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For Halloween, I'm embracing my most diabolical impulses. To that end, I've written a player advice manifesto on the One True Way to play games- Pawn Stance. Read it, and be horrified at the lack of nuance. Come fight me about it, if you dare. diceexploder.com/posts/pawn-s...

but I don't want to have goals or fun, I want to have truths otherwise undiscoverable

sounds like that's a goal you have then!

it should not be my goal, it should be the game's goal for me

the game-text is an inanimate object, it can't have goals. you are a person with interiority, so you have goals when you take actions, however subconcious or unstated they may be. "I'm going to approach this game with an open mind and have whatever experience it provides" is a goal

I would question the idea of having an interiority any more complex than a Chinese room thought experiment, but also the game is (hopefully) a proxy for its designer, who (also hopefully and presumably) had goals for their art they wanted to express

the designer is usually not present or taking actions, and current book technology does not allows for books to take actions, so if their goals are to be achieved it'll be because the people around the table had a goal which included decoding and engaging with the text

if the designer is not present in their text than my only goal is to find a better text

I'm not sure how I can be more clear that I am saying that the only actions that occur at a table are actions taken by the people at the table, and that otherwise the book would just sit on the table closed and unread, so i'm going to step away from this conversation. Have a good day!

fair enough apologies for wasting your time