Rules are Fundamental

So, if you read the first post, you were probably wonder what "Half-Real" is.  It's not a game, it's a book.  It's a book on computer games specifically, and Mr. Juuls goes into great detail about the theory behind games, much of which I agree with.  I was introduced to this book as a required text of my Intro to Game Programming class.

His book directly ties into what I feel games are, and what irritates me frequently about some game designers and players I see.  Juuls quotes several predecessors who tried to define games.  While all of them differed as to exact definitions, one of they key things that stands out is "Rules".  Every game has rules.  Rules are what differentiates playing games, from playing with toys.
Never again do I want to hear a gamer or game designer say that the game rules are unimportant.  That is crap.  If a person feels that rules are unimportant, then that person doesn't like gaming.  Players don't have to like the rules laid out.  They don't have to know them inside and out like someone from the WotC Char Op boards, but they do have to realize that game rules exist to serve a fundamental purpose in facilitating the entertaining derived from a game.

Yes, deriving the qualitative entity known as "fun" from gaming is the true purpose, and yes rules should not get in the way of "fun".  However, even if the rules do limit the "fun" factor, that does not diminish their importance.

Aside from establishing that all games have rules, Juuls also explains how rules can affect gameplay, but he gets distracted by the term "gameplay" and ceases to talk much about rules.  So here's my stab at it:
In PvE, rules are used to limit the player such that the environment provides a challenge.
In PvP, rules are used to restrict or eliminate "unfun" behavior such that players can provide appropriate challenges for one another.  And while valorization of the winner is still included, the loser is not discouraged from further attempts.

A bit of a mouthful I suppose.  Definitely less concise than I would like, but it seems to fit the bill.  The big problem, and the problem I want to address in context of this blog is when we have PvPvE environments such as WoW or LARPs that allow for PvP.  The difficulty lies in that game designers create a diffrentiation between PvP and PvE.  Namely that in PvE, the Environment does not have "feelings of valorization", thus it's ok for the player to cut through swaths of unnamed enemies without breaking a sweat.  While in PvP were a single player capable of cutting through a swath of human opponents, there would be cries of foul play or at least commentary on skill level.

Well, that's enough philosophy for now.  The next post will start dealing with actual games and their balance issue.