Like Aubrey says, as a designer if you are going into things with the idea that narrative and mechanics are wholly discrete concepts, you have already lost.

[This post autogenerated by JP’s LISP program, “Narratology VS Ludology Mud-flinging”]

The more I design, the more the distinction between N and L is blurred. Rules and interface become story-creating tools. Game play becomes narrative in hind sight. It’s not about the trade off between Player vs. Designer authorship – it’s about collaborative narrative construction. The Designer should be helping the Player to construct an interesting story, and the Player can only help the Designer by simply expressing themself within the constrains of rules, exploring the possibility space.

It’d be completely wrong for me to say that people who cling to either N or L exclusively may do the medium a disservice. But people willing to actually state that one is better than the other are the absolute pits.

In the quote, we’re dealing with forced perceptions: game mechanics taking on designer dictated representations which, when combined, imply a further message on the subject matter. Certainly, metaphor is a powerful condiment to game mechanics, but to suggest we would have nothing without them is to undersell the unique power of the medium entirely.

And if he’s honest, the first sentance should read: “Ludology argues that video games can be understood only in the context of the interface and rules, nothing more or less. “