>The process of invention which I experience when writing a story is >fundamentally unlike that which I experience when preparing a game, or >GMing, or playing - they're _all_ different experiences. Some people >react to this by building rules that try to force events to transpire in >a particular way - the "forgeite-narrativist" approach (somewhat >simplified for the purposes of my argument), which goes to great lengths >to tell the sort of story that is told in the genre the game author is >either emulating or inventing. See, though, that's what I can't figure out. I can't put my finger on *why* (or even *if*) the process is fundamentally different for me, and why I want the process to work more like writing a story but feel more like reading one. >and effectively you have a collaborative story-telling session - which >may be quite fun as a change of pace, but it's not a _game_ in the sense >I understand it. This is kind of it. I can't figure out why a collaborative story-telling session (which doesn't sound at all bad to me) feels like cheating at a game: yay, I got the results I wanted, but boo, the *process* wasn't as much fun. Why does it have to be a game? Or more correctly: Why do I feel like I should play a game? *Some* people are perfectly happy with the collaborative story-telling session... why am *I* not? It seems like I ought to be. Why are *you* not? ---------------------------------------------------------------- GAMERS Home Page: http://www.phoenyx.net/gamers/
