Anti-games

[Mark Johnson]

I propose a subclass of RPG texts, the anti-game.

Whereas most game texts exist predominantly in service to actual game play, anti-game text exists predominantly to make some other point even though it is presented in game form. An anti-game text may actually be playable as a game, but that is not the primary task of an anti-game.

Sample types of anti-games:

1) Commentary Games designed to critique or explain play styles in other games (John Tyne’s Power Kill, Ron Edward’s Black Fire and Mongrel, Mark Hughes’ Dude and Six Word RPG).

2) Games that are intended simply to present an ingame idea such as an aesthetically pleasing resolution mechanic or idea for a setting.  These games are not truly complete, but are simply one idea dressed up as a game. They are often so rules lite as to only be playable as freeform roleplay.  In other words they weren’t designed to accommodate actual play, but simply to develop an idea that was obsessing the designer.

3) Game text as a metafictional construct.  The game is a text or language construct in itself to be read, not played.  Think of Borge’s encyclopedic entries on mythical beasts or Gene Wolfe’s book of biographies of non-existent bibliophiles.  Basically, the game text is a description of a non-existent game where the entertainment is derived from reading the game, not playing it.  (Some might put FATAL in this category.)

I don’t know whether to include game supplements which are simply game fiction and setting info as anti-games given that the main game is designed for actual play.  Certainly a supplement whose fiction describes events or characters that are not possible using the game rules could be considered an anti-game though.

My questions are:

Am I explaining this coherantly so far?

I took the name anti-game from the vaguely analogous concept of anti-novel in literature.  I am not sure that this term is truly conveying my concept though.  Does anyone have a better name?

Is anyone aware of any other forms of antigames?

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I think that this is something that will be difficult to use except on a case-by-case basis. I mean some people with write a game and it will be the intended goal to be one of the things. Many others will not have such an intended goal and may believe they have a real game and may take offense to it being called an anti-game. As will the fans of the game. FATAL is a pretty good example of this. The designers say they are very, very serious about it. There also appear to be genuine fans of the game. All of that may be a Kaufman-esque stunt, but they may be real. We may never know for sure.

So, this tells me that this will be a factor that will rarely be agreed upon on a case-by-case basis and unless it is a stated goal or intent of the game in question. Otherwise it will be a point of contention and opinion.

[Mark Johnson]

I tried to stay away from intent as the only determining factor in what is and what is not an anti-game.  If a text was intentionally written as an anti-game, but Actual Play is totally supported OR the audience for the game so misses the point being made by the game text and like playing it, is it still an anti-game?

[Jonathan Walton]

You could almost cast these as the "Concept Art" of roleplaying.  Calling them "Anti-Games," I think, is not quite fair because many of them are intended for actual play.  Perhaps "Concept Games"?

Other suggestions for inclusion:
-- Ian Millington's "Ergo"
-- Stephen O'Sullivan's "Sherpa"
-- Phil Reed's "Vigilante"

[Daniel Solis]

Can a work be an anti-game/concept game without the developer's intention to make it so?

[Jonathan Walton]

I would say yes, as long as the entire game seems to revolve around trying to take a single concept (most likely coming from roleplaying theory) and make it work.  Obviously, there are some games that are trying to "prove" a set of concepts simultaneously, which make them hard to categorize.

Some people might call "Universalis" a concept game, but I imagine that would be debatable.  And it would also be debatable just what concept each of these games is setting out to "prove."

[Daniel Solis]

Neat. I ask because it's highly likely WTF? is a concept game without my having planned on it being so. On the other hand, there are a lot of very tightly focused indie games out there. That sort of focus almost defines the indie attitude of game design, I think. The big, vast games are already created by the larger companies, but an indie game's strength comes from its ability to narrowcast to a niche audience.

Sometimes that focus is on a bit of setting or color, but other times it's a funky new mechanic(s). Is it only the games built around an unusual style of gameplay that get the "concept game" moniker?

[Ron Edwards]

Hi there,

What do they call a film-about-film, or a book-about-reading? "Deconstructionist?" I know the technique/approach has been around a lot longer than the term. Was there a term for it before?

Seems like that might be in the right direction.

Best,
Ron

[Jonathan Walton]

Actually, I'll vote with Ron on this one.  "Concept Art" is really just a brand of Deconstructionist art.  His suggested terminology really fits here, as well as providing a broader umbrella with which to group these under.  After all, even Fudge has strong Deconstructionist tendencies in places ("Like house rules?  Here's a game you can assemble right out ot the box, without reading the directions!").

[Mark Johnson]

I like the term deconstructionist as well since it presents the idea of these games being inherantly reactive in some way.  In the same way that you need a game before you can have an anti-game, the deconstructionist term implies a construct.  

As Jonathan has noted though, the deconstructionist umbrella takes in a larger swath of games than my original post intended, but games that do share some features.  Maybe I will refer to games that are not intended for Actual Play but simply to be read as non-functional deconstructionism.  The more I look at FATAL, the clearer it is that it fits into this category.

[Ron Edwards]

Hi Mark,

That's a good call. Not speaking to creators' intent (or even their actual play!), plenty of RPGs out there seem better suited to a "statement" than to use.

It's a tricky distinction, though, and I plan to be careful in applying this "non-functional deconstructionist" judgment. An extremely functional game may get labeled with the "idea not play" tag, simply because it's different from what the person wants or is used to. Dust Devils is perhaps the single most playable RPG, off-the-top, that I can think of, but at least one Well-Known Game Name Person has reacted toward it with that label, mainly because it doesn't suit his sense of how the GM and players deal with "story" in their games.

Best,
Ron

[xiombarg]

It's a tricky distinction, though, and I plan to be careful in applying this "non-functional deconstructionist" judgment. An extremely functional game may get labeled with the "idea not play" tag, simply because it's different from what the person wants or is used to.

I was thinking exactly the same thing.

I love the "deconstructionist" label, particularly in is broadest sense. But once we start appropriating stuff from the art world, we're going to run into the same ambiguities and "matters of taste" issues.

[Jack Spencer Jr]

I will agree with Ron here. Or maybe Scott McCloud who in Understanding Comics identified the six steps of art. Step 1 is making a statement about life, generally just telling a good story. I am not sure how step 1 would apply to RPGs, except for kill puppies for satan. Step 2 is making a statement about the art form in general.

[GB Steve]

I love the "deconstructionist" label, particularly in is broadest sense. But once we start appropriating stuff from the art world, we're going to run into the same ambiguities and "matters of taste" issues.

Deconstruction is a philosophical term coined by Derrida. He uses it to describe a process rather than a school of philosophy. Although he is rather precious about terminology, especially in the light of what he calls the trace (which is the way a word resonates within the net of meaning without having any ultimate or fixed meaning itself).

Deconstruction is about looking at the way on term is privileged within the accepted framework (such as language over speech in philosophy) and showing that the unfavoured term supplements the first and supports its meaning. As such you cannot do without the 'lesser' term. A loose argument of this nature is something like saying 'you can't have good without evil'.

Deconstruction tends to be very technical and sometimes not often distinguishable from word play. It is also something that is not very much liked by many non-French philosophers but it does highlight prejudices and structure although it is not necessarily likely to help build anything new.

If you are going to apply to gaming, I think that, because it describes a process, that it has to be done from the very start. I don't think you could say a game was deconstructionist if it did not start out with the idea of challenging a dichotomy. I also don't think it should be confused with irony or sarcasm.

Examples of deconstructionist games might be ones that aim to show that:
- you can't have a pure narrativist game because narrativism, in a game, is always introduced via gamism or simulationism (or vice versa).
- that illusionism is always present no matter how hard you try to hide it.

These are just examples, btw. I wouldn't take them as proofs.

[ejh]

GB makes a good point -- in other words, "deconstruction" probably isn't the term you're looking for.  It means something very specific, something which probably isn't that interesting to most people outside a particlar school of literary criticism, and is often misused as a vague synonym for "analysis" or "criticism."

I don't know if what has been discussed in the original post and in this thread is unified enough that it is possible to give it a single very descriptive name.  "Antigames" and "Conceptual games" are probably as good as any, if you keep in mind their origins in the terms "antinovels" and "conceptual art" respecively...