the experience of gaming should be the first goal of gaming.

Goal 1:

Gather some books and paper to go with a game or several games. Gather with a group of friends, it does not have to be too many any number will do. 

The group should then sit down bullshit about life for a few minutes. Talk about wives, girlfriends, babies, hobbies, cars, drums, or whatever you want. When the game starts, some chips come out , perhaps even a beer, or coffee depending on the time of day, pizza? More bullshiting ensues.

Dice get rolled, the group starts making a story up, and they should give each other heavy doses of ribbing. This guy never makes his hit rolls, that guy has a history of  botching skills, the gm never gives treasure, this one gives too much, This is fun but game X is better, that idea came from star wars.. Whatever, it’s all in good fun.

A few hours pass, quickly.

A story gets told, in some games the story gets finished, in other games the story is paused. T.B.C.

Chances are some new inside jokes have been seeded into the group, some laughs were had. The real life tale that group of friends weaves has Been added to.

Goal 2: refer to goal 1.

If you're writing a RPG, and your design goals past goal 1 above, there might be an issue.

There are very few more honorable goals than to bring people together in creativity and laughter.

For my part I think I have been over thinking things for quite a while now. While I think at the end of the day Shards of Thimbral is a better designed game than Amazing Adventures and Exciting Exploits, even in the rough stage of development Shards is in.

Is it as much fun? No it's not.

Shards makes good stories and I think it has a setting just full of fantastic potential, it's a solid game and I will continue to work on it, refine it and eventually produce it. For the  time being I have to look the game over and make sure that goal 1 as written above is foremost in my mind as I write.