Weekly Review June 17th to June 23rd

This week has seem some new growth in RPG theory from outside the more typical places.

Stories and Play

Ashi introduces her blog with a discussion of the relationship between stories and play. Specifically, she identifies the laying of constraints as what allows the creation of stories as game play. This both limits what stories can be created, and encourages the crafting of stories outside of what might be attempted with complete freedom.

Flow of Information

Based on unreported developments last week, Gábor Koszper describes a perspective of traditional RPGs based on structured information, nominally flowing between the GM and the players. He expands this idea by categorizing information conflicts, describing different ways information can come into conflict from the same or different sources. Expanding on that theme, this week he discusses decisions as the primary mode of player providing information back to the traditional GM. As part of this he characterizes the unintended decisions as well as those which the player has actively made.