Discussion for Dig Deep, Dig Greedily

There are two major categories of role-playing games: improvisational and mechanical (or should I say two types of social games?) A mechanical game presents a challenge to the players who must engage closely with the game's mechanics to overcome, while an improvisational game presents no direct challenge. The challenge, the engagement, the struggle, of an improvisational game is for the players to create "something" that meshes well with the other players. Immersion in the world created by the whole group is the ultimate goal of improv games, while the ultimate goal of a mechanical game is defined by the game's mechanics.

Of course role-playing games need an element of both, and really every social game includes elements of both. A purely mechanical game like parcheesi or bridge must be voluntarily chosen by the playing group, and that choice is a slight improvisation. A pure session of comedy improv has the slight mechanics of prompts and the goal of "comedy." Dig Deep, Dig Greedily is an attempt to skew a tabletop game as far as possible towards improvisation, while avoiding some pitfalls.