Read this insightful article about…the opponent, over @ Hollandspieles blog page!!  

 

“Solo games aside, gaming is primarily a social activity, and one of the joys of this particular vocation is that my job is to create a framework and a structure in which people can enjoy one another’s company.  That doesn’t mean that that framework has to be frivolous or casual; not every game is a cocktail party.

Many games seek to provide serious, competitive experiences that reward skill and punish bad play, and so I’d expect someone playing one of those games to approach it on those terms, attempting to play to the best of their ability.

That sort of framework allows players to exhibit cleverness, and I think everyone likes to feel clever now and then. It allows for drama – for very specific definitions of drama – and an emergent narrative experienced in real time. As a result, even though it’s only a game, it’s not only a game, and some players take it very seriously. And we’re glad they do; if they didn’t, we wouldn’t have a livelihood. ” … read on at the link above.