Open Letter to Yehuda

Dear Yehuda,

I've been meaning to engage you in a discussion on your views on games for a while now, since at least the time you posted the interesting proposal to have videogames share their rules with the players (perfectly possible and perfectly sensible, by the way). In this case, I began to write a reply in your comments but it radically became an uncontrollable ramble, so I have moved it here. Perhaps I can interest you in a brief exchange of perspectives?

In your piece, Watching vs Performing vs Mastering, you say there are two distinct aspects to boardgaming:

These are: luck and strategy. Passive and active entertainment. Watching and performing.

I'm going to raise some points of dispute here, and it comes from two sources. Firstly, your reducing on the one hand alea (games of chance) to passive or watching, which in my estimation undersells this form of play radically; and on the other hand, the characterisation of active entertainment/performing as being strategic - which reads to me as picking out one particular activity over others.

Ultimately, we're going to accord in your conclusion of different players enjoying different things, so really this is just my nitpicking of minutiae in the hope that something I offer is interesting!

1. Are games of chance passive?

You want to make the claim here that a game of pure chance (Caillois' alea) is passive, and can be compared to watching a movie. I believe you are phenomenologically mistaken here. I can well believe that for you this claim is true, but this does not describe this kind of play universally for other people. The participant in a game of chance is psychologically invested in a play-activity which for them has agency (albeit, in an apparently illusory fashion). The throw of the dice is their action. It does not involve any calculation or decision (i.e. it does not involve deploying the orbito-frontal cortex), but it is still worlds apart from the pure mimicry of theatre, film and book storytelling, in which the participant has no action or agency at all.

You can see this clearly in role-playing games. The player recalling a good session does not recount the actions of their character as if they were recounting a story they read, they recount the actions of themselves in the fictional world – and the die rolling is as much a part of this experience of ownership over the outcome as the decision making. For many players, it is more important. This is not a form of passive entertainment at all – one is taking the action and discovering the unknown outcome for oneself. Similarly, if you think the player of a lottery scratchcard is enjoying passive entertainment I encourage you to look more closely!

The same, I will claim, is true of the role of chance in boardgames and card games. Yes, I'll grant you, that there is a distinction to be made here between the enjoyment of the ebb and flow of chance and deliberative play, but I cannot endorse “passive” as characteristic of the former. To describe the compulsive gambler as addicted to a passive entertainment is a very strange claim indeed!

2. Is all active entertainment strategic?

I also find troubling your suggestion that the “active” aspect of boardgames can be understood as expressly strategic. I'll try and put aside the fact that I use strategic as one of many in a suite of terms for player skills, and focus on how you deploy the word: as a description of the act of decision making (or calculation) within a game i.e. the action of the orbito-frontal cortex, which I term the decision centre in virtue of its key cognitive function.

You write:

When you're called upon to think or make a decision, you are enjoying active entertainment. There are different levels of active entertainment, from the simple (trivia: do I know it or not?) to the complex (how do I get my battalion to that base?). Regardless of complexity, you can rank better or worse players, and most of the time you can work to improve yourself.

So you distinguish here between (say) trivia and the decisions of a strategy game. But wait one moment – should you really be conflating trivia with decision-oriented play? Trivia is a form of memory play, like the game Memory and its ilk, although one based on one's long-term aggregation of information rather than short or mid-term memory. You call this simple – and in terms of decisions it surely is simple, it doesn't involve the decision centre at all except, perhaps, when judging between competing memory fragments. But I would suggest that it shouldn't be considered under the framework of decisions at all. (I'll certainly bet the hypothalamus is the main activated brain region in trivia games, not the orbito-frontal cortex).

Neither is the only aspect of boardgame play which is essentially decisionless, or at least, for which decisions play a lesser role. PitchCar is based on a physical skill, for instance, although one might object in this case that there is a decision element in that one can attempt clever moves on the track. But take Jenga or even KerPlunk – yes, there may be a decision (which block or stick do I remove?) but it's a miserly take on all these games to suggest that this is what the play is about for the players. It in effect ignores the physical dexterity element of these games to characterise their play as being “strategic”.

And so too with Pictionary or Oddles of Doodles, and here the required skill has changed in character quite considerably, as the ability generating play here is that of communicating with the other player(s) via pictures rather than words. This requires more than just decision making skills, it requires an ability to conceptualize the other player's mental framework sufficiently in order to determine the best way to get an idea across to them. Decisions are involved in this, certainly, but characterizing those decisions as “strategic” seems to miss what is interesting about them.

Concluding Remarks

I write these challenges to your piece in the full knowledge that your ideas were not meant as a grand theory, but rather an exposition inspired by your thoughts on various matters relating to boardgames. I hope you will take this exploration in the spirit it was intended, as a stepping point to perhaps expand both your and my own future thinking in this regard.

We are in agreement that there are different forces at work in play, which result in players enjoying different activities. Also, I agree with you (in respect of the latter half of your piece) that it is unfair to cRPGs to suggest there is not a skill element to be mastered. Indeed, part of the appeal of the very form for its staunchest adherents seems to lie in the player's systematic tackling of the vast array of questions relating to the efficient options for advancement. That it is possible to substitute mere quantity of time for this kind of problem-solving in order to progress is one of the great strengths of this form of game. Would that other games had this safety net in place to help the “amateur” or new player from getting stuck!

You are and remain my favourite commentator on the subject of boardgames, and I continue to enjoy your blog for the unique perspective it brings to bear on the subject.

Sincerely,

Chris
Only a Game

Comments

[Peter]

I have no opinion on the lottery scratch cards (don't think I've ever seen anyone buy one, and haven't bought one myself). However, I'd say that the *overall* experience of a RPG is that it is definitely *not* pure chance - in the same way that, say, a game of poker is not a game of pure chance, but instead has high elements of skill. In both cases the players may not be able to affect the outcome of the random element, but can undoubtedly affect the degree to which the outcome affects them or their character. So I'd suggest removing the RPG example from the above; a RPG is not a game of pure chance.

[Chris]

Sorry, there's a misunderstanding here: Yehuda's original post came in two parts, the first dealing with his chance vs strategy split, the second dealing with performance vs mastery (from another post elsewhere) - the cRPG comments relate to this, and not to the first part.

I can see how this becomes confusing in my response! :)

[Duncan Munro]

I posted my comment on his post, as it seemed to fit better there.

Good thoughts here. I always like to see how your research applies to other types of games.

[Chris Lepine]

Wonderful response to the article. After reading some articles by Dani Bunten recently, I'm really starting to go back to the roots of gaming, and this definitely captured one aspect of it.

Because I enjoy picking at banal psychological minutiae, and I assume your first critique was leading in this direction already, perception is itself anything but passive. Watching a film, people-watching, reading a book are all forms of what people tpyically consider to be "passive" activities, yet they all involve very different forms of expressive action yet all involve a sense of personal involvement. I guess what I'm trying to get at is that any form of play-activity is *never* illusory for the player (phenomenological subject), and the fact that the odds are determined outside of their agency (ie. by a random number generator, some elf in the north pole painting numbers on a scratch'n'win ticket, or by a dice) does not result in them experiencing the situation as a passive event.

In fact, when an event (like rolling a 'Natural 20' on a D20) issues from a source that seems completely outside of their agency (ie. 'luck', 'chance', divinity), the event seems to feel all-the-more real to a player as they cannot rationalize it as issuing from their own action.

What I'm getting at is that the person who recounts reading a story they've read and were invested in, in some way, is similar to the player who recounts a good RPG session. The person who develops an attachment to a character in a good book experiences it as themselves being caught up in the situation, EXCEPT for the fact they rarely use the pronoun 'I' to describe it. The RPGer often uses 'I' to express what happens in the game, which in my opinion makes the experience a bit more agentive.

Although I am being horribly unclear here, I'm trying to ply Merleau-Ponty's notion of active perception towards understanding the primordial relation between experience and activity... both playing games and reading (or watching movies) are expressive activities, but each comes with different opportunities for action. As you've indicated already - passivity is a form of relational action!

[Shade_Jon]

Chris,

Thanks for your reply. I can always count on you paying attention, at least!

I'm sorry to say that the crux of your response is woefully misplaced: you're picking on the fact that I failed to consider several aspects of passive and active entertainment, and you're entirely right.

Strategy is not the opposite of passive, and my using the word in that location was incorrect. I meant only "active" decision or performance, not strategy specifically. That I left out physical skills was also an oversight, but not one that seriously detracts from my article, which was about the fact that there are different genres of games that are so distinct in appeal as to make it difficult to compare them without knowing what someone is looking for.

That "performance" (such as trivia or a test of strength) is different than "decision making" also doesn't detract from the article. It just means that I wrote hastily and left out some areas of "active" in the article.

So you're being picky. Or rather, you're hoping that I re-write the article more completely and accurately, so that it is worthy for academic publication. Maybe I will.

As to your argument that passive is not so passive, I don't understand your argument that there is more investment in the outcome of a dice roll than whether Ross is going to marry Rachel. In either case, investment, energy, emotion, and so on are not what I mean by active. I think it's pretty clear what I was talking about: watching to see what happens - however exciting, or even tiring, that may be - is passive entertainment, in the colloquial sense of the word.

As to role-playing games, the reason people identify with their character is, uh, because that that's the definition of "role-playing", and has nothing to do with either passive or active entertainment. Hypnosis, or reading a good book, could also cause one to passively experience something as if one was the character. This discussion is tangential to my article. I do think that people will feel a stronger identification if they pull the puppet strings; in this case, they are the ones actually doing something, only by proxy. Like ordering men into the field.

As to the gambler, the gambler is constantly making very important decisions: whether or not to play the next game. That's entirely active decision making, regardless of whether or not the game itself entails making any decisions.

Regards,
Yehuda

[Chris]

Yehuda:

I certainly agree that I am being picky - I even characterised my activity as "nitpicking of minutiae". :) The point of picking at it was to provoke the discussion that lay *outside* of what you had already written, not to suggest a need to rewrite or anything of the kind!

"Strategy is not the opposite of passive, and my using the word in that location was incorrect. I meant only "active" decision or performance, not strategy specifically."

I see, so it was "active vs passive" that was the centre of your discussion. Duly noted. :)

"As to your argument that passive is not so passive, I don't understand your argument that there is more investment in the outcome of a dice roll than whether Ross is going to marry Rachel."

No necessarily *more* investment (if I said this I mispoke, or 'miswrote') as we don't have a means to measure it! I'm gesturing at the difference in the *kind* of investment. The viewer is emotionally invested in whether Ross is going to marry Rachel, but they do not believe they have any *agency* in this outcome. They are observers. But the die-roller frequently (however irrationally) believes they affect the outcome of the die, at the very least in the sense that they believe if someone else rolled the die they would get a different outcome (which, I think we can agree, is probably true, although not necessarily indicative of any objective agency!)

It is this difference in terms of perceived agency that I'm trying to tease out here - I want to make your dichotomy into a trichotomy, at the very least. :) And I'm pulling at the loose threads because I believe something very interesting is stuck between the pages here.

"I think it's pretty clear what I was talking about: watching to see what happens - however exciting, or even tiring, that may be - is passive entertainment, in the colloquial sense of the word."

Yes, my problem is that the colloquial sense of "passive" doesn't fit with the phenomenology of the experience of the role of chance in games. And hence my nitpickery. :p

"...reading a good book, could also cause one to passively experience something as if one was the character."

Yes, but not to believe they had acted with *agency* as that character. Also, I'm not sure about the identity operations in this regard... one tends to sympathise with the character one can relate to, but one does not necessarily see oneself *as* that character... There's something interesting here that I want to tug at, although it lies a little outside of your specific claims.

"As to the gambler, the gambler is constantly making very important decisions: whether or not to play the next game. That's entirely active decision making, regardless of whether or not the game itself entails making any decisions."

I encounter this 'move' quite often at this point in discussions of this kind, but do we really want to count the decision to play as part of the game? If it counts for the gambler, why is a movie not a decision-motivated experience - after all, you decide to watch the movie as well?

Thanks for the discussion!

Chris Lepine: "Because I enjoy picking at banal psychological minutiae, and I assume your first critique was leading in this direction already"

Indeed. :)

"...perception is itself anything but passive. Watching a film, people-watching, reading a book are all forms of what people typically consider to be "passive" activities, yet they all involve very different forms of expressive action yet all involve a sense of personal involvement."

Yes, it is exactly this that I want to tease out. It's the problem I find with grouping narrative entertainment and chance-driven play under "passive" (versus "active")... not only are they not that passive, there's a real quantum leap between the narrative-kind and the play-kind of 'passivity'.

"In fact, when an event (like rolling a 'Natural 20' on a D20) issues from a source that seems completely outside of their agency (ie. 'luck', 'chance', divinity), the event seems to feel all-the-more real to a player as they cannot rationalize it as issuing from their own action."

Is it more real because they cannot rationalise it? Or more real because the trappings of causality are there, making it easy to believe in the agency? My interviews with tabletop role-players showed that many - who were often materialists in philosophical terms - still believed they affected die rolls, that they were lucky with dice.

"The person who develops an attachment to a character in a good book experiences it as themselves being caught up in the situation, EXCEPT for the fact they rarely use the pronoun 'I' to describe it. The RPGer often uses 'I' to express what happens in the game, which in my opinion makes the experience a bit more agentive."

I agree, and this was part of the point I was trying to make.

Ultimately, what I am railing against is the choice of "active" and "passive" as terms to denote "decision-making" versus "perceived agency" and "engagement without agency" (I'm *not* endorsing these horrible, horrible terms - just trying to identify the trichotomy I'm gesturing towards).

There's something interesting here for me that is lost when it is characterised as "passive", and I want to see if - via discussion with other players - we can coax it out of hiding. ;)

Thanks for joining the discussion!

[Rik - Remy77077]

"I'm *not* endorsing these horrible, horrible terms" - I quite like them actually ;)

Just a throwaway one-liner here to add - I played tabletop RPGs and wargames for many years and I'm yet to hear... "The die rolled me a 20".

[Roman Age]

Mmmh, reading, the article, the comments, it is a rather interesting topic.
I'm speaking for myself, but as a player, the experience that is felt as a result of using active or passive elements in a game are fundamentaly different ones. I think the player is very aware of it (even young children).

Just a few points that I haven't seen developed here:
- when there is a mix of active and passive elements in the rules, a passive action (based on chance) can still be seen as active to a certain extend, as the situation as it is in the present may come as the result of a previous decision that was active, a strategic decision, even when those two actions are very remotely related. This seems to be in fact very common, in many games.

- An action purely based on luck can also be active in the way that the player still has to make a decision, only this decision is not based on strategy but pure luck. Like picking a card from a set of three possible options... yes, you know you can avoid making a decision at all and always choose the one on the left, the odds are just the same, but since it's fun doing otherwise, you go along with the game. May be this type of active (but still based on pure chance) actions, can be considered at an intermediare level between true active (strategic) and true passive actions (when you may throw a dice, or have to pick the next card in the pile with no possible choice), at least in the way they are perceived by the player.

[Chris]

Rik: "Just a throwaway one-liner here to add - I played tabletop RPGs and wargames for many years and I'm yet to hear... 'The die rolled me a 20'."

LOL!

Roman Age: You should share this over on Yehuda's blog, as it's very relevant to his theme. I agree with what you say here, that because luck and skill run together in most games the two become compounded in many ways - such as the way that a chance determination springs from an earlier decision, or a decision from a pool of chance options.

Thanks for your comment!

[Roman Age]

Thanks, I did post my comment on Yehuda's blog.

[Chris Lepine]

Sorry to rejoin several days late - what an awesome discussion that came out of this.

@Chris - Funny, I didn't know you had interviewed RPGers. I'd love to hear about that some time. Do you have anything written/published somewhere on it? I once considered writing a paper on what is psychologically involved in 'role-playing' but found it too unwieldy/large to get a grip on. But the topic still fascinates me... Bruno Bettelheim's book, 'The Uses of Enchantment', has what I think is a wonderful yet non-theoretical definition of role-playing as identification. Although he's talk about fairy tale books and children, I think a similar kind of action is involved in role-play.

Thanks again for launching this discussion !

[Chris]

Chris Lepine: not just role-players, but game players of all kinds. For DGD1, I spoke to several hundred people about how they played games, and even now I continue to gather information (well, have conversations - there's not much difference!) I haven't published anything formal on the tabletop role-playing, though, as it is such a niche topic it seemed barely worthwhile! :)