For those who have embraced new systems/games, what was the deciding factor?

[TwoSix]

I mean, if it were up to me, I'd never play the same system twice. I mostly stay in familiar systems because most people don't get as much enjoyment as I do from learning and trying out something new.

 

[grankless]

i heart new games

 

[Thomas Shey]

Its hard to pin it down to one cause, but usually its some combination of a setting that seems interesting or a system that seems to have better support for a campaign we (well, often I) are already interested in.

 

[Wolfpack48]

And our theme song:

 

[kenada]

I voted for two things:

• Frustration with old system
• New mechanics better reflect ttrpg philosophy

I started with 5e then switched to PF2 then OSE then WWN then my own game. My reason ultimately came down to these games (except my own) do not do what I want.

I want to run a minimal prep hex crawl. Most hex-crawling guidance advises prepping extensively. There are designs that support running no/low-prep games in a principled way, but those games do not use them.

I’ve been (re-)reading and watching Baker’s stuff, and I feel comfortable now saying my game will probably be a “PbtA” even if it does not share many of the common features. It’s not about being “narrativist”¹ but how the design is layered, and how those layers build off each other and structure the conversation.

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[1]: In particular because I don’t find it to be a particularly helpful bit of jargon due to how imprecise and politicized it is.

 

[RenleyRenfield]

Well... this for us was in 2 stages.

First for us was to stop playing D&D. Even though we played it since the 80s, it's not a rpg, its a wargame people talk over. So we gave up on it two decades ago. Its just combat, and nothing else, and we wanted more guides, rules, and abilities around social and intrigue stuff. So since D&D can't do that, we switched to....

Vampire the Masquerade (and WoD et al). These systems sustained us for nearly another 20 years. They had rich rules for social interaction, characters were people with flaws and goals, and it spoke to both your ambitions and your vices. Good stuff! We didn't know roleplaying could be this good. Plus, since its not just a combat wargame, we had tons more diverse people join our tables. Which made the games even better as now we had styles of play and intrigue from so many voices. But then we got tired of 'being the monster', so we turned to...

Powered by the Apocalypse and its hacks. It truly is the best of the best. Combat is more fun that any other game. Social rules are lightyears ahead of even WoD stuff. It has a wild mix of settings and concepts, so we don't find it going stale. And it encourages better roleplay but even more so - it greatly improves GM skills and makes it 10000 times easier to GM and be a great GM.

We tired many other things too, and 2d20 has its charm, and Cypher is not terrible and FitD is good crunch. And OSR has old AD&D feels (for better and worse). So the testing of new games does not end, but honestly, PBTA is just so far ahead of the ... game.

 

[Joshua Randall]

Did I have fun.

 

[schneeland]

Thinking of the last time, one of my groups changed systems, this happened when we had wrapped up our 5e campaign. The campaign was great, but none of us had much enthusiasm for the system left - I guess that might count as frustration, but I think it was really only half of us that were actually frustrated.
At the end of the last session, we then bounced ideas back and forth, and it turned out that the thing that got most people interested was Call of Cthulhu and the Two-Headed Serpent campaign. So we settled for that, took a half-year break and then started with the new system (or to be precise: two players left, and one new player joined, but the other four remained). While not everyone spelled it out directly, I had the impression that the main motivation was to try both a different system and a different genre. And I think this is a bit of a pattern for me these days: there's a large number of games out there that I enjoy or that have my interest, so switching after a couple of years feels quite natural.

 

[Staffan]

I've never been tied to any one system. Even when I first started playing, it was with a classmate, his brother, and his brother's friends, and those friends had all gotten different games (because the main RPG publisher in Sweden at the time were making several different games), and we alternated between them. Different games scratch different itches, and new things are shiny!

 

[Gorgon Zee]

The main reason our group would choose to play new systems is where our existing system(s) are not hitting the mark in supporting the campaign we want to run.

Its hard to pin it down to one cause, but usually its some combination of a setting that seems interesting or a system that seems to have better support for a campaign we (well, often I) are already interested in.

I think this would have been a good option for the poll as its also the one I would pick:

I have a campaign in mind and the new system supports it better

I'm currently running a Middle-Earth campaign, and The One Ring fits the style and genre of Tolkien better than other systems I have used previously and might have considered (Rolemaster, MERP, 13A, Fate).

When I wanted an urban-fantasy game where combat, investigation and social would feature fairly equally, and I could throw in some superpowers when needed, Fate was the clear winner, although now I might have chosen BRP.

I cannot imagine running a serious spy game without using Night's Black Agents; if it's a western I'll use Deadlands (despite not being a huge Savage Worlds fan) and how could I run Arthurian knights without using Pendragon?

A second poll option would be: Gareth Hanrahan has written a source book for this system. I guess more generally "a source book really appealed to me" would be broader, but for me, if Gar writes a major part of anything, I will almost certainly buy it and very likely run it in whatever system it uses