The secret we should never let the gamemasters know is that they don't need any rules.

Pencil. Paper. Dice. Imagination. A traditional role-playing game requires all of these, and traditional role-playing is my hobby. I don't care if you have an app for that, if you show up to my games without any of the first three, they will be provided for you and you will use them. If you don't have the fourth, well, shit, wrong hobby for you!

You play Conan, I play Gandalf. We team up to fight Dracula.

Make it fast, make it colorful, and make it full of decisions for the players.

It only surprised me up until around 1977, ... I had thought we were going to have a considerable audience of gamers and science fiction and fantasy fans. I thought easily with those we'd have 50,000 or more [buyers], but when people began to write me [with questions] about what fantasy books to read, and I saw the wide range of both younger and older people who were attracted to the game, I understood that it was reaching a deeper chord, something deep within us.

It may be that all games are silly. But then, so are humans.