Abstract
We examine how rules and mechanics act as attractors, or stabilizing end points within the multitude of trajectories in a possibility space, within games that form dispositions through the habits of material gameplay, which players can either resist or accept through a process of phronesis and metis. We videotaped a playthrough of the card game Illuminati and interviewed four players before and after the game. We discovered that the rule of allowing cheating and a player role with an unbalanced mechanic acted as material attractors (DeLanda, 2013; 2016) for gameplay dispositions. However, through a process of metis and phronesis, players resisted the dispositions of cheat and spoilsport and materially played the game so that they embodied the Aristotelian virtue of friendliness instead.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 102724 |
Journal | Computers and Composition |
Volume | 65 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Sep 2022 |
Keywords
- Attractors
- Dispositions
- Ethos
- Hexis
- Metis
- Phronesis
- Virtue ethics