Wavering & Waffling

I have a habit of abandoning projects, or changing my mind about them midstream.  It's a recurring pattern: I start a project, I commit to it, and once I'm partway through or near the end, my dissatisfaction with the whole thing grows and I throw in the towel.  True to form, I've reached that point with trying to reconcile OD&D and Chainmail.

I still want to run a campaign that starts with OD&D rules and progresses through to AD&D; I haven't changed my mind about that.  But the more I try to work Chainmail into the mix, the more unsatisfied I become with the results.

Here's the thing: the two really don't fit smoothly together, no matter what some people might try to tell you.  They're two different systems with very different goals, and what I've found in combining the two is that it ends up with a bunch of rules that aren't to my taste, and that don't really mesh with D&D as it will progress.  As expected, the results are very wargamey, and more than a bit clunky.  Seeing them written down, I can already tell they won't survive more than a session or two at my table.

So I'm changing plans to using straight OD&D, and filling in the gaps with my own ideas, ones that I'm more confident will work for my game.  A lot of these rules will probably look like stripped down or simplified AD&D, because if I know I'm headed in that direction I might as well lean into it early and make any rules transitions as smooth as possible.  That's my current plan, anyway...  Time will tell if I waver and change my mind again.