Jason Corley ran an awesome panel with Indie+ (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CVrP7NgSjc), featuring Meg Baker, Ara Kooser, and an appearing-in-the-wild Vincent Baker. It has lots of great thoughts and comments in it, and we're trying to put it in front of more eyes because the panel deserves the attention.

The panel has lots of good stuff, but coming out of it, we want to know what designers could do to take advantage of the folk art elements of RPGs. For example, there's a notion that comes up in the panel about the difference between kits and the ability to produce works of folk art through sort of a "follow-the-instructions" kit, and the notion of attempting to dive in and produce the work through your own creativity, abilities, constraints, and thoughts, building upon and essentially customizing the initial kit. Is there a way to design an RPG to better facilitate either or both means of approaching the game? Is it better to angle in one direction than another, knowing that RPG-folk-artists are much more likely to customize their game already, and therefore you don't have to design in that direction?

Apocalypse World is a fascinating game in this regard because it includes a section all about hacking, designing new moves, making new games that aren't Apocalypse World. The game is designed with pieces that, once you understand the basics of how they work, are highly modular and easily played with (and there's no greater evidence for this than the vast volume of different Apocalypse World hacks out there). What else could a designer do to foster and encourage the sort of interaction with the game that is indicative of a folk art style act of creativity and customization?