Work Usefully

I suppose I want to throw out one simple point regarding design, and the efforts of designing, along with the results of design.

Perhaps the reason why I have so much work under my belt to show on this blog is because I am not spending a lot of time redesigning things in the hope that it will provide benefit to my players.  Instead I am working on projects that definitely provide benefit ... and having defined the project, I just go ahead and do it, day by day, step by step, testing it as I go, adjusting, until I have something that both the players and I can agree on.  A lot of maps.  A trade system.  A character generation system.  Sage abilities.  Rewriting the spells.  A combat system.  A bard.  An experience distribution system.  Etc.

Perhaps I have that not because I work harder than any of the readers on this blog, but because I am not rewriting rules, but augmenting them.  And perhaps it is because when something works, I leave it alone.

I did change the combat system.  I changed it to account for movement, the one thing that 1e completely ignored.  I stole my movement system pretty much from 3e.  But all the other things about 1e worked, so I still use them.

Try it.  See what happens.