The First Step Is Admitting You Have a Problem

 I have a problem. It is a sort of addiction. I'm addicted to knew game mechanics. It is a terrible cycle, that I find myself going through again, and again, and again.

It starts off when I hear about Awesome New Game, and what it does super amazingly well. I then look into that game, get a pdf, and give it a scan. I specifically look for what it does well. Then I read the character generation. If I really like the rules, I may start noodling around with the mechanics in my head. How could I streamline the roll? How can I add variance to the outcome. How can I add some gamble to the mechanics for players? 

Then I start to rewrite the rules. I work on Target Numbers, edge cases, advancements, and character creation. I work on it to get a new derivative system. That is, I work on it until I hear about Another Cool Game, and it does something else super amazingly well. And the process starts again, ending the last system I worked on prematurely. 

This is what is happening to me now. Last night I hit the writing phase with Tech Noir RPG. Hex Noir (a version of the game with magic) will really open up the possibilities, and there are a lot of pieces to the game that I like. If I was to totally rewrite it, I would make the players roll all tests, both actions and reactions. The GM rolls Hurt Dice, and the TN would be 3 for easy tasks, 4 for average, 5 for hard, and 6 for very hard boss fight types of scenes.

That is as far as I've gotten into the writing. But I need to put it behind me so I can get back to punching up Dwindle.