RPGs as Sense Making
RPGs as Sense Making
One of the worst aspects of modern life - and a tendency which I very often find myself displaying to my own immsense chagrin - is the way i...
Reading and playing [RPGs] literally helps us to understand the world, in the truest sense, better. And this in turn means that those of us who are engaged in the hobby, as with all hobbies, are engaged in a pursuit of "sense making" that is much more significant - and useful - than a million Sam Harris podcasts or Substack newsletters (and which is all the more profound for the fact that it is entirely implicit and unintentional).
I'm not really convinced of this thesis. It eschews logic too easily. Logic is for exampled experienced in the system rules of an RPG. Their formality enables people to agree on them. That is a very useful part of sense-making. Great that RPGs provide for both, no matter which one is more relevant. :)
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i disagree because rpgs are a mixture of wargaming with cooperative theater, in varying doses. writing a book doesn't make me understand the world better. understanding is what allows me to write a book. what practice play of RPGs give you is a better ability to write. that's the boundaries of RPGs as a mental exercise. nobody is gonna sell scam books on logic because they play RPGs a lot, they'll do it because they are good at being grifters.
besides. RPGs are also a historical product. the understanding that you gain from playing a campaign is the understanding that the authors had. see the TSR moral and ethics code.
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We always played Minecraft LANs and felt like we were simulating how ancient societies formulated. One person kicked off making the city, on food duty, one person on stone duty, and the last person collecting whatever resource the architect needed. Fun times.