Date: 04/18/21

Perfection Trap

There is a common tendency to try and find the ‘best’ way to do things. The best initiative system, the best HP system, the superior class-and-skill formulation.
Most of these appeal to people who like designing systems and games.
Many players just want to play the game - and the value of lessening the resistance to that (less to learn etc.) cannot be overstated.
Of course, you can mitigate this by ‘black-boxing’ the rules - letting the GM handle all of that. That said, some players enjoy directly manipulating the rules. I think it is a mistake to prioritise our pursuit of perfect play over the enjoyment some players can get.

Then again, the game you build will dictate the players it attracts. I think most people have a game they want to run and find players for it, rather than my process of having a very stable set of players and finding games we all want to play.

Shockingly, the answer seems to be “there is no right answer.”