Posted June 08, 2023 by Levi Kornelsen
Way back in the days when dressing an opinion about games up nicely and calling it a theory actually lent it some cachet, a distinction got forwarded into discourse, saying, some play is coherent (focused, creative-agenda-oriented, clear), while some is incoherent (not those things), and that game designs are contributory to that, being coherent or incoherent as well.
(This may not have all been intended at the source, which is why I'm not pointing there, despite having been present. I don't remotely give a shit what was intended. It IS the impression given, and what what went around the old Disc Horse, for years to come, like it or not.)
Many gamers that didn't subscribe to the theory of the day found "your play is incoherent" pretty insulting, including myself.
It's still mildly insulting, but it's become one of my favorite insults, like the Will Graham of Hannibal's "I needed to be shown a negative so I could see the positive"; my rejection of it has layers, in which many things reside.
On the first layer, the plain arrogance of that dismissal is a Thing To Behold. I've always enjoyed trollish iconoclastic posturing bullshit, and have indulged in a fair bit of my own, and that one's a masterpiece. 10/10, fuck right off into the sun, no notes.
On the second layer, hang on a minute. All of the play I've had that was truly, intensely focused on The Specific Bullshit Of The Group, on our agenda, came out of a loose system and a bag of bits, and involved system tweaking to fit the group. Really, truly tightly focused games are often focused on The Specific Bullshit Of The Designer; the group agenda playing them is primarily participatory. Sometimes it clicks across the board, and the Design Bullshit becomes Group Bullshit almost perfectly, but that's not remotely guaranteed even in the "best built" games of that sort.
On the third layer, the above does mean that my immediate reaction to a heavily focused game is to absorb it like a toddler with a smash cake, or Tyler Durden with something beautiful. Just dig in and take it apart, splash it on the walls. Your beautiful and elegant device is lovely, and I will absolutely bastardize it with anything that amuses, because I want to break it's power and seize it for my group and myself. And the insult provided me with the key to know why I want to do that; it was revelatory in its wrongness. It's because I refuse to give an external agenda primacy.
So here's the Incoherent manifesto, as my experience would have it:
The bits-box, scrap pile, incoherent heap of rules, curated at need, is where play fully tailored to the needs and agenda of the group, in the moment it happens, actually comes from.
The finely tuned, "this exact procedure of play" game is the one where someone else's agenda dominates, and it's good to break that power.
Take your games apart; in the ruin of elegant design, you can be free.