Friday, May 23, 2008

I can't help myself!

Last week Lisa and I got together with Andy and Shane at It's a Grind. Amongst many other things, we briefly discussed our Sombra Console game. It'd been a while since we'd played, and each of us was eager to get back into it when time allowed.

I asked Andy and Shane if they were happy with the system. They both agreed that they thought it was doing the job. No need to re-work the thing.

Naturally, this week I've started writing up a new system for it. From scratch. Mostly.

I guess I really just can't help it. I start thinking about the things in the system that are bugging me and my pen starts scribbling. I mean, sure the system I cobbled together from bits and pieces of the ol' Shadowrun 2nd Ed game works just fine. But it could be better. Much better.

So, when do I stop hacking and leave well enough alone? I mean, players don't want to have to re-learn a system every month just because the GM is a habitual system hacker. That would suck. I suppose I'll get comfortable with a system again for long-term play someday. It'll probably be when the benefits of changning up the system fail to outweigh the aggravation. Hopefully sooner.

Or maybe, one day, I'll just get tired of writing and re-writing systems and get back to what I used to really love. Creating gobs and gobs of rich setting to immerse the players in. That would be pretty cool.