I tend not to write much about my work-in-progress, but let me try:
One of my basic arguments is that the rules of a game are designed to (and evolve to) be so clear and unambiguous that it is always clear whether a given action is allowed or not.
At the same time, actually playing a card game, board game, or any outdoor game like croquet tends to lead to much discussion about what rules to follow. I have played thousands of games and seen thousands of games played where discussion erupted around these things: Can you shoot the ball through the center hoops of the croquet field in any direction? Can you borrow money from other players in Monopoly? Can you move both clockwise and counterclockwise during the same turn in Trivial Pursuit?
I have seen this arguing about rules so many times, but for academic purposes, I need a source: Did anybody ever write about this? Any anthropological studies?
It is one of those academic moments: It would be much easier if I could quote somebody else saying this. (Perhaps I should write that article myself under pseudonym?)
The alternatives are 1) to plainly claim that that’s the way it is or perhaps 2) to do a microscopic anthropological study:
“Copenhagen, the evening of August 14th 2003. 4 young men are playing croquet on Halmtorvet. As the leader of the game shoots his ball through the center hoops of the playing field, a violent discussion erupts: Must you shoot through the center hoops from a specific angle; do you need to pass through both hoops or is one enough?”
Any sources, any ideas?
Every rule is a general maxim, but every application of the rule is unique and distinct (in that it’s never happened before). Thus there is always a little bit of real-world concreteness that eludes the abstract maxim of a rule. This leads to the problem of subsumption of an particular instance under a general rule. It’s often called a problem of ‘judgement’.
This problem gets tossed around a lot in Jurisprudence, since Judges are always deciding cases- dealing with this problem is what they do professionally. Although his opinions are often fascistic and conservative, Posner’s ‘theory of jurisprudence’ is an execellent overview of some of these problems (among other things).
The concept of ‘judgement’ has been around since Aristotle (see discussion of phronesis in the nichomachean ethics), gets recycled in the stoics, and from there incorporated into the enlightenment (esp. Scottish enlightenment, pietism, etc.) Kant, for instance, was concerned with how the aesthetic experienced emerged out of the problem of subsuming sensuous intuition under the categories of the understanding – hence the ‘Critique of Judgement’.
Wittgenstein talks a lot about rules but (for reasons I can’t go into here) I don’t think he’s what you’re looking for here.
The problem of category application in the realm of culture often is dealt with in terms of cultural novelty – in particular, how language handles poetic innovation and how culture contact threatens established classificatory orders. Gadamer discusses at length the role of tradition and how difficult it is for something to be truly novel (Truth and Method). Ricoeur (Metaphor vivre) discusses the way poetic language stretches and expands the classificatory aspect of language – what he calls ‘deviance and the reduction of deviance’. When a new metaphor is proposed (‘Jesper is like croquet ball’) it seems wierd and a deviant use of language. But when the equivalence is established (‘ricocheting from one idea to another in a competitive and yet punctilious way’) it not only makes sense, but has expanded our repetoire of images (reduction of deviance) – this sounds like the ‘evolution’ and expansion of rules that you describe. Sahlins (Historical Metaphors and Mythical Realities) discusses culture contact and the problem of subsumption in cases of novelty (i.e. is this the fertility god Lono or a bunch of white guys in a big wooden boat?)
There are anthropological studies of dispute talk, etc. as well if you’re interested.
hth – there’s more where this came from so holler if you want more. -A
Alex, I would love to hear anthropological references of disputes … especially with regards to games. There is probably a difference between a card or board game and the real world in that card and board games are already discrete and eithor/or which does make it possible to create rules that can be applied without ambiguity. The real world (and sports) is another matter.
A few hours after my post I have found two texts that make sense:
Janet Lever, “Sex Differences in the Games Children Play,” Social Problems, Vol. 23, 1976, pp. 478-487.
Jean Piaget: “The Rules of the Game of Marbles”. In Bruner, Jolly, Sylva (eds.): Play – Its Role in Development and Evolution. New York: Penguinbooks 1976.
The problem is that the first (which I’ve only found referenced) brings me smack into a gender discussion that it would be better not to spend energy on. And the second one (which I have a copy of now) deals with how children learn to deal with and argue about rules. (Nobody ever writes about adults in the Western world playing games.) But Piaget seems a likely candidate for now.
Jesper, your example of Croquet contradicts your premise that the rules of a game are clear and unambiguous. The problem, I think, is that there is not one ruleset for “Croquet”, but a vast sheaf of rules that different people have learned and favor at different times and different places. When any two of these people meet in a game, the problem they have is that they may not be playing the same game after all.
You can see that this phenomenon has a long history, by reading between the lines of “Hoyle’s Rules of Games”; almost every game described comes with several alternate rule sets that have evolved over time. Some games have evolved so much they get their own chapter.
There may be an Agora Thesis on the subject…
It seems that favor (David Chess) has written something in that vicinity: http://www.davidchess.com/words/bn_thesis.txt
Agora: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/users/mn200/games/nomic/yoyo/
Craig, what I was trying to say was that there are two things going on at the same time:
1) The development of ways in which to put rules such that the single rule is unambiguous and beyond discussion. (You figure out how to set up the game and the rules so that the rules state “if the ball passes through the hoop” rather than “if the ball is near the middle of the playing field.”)
2) A discussion of _what_ rules should be in the game. (You discuss if you want a rule describing how the ball should pass through the center hoop.)
Interesting discussion, but I’m a little unclear on the questions you are trying to get at. The development of good rules that work well in practice is one thing, but it isn’t what is taking place in on the field arguments. Are you interested more in informal street-ball methods of resolution, or how the PGA defines the official rules of golf for example? As Craig points out, rules evolve and result in differing extant variants, which players become aware of and discuss the resolution of at the begining of play. We even have this in highly official pro sports, for example the American League in basball with the designated hitter rule, or the introduction of the three point line in basketball. The more formal the setting of play, the more formal the process of rule making and resolution of disputes, resembling the legislative and judicial branches of government.
In sailboat racing, the rules mostly define who has right or way and who must alter course based on orientation to the wind and a lot of specialized rules around obstructions and racing marks (course turning points). Disputes can be resolved on the course when one competitor admits a foul and performs a penalty (usually turning two complete circles, hence called the 720 rule), but if not, a protest committee is conviened after the race. The existance of a foul can be a bit murky to establish because race courses are big and race committee are typically few. The foul becomes unambiguous in a collision, which is no big deal with small boats in light winds, but with larger and/or faster boats it becomes very dangerous. There is an overriding rule that you must do whatever is necessary to avoid a collision, so even if you had the right-of-way, you can be disqualified for not giving the other boat room. Safety first, which is one criteria for “good” rules for any sport with speed and risk. Although this is more sports than games, clearly there is a connection in the scene of an argument about the rules.
It is interesting that even with published games like Monopoly, rule variants emerge and evolve that are not printed anywhere in the rules (e.g. the “Free Parking” pot in the middle). It puts a bit more money in the game randomly; a little macro-economic boost to game play which probably improves play. Everyone I know plays that way, but I wonder how this becomes so widespread even without the rules on the box.
My two cents: I think one of the particular traits of digital (computer, video) games is that they do not leave much room for ‘house rules’, as the game as a system does not allow it. You only do what Tetris allows you to.
Still, different game modes try to capture gamers’ need for variation on rules, and ’emergent’ features – i.e. more or less ambigious definition of what can and cannot be done – aspire to the same desire, I guess.
Also, that’s partly why people build mods – so that they could change the rules. And as the game environment often is in central role in digital games, then numerous mods focus on modifying the environment and the rules that govern it.
Regarding Jesper’s problem, I myself have chosen an easy way out, I guess, by having a kind of ‘implied player’ within my ludological theories. These kinds of universal players are nice because they don’t contest the rules, most of the time ;)
What’s the free parking pot in the middle of the board in Monopoly?
A common variation on the Monopoly rules – http://www.wunderland.com/WTS/Jake/Monopoly.html describes it:
“$500 is placed in the middle of the board at the start of the game. Any time a player must pay a fine or tax the money also is put in the middle of the board. Whenever a player lands on Free Parking, he or she gets the money in the middle.”
Well, they tend towards the highly technical. Probably a good place to start would be “Rules and Processes” by John Comaroff and Simon Roberts. I think the main point to realize is that actual human behavior while playing games is not very much like interacting with a videogame where the rules and parameters are inflexible (unless you change the programming). I could go on about this, but I’d better stop. Email me and I’ll run my mouth as much as you want.
Wo ist die Verbindung gemacht zwischen dem Sinn der Worte “Spielen wir eine Partie Schack!” und allen Regeln des Spiels? – Nun, im Regelverzeichnis des Spiels, im Schachunterricht, in der t?glichen Praxis des Spielens.
“Aber wie kann mich eine Regel lehren, was ich an DIESER Stelle zu tun habe? Was immer ich tue, ist doch durch irgendeine Deutung mit der Regel zu vereinbaren.” – Nein, so sollte es nicht heissen. Sondern so: Jede Deutung h?ngt, mitsamt dem Gedeuteten, in der Luft; sie kann ihm nicht als St?tze dienen. Die Deutungen allein bestimmen die Bedeutung nicht.
I don’t think it’s easy to use Wittgenstein to discuss games – games are just a convenient metaphor for him it seems to me. Perhaps the first two paragraphs are applicable, though I am not so sure about applying his discussion of meaning and interpretation to games, but I am open for suggestions.
I agree that it causes a lot of unnecessary difficulties to use Wittgenstein-interpretations(!) to explain or clarify what games are. But I disagree that games are only used as a convenient metaphor by Wittgenstein. In my understanding he is actually talking about games of any kind – but naturally also more distant cousins in the family of related game-concepts. I do not intend to convince anyone that reading Wittgenstein is the way to gain knowledge about games. But I rather think that the antropology and sociology of games may have something to say about also the more distant relatives to croquet or cricket, i.e. cast a somewhat different light upon the rule-following debates of contemporary Wittgenstein-interpretation, that tends to spin in the void. In other words I am quite an optimist regarding the further possibilities of game research as discussed here.
Is it too obvious to suggest Bourdieu?