I’ve been working on this series of articles for a few months on Game and I wanted to start with a seemingly simple question to all of you, what is game to you?
I’m looking for anything you find useful; quotes, thoughts, or experiences.
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We're always open to criticsm, corrections, news, writers, praise, and hot hot tips.
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12 Comments
Game, in an improv context, is a pattern. Usually it’s a pattern within a relationship like “Dad keeps trying to make son feel confident about his weight but keeps screwing it up” but it could really be any pattern that’s fun to keep hitting.
Anthony King said in one of his 401 classes that game isn’t the first unusual thing, but how you respond to the first unusual thing. That stuck with me…
I think that people get stuck on what the first unusual thing is or what it means for something to be unusual. Is it unusual for a guy to be nervous about asking a girl out? No, so very likely a series of tag-outs placing that guy in other situations where he’s nervous would not be a smart game move. Details are not, in and of themselves, unusual. It’s not unusual for a guy to be good at D&D or for a girl to be named Cassandra, but sometimes anxious players jump on those things an suddenly you try to find other ways to play a pattern that wasn’t there to begin with. Those things can contribute to game, but they are layers upon which larger games should be placed.
I think game is like the Supreme Court definition of pornography. There’s no one clear definition, but you know it when you see it.
I hate to think that the Supreme Court’s view of pornography influences the definition of game. ;)
Knowing when you see it is one of the problems I used to have in defining game, there is a shorthand with improvisers when talking about game. What I’m trying to do in the upcoming articles is to attempt to define game in simple and understandable terms that anyone, including non-improvisers, can understand. I’m not sure if it’s possible, but I’m going to give it my best shot, because I honestly feel that game is the most misunderstood and important part of improvisation.
Let’s hope there’s no pubic hair on the lip of the can when I get there.
I was going to quote the Anthony King “game is the response to the first unusual thing” comment (which I actually heard from Pally, quoting King), but someone has beat me to it.
The other day in class Anthony said something continuing along those lines, which, in paraphrase, was: “You can’t really initiate with a game. You can initiate with a strong move, but that’s not a game any more than a Monopoly board & pieces are a ‘game.’ It’s not a game until two people are interacting with it.”
How I think of game is this: If someone were telling you about the scene, as if it had happened to them (”so, the other day I was at the bank, and I asked do you have any rolls of quarters, and the teller said…”), what would you make fun of? What is there in that scene that is unusual enough to make you stop, and make a snarky comment about? It’s a bit more than unusual: unusual things just make us arch our eyebrows. Game moves make us want to actively mock that person or persons (”you are REALLY bad at making your son feel better about his weight, you know that?”).
The problem with a pithy definition of game is that it must encompass so many different types of scenes. It’s more than just a pattern of behavior, and it’s not always dependent on the reason for that behavior, although each can be important depending on the scene. It could be the first unusual thing, but sometimes the first unusual thing isn’t actually the game, it’s just something odd. It may be a mapping game, where usual behavior for one contexts placed in differing context.
Game is, ultimately, the bigger joke. And so, like all comedy, it’s a little ambiguous. We laugh because something is unexpected, because our brain has set up two points, made a line, and then a third point doesn’t fit that line, and breaks it. We can’t reconcile the paradox, so we laugh. Those two predetermined points could be anything, but it’s generally an expected behavior.
So, to back up, unexpected behavior, with a reason, generally makes a good game. Not always, and not only, but generally. Think of the “black knights” scene in Monty Python. If it’s just a knight getting chopped up, it’s not funny. If it’s just a knight, getting chopped up, and bleeding everywhere, it’s not funny. If it’s just a knight, getting chopped up, bleeding everywhere, and not giving up, it’s still not funny. BUT, if it’s a knight: chopped, bled, unrelenting, and convinced he is winning because “the black knights always triumph?” That’s fucking game. An unexpected conclusion from the premise.
Christ, my response is longer than anything you’ve posted on improvoker for months. I’m pathetic.
Wow Curtis! That’s one hell of a response. The truth of the matter is, that this answer to what is game is most likely going be larger than one pithy statement. I completely understand that game is a complex animal, but the reason I ask is because I intend to try and break down the concept of game into easy to chew statements. I am also going to be splitting this article into pieces to define where do you find game, what is game, how do you play game, types of games, secondary games, and even get into concepts like resting the game.
We’ll see how it goes. Thanks for everybody’s input. It’s much appreciated.
I certainly claim no authority on this matter, but I have heard a number of interesting theories/tips/quips regarding game and thought I might add to the discussion.
Delaney always says that He then says that it is rare that the unusual thing is the game itself (though occasionally it is), but that it simply clues you in to what the game of the scene is or could be. I used to think that that was a little too cryptic for my taste, but I’ve sort of come around to embrace that idea. When an unusual thing happens our ears prick up and we acknowledge that something is awry. We then take this token instance, this particular unusual thing, and generalize the case. A mother who bought her child an iPod but didn’t provide adequate clothing is a particular, unusual thing. The generalization of that might be that the mother buys unnecessary, popular things for her child befure she buys necessary things. Another generalization might be that the mother desperately wants her child to be able to listen to music. Then we take this function that we’ve created and have it spit out other particular unusual things that satisfy it. So, in my view, game is basically a three step process: 1) choosing an unusual particular, 2) creating a general, universalized formula and 3) letting that formula generate more particulars.
Thanks Ben for starting an awesome thread. I wish there were more outlets like this for improv theory discussions.
It’s the funny part.
If we could “break down the concept of game into easy to chew statements” we could make Harold performing robots who would perform perfect shows every time, and we know that’s impossible because it is a ridiculous idea.
That’s part 13: How to build an improv robot out of 5 pipe cleaners, a pair of pantyhose, and a cheesesteak.
What the articles will intend to do is disseminate information about game. If we can only get a better understanding of game, I will still feel like it’s an accomplishment.
Although your comment reminds me of a Billy Merritt quote “You want to enter a scene like a Pirate (strongly), process like a robot (make game moves), and edit like a ninja (unnoticed).”
To me “The first unusual thing” encompasses so much that it does define game for me. Now in context to that phrase we have to have a world/universe where everything we set up at the beginning is the norm. Even if that world contains a monster of Magma, that isn’t the unusual thing. Strangely, that is the normal part of this particular world. The unusual part now becomes something that breaks the pattern of normalcy in this particular world. Is the Magma man viewed at as an outcast? Do people mistreat him as if he has a disorder? Does he wear loads of make-up to try to fit in? Does he internet date?
I believe how we react to that unusual thing is going to give us the “rules” for the game and in a sense define it, which will grow into what gives us a pattern. (Pattern of rules) If we never react to the unusual thing, that leaves us with just a pattern of jokes that we generally run through in a minute and a half.
the funny thing you want to see again
back in 201 Seth Morris always used to ask “ok, now what was specific or unusual about that scene”– which was his way of getting us to the funnyness.