I Am Puzzled

[Dannyalcatraz]

Over the past few decades, I've seen more and more people incorporating point-buy/modular systems- stat generation, spellcasting, character class design, feat acquisition- into their D&D games. Some have even become part of the published game itself. I have no issue with that per se.

However, I'm puzzled: with all the good point-buy/modular RPGS out there- HERO, GURPS, M&M etc.- why aren't people playing those more? To clarify, while I fully realize that D&D is the 800lb gorilla in the market, once you've found a good point-buy RPG, why do people try to remake D&D more like those games instead of the other way around?

Personally, I found it easy as pie to run D&D style games in HERO. I can even accommodate elements from different editions of D&D in a fantasy HERO campaign with almost no fuss.

So why do people keep beating their heads against the wall of D&D's core designs when there are seemingly better options out there for them?

 

[Nergal Pendragon]

Most people don't have either the time or the will to convert between 3.5 and Pathfinder. Converting to an entirely different system is, for them, completely unreasonable.

 

[Morrus]

The network effect. It's easier to find players for the popular game. Sure, some have the luxury of choice, lucky devils! But most of us play the game we can find people to play with. And then maybe try to modify it.

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

I get the networking effect. It is just my groups were at the extremes in terms of system experimentation.

My 2 major, long term RPG groups were radically different. One had gamers with so many different tastes, I went from knowing only 4 systems- D&D, TFT/In the Labyrinth, Traveller, and Champions/HERO- to learning over 60 in the span of @ 4 years....including several playtests. My other group has played games in 3 editions of D&D, a few months of RIFTS, and a few weeks of M&M from 1998-2014.

Most of my other groups were single-game groups: GURPS, HERO, and so forth.

 

[Umbran]

However, I'm puzzled: with all the good point-buy/modular RPGS out there- HERO, GURPS, M&M etc.- why aren't people playing those more? To clarify, while I fully realize that D&D is the 800lb gorilla in the market, once you've found a good point-buy RPG, why do people try to remake D&D more like those games instead of the other way around?

Say you were an avid cyclist. You have a bicycle you really liked, but the seat isn't comfortable. Do you go looking for an entirely different bike, or do you just replace the seat?

Character building and advancement is only one aspect of the game. Swap out the character advancement system from D&D, the rest of the game still plays like D&D!

 

[Dannyalcatraz]

Say you were an avid cyclist. You have a bicycle you really liked, but the seat isn't comfortable. Do you go looking for an entirely different bike, or do you just replace the seat?

Character building and advancement is only one aspect of the game. Swap out the character advancement system from D&D, the rest of the game still plays like D&D!

I'm not much of a modifier. If something doesn't work for me as-is, I simply don't buy it, make do or replace it completely.

For instance, I AM an avid guitarist. One thing many guitarists of is tweak their electric guitars with new pickups. Others will upgrade tuners, the nut, the bridge. Bolt-ons sometimes get their entire necks replaced.

Well, I own 16 electrics, and to date, only one has had its pickups replaced: it was a luthier's #1, and the pickups simply died. They were defective. No other guitar I own has any other part replaced, save one which had to have a knob replaced (its threads were worn smooth, and it just fell off), and the replacement knob was identical to the original.

I also prefer buying Mac products, go figure.

Don't get me wrong, I DO fiddle around with RPG systems. But I don't reinvent the wheel. I adapt the tools the systems give me to new purposes. So, in D&D, I might reskin a race, or change the elemental keyword of a spell. I have even done Incarnum versions of many of the OA & PHB Classes.

I am working on re-doing the undead/magical "Energy Drain" system to something cleaner. But I'm doing that by my usual method of repurposing another system within the game, namely fatigue coonditions. (The chore involved is in finding all instances of Energy Drain type abilities, and establishing the rate at which conditions accrue.)

What I don't do is make a modular catch-all character class for D&D because HERO does that so much better. Ditto point-buy magic systems and many of the other mods I've seen people discuss here, almost all based on stuff from other games.

 

[Morrus]

Tweaking games is part of the fun for many. It can be as rewarding as playing them. and D&D has always been very tweakable.

For instance, inspired by a Paths of Magic article in Dragon, I arranged all the PHB spells by theme in ascending power. I did that for it's own sake - I enjoyed doing it. Never used it! But doing it was a source of pleasure in itself.

 

[amerigoV]

Personally, I found it easy as pie to run D&D style games in HERO. I can even accommodate elements from different editions of D&D in a fantasy HERO campaign with almost no fuss.

So why do people keep beating their heads against the wall of D&D's core designs when there are seemingly better options out there for them?

Well, IMO D&D is part mechanics and part Genre - over time its morphed into its own Fantasy Genre. While one can play D&D-esque games in other systems, my own limited experiences "its just not that same". We use Savage Worlds to run fantasy, but one has to be mindful that its different.

Also, as a Savage Worlds guy, I see the reverse of this all the time on Pinnacle's boards - ex-D&Ders trying to import D&D rule/rulings/methods into Savage Worlds. It really does not work well.

Some groups hate system change. It may be easier to change a subsystems and still call it D&D instead of trying to get a group to change over to a whole different system.

In the end, one has do decide which system it easier to mod to get what they want.

 

[billd91]

Sometimes it seems everybody wants to play D&D and that's why they put it through such gyrations in their home games (and from released edition to released edition) rather than switch to another system. Or at least everybody seems to want to identify as a D&D player, which I think helps explain the edition warring we are still seeing. This may be an effect of enormous numbers do people having started gaming as D&D players and not really wanting to give up on that identification but I think I'd have to say it has a life of its own now.

 

[Umbran]

Don't get me wrong, I DO fiddle around with RPG systems. But I don't reinvent the wheel.

Yes, but instead of reinventing the wheel, you'll go out an buy a whole new car.

I *like* my car. I don't want a whole new car. I want this car, just with a different radio! That other car does not perform like this one does, really at all. I'd have to drive this new car around for quite a while, and then do work on it, and drive it in a way it really isn't intended each and every time I go for a spin, to get it to perform the same as the old one. So, why not just replace the bit that I don't like?

You mention GURPS as an alternative. Yes GURPS has the point buy... but the play experience is rather different from D&D, with the different probability distribution, different views on hit points and magic, and all that. So, if I like the gameplay at the table of D&D, GURPS is probably not a good replacement. For each alternative you mention, the same basic argument will hold - those other games survive by *not* being D&D, by offering something substantially enough different that folks will sacrifice the network externals to get that different experience!

Don't get me wrong - I am also mostly a "pick the right tool for the job" kind of GM. But I can see the point. If D&D really is the right tool for the job except for one subsystem, then maybe replacing that subsystem is the way to go.