Confused Agendas and Practicality (LONG)

[Eric J-D]

Hi Chris,

Thanks for the response.  I hope you don't think I'm pressuring you in to writing the essay on ritual theory and its applications to roleplaying, but it is intriguing as hell and you seem like the guy to do it given your work with Smith.  No pressure though.

 

On the one hand, you have an object (Play) so dynamic that it's very difficult to talk about concretely as an object; on the other hand, to accept the Product as the primary art-work I think goes against much of what we've learned from (especially) GNS.

I couldn't agree more with your assessment that play is both elusive insofar as it cannot be reduced to something fixed that one can easily analyze vis-a-vis aesthetic theory and yet (simultaneously) the locus of the real magic.  I certainly don't want folks to produce aesthetically pleasing designs that are unplayable or so daunting as to go unplayed.  But since a lot of aesthetic theory seems devoted to analysis of "static" rather than "dynamic" aesthetic modes (at least as they are traditionally conceived), this is exactly where aesthetic theory becomes a problem for RPG theory.  The ritual angle seems to me to be more productive by far, but I have already said I don't want to pressure you into writing something you don't have time for.

In my experience (and I think this is the experience of a number of others too) GNS has been incredibly useful as a diagnostic for group behavior.  I think that some self-awareness among members of the group about the kinds of play decisions that they most frequently employ (obviously not exclusively but ones that they nevertheless generally prefer to prioritize) can be a good step towards removing whatever impediments might exist for making the "real thing" happen.  While the various GNS modes aim at describing actual play behavior, they are also, obviously, matters of aesthetics (in the simplest sense) in that each expresses the particular preferences or tastes of players, although these tastes are always somewhat fuid and certainly not mutually exclusive within any instance of play.  Getting the group to harmonize or at least play in synch most of the time--as regards which GNS mode is going to be the architectonic dominant for the particular game in question--certainly doesn't preclude the possibility of some dissonant notes creeping in either unintentionally or as a deliberate decision by one or more members.  Hell, some dissonance  might even be aesthetically good for play just as it might also still be functional in terms of group dynamics and behavior.  What we obviously want to avoid though is anything that suggests to folks that a particular GNS mode is more aesthetically satisfying, pleasing, whatever than another.  I know you're not suggesting this in any way; I include it only to cover my own but for opening up the Pandora's Box by suggesting that GNS modes express aesthetic preferences in addition to describing a set of fluid player decisions.

Anyway, I seem to have lost the bearing of the point toward which I was working so I'll just stop now.

Cheers,

Eric