...*everyone in the room* "Hello, Malckuss..."
Yes, I have an addiction - writing games. Sometimes I start another one before I'm finished. In fact, I have nearly five in the fire right now. One has been eating away at my brain and free time since 2004. Another person with the disease warned me a few years ago. I should have listened to him.
I'm new to 1KM1KT, so I don't know if mainstream gaming is as disdained as it is on The Forge. I'll take a gamble though.
My most recent project - urge, would be more accurate - came when WotC announced the coming new edition of D&D. I had played 4th ed until the advent of thee Essentials fiasco, and like many others I turned to both Pathfinder and Fantasy craft.
So in a fit of angsty musing, I went to my game design wiki and started a new page. I was set to write my own edition of "the Worlds most popular game." I know it has been done to death, and professionally, at that. But I thought, like many who have written fantasy heartbreakers before me, that I had a novel idea. Pft.
I thought that I would take all of my favorite elements of 3.X edition, Pathfinder, Fantasy Craft, 4th edition, and various and sudry other fantasy games, boil down their coolness and try to build something in the OSR vein; namely a simplified mechanical system that did all the things I wanted without all of the bloat, mismatched mechanics, and straightjacketing rules.
Then something interesting happened: The game took on a life of it's very own. It started stretching and twisting, bending at odd places, and is threatening to become something very different than what I initially imagined.
Now I'm faced with a dilemma: do I prune this thing back like a bonsai tree and try to force it into the shape I originally wanted, or do I let it go where it will and see what comes of it? Have any of you ever had this happen to your games? If so, how did you handle it? I must admit, the addict in me wants to turn them into separate projects, but the realist in me sees that as a bad idea.