…totus mundus agit histrionem
- Petronius
Sometimes it takes a while for me to catch on, and so it was with Hamlet: a One Letter RPG by W.H. Arthur. Regular readers may recall my interview with Arthur back in 2021, but if not please follow the link or have a glance over his itch.io page: he has built up an excellent catalogue of games and material during the two years that have passed since he kindly agreed to be interviewed.
https://aryl-ether.itch.io/hamlet
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| Screenshot: a business card RPG, Hamlet |
If you can see the image (or can read the ALT-text) you will already have got the joke: the single letter comprising the whole one-letter game of Hamlet is “B”... as in “to be”... as in the opposite of “not to be”...
But there’s more to this which sailed right over my head the first time.
What do we expect from a game’s text?
Guidance for how to play the game.
Of course, this is telling you to be, and in the context of Hamlet this is pretty funny (as well as providing an answer to the question).
But isn't this the rule for all roleplaying?
Be...
....and aren't we always playing this same game? And aren't we going to caught up in observations made by other Shakespeare characters?
An alternative is that we're always playing a game...and this was something I alluded to in a twitter shitpost I made a while back:
But there’s more to this which sailed right over my head the first time.
What do we expect from a game’s text?
Guidance for how to play the game.
Of course, this is telling you to be, and in the context of Hamlet this is pretty funny (as well as providing an answer to the question).
But isn't this the rule for all roleplaying?
Be...
....and aren't we always playing this same game? And aren't we going to caught up in observations made by other Shakespeare characters?
An alternative is that we're always playing a game...and this was something I alluded to in a twitter shitpost I made a while back:
I don't hear enough talk about the game (which you just lost, in case that wasn't clear) among other game designers, possibly because they are trying not to think about it. There's always the chance they didn't realise they were playing it...
Edit: Further Reading
After posting, Arthur drew my attention to an article he wrote about minimalist RPGs, including some of the design decisions that went into Hamlet. It's here!
https://www.geeknative.com/150315/on-game-jam-culture-and-minimalist-rpgs/
https://www.geeknative.com/150315/on-game-jam-culture-and-minimalist-rpgs/
Links
Hamlet, the one-letter RPG
The Business Card game jam:
The Game, according to wikipedia...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(mind_game)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Game_(mind_game)
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