Thread by @ActionEconomy

"RPG theory is gatekeeping because it excludes people who don't want to or can't engage with RPG theory" is a really interesting take. And it's making me think a lot about how that impacts both the very real barriers established by academia, and the issues of anti-intellectualism

I love my RPG theory, and I do want to do deeper textual analysis. To exclude people by doing that is something I need to actively work against. And I haven't been actively working against up this point.

I think what's worrying me, though, is a lot of responses I'm seeing are "stop it" rather than "improve it". No more theory, no new terminology, no more academia, no further thought beyond the inexplicably cultural terms we have now. Of course, it's never framed like that...

I've been turning over a Dan Olson quote in another piece: "it is rare to find someone who will entirely reject the idea of approaching film broadly from a thematic or metaphorical point of view, but all too common to find people who will lightly sneer at attempts to do so[...]"

I am an enthusiastic amatuer. I was not around for the forge. Everything I know about games I learned from playing them, reading blogs, and talking to my peers in design communities. I bounce off academia HARD (eg cannot finish Schell! Can't.)

I recognise my privilege in my neurotypicality, and in my ability to buy into those design communities (literally, with the Gauntlet). I want to help remove the need for that privilege for the next people.

I recognise game theory is a high wall. It is a climb...but rather than turn our backs on it, and remove our ability to ever read and play the games on the other side, I'd rather build ladders and help people over.

I need to get better at that. A part of being an amatuer is only really understand my own perspective, and those that are explicitly shared with me. But I'm trying. I'm testing my own ladder, then whoever wants to can use it.

I know sorry isn't enough, but I am sorry for those for whom I've made that wall higher. I know doing better is the goal. And I will. I'm working on it. Let me try a few ladders.