Thread by @rdonoghue

I am reminded that there is nothing you can say is good on Twitter that someone does not take as an attack on everything else.

I don't say this with any anger, it's something I should remember, but let's take it and run with it a bit in terms of theft and RPG design.

I am of the opinion that if you want to do a thing, especially if you want to make a thing, it is good to be exposed to the thing. It's not necessary - lots of things are not strictly necessary - but it has a lot of upsides. So I encourage it.

And, to reveal my own emotional stance, if you are adamantly opposed to doing so, I am going to give you the side-eye, because I am very skeptical of anyone who has nothing to learn.

This may be unfair, and I'm sorry if so, but I don't have a working alternative.

So, given that premise, I don't put many more limits on things. *where* you get ideas from and how you get them is a matter of taste and logistics. Read books? Talk to people? Deconstruct things into parts? Watching things get made? Doing the thing? Great. Do what works.

None of these approaches are in exclusion to the others, and none are one size fits all.

As an example, let's look at books.

Books have a lot of upsides. They're portable, we know how to use them, and they can be consumed according to our schedule.

So, for a lot of people, books have a big upside.

Not everyone. There may be access issues, cost issues, usability issues, comprehension issues, or any number of other things gettin in the way of their utility.

If so, "Read some books" might be bad advice for some. But that's just on branch of the tree of "learn stuff".

And, again, it is not advice which excludes or negates other approaches.

To some, I am talking through something fairly obvious at great length, and I apologize for that, but the heart of it is this - I have seen evidence of people interpreting the message "Learn from other games to make games" as exclusionary, elitist, gatekeeping or the like.

I disagree, of course, but I also don't want to knee-jerk dismiss it, because clearly the emotion is coming form somewhere.

So, to be clear, I'll add a qualifier: I feel games involve other people, and while it is possible to do the entire exercise of game design in complete isolation, I view that as an anti-pattern from a design perspective.

It is probably fine from a personal expression or art perspective. If game design is your personal creation and it doesn't matter how it interacts with the world, I'll concede right now that almost all advice is going to be a mismatch, and I apologize for the miscommunication.

But assuming you are following a more world-facing path, I'll stick with the idea that there are things to learn.

So, given that, have I come to a dismissal?

I haven't. Because there's another mismatch of perception.

There is a difference between encouraging people to learn from their community and establishing a canon which must be respected to earn a place. The one is healthy and supportive, the other is a dog's breakfast of crap.

And I suspect, but do not know, that when someone hears "Learn from games!" As a dictate, they are probably hearing something more akin to "Learn the right games and perform the right rituals, or we shan't accept you"

And I cannot dismiss them as irrational for the simple reason that frequently, that is EXACTLY what the community is saying, and has been saying for years, with the only differences being WHICH games make up the accepted canon.

This is shit, and it's something we all need to combat, but I argue that the way to combat it is not to go "oh, nevermind, there is nothing for you to learn."

This is not what people literally say of course, but it reveals a really key question.

For almost any creative endeavor, it is possible to just *do* it. I can very freely put words on paper, or marks on a canvas, or "hello world" into a computer, or some rules on a page.

That's pretty cool, honestly. The number of doors that are open for you to just do a thing is amazing and inspiring.

But we don't just *stop* there. Bodies of work and knowledge spring up over time because people are awesome that way.

As a novice, it is easy to feel that existing knowledge is *intrinsically* holding you back and keeping you down, and most critically that it is failing to respect you.

And the great news is, you *can* ignore it. You can 100% start doing improv jazz when you know one note.

But the fact that other people are engaging it is not an attack on you, and your sense that it's a barrier is not automatically true.

It might be. As noted, sometimes the culture is shit and needs to be blown up. But the *idea* of existing knowledge is not the enemy.

Anyway, I mention all this because I will continue to encourage people to steal (and credit) ideas in game design liberally, and I genuinely do not want that to feel like an attempt to exclude anyone.

You're still a real designer if you ignore me, and I'm fine with that.

Heck, It is also a little selfish of me to encourage theft, because then we have something to talk about, and I like that.

BUT!

If I'm off base, and you have an idea for how to design great games that doesn't require learning them or playing them or deconstructing them or talking about them, I WANT TO KNOW ABOUT IT!

Dead serious. That would be some 5th element discovery kind of stuff.

But more practically, I want to add something about "canon" RPGs and recommendations.

If it's not clear, I think the idea of a universal canon is super toxic to our community. It encourages the worst sort of gatekeeping, and it needs to die in a fire.

Beyond, that, I think almost every universal canon (implicit or explicit) is also bad for game design because the canon cannot keep up. We are in a golden age of growth and expansion, and almost every attempt at canon is just a snapshot of the past.

It's funny to namedrop old designers, and we still have genuine passion for old games. What's more, the progress of games is not linear - plenty of old games have more to teach than new ones. But there are so many MORE new ones that the math skews towards the present.

All of which is to say, the idea of universal or accepted canon is not only bullshit, it leads to shitty design.

BUT

Everyone has a personal canon, and that's a horse of a different color.

No one has read all the games, but we all carry the games that impacted us around with is, and that's a good thing.

When we talk with someone about design, if we recommend games and ideas from that *personal* canon, then we are sharing something valuable with them, because that canon is part of ourself.

And that's the third reason universal canon is harmful - if you let it overwrite *your* canon, and it leads to you suggesting games you don't give a crap about but you "know are good", you are sacrificing that personal connection for...nothing.

This is a bit scary.

Universal canon gives armor to your opinions. It is easier to say someone should go read Glorantha because it's a Great Work than it is to tell them to go read RIFTS, even if you love RIFTS and think is perfect, because it is not Accepted Canon.

I have no easy solution to that one. If I did, I'd be busy applying it to a great many other evils of society.

But I call it out to make it clear that I do not think people are bad, thoughtless or unkind in searching for or subscribing to a universal canon.

I encourage people to realize the harm that the idea can do, to themselves and others, but I also encourage them to be kind to themselves in doing so.