My Life As A Gamer: The Value Of Solo Play (Showing Others How Not To Fail)

The #BROSR insists on playing Rules As-Written. There is value in this "One Game" approach, as it becomes possible to learn how the game works by watching others play it and that is what Friend of the Retreat Jon Mollison has been doing for quite some time.

Last night he had another delve, and--for the third time--it did not go well.

When people who are not participating in the play are able nonetheless to derive practical value from it because they do the same thing, that is the proof that insisting on Rules As-Written is the correct policy.

You, Anon, are able to follow along as Jon goes through the procedures of play. You can read the same manuals that he has. You can refer to the same citations that he does. You can see how he uses the same rules and procedures that you do to play the same game, which means that you are better able to discern when Jon made an error that has to do with skill as a player and not an error of using the machinry of the game.

Conventional Play's presumption that "there is no game but what we say it is" destroys this utility. In a globalized, networked world where there's plenty of observers lurking about as you play--or watching it after the fact, sometimes years after the fact--this insistence on not playing the game that is in favor of what you or someone else made up is not helping anyone anymore.

Especially if this is your attitude towards your own published product- looking at you, Siembieda.

Making it easier for players and prospects alike to pick up the game, learn its rules, and master the playing of it is as important for tabletop gaming as it is for any other pursuit- especially one notorious for piss-poor technical documentation and manual writing like this one is.

If I had a webcam, I'd do this too purely for the educational value. (I don't; should throw one on my Amazon Wish List, but I have no idea what to get.)

This, coupled with written session reports, is part of the way that the original hobby scene has come back from the memory hole to rebuild the Clubhouse. Make use of it, Git Gud, and one day you too can claim legendary status like the great heroes of old.