i started out my tarot journey with some simple stuff
1-card readings
simple 3-card reading (past, present, future)

then a more complex 10-card reading borrowed from a friend, "T", this was a celtic cross with some other weird shit going on to the right in a staff shape that she got from a book, which i also used.

then i did some research on other sets of questions but didn't really use any except another 3-card simple one: "situation", "obstacle", "advice".

but i am enjoying coming up with my own recipes very very much.

today (1AM) i did a couple quick readings for myself about two relationships that i have in my life that ive been confused about. one that is more active and alive than i want it to be, a friendship. another that was active and has withered somewhat. i came up with a bunch of questions on the fly and privately noted... what i took them to mean. i think maybe if i do this enough i will have a better understanding of what questions work and why, as well as meanings of cards, but im not going to share exhaustive notes here.

the questions i asked (5) for the relationship that i am questioning continuing:
what brought us together? what keeps us together? what am i losing? what am i gaining? "future".

for the relationship that is older and has a bit more history i added two questions, and these were the (7) questions:
what brought us together, what kept us together, what broke us apart, what keeps us apart? what am i losing? what am i gaining? "future".

i learned how to do tarot by doing daily readings for myself...  i borrowed Secret Tarot by Lo Scarabeo from a friend of mine and drew one card every day, and made my tarot cards at the same time. i think maybe i didn't look at the cards i was drawing too closely  because i was busy making my own cards? anyway this was a great way to figure out the cards as a beginner, one at a time.

i was also doing big 10-card readings for various reasons, looking up cards as i needed to, but the daily readings really built up mental relationships to the individual cards! irecommend it!

I was reading 'Emergent Narrative and Reparative Play' again and this quote stuck out to me.

Quote from: p4Consider narrative discovery games, which position the player as investigator ferreting out a narrative truth, "carrying out in reverse the work of falsification" perpetrated by the game object and its designers, using an interactive toolkit supplied by those same perpetrators. . . . All the narrative energy is tied up in answering these questions; all the ergodic friction comes from grinding against the systems that makes answering them a challenge.

In particular, putting the player in the position of carrying out in reverse the work . . . perpetrated by the game object and its designers, using an interactive toolkit supplied by those same perpetrators is so much the gameplay at which I'd like to point the finger (and kill).

One interpetation of 'kill gameplay' that I get often is that it's a call for more narrative in games, but this paper's perspective on narrative mirrors my own in some cases, enough to make clear that it is definitely not a call, at least not an unexamined call, for more narrative in games. Narrative -- in games or otherwise -- can also contain some of that poison, whatever it is.

Is it gameplay to kill gameplay?
Do we need to be strategic about killing gameplay?
Do we need to shoot gameplay to kill it?
Do we need to stealth behind gameplay and knock it unconscious?
Do we need to send our most powerful designers against it?
How long does it take to kill gameplay?
Does gameplay fight back?
Is some gameplay harder to kill?
Does gameplay respawn?
Do we need to kill gameplay forever?
Can we take a break from killing gameplay?
Can we pause killing gameplay?
Can we quit killing gameplay?
How many times have we killed gameplay?
How much gameplay have we killed?
Why do we kill gameplay?
Is there a reward for killing gameplay?
Have we rescued something in our lives from the clutches of gameplay?
Is it pleasurable to kill gameplay?
Do we have a choice to kill gameplay or not?
Is it meaningful to choose to kill gameplay?
Is it gameplay to kill gameplay?

ah gimmick is such a good touchstone!
i went back to play ooo and i felt such a lack of play as compared to your description - every screen (in ooo, not in gimmick) has a very clear cut solution, one thing that you're meant to be doing, but in gimmick the screens (as i remember them) feel much more chaotic, like there are multiple ways to enjoy a room... but maybe im on the wrong track, i think youve said other things that are (probably?) more important:

"they let the human take a backseat to the thing the human discovered"
this is really big, i have been trying to put my finger on this for a while... ive talked with people about how they do make games in this way, they discover something, and it is definitely still a human act to show another person something that you discovered and that you like! but it also feels categorically different in a way i cant put my finger on. or i havent been able to put my finger on. maybe this is a useful thing to hold on to.

"the gameplay a person chooses to include in their game reveals stuff about them"
and then a systematic approach to choosing means that we no longer get to see the human's choices as much or as clearly, instead we see what the system chose -- which the human did decide to serve  but ive complained about proc gen enough already elsewhere

i haven't played this but reading your description makes me feel like i've already played it.... maybe i'm being unfair and i should try it

i can't speak about the real game, but the version of the game i'm imagining in my head is kind of like taking a class about a game mechanic, the instructor lectures at you for a bit (tutorial) then has you do assignments that test your knowledge and reveal additional subtleties you might not have caught onto during the lecture. it's not a bad format but you have to feel motivated to study the game mechanic or you'll probably be bored

there are lots of gameplay-forward games i like that don't feel like this. a random example is "gimmick!" for the famicom. each level is a series of hard platforming challenges, and there's a complex mechanic where you can throw stars and ride on them, but they aren't intertwined in a sort of straightforward, instructional way. learning the deep nuances of the star mechanic is only required to reach the "true ending" and you have to learn it on your own in an unguided manner. the challenges don't feel like they are meant to impart knowledge about the systems, they mostly just present you with various weird guys or obstacles in a world and let you jump around and throw stars at them. there are clever mechanics puzzles in the game, but being surprised by a clever mechanics puzzle is not the focus, it's just a small part of a rich and beautiful world. the high difficulty puts a lot of people off from the game but people tend to recognize that it's amazing even if it's too hard for them. you aren't just playing for the fun platform action or to learn the mechanics and stages but to feel the human soul underpinning the work.

it's not that games like my imaginary version of ooo don't have a human soul underpnning the work but i think they let the human take a backseat to the thing the human discovered, the mechanic with interesting consequences and puzzle opportunities.

the gameplay a person chooses to include in their game reveals stuff about them.... maybe that's why i don't usually care for the approach of like, systematically exploring every consequence of a mechanic, because it flattens out the sense of personality. the person's fixations and idiosyncrasies are less apparent when the goal is to cover every angle on the thing

i don't know if "predictable" vs. "unpredictable" gameplay is what matters to me, i want a clashing of souls....

i do have some! i will privately msg you for details. <3

every deck came with a little secret written in the box, you can share your secret here if desired? or you can keep it to yourself!
love, droqen