What is a game?

More importantly, are tabletop role-playing games (TRPGs) games?

A number of theorists have tried to tackle this. Let’s dive in.

Philosopher and historian Johan Huizinga (1938:13) states that “play” is "a free
activity standing quite consciously outside 'ordinary' life as being 'not serious', but at
the same time absorbing the player intensely and utterly. It is an activity connected
with no material interest, and no profit can be gained by it. It proceeds within its own
proper boundaries of time and space according to fixed rules and in an orderly
manner. It promotes the formation of social groupings which tend to surround
themselves with secrecy and to stress their difference from the common world by
disguise or other means.”

Sociologist Roger Caillois (1962:10) called games “an activity which is essentially: Free
(voluntary), separate [in time and space], uncertain, unproductive, governed by rules,
make-believe."

Philosopher Bernard Suits (1967:1) said “To play a game is to engage in activity
directed toward bringing about a certain state of affairs, using only means permitted
by certain rules, where the means permitted by the rules are more limited in scope
than they would be in the absence of the rules and where the sole reason for accepting
such limitation of means is to make possible such activity."

Game esigners and theorists Katie Salen & Eric Zimmerman (2003:96) suggest that
"A game is a system in which players engage in an artificial conflict, defined by rules,
that results in a quantifiable outcome."

Game designer, critic, and theorist Jane McGonigal (2010) suggests all games have
four features:

1. A goal: A reason to play.

2. Rules: Limitations on how to achieve the goal.
3. A feedback system: Something telling you how you’re doing (i.e. points, etc.).
4. Voluntary participation: Everyone involved accepts the goal, rules, and
feedback system.
Game designer and theorist Jesper Juul (2003) helpfully highlights a number of
themes that emerge in these definitions of games and
play(https://www.jesperjuul.net/text/gameplayerworld/), including:

1. Rules
2. An outcome
3. Goals
4. Interaction
5. Separate from ordinary life
6. Not work
7. Social groupings
8. Fictional

Juul also provides a definition of his own: “a rule-based formal system with a variable
and quantifiable outcome, where different outcomes are assigned different values, the
player exerts effort in order to influence the outcome, the player feels attached to the
outcome, and the consequences of the activity are optional and negotiable.”

In exploring these themes, Juul suggests that, in the strictest understanding, TRPGs
are not "normal games” because the traditional presence of a "human game master
[means] their rules are not fixed beyond discussion.”

So is he right? Are TRPGs games? If they’re not, what are they?

First, it must be stressed that TRPGs come in a variety of forms and are played in a
variety of ways. Certainly the fact that humans can be the arbiters of the rules means
that they can be bent or broken for a variety of reasons which would, in fact, destroy
games as understood by Juul. If we take all the parts of a game as presented by Juul, a
human GM or other player deciding to wave a rule to create a situation that is, for
example, more dramatic or more heroic, Juul’s whole definition collapses. The rules of
the system are forfeit in an effort to make the outcome non-variable, which changes
the degree to which players may feel the need to exert effort to achieve a particular
outcome.

To make it concrete, the classic example would be a player getting the “wrong” result
on a roll at a crucial moment where their success or failure would be more dramatic or
hurt future action. I see a lot of chatter online, for example, about advice on how to
make sure your players “don’t kill the big bad” until the “correct” (read: most
narratively dramatic or appropriate) time to do so. If your solution is to fudge rolls or
change rules to enforce this then, yes, by Juul’s definition, you are not playing a game.
We would certainly cry foul (pun only about 2/3 intended) if a basketball referee
refused to count a basket scored by a team on the basis that not counting it keeps the
game closer meaning that the final minutes of the game will be more dramatic. And
yet prominent games (for example, Vampire) have, in various editions, suggested you
do exactly this, and TRPG players are constantly swapping advice on how to best
fudge rules or deceive players to create the most narratively appropriate or dramatic
outcomes.

Of course, not everyone plays this way. Some gamers are highly dedicated rule-
followers. But part of Juul’s point is that having humans who arbitrate the rules at
all can move us away from some key parts of what a game is. In other words, even a
GM who is attempting to loyalty follow the rules, still needs to somehow keep a
herculean amount of information from what are often very thick, conceptually dense
books floating in their head, then needs to apply those rules at the appropriate times
and in the appropriate ways. We’ve all been in a situation, for example, where you
realize after the fact that you have been applying a rule incorrectly the whole campaign,
for example.

Finally, there is a layer of interpretation between the writing of a rule in a TRPG

document and the application of that rule in a particular game. Apocalypse World
provides a great example. When the first edition of AW came out, I saw the move
“seize by force” interpreted in a variety of ways by different players. Some folks
treated it very literally: if someone has a thing and you would like to take that thing
from them using violence, you roll the move. That’s what it’s called, after all: seize by
force. However, somewhere in the book it implies (states? It’s been a while) that you
could theoretically seize someone’s “health” or “meat,” defining “seize by force”
broadly. As such, for many people (and I’ll raise my hand and say this is how I
interpreted the move) seize by force became an all purpose “attack” move. You can
argue that neither of these is wrong, per se, but it does mean that there is some
intention behind the rule and when it is to be applied that inherently goes through a
process of interpretation before application that makes any understanding of games
that treats rules as foundational fuzzy (more on this in a later post).

Also: I should write a thing about TRPG’s an authorial intent. Filing that one away.

Anyway.

By rule based definitions, it seems fairly cut and dry: TRPGs are a step away from
“pure games.”
What about other ways to think about TRPGs as “games?" I want to argue that
TRPGs are, in fact, games, and I will draw on Caillois’ typology of play forms and
types to talk about this. Put simply, Caillois sees a number of “types” of games, many
of which are combinable, as well as two key “forms” of play. They are:

Forms, arranged on a continuum

1. Ludis (governed by rules- a highly structured game, like chess, is an example)

2. Paidia (freeform, spontaneous- an improvisational game, like kids playing
freeze tag, might fall here)

Types

1. Agon (skillful competition between sides where each has the possibility of
winning, like football)
2. Alea (chance, letting fate decide the outcome, like a lottery)
3. Mimicry (simulation, pretending you are someone or something else, like
acting)
4. Ilinx (vertigo, feelings of being out of control, as on a roller coaster)

This chart, which I didn’t make but found anonymously online in several places (so
my apologies to whomever did make it) sums up the categories nicely:
https://dredtabletop.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/caillois-table-
ripped.jpg?w=763&h=332

Caillois notes that similar games may have versions that are closer to ludis (an
organized sport- agon) or paidia (a spontaneous footrace- also agon), and that many
forms of play or game combine different types (poker is both alea and agon- you
receive your cards by chance, then use your wits to try to best other players).

I think a not insignificant argument can be made that TRPGs are form of game that
most thorough covers all of these categories.

Let’s start with the “types.” Certainly, there are a number of TRPGs that have
elements of agon to them. Many games have players directly taking on other players in
a battle of system mastery and wits. The classic example is the dungeon crawl where a
DM populates an imagined space with traps and antagonists for the players to work
their way through. Conversely, many games feature elements of what gets called
"player v. player.” If, at the table, two players decide their characters are going to have
a duel, for example, they will each have to use their character’s abilities, along with
their own intuition for how to best use those abilities as provided by the system, to
defeat their opponent.

And yet, TRPGs are also, overwhelmingly, exercises in alea. Many, if not most, games
feature some from of randomization, whether it is dice or cards. In the above
examples of agon, certainly players are using their skill in character building, their
system knowledge, and their own wits to take on challenges, but they are also relying
on the whims of fortune. Sometimes you eat the dice and sometimes the dice eat you.

Mimicry, the third type, is foundational for TRPGs. To play a TRPG is, at the very
least, to accept some fictional element of the situation you’re playing through.
Typically, this involves pretending to be someone else, pretending to be somewhere
else, and imagining a series of fictionalized things occurring. This ranges, of course,
from relatively simple avatar usage, where your character is mostly an assemblage of
stats in a hex-maze on a table, to highly immersive experiences where one attempts to
deeply “get into the skin” of a fictional person, thinking as them, speaking as them,
etc. Either way, the agon and alea elements of role-playing, discussed above, are not
happening to “you,” the person, as they might in a sport or playing the lottery. They
are “happening” to your character, serving as your avatar (the connection between the
player and the character and who things “happen” to is a more complicated topic for
a later post, of course).

Finally, ilinx might not seem obvious but think that there’s actually a strong
undercurrent of ilinx through much TRPG play. When we talk about a good session,
colloquially, we often talk about it in terms of losing ourselves- feeling like the “things
happening” in the game were “real.” We might feel the actual fear our character feels
as a monster lunges at them from the shadows or well up with tears as our character
watches helplessly as their lover’s illness takes a turn for the worse. We sometimes call
this sort of thing “bleed,” the feeling of the diabetic emotions within the game
seeping into our own mental space. We can also talk about this as what Mihaly
Csikszentmihalyi (1990) calls “flow,” which will be the subject of a future post. Flow
is the feeling of losing yourself in what you’re doing. A musician who feels as if the
instrument is almost playing itself it is coming so effortlessly to them, or an athlete
who can anticipate every move they have to make to stay one step ahead of their
opponent. We often see achieving flow in games as a desirable outcome- to fully enter
the fiction of the game or the headspace of our character. I suggest that this is a kind
of ilinx. Caillois, in fact, sees mimicry and ilinx as connected, as uses the example of
religious rituals, where participants may put on masks for reenactments, dancing,
screaming, and giving over to reckless abandon, as the unity of the two. TRPGs, like
ritual, involves the participants assuming the role of another for the purposes of
losing themself in otherness, sitting comfortably at the intersection of ilinx and
mimicry.

With regard to ludis and paidia, then, TRPGs are an exemplary case of how a single
style of play or game can vacillate between the two poles. A GM running a game may
apply the rules in a highly formalized way, opening the book, promoting them to the
letter of the law, serving almost as a referee. Conversely, players may choose to apply
the rules more loosely, or occasionally not at all, preferring to let spontaneity dictate
the outcomes of the session. This often happens within the same group or even
during the same game. For example, when I run The Sword, The Crown, and The
Unspeakable power, I tend to apply the rules fairly faithfully (I wrote them, after all,
and I tend to be a “follow the rules” sort of GM) BUT, at climactic moments, I will
occasionally turn to the players and say “so what should happen,” disregarding any
particular rule to determine outcomes. Particularly if I’m running a one-shot at a con
and we need to move towards wrapping the game up, I usually shift to a much more
freeform style that allows the players to narrate epilogues for their characters without
a direct application of the rules system. I don’t think this is uncommon. Lots of
players who prefer strict application of the rules are perfectly capable of occasionally,
for whatever reason, choosing not to apply them at a particular moment and letting
other forces dictate outcomes.

And, as Caillois mentions, these forms combine in single games. Certainly, alea, agon,
and mimicry combine in what we might think of as the “traditional” TRPG. In D&D,
you have a character you are playing as in an effort to overcome obstacles within a
framework of randomization. Conversely, some games highlight ilinx at the expense
of either agon or alea. An immersive, freeform LARP may minimize one of those
elements in favor of giving you that intense feeling of abandon. Many freeform
LARPs, for example, minimize randomness (alea) while maximizing character
immersion and bleed (mimicry and ilinx) and may or may not feature competition
between players.

By Caillois’s definition, then, TRPGs could, indeed, be a form of play we might refer
to as a game. Not only that, TRPGs strongly support the combination of multiple
types and forms of play, melding competition, chance, play-acting, and abandon, and
vacillating between the precise application of rules and the movement away from
system-bound outcomes.

What purchase is their in thinking through this? I think there are several potential
benefits.
First, while I see Huizinga name dropped in casual game theory a great deal, I see
Caillois mentioned much less frequently. Yet his typology seems to me to be precise,
useful, wide ranging, and proscriptive in ways that I find useful for game theory, and I
hope others will too.

Second, following from this, I think that it is worth thinking about Caillois’s typology
in design choices. Thinking about your game as combining agon and alea, for
example, or prioritizing ilinx at the expense of alea, seems to me, at least, a useful way
to approach design choices. I’m not saying that designers should put “this is a game
that privileges agon over mimicry and ilinx” on the back cover of their games but…
could they? Would cueing audiences as to how you thought through design priorities
be such an awful thing? Would players being aware of whether or not a game
expected them to engage in direct, strategic competition with others or immerse
themselves in deep, improvisational acting be so bad?

Third, this typology is also useful for thinking through play-styles and choices. Which
of these do you tend to appreciate, prioritize, and gravitate to at the table? What
combinations of them do you like? What combinations of them do you not like? Do
you need your competition to have deep character immersion, or do you see that as
getting in the way of the strategy? Does a high degree of random chance impair your
ability to lose yourself in the game or not? This is where paidia and ludis come in, as
well. What range are you comfortable with on that continuum? Does it matter
depending on the type of game? For dungeon crawls, do you like a strict enforcement
of rules, yet feel more comfortable letting rules slide or get applied in creative ways in
a less strategic game? These terms and categories are potentially useful for gamers
thinking through what it is they want out of a game.

Finally, I think this leads to some interesting questions to ponder about TRPGs. For
example, are these forms and categories a function of rules or play? In other words, is
a game “agin/alea/mimicry/ilinx” or ludis/paidia” because of how it was designed or
because of how it is played in a specific instance? Is it the intersection of these things,
or does one take priority in determining the form and category of play?