Your Labels Suck

I've been thinking about the human desire to group things into simple labels.

I almost miss the days of Thespians and Murderhobos. Fuck The Forge.

Let me break all the fancy arguments about games and players down for you. There are two axes a game exists on.

Skill: How much mastery of the system, clever exploitation of rules, or “gaming the mechanics” drives success.

Meaning: How much the game communicates story, narrative resonance, emotional stakes, or emergent significance.

The old categories were comforting, but ultimately useless. GNS tried to freeze players into neat boxes, and Edwards tried to strip away all skill and simulation to chase pure narrative.

But what matters isn't pure theory, it's where the rubber meets the road. Not how we want them to work or how we think they should work.

What matters is where a player falls on the Skill and Meaning axes, and how the system itself interacts with them.

Because the line between human and system is and always will be blurred and that is where the play happens.