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?

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.

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?

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"

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

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."

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?

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

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!").

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.

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

Ron Edwards wrote: 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 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.

xiombarg wrote: 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.

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...

In a shameless plug, I just finished a Concept Game this weekend. Discernment can be found and discussed here.

Webster wrote: deconstruction: a method of literary criticism that assumes language refers only to itself rather than to an extratextual reality, that asserts multiple conflicting interpretations of a text, and that bases such interpretations on the philosophical, political, or social implications of the use of language in the text rather than on the author's intention

Before I get truly started there are a couple of things I would like to bring up. Theser have no real bearing on my opinion just some random observations that I have been making.

First off: Violence, if anyone has had the pleasure of reading this game I think it work as an intensly clear example of what it is Mark Johnson is talking about. It is not a game, oh sure it has rules and whatnot, but they are more there to mock the absurdity of certain RPG's in general. In truth that game founed my entire system og Game Mastering. It pointed, and made clear everything I felt was wrong with other games I have been it, and shaped how I run my games. Coincidently it made me extreamly ripe for the reception of the ideas that are presented here on this site.

Violence works on the anti game principle because for one it quite openly hates itself, and two it explains why. Behind the self loathing there is actualy a rather coherent game system that works fairly well. It is an actual playable game. However, instead of presenting us with a concept we would want to use it dose the opposite. It takes the idea of a traditional AD&D dungeon crawl and turns it on its ear. It uses a real world example to show the compleate ubsurdity of such endevors.

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

I think so. Look at Little Fears. Little Fears makes some fairly hardlined social comentary on the missing children problem in america. Actually at this very moment my copy of the game is being passed around by all the social work professors. They think it is a brilliant way to demonstrate the problem we have to day with our missing kids and are curiouse as to how to go about running a game. Is it still a game? Yeah a bloody good one at that but it dose much much more.

I think the intensions of the author should never be taken into consideration. I know that sounds kinda tough but its a habit of mine. I'm a lit major and most of the people I read about are dead. So I can't ask them what they meant by that, and in fact many times authors themselves are the most disapointing people in the world to ask about thier stuff.

Now then Here is My Take: I think we are starting to wander in the wrong direction with this thread by lableing a game as a game or an anti game. I think that all games to one level or another can be used to serve an anti game agenda. Lets use good old AD&D2nded as an example. It would definatly fall into category three as a metafictional construct, and essentialy it shows a way in which we can desighn, and lay out a serialized story over a course of days, months or even years. I know a campain that starts the players off by saving famers from wolves, now they are off trying to prevent a civil war amongst the gods. Oddly enough leading the evil side is the once nuteral wolf god that went insane, partialy due to people like the players killing the wolves. It is a new way to spin a legendary tale on an epic level. It is essentialy a guide book on how to write an epic in the style of Tolken. I would be happy to expound upon this if anyone is wondering.

Of course AD&D is desighned to be played, heck it even wants to make money. However, it can also serve our purpouses as an anti-game.

One of my ideas need explaining. I think one of the original three points needs expaning to include that sometimes games can be used to make comentary one the real actual world around us. So that little fears example and the AD&D example fit better into the conversation. A think that an anti-game can comment on whatever it feels like rather than games just commenting on more games. We can even kick FATAL around some more as an example. If we take out the intension of the author's all the sudden we get another sparkling example as to how messed up some games/gamers can be. Lots of people criticise FATAL but then they roll over and read thier new copy of the Book of Vile Darkness which in my opinion is even more juvenile. If we compare the Book of Vile Darkness, Fatal, Violence, and AD&D an interesting veiw of how gamers preceive voilence in thier game worlds. Voilence points out that a Lawful Good charecter from AD&D can commit horrible atrocities in the name of good and it is still okay, just as long as the creatures are called orcs. I can go one for a long long time with this example so I will wrap it up. In essence EVERY game can say something about how we play/see/write/desighn/think about games. Some of these games can actualy be played and others just want to make thier point and get out. I don't see a reason to point of the diffrence between the two. Inside every game there is a sort of anti-game. Due to this veiw I think maybe we need to come up with a diffren term cause that last sentense sounded funny.

Maybe I am way off base, but I can't think of a game that I couldn't use as commentary on anything else. Sure we can write games about how to play games, but I think just as powerful of an example can be made with a full game. I think there is a place for the anti-game. Of course I do, otherwise I wouldn't come to this site, I wouldn't read other games, and I would just live in my own little world cause I don't need anyone else. However, I do not think there is a need to lump games into any sort of categegory. Play and use them as thy will, let that be the extent of the law.

One of my main beefs with the Forge is the proliferation of inappropriate vocabulary. It obfuscates what is being discussed and makes it harder for outsiders to understand. The worst of course is "deprotagonize", making a verb from a nonsensical noun but although I'd like not to see the same happen with "deconstruction", I doubt very much I'll be heard - especially as it has just come to mean "irony" now.

Violence is an ironic non-game, more of a commentary. It doesn't set out to highlight multiple and contradictory interpretations, nor does it particularly address theory. The purpose of Violence is to highlight the preponderence of Cartoon Violence in RPGs, especially in games where consequences are not followed through to their logical ends - to with the part on what happens to bullets that miss their intended targets.

I suppose you might argue that Violence opposed the enjoyment derived from RPGs with real-life violence but that's still not deconstruction. Something based around Greg Costikyan's comments on the idea that RPGs are based around cooperative resolution of conflict might be.

Hi there,

If "deconstruction" doesn't work for the stated purpose, then let's not use the term. (Shock! Could it be that easy, Steve?)

Comte's point is important, though. I too would have pegged Violence as exactly the sort of game (text) that Mark J is talking about it, much more so than, say, Mongrel. But Comte is also right, or at least very convincing to me, that the dangers of projection while labeling are very high.

I think we're all agreed, without any difficulty, that "intent of the designer" is a false variable, and that we've all avoided it so far. So let's let that stand. Just me, the reader, and the game book.

It seems to me that if the speaker acknowledges that saying "this is an X-game" (where "X" is neither "anti-" nor "deconstructionist" but rather whatever word turns out to be acceptable for what Mark means) is limited to his or her own interaction with the text, then we're cool.

Of course, we're also individually solipsistic at that point, but modern criticism seems to be going in that direction anyway ... is there any way to take this position into useful discourse at the group level?

Best,
Ron

GB Steve wrote: One of my main beefs with the Forge is the proliferation of inappropriate vocabulary.

Ron Edwards wrote: I think we're all agreed, without any difficulty, that "intent of the designer" is a false variable, and that we've all avoided it so far. So let's let that stand. Just me, the reader, and the game book.

Jack Spencer Jr wrote: This isn't the case, nor do I think it is here. Just because in too many cases it doesn't mean much does not mean it means nothing is all cases. There is what the designer intended, what they made, and the reader then interprets it. It's like that game Telephone were a simple statements gets mangles being whispered down the line.

Of course, we're also individually solipsistic at that point, but modern criticism seems to be going in that direction anyway ... is there any way to take this position into useful discourse at the group level?

May I propose a term, which I've actually been using for some time:

Gedankengame (This can also be expanded into Gedankensystem and Gedankensetting.)

This has its roots in the history of science -- in particular, "Gedakenexperiment" was Einstein's term for the visualizations that were absolutely necessary for the development of relativity and quantum theory, but are totally impractical for actual experimentation. The most famous Gedankenexperiment is Schrodinger's Cat, but there are some really great ones from Einstein involving falling balls in glass trains moving at near the speed of light.

I think that this term pretty much sums up both the nature and goals of the sort of game that is being talked about in this thread.

yrs--
--Ben

So what does "Gedanken" mean? Sure "kindergarten" and "zietgeist" got adopted from German piecemeal, but I don't think that kind of thing would really work here.

Jonathan Walton wrote: So what does "Gedanken" mean? Sure "kindergarten" and "zietgeist" got adopted from German piecemeal, but I don't think that kind of thing would really work here.

Jonathan Walton wrote: So what does "Gedanken" mean? Sure "kindergarten" and "zietgeist" got adopted from German piecemeal, but I don't think that kind of thing would really work here.

Ben Lehman wrote: "Gedankenexperiment" gets translated into English as "thought experiment" (though most people just use the original German.)

Hi there,

Steve, why not Statement Game? Works for me. Mark, what do you think?

Best,
Ron

At this rate, we might as well invent a term, like "Floobie Game".

Concept game might work, borrowing from the "concept album", such as Jeff Waynes War of the Worlds or some Floyd stuff.

Aww, but how are we gonna look all cool and clever on rpg net if we can't blow off someone else's game by saying "I always approached Grom: The fruitang as a gedankenspiele, but if you will insist on trying to play it, be my guest."

Ron,

Calling them Concept Games sounds best to me. Each term that has been nominated encompasses a slightly different set of games, but they all include the sets of games that I mentioned in my first post.

Gedankengames, in my mind, might even include games that are not written up as game text: i.e. a post in the Indie Game Design forum describing a game or an imagined text of a game session for a game that does not exist. Useful stuff.

Statement Games seems too oriented around intent for my purposes, but it is a definite subset, or maybe I am reading the term wrong.

Several people have mentioned points I would like to follow up on, perhaps, in a new thread.

1) How is design for a Statement/Concept Game different from a game where Actual Play is a consideration? Are GNS priorities considerations? (Recall Reading Games As Substitutionary For Play and Designing Games As Substitutionary For Play")

2) Does intent matter?

3) Expanding on Comte comments about games that comment on society as a fourth type of Statement game. I originally had a section on them on my original post, but couldn't think of any firm examples.

Regardless, I think the purpose of this thread has largely been served.

Thanks to everyone,
Mark

[amended to add line about statement games]