Søren Kierkegaard, on the development of players characters by play, and emphasising that 'story' is something made after play:
Life can only be understood backwards... but it can only be lived forwards.
Ralph Waldo Emerson, on eschewing railroads for more sandbox-y play (with an emphasis on exploration):
Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.
Both pinched from the University of York Vice-Chancellor's speech, celebrating 50 years of my alma mater. They weren't talking about Old School gaming, and neither was the VC. Can anyone else do violence to the thoughts of long dead thinkers by recruiting them into the OSR?
On defining Oldhammer and the OSR:
ReplyDelete'The moment a little boy is concerned with which is a jay and which is a sparrow, he can no longer see the birds or hear them sing'
Eric Berne.
On fairplay and narrative gaming:
'We are more often treacherous through weakness than through calculation'
Francois De La Rochefoucauld.
On the enrichment one's games provide:
'The only Zen you can find on the tops of mountains is the Zen you bring up there'
Robert M. Pirsig.
Though don't pay too much heed because;
'Philosophy is life's dry-nurse, who can take care of us - but not suckle us'
Soren Kierkegaard.
:D