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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Sword of Spirit" data-source="post: 6257003" data-attributes="member: 6677017">Sure. There is only so much you can do. But I've seen an awful lot of variety. I doubt we'll hit the ceiling any time soon.But would a different mechanic work better? The vast majority of the times I believe the answer to be yes.Although it may have sounded like I was saying that people should create their own systems just to be different, that isn't really what I'm getting at. My contention is that systems have a strong impact on the entire tone of the game, and that the wrong system hurts your game, while the right system makes it come alive.The GURPS versions of White Wolf's Storyteller system were well-received, if I'm not mistaken, but I personally think you're losing half of what made the games if you convert it to a hard sim like GURPS. It's definitely not the same experience. If White Wolf had started off with Vampire: The Masquerade being a GURPS setting, it wouldn't have succeeded anywhere near how it did.Savage Worlds d20 is a pretty silly idea. Sure, you could convert the settings over, but although I'm not overly familiar with them, I can predict that a lot of the play experience would be lost.About the only time when it makes sense for me to use an existing system is when you are, in fact, taking a very generic system and intentionally making a setting based on it, intending to keep the same feel. Basically seeking to expand an existing game with another setting.When making a new game, it seems productive to start with the feel you want and designing a system that gives you that in the most effective way you can think of.There is something fundamentally different, to me, between a setting based off of a generic rules system, and a distinct game.Sounds like you are making my point for me here, so I'll avoid commenting on the analogy.See above. It's not to be gimmicky (or shouldn't be), but rather to better express a feel you are trying to convey.I was using overly harsh language with the lazy comment, since I don't think it really boils down to intentionally deciding to be lazy at all. Rather I think it's simply a lack of understanding how much better and satisfying a game can be with a customized system, or at least with picking a universal system that best fits your feel, rather than picking the one that is most popular.My best friend would disagree with me, but I also tend to think that WotC's d20 is a poor system in general. That didn't stop me from having plenty of fun with it, but after a few years I started yearning for the RPG renaissance of the 90s.</blockquote>

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