Roger Caillois and one possible view about the complexity of games and play forms

In his iconic book from 1958 “Man, Play and Games” (“Les jeux et les homes” as the original title, in French), the sociologist Roger Caillois discusses how a gaming culture can be an essential element of social changing.

In the first chapter of the book, Caillois presents one interesting view about possibilities of play forms and how they can combine among them. In a very synthetic way, the author says that there are four play forms:

1) Agon: play activities that depend on physical abilities like soccer, basketball, chess (mind effort), boxing etc.

2) Alea: ludic situations that depend of pure chance, like lottery, casino roulette and dice-rolling games based only on luck.

3) Mimicry: role-playing games and theatrical activity (make-believe game).

4) Ilinx: Activities where there is risk of life and vertigo. Tightrope, bungee jump and other extreme sports are some examples.

Trying to summarize these ideas, I created the following image:



It’s important to highlight that these categories can combine themselves in other situations. One “Dungeons & Dragons” RPG session, for instance, can combine elements of mimicry (in the role play) and alea (in dice-rolling situations). Poker can combine alea factors (the way the cards will appear in the table) with agon (the strategy and mental effort to create strategy).

This post is only a synthesis of an important idea from Caillois. I strongly suggest the full reading of “Man, Play and Games”. It’s a fantastic way to dwell deeply about games, game design and ludic elements in the contemporary scenario.

#GoGamers

---

Reference:

CAILLOIS, Roger. Man, Play and Games. USA: Illinois University, 2001.

Dungeons & Dragons: the eternal classic

I would like to write a special tribute to Dungeons & Dragons Role-Playing Game in my blog's 100th post. D&D was my first truly immersive experience in a non-digital game. I think my first contact with this RPG happened in 1989 (I was 10 years old) and it was an entrance door to the world of many other role-playing games.



Dungeons & Dragons is a very special game. As the D&D Rules Cyclopedia (1991, p.5) describes

“Role-playing games are interactive. One player (the Dungeon Master) provides the narrative and some of the dialogue, but the other players, instead of sitting and envisioning what’s going on, actually participate. Each player controls the actions of a character in the story, decides on his actions, supplies his character’s dialogue, and makes decisions based on the character’s personality and his current game options. The Dungeons & Dragons game is a fantasy role-playing game. This means that it’s set in a world where men and women can wield powerful magic, where monsters like dragons thrive, and where heroes like Sinbad, Hercules, and Lancelot abound”.

D&D evolved and had many versions in different platforms like card games, video games, board games and a lot of books. Until today the game is a success and congregates a lot of fans.

The way I see it, Dungeons & Dragons has two essential components of immersion described by Roger Caillois in his book “Man, Play and Games” (1961): we are talking about the mimicry (the theatre, the role-playing, the interpretation of a character) and the alea (the rolling of the dice, the luck, the chance).

The magic literally occurs with a good narrative, the role of a character and the unexpected rolls of the polyhedral dice. The mix of these elements results in one of the most famous games in the world. It's a very rich game without doubt.

I believe RPG must be studied more broadly in the academic field. RPG can be an excellent tool for research and education.

What do you think about that?

Well, and to finish this post: long live to the Gaming Conceptz! Go gamers!

---

Reference:

ALLSTON, Aaron & others. Dungeons & Dragons: Rules Cyclopedia. USA: TSR Inc, 1991.

CAILLOIS, Roger. Man, Play and Games. USA: Illinois University, 2001.

Paidia & Ludus

In a very synthetic vision, games can be placed on two opposite sides: paidia and ludus. Both expressions used by Roger Caillois in his book "Man, Play and Games".

Paidia means spontaneous play. It's free improvisation, like children creating rules in real time at the backyard, uncontrollable imagination giving life to fantasy worlds using cardboard boxes. Paidia is our childhood essence that arises in some moments of our adult lives.

Ludus means controlled play. Games with rules, manuals, limits and instructions are part of this context. In a game designing process, it's important to identify our audience in order to create a good balance between these two opposite sides (or no balance whatsoever).



The card game Dixit is a good example of balance between paidia and ludus. Let's check the summary of rules from the site Board Game Geek:

"One player is the storyteller for the turn. He looks at the 6 images in his hand. From one of these, he makes up a sentence and says it out loud (without showing the card to the other players). The other players select amongst their 6 images the one that best matches the sentence made up by the storyteller.

Then, each of them gives their selected card to the storyteller, without showing it to the others. The storyteller shuffles his card with all the received cards. All pictures are shown face up, randomly, and every player has to bet upon what picture was the storyteller's.

If nobody or everybody finds the correct picture, the storyteller scores 0, and each of the other players scores 2. Otherwise the storyteller and whoever found the correct answer scores 3. Players score 1 point for every vote for their own picture. The game ends when the deck is empty or if someone reaches 30 points,so he wins.Otherwise the greatest total wins the game".

In Dixit, the ludus components are the scoring, points and turns of the game. The paidia is the free and cathartic storytelling about the cards, every game of Dixit is different and becomes unique with different players.

Sometimes it's even possible to create chaos with rules.

So, what do you think about that?

A quote from Roger Caillois

"In strongly opposing the world of play to that of reality, and in stressing that play is essentially a side activity, the interference is drawn that any contamination by ordinary life runs the risk of corrupting and destroying its very nature." - Roger Caillois (link),"Men, Play and Games",chapter "The Corruption of Games",p. 43