The Well-Played Game

[droqen]

Regarding Bernie DeKoven's
"The Well-Played Game"

[droqen]

I'm skipping, skimming around this book. The first thing that comes to mind is that I hate the headers in this book. It makes me think about how great the header sections in The Timeless Way of Building are. Why would you place a totally out of context word in huge bold text that's useless without reading more? It seems like an awful way to present information. For example, "The Borrowed Rule" (p.52) is followed by "If bending or breaking a rule is a bit too disturbing for the gaming mind to handle, we can..." etc.

For what reason is this header not an entire sentence that describes the whole idea? I want to write headers LESS like the headers in TW-PG and more like the headers in TTWoB.

But I digress. Let's get to a quote that I love.

[droqen]

For some reason, we don't allow the game to be over with. If we still have enough of a community in common, we can take this as evidence--we can conclude from it that we need to change the game or the way we're playing it. We're getting too involved, too deep into the game, so deep that we can't stop playing even though it's over. [..] the next time we play each other, it'll feel like the continuation of the same game. No matter what game we're playing, we'll see it as a chance to get even for the last game, for the game we played before and couldn't stop playing.
   I call this state of mind "tournamentality."

[droqen]

This book is such a stream of consciousness. I can find myself drawing conclusions about what is being said with fervor before Bernie arrives at the same conclusion himself at the end of the chapter. It's an interesting writing style!

[..] in the pursuit of a Well-Played game, when it really gets going, no convention is strong enough to make sure that we remember to care about each other.
   So, we need something to keep us from causing real-world damage upon our playful bodies.
   We need the law.

It was at this point of the chapter KEEPING IT GOING that I started to think, "I don't like where this is going."

The stronger the authority, the more we can focus on the game. We strengthen the authority until it reaches a point of total autonomy. It no longer represents the needs of any one player, or even the needs of our play community.

But finally, eventually, at the very end of the chapter six pages later, there is something I can agree with:

Perhaps[..] when we find ourselves needing so many people just to help us play, we really shouldn't keep the game going anymore at all.

[droqen]

Next chapter, 'CHANGING THE GAME', starts with...

We've seen that a game can change. We've seen that the very game we're playing can become something we never intended it to be. We made the change. It changed because of the way we were playing it.
   It changed for the worse when we lost control. We didn't just lose control, we actually surrendered it to other people with whom we weren't even playing.

And, a line from the previous chapter that I quite liked:

[..] the kind of coaches needed are ones who recognize and consistently reaffirm their responsibility for maintaining not only our team but also our opportunity to play well.

It would be best[..] if we could each be our own coach, if we could monitor the way we're playing so that, in trying to keep the game going, we could remember what it means to keep it going well.[..] if we were all coaches[..]

[droqen]

There are more rules than you realize. Many of them belong to a larger convention rather than a specific game. All of them can be changed. Some are subtle and take a long time to find. Cheat and see if anybody notices. Cheat openly so everyone can see it. If you think it's a rule but you're not sure, see what happens when you break it.

To Bear in Mind:
The reason you're changing the game. You're not changing the game for the sake of changing it. You're changing it for the sake of finding a game that works.

[droqen]

There are more rules than you realize.
Many of them belong to a larger convention.
Some are subtle and take a long time to find.
All of them can be changed.

Cheat and see if anybody notices.
Cheat only so everyone can see it.
If you think it's a rule but you're not sure,
see what happens when you break it.

Bear in mind the reason you're changing the game:
You're not changing the game for the sake of changing it.
You're changing it for the sake of finding a game that works.

[droqen]

i accidentally wrote "Cheat only so everyone can see it" instead of "Cheat openly[..]" but I do enjoy the typo version :)

[droqen]

A Well-Played game is never the same---never well the same way. As soon as we experience it, we change because of it. It is too powerful an experience. Its effect on all of us is too strong.
   The game[..] renewed us. And now we are newer than the game can be. [..] We need a game that is as new as we have become.

[droqen]

The excellence that you achieved was not because of the game. It was your excellence that changed the game. The game was excellent because of you.
   When you try to save the game instead of continue the excellence that has gone beyond the game, you suffer, the game suffers. In order to experience that excellence again, you must admit the possibility that you're going to need to find another game, or something that isn't a game at all; that the game is, in fact, over and that it's time for the search for yet something else.

the game is over and it's time for the search for yet something else.

[droqen]

We have to be willing to let the game go. Whatever game we decide on, we need, first, to know that we can leave it behind.

[droqen]

It is a matter of faith. We need only to know that the people we are playing with are trying the game because they want to try the game---not because of what we have told them, not because it is our game, but because we are all looking for a game that we can all play well.
   We need to be able to share the responsibility.

[droqen]

This is the most solid stuff we are able to find---the things we enjoy doing. When we look for what we don't enjoy, we are tangled in a web of infinite possibilities. We have no center to refer back to. There's too much to point to--a rule, the way somebody looked at us, the [colour] of the marbles, the ground, the air.

[droqen]

I went to my grandparents' house for Thanksgiving and we played a game of Monopoly - the first I'd played in years, perhaps even a decade. The Well-Played Game appeared unbidden in my mind, distinct and fresh: I saw the game we were playing not as I had ever seen it before, but instead as a collective process, unfolding. Together, we had to make the game work.

In this particular game of Monopoly, nobody had any sets at all and there were no obvious trades. The game was at a standstill, more or less, and I wanted to make the machine go. This collective process was not unfolding correctly at all! We were stuck, and I saw it. At the time I wasn't sure if I should be trying to make everyone else see it, or to corral us as a group toward the next act, but it felt very much like we were stuck in Act II and it was entirely within our power to either stay here or move to the next Act.

It was a fascinating experience that I'm sure I haven't captured well here at all. But I had to get it down before it slipped out of memory entirely.

[droqen]

[cross-quoted from Paradise, #score-engine]

P68

Keeping track of the score doesn't make tennis into tennis. [..] part of tennis as we've come to understand it is in trying to make the other player miss. [..] because it helps each of us to experience playing well, it is right and good that I reward you with a point [when] you [give] me a shot I couldn't return.

P69

It's really amazing how much a game changes, how different it becomes, when you change whatever you are scoring for.
Let's score each other for bravery. [..]
Let's score each other for grace, flow, harmony, endurance, agility. Let's score ourselves.
It all comes down to this: What do we want to get points for?
And then we discover that we can get points for anything. Anything. And each time we choose to score for something else, we change the game.

I revisited these quotes, a half year later. What stands out to me most strongly now is What do we want to get points for? I'll make a separate post for those thoughts.

~ WHAT DO WE WANT TO GET POINTS FOR?