chance of the group "losing". It does depend on what the scenario is, and there are games where everyone understands that the outcome is rigged. In those games, the fun is the play.

imogena explained once that when she runs her Everway games, there is a real chance, however small or large, that the group will "lose". In this case, a "loss" would have been a failure to resolve the situation presented in the scenario without a bloodbath. Without a chance of such a loss, victory is meaningless. I know that we had more fun because there was a chance of a loss, and we won. I do not know how losing would have felt.

This year, imogena ran a very interesting scenario, one in which a recurring villain in her games was, if not a hero, not a villain, at the moment. There was a real chance of loss, which would have meant a major disaster. The group won, but this is going to make for some nasty consequences in future scenarios that imogena writes. Without those nasty consequences, there would be somewhat less fun because our group's actions would have been somewhat less meaningful.

Winning. Losing. Different types of sessions. All of these deserve their own posts. Different types of fun may bear further examination as well -- here, one can get into questions of sensitive topics and go back and forth on the question of how meaningful a game should be.

But not this post, and not now.

Comments

[nancylebov.livejournal.com]

Gaak. I thought it was an interesting question, but I didn't realize it was that interesting. I'll do a more substantial comment after I read it more carefully and think about it.