Friday, December 7, 2007

What is Gaming?

When you say you spent the evening "gaming" or "roleplaying", people assume you spent the night hanging with friends and rolling dice. If you explain instead you were IM-ing an RPG with out-of-state buddies, or killing things on WOW, they'll still consider that gaming. I'm pretty sure the same goes for my pet nomiblogging project, but correct me if I'm wrong.

Let's say I spent the evening by myself working out stats for a group of Frost Giants I'll eventually use in my Scion Campaign. The next day we end up in a conversation, and you ask what I did last night. Would you accept me saying I spent the night "Gaming"? It seems a little misleading in that context. Yet for some (myself included) that's a goodly share of the fun that gaming provides.

It seems we lack a larger term for not just Gaming, but for the whole gaming-related enchilada: designing, writing, conceptualizing, crafting hand-outs, theorizing, researching, reading, xp-spending, threat-balancing, character creation, house-ruling, acting, gaming, etc.

Why is it that a hobby that's been in full swing for over 30 years still hasn't fleshed out such an important part of it's vocabulary?

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