A great post from Monte Cook on anxiety for first-time designers.
Remember that product that gamers love that includes A, B, and C? A lot of designers will look at that, put A, B, and C in their own product, and then figure they’re done. They’re not done. That’s the equivalent of writing a paper in school by just copy-pasting from Wikipedia and changing a few words.
You might think I’m saying not to do that because it’s plagiarism. I’m not. Because you can provide the same A, B, and C that another designer has done without actually plagiarising. I’m saying don’t do it because it’s boring.
If a designer is writing a sourcebook about D&D druids, they should care less about whether they’ve covered all the proverbial druid bases and more about if they’ve done something new with druids.
— Monte Cook, Designer Anxiety