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.