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Worldbuilding

Worldbuilding

Worldbuilding is about making places and people! Whether you worldbuild to write, for an RPG, or just for fun, welcome!

3471 members
Posted byFinnegan_Is_Awakein/worldbuilding-Dec 22, 2016 at 12:47 PM

Designing fictional non-competitive games

Designing fictional non-competitive games

I'm creating a story set in a peaceful society. The society is actually very strict about being peaceful, to the point where they don't even play games involving competition. But at the same time, ...

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Comments2
  • elemtilasJan 25 at 10:34 PM

    A number of possibilities come to mind. Following from the example in Always Coming Home, perhaps individuals could engage in various sports only to compete against themselves. In other words, twenty folks run a foot race and twenty folks finish the race, no matter who crosses the line first or last. What matters is that you strive against your personal best, not someone else's.

    Team sports could involve all the players being on the same side. The goal to strive for is for all the participants to be fully engaged. So, if it's a football like game, all twenty players are on the same team, and they all have to be engaged in ball play before a goal can be scored. Sort of like a twenty man hat-trick. The score at the end of the game is always twenty, because each player rotates through being the goal scorer. This would be a game of skill, not just in ball handling, but in the complexities of learning and executing the complicated manoeuvers required to get all twenty to the ball in one play.

    As far as parlour games go, obviously, parallel play comes to mind. If there are four dart boards on the wall, then four people may play, and each one plays his own game. Skill is still involved, but not competition between players.

    Table games can also be non-competitive. Obviously, solitaire and story-telling games are naturals for packs of cards. Games like snakes and ladders and pachisi would simply involve all the players moving their pieces around an endless circle. No one "wins", but there's still plenty of room for entertaining set-back and advance.

    I could see games using colored & patterned tiles where the goal is to collectively create quilt patterns. Jigsaw puzzles might also be popular, because all the players are on one side and the goal is cooperation, not competition.

  • printfogeyDec 27, 2016 at 7:55 AM

    This might already have been suggested in the original thread, but I remember the peaceful culture in Ursula K. Le Guin's Always Coming Home having young people who took part in athletics games - where the goal they all strived for was for everyone to place at the same level. This was considered quite tough to do and took a lot of training in order to carry out right, IIRC.

Worldbuilding

Worldbuilding

Worldbuilding is about making places and people! Whether you worldbuild to write, for an RPG, or just for fun, welcome!

3471 members
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