Rules-Signs and Fiction-Signs
To get at what and how game bits represent, it is useful to separate how they operate in the game’s fiction from how they operate in the game’s rules (a distinction inspired by Jesper Juul’s model of games as half-real). A good example is a standard rook from any given Chess set.
If we consider the rook as a fiction-sign, the signifier is the rook itself and the signified is a castle, or a tower. This sign primarily operates in the iconic mode - it resembles a tower. But if we consider the rook as a rules-sign its primary modality switches to the symbolic. The signifier is still the rook itself, but the signified is the set of rules governing how the rook operates in-game. Because there is no connection between the form of the rook and how it works - towers are not typically more mobile than a horse - the rules-sign is symbolic.
