#74 and Gamers

Issue #74 came out when i was but a lad. It contains some wonderment, of that i am certain. I will talk about the grand things inside at a later date, but for today i want to touch upon a debate that has been raging since 1974. That being play styles. 

Folks have always had certain notions as to how the game is meant to be played. How players are to go about playing their characters. There have been many schools of thought on the topic and it has evolved greatly in the 44 years since this writing. 

Starting with the simulationist view. Treating the characters much as you would a chess piece on a board. A simple token to be moved and dice rolled. Without a great amount of personality. From there grew the way that i know that i played at first. The wild man murderhobo out for blood and treasure. The power fantasy in a world with very little in the way of consequence.  

As time went by. A new type of gamer came to light. A personal avatar in fantasy simulation. The "How would i like to react" kind of gamer. The article calls this the vicarious player. The person who imagines themselves as the character and acts accordingly. They insert their own persona onto the character they are playing and are basically playing themselves. 

An other camp is the character actor. The player who has created a completely different persona for their PC. A very different character from themselves. An outlet for different personality. In many ways it is an exercise in acting. 

All of these camps, and more, like to shout at one and other that they are the only ones having fun right while others are having fun wrong. 

This is also a common thread in the gaming community. There is little that will garner more attention on the internet than having fun wrong. 

But, i digress. 

This article "The vicarious participator. Take the middle ground in role-playing style

by Lewis Pulsipher" does a much better job that i could to express this idea and i highly suggest it for some light reading. It gives a little provence to arguments you may run into. Or, i am certain you have already run into.