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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Henry" data-source="post: 2226810" data-attributes="member: 158">I'm willing to bet it's because you are, just by virtue of being on this and other internet forums, are an RPG fan, as opposed to an RPG player. For the fan, people like you, me, and most others here, picking up a new system in theory is not hard at all. I have no doubt that if "The_Universe" wanted, he could pick up most any other system and learn it with minimum of fuss in a reasonable span of time. However, not every player has the drive or desire, and in many cases, the time to "waste" by learning a new system from the ground up, and then familiarizing ones self with all nuances, when that time is preferably spent playing with almost full comprehension and enjoyment.If I'm playing d20, I KNOW that the game will have six attributes, three or four saves, skill points, and feats/class abilities/talents (same thing on the surface). I know that capability is level-dependent. I know that combat will consist of a d20 initiative, rolled one or more times, usually once, that attacks of opportunity may be an issue, and that I have some form of hit points / vitality / endurance as a tally to measure whether I'm in fighting form or not. These are almost never up for debate in a d20 game. The nuances are, but the basics aren't.The way all these things are handled with Storyteller, GURPS, Shadowrun, Contiuum, Earthdawn, Mechwarrior, Unisystem, FUDGE, Savage Worlds, etc. are anywhere from minorly to completely different (try mapping a GURPS character to the Mind/Body/Quick system of Continuum, for instance) and while fans of different systems may not mind the learning curve (there's always a curve, the shallowness depends on the person learning of course) people who just want to play on a Saturday afternoon aren't up to learning all the assumptions from scratch. When I tell my group that I'd like to try Unearthed Arcana, or Black Company, or d20 Modern, or Star Wars, or D&D, or Gamma World, they are much more willing to dig in than another game completely, unless the game is like Feng Shui which doesn't even have provisions for character generation, and has all of one mechanic to determine most things.Small Aside: In Feng Shui, want to shoot somebody? Guns skill. Want to pick out the local black market arms dealer in your area? Guns Skill? Want to know what the best round for low-visible conditions are? Guns Skill. I love that game. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Now, this is coming from a game addict - I've once said, if you've got Old Maid the RPG, I'm up for it. But the average RPG player feels much more comfortable when there are some base assumptions that are shared between games, and it's what part of Ryan Dancey's original streategy for d20 was based on.</blockquote>

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