Rasyr said:
Actually, I don't see much real d20 hatred as I see hatred of system zealots over on rpg.net. People who relentlessly bash other systems or other people who say something slightly less than pleasing (to the zealot) about their system, or to sing the praises of their flawless system. I think this is a case of a few bad apples ruining the whole bunch for a lot of people, and most of what vitriol there is usually comes from a very small group. And yes, each system has their haters and zealots, so you end up with a zealot going and bashing another zealots favorite system because they perceived an insult on another thread, and sometimes the hate circle kinda hetrodynes out of control...
No, while RPG.net does have that, it also has some clearly delineated "pet systems" that get both more coverage then others (which is merely a function of the demands of the crowd at rpg.net), and more leeway than others.. primary among these is Exalted, but Nobilis and Unknown Armies get a big plus too.
Contrary to this are the "whipping-boys", the systems where its the unspoken rule on rpg.net that you can get away with attacking way further than someone can if they attack Exalted or Nobilis. Criticize these two and you'll get attacked back and scolded by mods. But attacks on D20, Hero, or especially Palladium are tolerated to a far deeper level of permisiveness.
Part of the reason for this is that the mods dole out discipline based almost exclusively on the volume of complaints they receive. Since Exalted fans are in the majority, they swamp the mods with complaints against someone who is anti-exalted. The result is that there will be swifter discipline against people who criticize certain systems over those who criticize other systems.
Enworld has the advantage that its mods seem to be pretty fair about the moderation and don't seem to rely on the same methods of determining disciplinary need, there doesn't seem to be the same biases.
However, given Enworlds origins, I think it will be pretty inevitable that no matter what you do, D20 will continue to be the default-favoured system. At least this will result in something more demographically realistic than what you see at Rpg.net, given that in the real world D20 is also the default-favoured system of the majority of the planet's role players.
Nisarg