What mechanics make crafting interesting? Obviously if crafting is something you find completely unfun, I don't think I'm going to convince you otherwise. Here's some things I think makes crafting unfun:
- The book-keeping exceeds the payoff.
- Success, in general, for crafts should be guaranteed. Blacksmiths make serviceable swords. You shouldn't be worried about failing at a task.
-It's shoehorned on to the normal "gameplay loop" and so it interrupts the other fun stuff.
- Attempting to overly mechanize contingency by altering modifiers rather than letting players make decisions first.

Thing that make it interesting:
- You can use shit you discover on your adventures.
- If you must roll to craft, you should get some benefit out of it
- Crafting, like encounters or well designed traps, should be about how you solve them not "I roll to craft"
- Lots of exciting stuff comes out of unexpected results. Crafting rarely allows for unexpected results

>>96056289
Here's the God's honest Truth: ACKS is perfectly fine. It's a work of art, in fact. The reason ACKS is a problem to some people and what makes it "Vidya" is the way to run things like magical crafting in ACKS is to WITHOLD the information in the Player Guide. No perusing lists of items and checklists of things to get. "What are you trying to craft?" "Some wand that lets me shoot fireballs, like that other Wizard had" "Okay how do you intend to make it?" Now the player has to figure out how to even learn to make it. Now they have to adventure to find out that it requires time and rare resources.

Here's where I might adjust ACKS. Rather than having to acquire an absolute bucket of Hellhound Fangs; maybe you only need one hellhound fang. But getting a hellhound fang is going to absolutely suck. The gold barrier is fine, in my experience as these incentives to adventuring are useful.