Rescued from my drafts at the request of Symbolic City. On hacking | Tim B. | Congas.blog
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Interesting! I’m sure there are still lots of people out there hacking. There are so many very similar rules systems, it might be easier and daster to make your own than to read them all and find your favorite.
I read a lot more games than I get to play, and I think I have gotten a bit fatigued by reading lots of rule sets. But reading adventures is still fun. And lots of adventures contain some hacking–little subsystems or minigames specific to that adventure.
I still like reading rule sets, i just find its a slog sometimes, or mechanics slide off my brain. Reading character class descriptions is probably my least favorite.
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Oh don’t get me wrong, hacking will never die! And this is all partly a “the grass is greener on the other side” thing. I’m sure if all we did in the community was read each others’ rules hacks, I’d get bored too 
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It’s interesting to hear that the/an NSR has moved on from hacking because that’s definitely what I associated the community with before I turned my attention elsewhere.
Obviously there’s a ton of fun to be had with hacking and mechanism design, and if people are having fun that should be encouraged and celebrated.
The point where I tend to discourage it though, is when people start doing it to try to achieve some significant hypothetical play outcome that they want. Like the case of “my group doesn’t play the way I prefer, so if I create a ruleset that compels them to, I will finally achieve my desired play.” Because that style of hacking ends up running counter to actual play imo.
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