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Against Collectors

I sometimes feel that collections can imply something shameful, and it’s especially potent in RPGs. It has something to do with wanting to horde, rather than use; to own rather than do. I can’t fully articulate the feeling, but it has something to do with one thing coming from on high as the ‘definitive’ idea, the ‘canonical’ item, idea, or procedure, which then makes everything else wrong in comparison.

I’ve decided BIND will never be a collector’s item, and I’ve made sure of it.

Anyone can print a copy. They might print a nice copy, but that’s very much their own responsibility - it’s still not particularly ‘official’. And BIND changes rapidly. It does not settle into a finished ‘product’. Even if I stopped writing it, someone else could pick it up.

And even if nobody else picks it up, it will look a little different every day. Tiny pieces of the writing in every book have little randomizing elements. It asks the day, then the month, and from these little numbers generates more numbers, and then starts making small decisions about monsters’ stats, or which paragraph to include here or there.

If I ever wanted a big list of names, but had only room for six, I put in the lot, and had BIND cycle through them at random. Too many riddles? One compile contains this riddle, the next day it contains that riddle. It’s a little different each time.

I like the idea that everyone has their own book. Its as important as you make it, and no copy will ever become ‘collectible’ or reach a status of ‘the real thing’.