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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7006599" data-attributes="member: 42582">I don't know what [MENTION=87792]Neonchameleon[/MENTION] has in mind, but there are some RPG systems that are very flexible and/or versatile compared to D&D.For instance, to take CoC: a version of that system (BRP) has been used for fantasy (RQ, Stormbringer) and for modern horror (CoC). If you've played one of those games, you can sit down at a table to play any of them (or Pendragon, for that matter; at least in my experience). It's simple and intituive, because all you need is a list of skills with numbers next to them, and the bigger the number the better you are.D&D, though, uses classes and levels, which fit oddly, at best, into non-fantasy contexts; uses combat mechanics that are hard to adapt to modern play (what happens in the fiction when my PC with 50 hp is hit by a bullet for 8 hp of damage - did I really just get shot but not even slow down?); uses XP progression that is not easily adapted to non-fantasy contexts (because based primarily on combat victories and in earlier versions on what, in a non-fantasy context, can only be called theft); etc.Even within the fantasy genre, D&D has constrains of the sort Neonchameleon pointed out: it needs some sort of healing mechanic (because the way combat works, it emphases soaking damage as much as, if not more than, avoiding being hit); it bases its magic use around discrete game elements that correspond to discrete story elements, which is a very distinctive flavour of magic; etc.Even think about the impact hit points have on the system: we have a high level spell called Regeneration, but by the default combat rules the only way someone can be maimed is by way of a magical weapon, and there is no system (beyond ad hoc rulings) for adjudicating what happens to a character whose hand is cut off (whether in a trap, as a punishment, or whatever). I can't think of another fantasy game that has the same problem, that it's rules for suffering damage in combat don't contain, within themselves, a way of capturing such a state of affairs in mechanical termsNone of the above is a criticism of D&D (on my part, at least). I also GM Burning Wheel, and it's not very flexible either - it's very specificially designed to deliver a particular sort of play experience within a particular, fairly narrow, genre window.But when I think D&D, I don't think flexible.</blockquote>

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