House of Cards GM Log

If It Ain’t Broke, Don’t Fix It

posted by Ginger at 07:15 PM, January 19, 2005 | Filed under : GM Notes | Comments and Followups

Doyce has an interesting post on not messing with a good thing. This is a discussion I have with the voices in my head and my co-GM time and time again with respect to House of Cards. I know a lot of players that I’d love to add to HOC, and for a long time we did add people when I felt like it was a good idea, which is how we got to a cast of 20.

But I’ve learned to respect my gut on what will work and what won’t in HOC. Right now my gut says I can’t add any more players without damaging the game. It’s sad, but I’m not willing to tweak any more until I’m convinced what we have is the best we can make of it.

HOC is my heart game. I’ve given up playing in and even GMing other games because my commitment to it comes first. It’s very important to me that the players (including me and Michael) have a lot of fun. There are things I’d mess with, even retroactively strike, if I could. But the only significant rules changes we’ve made are ones that institutionalize what we’re already doing and have worked, because we don’t want to mess up the good thing we have.

Maybe the next game we run will include some different people or some of the rules tweaks I’d like. This one, though, is going to keep on chugging the way it’s doing, even when it means disappointing people. I hate to disappoint people, but I’d hate breaking the good thing we have even more.

Follow up: the trackback URL for this entry is: http://www.whiterose.org/MT/mt-tb.cgi/4992

5 Comments

Paul
Jan 19, 2005 9:02 PM

Amen.

Don't fix what isn't broken. And if more people can't play without spoiling the chili, they sure can have a goodly significant fraction of the fun in watching (at least in my case).

Brenda
Jan 19, 2005 9:18 PM

I spent most of 2003 bopping around to different Amber game sites, but kept coming back to this one 'cause it's quality.

I'm honored to play in it. Keep doing what you're doing.

Arref
Jan 20, 2005 12:27 PM

What? No more green chicks?
Daaaaaaaamn.

:)

Monica
Jan 21, 2005 7:26 AM

Y'all are wonderful GMs and have made my first experiences in PbEM game all good and fun!

Thanks for all your hard work!

Jeff Douan
Jan 31, 2005 4:02 PM

Understood, and appreciated. Even if I've been a bit too bogged down to follow things in a timely fashion over the last month, the quality is what drew me here in the first place. Sure, I miss some parts of gaming, but I'd rather lurk at something excellent quality than play in something that was only so-so.

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