thread: 2005-06-16 : Craft and Innovation
On 2005-06-19, Meguey wrote:
Even if there was a body of master-desingers from which to learn, thus resulting in 'the John Jones style of game design' and 'the Sue Smith school of role-playing' etc, we'd all have to keep actually playing RPGs, critically and consistantly. And there would still be huge new areas of innovation as yet undreamed. And it might be a self-taught designer who gets to that new innovation first. (This is not a reason to avoid learning from each other and from studying the games you respect, of course.)When I watch my kids game/play pretend, it is clear to me that it is informed by reading/hearing a ton of stories from all over, playing lots of games of various kinds from tag to board games, and determining what rules and systems (see Vincent's threads on same) they want to use. If, as an RPG player or designer, we approach ALL PLAY as part of the research, it seems to me the result will be a more synergistic understanding of the endevor. What do I love about playing Frizbee? How can I get that into my gaming? What do I love about playing Uno? How can I get that into my gaming? What about Risk? Clue? SimCity3000?
