a definitive definition of roleplay?

[Itse]

The art of arranging sounds in time so as to produce a continuous, unified, and evocative composition, as through melody, harmony, rhythm, and timbre.

I could accept that. But I bet there are those who'd say music is not necessarily continuous, or unified, and I might say that there's plenty of music which is certainly not evocative, and isn't always even meant to be. (Like muzak, which is specifically designed to create very little emotional response. Or radio-format pop.)

And as for defining by concrete examples... if the games are played with shared imaginative space, would you call them Shared-Imagination games?

I could. It could even be a better name. ('Imagination Games' would be shorter.) Then you could limit 'roleplaying' to mean the traditional sort and again there would be happiness and sunshine.

Roleplaying in general could be defined through the fact that the game 'happens' mainly in the imagination; that is, by definition in roleplaying the imagined realm is the primary one, and everything else (dice, stats, dungeon-maps...) is secondary. It would nicely rule out mmorpg's, board games, card games and such.

Even by your examples, football means different things to those odd people across the water who pick the thing up almost as if they were playing rugby...

Well, personally I'd just direct them to a basic anatomy lesson. "Lesson one: that thing you use to hold and pass the ball is called a 'hand'. Your 'feet' are those things you stand on."

[Doctor Xero]

What a fascinating coincidence that the Forge Glossay (alpha version) will posted during the following week or two.

Best,
Ron

Thank you one and all for the input on Forge vocabulary.

Now, if only someone would give me a definitive definition of "snarky" . . .

Doctor Xero

[Jonathan Walton]

I can't speak for anyone but myself, but, following Wittgenstein: meaning is use.

Don't go following Wittgenstein too much, Neel, or I'll have to stop talking to you :)

His work has been heavily abused recently in aesthetics, thanks to Weitz and Kennick using Wittgenstein's work to claim that art can't ever be properly defined.  It took us 30 years to dig ourselves out of that pit...