Monopoly, Battleship, Chess are highly structured games where the rules reflect some fantasy/reality component. You can play them pretending to be a real estate tycoon, WWII admiral, or medieval king at war, but you don’t have to. The game doesn’t change one way or another. Even Cribbage, a game of pure mathematical abstraction, uses the metaphor of a horse race to score. It could just as easily be scored on paper like Rummy. Just as Candy Land could be played on a numbered grid and ordinary Parcheesi pawns. Would anyone play it like that? Probably not; it’s the pretend element that makes it worth playing.
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