One theme that’s been slowly building for me for a few years now, in particular after I started this Collection, is the idea of consciously reclaiming the best parts of roleplaying traditions (as contrasted by “traditional roleplaying”). I think a lot of good stuff got tossed during the overheated revolutionary fervor of the whole Forge and post-forge scene. Stuff like “nobody uses all this prep (therefore improvising everything is the best solution)”.

Certainly it was necessary fervor. I’m not regretting the birth pains of the new school. But there’s a lot of good stuff to be recovered now that the new school isn’t a helpless baby in need of relentless defense.

Reading and dreaming and speculating all add to our toolbox. I think a lot of that has been lost, especially to the generation of players who started up way-deep into the current roleplaying fashion. Or it’s wrongheadedly lumped into playing games with scripted plot lines for tribal, not practical, reasons.