Lumpley, again

Roleplaying Theory, Hardcore:

Seriously. How many times have you created a character who was far cooler in your head than he or she turned out to be in play? How many times have you prepped a campaign only to find that, in play, it didn’t go as well as you’d hoped? Have you ever thought that, y’know, reading game books and imagining play and preparing for a game is almost as much fun as actually playing? Or even more fun than actually playing?
The hobby doesn’t value or teach collaboration. It values and teaches competing sole-authorship. Pre-game invention sells books but robs players of their ability to contribute; pre-game meaning is thrilling to imagine but dull to actually play. This arrangement we’ve got going is frickin’ broken.
The solution is to design games that’re inspiring, but daydreaming about how much fun the game will be to play seems pointless and lame, and you can’t create extensive histories or backstories because that stuff’s collaborative –
– so you call a friend.