A roleplaying game is a medium. Like oil colour, poetry, sculpture or prose. What is interesting is the results. Focusing on the method is at best an interesting side note and then only to a few.
Look at painting and wonder what brand the painter used, what size brush, which hand they held it in. What pen did the writer use? How many breaks did the sculptor take? Feel the tiredness wash over you, feel it fill up any space interesting thought could take
Theatre feels like a good comparison but it isnt. The rpg is the script, and no one cares how you make the script. The performance is the table and that's out of our hands
The performance is different
Confusion happens between them. A roleplaying game is not the table. I'm not interested in the table, you can have it.
Don't belabour the comparison, it's not perfect.
A game book is manipulative, it is psychology, it is magic. It can be a text book but then its a perfunctory item. A text book is the sum of its parts
the table is in conversation with the source text. the book should have the decency of being a generous partner.
The game book is one of two heads
The book is never neutral and can stand up to interrogation. It never just is. It is a statement. These are all obvious points and i forget them
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