When things from different sources seem to mesh.

I often have ideas that come from different sources, these are ideas that I just have to write somewhere to get them out of my head. Such ideas might involve dice mechanisms or other conventions that form the basis if a system, or they might be ideas for an environment ir setting. Sometimes I write these ideas down in notepads (that might get lost, only to resurface week/months/years later), sometimes I write the ideas here on the blog.

On other occasions, I have creative roadblocks. Luckily, I tend to have more ideas than roadblocks, and there is always something to work on, or refine. 

On rare occasions, one of my new ideas roughly matches up with one of my roadblocks, and it doesn't take a lot of work to pull the two together...thus allowing me to continue a project that has been a thorn in my side. 

While I've been drawing over the last couple of days, I've had my new "System 4" lingering in the back of my mind. 

The basic system says that you roll a bunch of dice, and anythingv that comes up with a 4 or better earns a success, while even numbers add advantages, and odd numbers add disadvantages to the final action attempt. I've looked at ways to limit the dice (such as maybe restricting dice of one level to be less than or equal to lower levels...less d8s than d6s, less d6s than d4s), ways to make the whole thing more interesting (players can buy feats for their characters that change the dice depending on the circumstances and the specific actions attempted). I've come up with 36 different character types, and various ways to handle combat/conflict. But all of these thoughts just seemed to be adding mecchanisms and parts to the system that were convoluting it rather than improving it.

That when the idea hit me, upon waking up this morning, I don't know if it's residual influence from a dream (and if that dream thought was simply my subconscious mind trying to push me in a given direction), but I do know that There is now a connection that makes sense to me.

"Voidstone Chronicles" is in a state of flux because I don't like the direction taken by the system when it's actually played...System 4 is a set of mechanisms looking for a wider system to plug into. 

There are certain irreconcilable differences between the two as they now stand, and it will take some serious decision making for me to determine which aspects of which element are the stronger points for forward progress. But there is enough flexibility in both, that the whole things could easily mesh together and form a more robust whole.

Then again, the whole thing might not work at all.

Let's see where this heads, and let's hope it doesn't cause too many distractions from the other goals I hope to achieve in the near future.