Weekly Review Oct. 22nd to Oct. 28th

This week's theory development focus on a broader picture of how different aspects of RPGs work, whether characters, settings, or rules.

Distributed Context

Thomas Robertson continues his discussion on context and authority, where he brings up questions of how the context of characters and other elements can lend them a sense of reality and importance. This week he remarks on how player authority stems from a wide array of low context elements (such as a GM would traditionally have) or a focused single high context element (such as a player's own character), and how these different approaches can provide a shaky balance of power.

Burden of Rules

Malcom Sheppard discusses the uneasy relationship between rules and play. He suggests that the difficulties in dealing with rules can actually drive some of the enjoyment of play. Particularly, just like events and characters, rules are manipulated and transformed during play. This later dynamic comes from the rule placing a burden on the players.

Analyzing Setting

Over at RPGnet, is a discussion on the analysis of setting. Related to themes earlier this year is a call for treatment of setting as a topic of equal importance and capability to system.