The Game

[page 9]

In approaching the game of D&D, the subjects of "realism" and "simulation" are sure to arise again and again. Whereas some believe these two camps are clearly defined, this has never been the case — though certain individuals have advanced published works attempting to make capital out of settling the argument once and for all.  It is barely understood, in this author's opinion, by most persons that real people sit at the gaming table, in the real world, with experiences and familiarity with many things directly associated with that world.  Because of this standard (i.e., people know what's "real"), that any level of simulation will succeed to some extent, while necessarily failing once that extent is passed.

Take in case an old Spike Milligan sketch, in which a secret plan was hatched during the 2nd World War to make a life-size to scale model of Britain out of cardboard, mooring it off the coast of Scilly, so that the Germans would bomb the model and not the real country ... and to believe the scheme was working as the Germans flew over the false island — until it was learned the Germans dropped cardboard bombs.

The goal of D&D is not to simulate reality, but to make fantasy believable enough that we can forget it's not real.  This is not so hard as we might think; humans want to pretend.  They learned to do so as children, turning cardboard boxes into spaceships, logs into horses, sticks into swords and towels into capes.  Growing up, we still love to do this; we only need an excuse that enables us to not feel too silly.  The trappings of dice, paper and pencils lets us take D&D just as seriously as we took make-believe when we were young.

Without question, the game's goal is to have fun and be entertained.  This sounds cut-and-dried, and is often presented that way, as though all the world seeks the same sort of fun in the same sort of ways, for the same reasons.  For some people, "fun" means to take nothing seriously, to mock and joke, and to deride those who show a "long face."  For some, banging the books out of a fellow student's hands,  painting huge self-aggrandizing logos on public property, waiting to the last moment to dodge a train or pushing around a scared, frightened boy or girl between them represents "fun."  For these people, D&D will work as a game.  It offers lots of opportunities to be silly, to ridicule and sneer, to use the DM pulpit as a means to humiliate and shame others, or feel a sense of power.  Many, many people will have fun in just this way, and argue that the game's point is to act out without restraint.

Others find fun in more sober activities.  Two silent, serious, immobile persons staring hours at a wargame, painstakingly moving scores of hundreds of little pieces and chits are having fun, though who would know it to look at them?  Some rush from their jobs to their basement work benches to stare all evening through a magnifying glass, using tiny paintbrushes to highlight tiny details on tiny figures, which they will store like precious jewels on dozens of shelves.  Some want to argue in excess whether an electrical-based spell being cast by a magician waist deep in water ought to electrocute the source, and whether it matters that the target is also standing in waist deep water.  For some people, these things are outrageously "fun."  Fun comes in all sorts of forms.

The realm of invention needs to have room for all sorts, so that everyone recognizes that the sort of fun that goes on at one game table need not reflect what goes on elsewhere.  We also need to recognize, however, that some kinds of fun are sustainable in the long term, whereas some are not.  Triviality can be loads of fun in the short term, but runs out awfully fast, so that individuals who crave giddy, rash, hairbrained runnings will soon tire of this fare and seek their fun elsewhere ... while grim, stony-faced analysts will dig deeply into an activity they like for a lifetime.

Given this reality, when settling in to decide "Who is the game for?", we should ask ourselves, who will be here to appreciate the game today, versus who will be here to appreciate the game ten years from now?  Which of these groups promises a better field in which to plant our crops?

It is not for us to say how others should play the game described in this book.  But it is for us to say how we should go about providing more game for them to play.