(OT free association) How to Enable Verbal Play in a Game

[epweissengruber]

Recent discussion have reminded me of a note I saw on the Gametheory.net webiste

http://www.gametheory.net/News/Items/090.html

The mathematics of drama is a welcome development. I look forward to the analysis of humour as verbal topology.

Is there any way that structured game design could stimulate verbal confusions, reversals, parodies, puns, etc?

How do you create an imaginative space that may be warped, twisted, bent by the verbal invention of the players.  A verbal version of Knightmare Chess where a character's option can distort the play-space in a rule-bound and not arbitrary manner.

[Paul Czege]

...an imaginative space that may be warped, twisted, bent by the verbal invention of the players. A verbal version of Knightmare Chess where a character's option can distort the play-space in a rule-bound and not arbitrary manner.

How is Universalis not this?

Paul

[Ron Edwards]

Or InSpectres, for that matter, or even Elfs if you use the Dumb Luck rules.

I think this concept has seen quite a bit of practical and enjoyable development in the last few years.

In fact, if you expand the concept outwards a little, the entire act of "shared imagined space" / "Exploration" is constituted of nothing but what you describe.

Best,
Ron