RPGs and constraints
Via one of those tangents that happen when you start poking around on the web, I just spent a while looking at various articles and games and reviews related to (tabletop, not computer) roleplaying games, and I was struck yet again by something I've noticed before:
It seems like there are a lot of games in which there are a lot of aspects of game mechanics that exist primarily to prevent players from doing unreasonable things, things that would be out of character, or things that would disrupt the story.
And I would rather just play these games with people who are actively interested in working together to create a good story.
I guess this is sort of like saying "A lot of real-world laws exist primarily to prevent people from doing unreasonable things; I would rather just live in a society with people who are actively interested in promoting the common good." But unlike living in real-world society, in a game you can often pick who you play with.
(Okay, yeah, I do understand that there are sometimes social constraints that lead to the social necessity of including disruptive players in a game. But still.)
Of course, a lot of this comes down to what you're looking for in a game. My primary interests are character and story; in general (with some exceptions), the fewer trappings of gameness I can get away with, the better. Whereas for lots of people, the game aspects are the point, and character and story are subservient to the goal of making a good game.
These paradigms are apparently generally known as narratological and ludological, respectively. And if I had time right now, I would write an entry twice this length, full of links to all the pages I've just been looking at, that would expand on that distinction. But I don't. Perhaps later.
