so I actually would like to push back against this a little bit.
I think I'd rather a game be specific with its inspirations rather than simply listing off the greats. It's not about giving a broad overview of the genre, it's about pinpointing which snapshot of that genre (and which things outside that genre) your game specifically is taking its influences from.
If you list off inspirations that aren't actually present in your work, that will result in people having a worse understanding of what your game is intended to do.
And, tbh, if I pick up a genre ttrpg and it lists off every notable work in the genre (many of them wildly different to each other) then I'm gonna assume that the design is as unfocussed and generic as the inspo list.
For example, there's a game I put out recently (The Yellow Curtain) that's got elements of magical girl in the mix. So the inspirations page lists the specific shows I was drawing on; revolutionary girl utena and review starlight. Because those shows - with their surrealism, emphasis on performance, structure based around duels, and fun queer readings - are what I made the game about. If I listed, say, card captor sakura then - no matter how beloved ccs is as a magical girl show - i'm doing the reader a disservice, because then they might try to use the game to create a ccs like experience, and that's just not something TYC is equipped to do.
Now, I think there's a sperate issue where people are making ttrpgs about genre fiction where they think that the genre is entirely about the section of that genre thats popular with white nerds in the west. So, you get magical girl games that list sailor moon and madoka magica and nothing else, because that's the entry-level slice of the genre that a basic western nerd knows, right? And this is a problem, particularly when every magical girl ttrpg lists the same two shows and fuck all else.
It's like, if I see a cosmic horror rpg that lists lovecraft and little else as its inspiration, I assume it's some basic shit by somebody with only a surface level knowledge of the genre, mostly filtered through nerd culture. If I see one that only lists Arthur Machen's The White People as its inspiration, I assume that the author is familiar with the wider genre and has chosen this specific deep cut on purpose.
I think the big issue here is all the magical girl ttrpgs are just citing lovecraft and none of them are citing arthur machen or k e wagner. They're all only inspired by The Entry Level Stuff and not by a *specific slice* of the genre.
