Perfection

There's a common theme these days in the gaming community, characterized by the phrase "I have a new idea for X."

This is very interesting, because very often these people do not in fact have new ideas. They are old ideas, old cliches, recycled for one person's specific fantasy.

I don't have a problem with that. I'm certainly not original. What I do notice about this is that no one seems to be concerned with perfecting their craft. This is less of a concern for players, who regularly churn through characters in the course of gameplay. However, it nags at me that there are worldbuilding DMs who create something arguably new, only to slap a "finished!" label on it and move on to something else entirely six months later.

(Of course, I'm guilty of this as anyone, only I never declare it finished, merely forget and move on.)

Now, I'm not saying there's not a place for that. But we need more DMs who totally devote themselves to the perfection of their craft. That seems to be rare these days, and that's a damn shame.

Commitment is hard. That's why we don't do it anymore. But maybe we should.