[ Note. This was submitted as a column for “Worlds of Design” on enworld.org. I’ve written more than 200 entries for that column starting in 2017. But this time things went awry, as I tried something with a “twist” halfway through.
It is, ostensibly, a review of my book “Game Design” (McFarland, 2012). The editor only read the first part and came back to say that guest authors needed to be paid, so this was not allowed. I asked if he’d read the whole thing. He came back again saying, oh, but the topic here (NOT the book) would be rejected by the readers, or start a flamewar!
My impression of enworld.org, dating from long before I started my column, is that the denizens are willing to argue at length about most anything RPG-related; in any case, flamewars are undesirable there, and the article was unusable.
I’ve tried not to give too much away. See what you think.]