To Play Is To Explode

On the Beauty of RPGsTo do real damage with an explosion, direct the blast. Or so I’ve been told. My father was reading The Anarchist’s Cookbook at one time, and that’s the kind of wisdom that a father passes on to his son. If true — and it sounds reasonable — it means that as impressive and dangerous as an uncontrolled explosion can be, the effect is diffused. Sound and fury, all that.Which is why I say, to play is to explode. And a game is an explosive. We play all of the time. It is a natural reaction to the world around us, a proliferation of possibilities in an attempt to understand and interact. A game directs that play. It shapes the blast. And we can pack a game with metal salts so that it produces colors when it heats up, a lift charge, a timed fuse. Some games are fireworks. A pet peeve of mine is when people say that what makes RPGs beautiful — the beauty of RPGs — is that they are open-ended. Play is open-ended. It’s explosive by default. It is not until it is controlled,…