Play to Find Out What Happens: Insight Through Reflection
Play to Find Out What Happens: Insight Through Reflection
Play to Find Out What Happens: Insight Through Reflection
By Jason Cox
June 7, 2021
Summary
In D. Vincent and Meguey Baker's tabletop RPG Apocalypse World players are urged to let go of their control of the narrative and to "Play to find out what happens," an approach that is associative, collaborative, and oriented towards emergent play instead of a pre-existing plot or story-world into which characters are placed.
1 When applied to larps this philosophy fosters a community where players are stakeholders in and co-creators of the diegetic world that emerges through play.
Emergent narratives urge players to "Play to find out what happens."5 Though the contexts, characters, and situations encountered in a role-playing scenario may suggest a particular ending, that result is not a foregone conclusion.
The result is a reflection that is both multi-modal in its artifacts and asynchronous to the playing of the game itself, which juxtaposes "Real" elements of play against those that were "Imagined" during in-character portions.
As James Hans states "Play of the natural world preceded the play of language and indeed, generated it, so we must assume that there is more to human play than language." 35.
While role-playing experiences can be constructed and understood as only structured narratives, the descriptive qualities of emergent play are more likely to highlight what a game means to the people who played in them.
The potential results of that play are a thing that cannot yet be known, but I for one am eager to play to find out.
Reference
Cox, J. (2021, June 7). PLAY TO FIND OUT WHAT HAPPENS: INSIGHT THROUGH REFLECTION. Analog Game Studies. Retrieved September 21, 2021, from https://analoggamestudies.org/2021/06/play-to-find-out-what-happens-insight-through-reflection/