Rules?
Humans play games. Games, in the sense I’m referring to them, are activities with lists of actions that are acceptable and unacceptable (rules). We play two types of games, and I divide them by their manner of mediation. One is mediated by humans, aided or unaided by technology. This covers sports, tag, etc. The other category is that mediated by technology, with humans as a secondary. This could include modern fencing (as the word of a judge is inadequate when timing touches down to the hundredth of a second), but what fits better are video and computer games. Now, there are are always rules in games- Don’t go outside this area, don’t punch the ball-carrier in the mouth, and so on. In technologically mediated games, those rules can’t be broken. Even hackers and cheaters are still technically playing by those rules, they’ve just found unintended ways to interpret them. In normal games, people can break or ignore those rules, and it takes the player group at large to make sure people don’t.
Up until this point, all is well and good. But then things start to get wonky. People make up all sorts of ‘house rules’ for games, rules that run the gamut from ‘dad always plays green’ to ‘let the little kid win.’ These rules are arbitrary, and often specifically made to benefit one player at the expense of others. For example, the concept of the fighting game ‘scrub.’ He’s that guy that never learned one part of a gmae, or never got good at it, and so he always complains and calls you ‘cheap’ when you use it. Throw him while he’s blocking? “OMG, cheap!” Anti-air him out of a jump-in? “WTF, cheap shot.” In some cases, it gets so bad that whenever you hit him, for any reason, he’ll start whining and puling. Got news for you, scrubs: The things you call ‘cheap’ are in the game. They’re valid tactics, because if they weren’t, the developers wouldn’t have them in the game. Same thing goes for human-mediated games. Within the confines of the overall ruleset, ANYTHING GOES. ANYTHING. That means if I figure out a way to make you trip every time you serve in Badminton, and it doesn’t violate a pre-existing rule, I can go to town and use it as much as I want. It’s legal.
So why the heck am I writing this? Because I am sick and tired of people making up bullshit ‘fairplay’ rules in the middle of a game. If I am going around and hitting people with fake swords, in something that pretends to imitate medieval combat, I should be able to stab people. I shouldn’t have to back off when two people are having a ‘duel.’ That pure crap. Battle are won through subterfuge, trickery, and plain old dick-moves, like snakes in a general’s bed. You know all those people who fought ‘honorably,’ every time? Guess what happened to them? They died! They got shot in the back, because they had gotten so good with their own definitions of the rules that when someone else agreed to play by that set, they’d basically already lost. Tactical genius is changing the game without telling your opponent. If you play by the scrub’s rules, he’s already won.
