"Play the game you wish to see in the world"
How to Play
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bc it fun, duh!
play need not justify itself!
Societally, we've inherited a pretty bad game.
The rules are imbalanced and inconsistent, the metrics are often disconnected from player experience, and it seems like agentic fun was confused for consumptive entertainment.
What if we could instantly transform the play space that we're operating in? What if we could collaboratively iterate on the design and revise the system until it's actually enjoyable to participate in?
It may take many more generations of systemic play-tester participation to change the core mechanics effecting NPC's and new players at large, but ARG's exist on the belief that collective imagination is all we need to change our reality, right now.
This is what makes an ARG more than a pastime: a set of beliefs and guidelines that people operate in is not pretend, it's culture. Money, borders, and Mondays are also just stories we all agree to keep playing. So when a group imagines a different world and starts acting by its rules, keeping its customs, and honoring its wins and losses, that world stops being hypothetical. For its players, it is simply where they live.
You don't have to wait for the world to change. If you can identify a cultural game you don't like, then you can stop playing it. And if you can think up a better one, then you can begin playing that instead (though the more players you get to join you the more fun it usually is).
Imagine it together, agree to follow the rules, and live as if it were true. Because behaving as if it were true makes it so.
So then, what kind of game would you like to live in?