The Futility of Catagorization of Elements

I have a clear memory back in middle school, in line to get lunch and pondering what my Homestuck classpect was after my then friend confidently said he was a Mage of Mind (I might be missremembering). I had a problem choosing becouse classpects prescribe narrative roles and living people are not stories, therefor by picking one I was choosing what story I was saying about myself. I don't think I ever settled conclusively settled the question, but did hover somewhere around Space of Void.

A different unrelated memory is that one time I was sitting around a campfire and infodumping about Magic the Gathering Colors to my Mom during which she cautioned me not to build my worldview around it, I don't now remember if I was old enough for this to be something to cringe at. I guess if I really felt like it, I could cringe at how during the covid years, when my sister would talk about impulsively cutting her hair, I responded with "Moth moment" then started explaining Cultist Simulator to her.

There is something nice in these sets of elements, each with thier own symbol, colors, meanings, and assigned damage type. One might feel like the know something about a family friend who really likes hiking by claiming they have strong Heart, or assigning more meaning to a thunder rumbling in the distance while the clouds are still preparing to rain, so the air is still dry and warm. However hiking is tiring and satisifying without any symbols and thunder is awe inspiring without imagining gods of ceaseless motion.

Like my Mom tactifully reminded me years ago, it's important to remember that these are sets of elements chosen for gameplay. MTG Colors are for grouping card mechanics first and representing worldviews second, Cultist Simulator Aspects are designed for engaging with imagined occult knowledge via the manipulation of resource tokens, and Homestuck is a story set in a world that functions by video game logic. Each of these systems is a model that seems to describe reality but is colored not only by the perspective of each author but by the creative project they designed it for.

You may wonder what point I'm meandering towards with all of this and how it's relevent to RPGs, and I don't know either. I don't know if I have anything intresting to say about catagorization that more articulate authors have not already said, just memories and impressions that have come to me. I certainly don't have much to say in the constraints of speedrun mode. The whole exercise feels somewhat futile.

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