🚀 go-pugleaf

Robert Tweed wrote:
> 
> "Chris Proctor" <chris_...@hotmail.com> wrote in message
> news:Xns926D7442FFDEAchrisproctorhotmailc@61.9.128.12...
> >
> > >> Not it's not. A game has to be FUN.
> > >
> > > Or as Marcy so well put it in http://www.pvponline.com/ somewhere...
> > >   "For it to be a game, someone has to win."
> > > (or something like that, too lazy to dig out the strip in question)
> > >
> > > Fun is just too subjective a criteria.
> >
> > Is a pen and paper Roleplaying Game a game? If so, who wins?
> 
> A more accurate criteria is that a game requires rules and at least one
> goal. No-one actually has to win in order to acheive the set goals, although
> it is obviously possible to have a winner.
> 
> If a game results in a draw, does that make it any less of a game? No: the
> mere presence of goals defines the game, not whether anyone actually attains
> them during play.

Yes, that fits more with the definition of the abstract idea of a game,
whereas the quote from the strip is more related to an actual instance
of a game. 

To add some meat to the bone: The PVP strip in question pitted Marcy
shaking her head over Jade calling EverQuest a game, subsequently
uttering the mentioned line. So if by RPG Chris means one of those
"everybody wins" kind of goals, Marcy would probably disagree. Games
traditionally have had winners and losers. With single-player games,
you've just added the option of having the loser being an inanimate
object; your PC or console. 

Now, alot of people (perhaps mostly males) like to think in hierarchies.
Even in a "all win" type of game, there is the underlying "I have a
higher level than you" in the background. Not a clear win, but if you
are the highest level human player you know, that is one "sub-win" (as
with the sims series). 

Perhaps our dominant, masculine days of gaming are numbered, as female
values find their way into the modern games, but as far as I can
remember, games has been about pitting people against each other and
pegging them in a hierarchy; from sports to computer games to chess.

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