What are the primary reasons your players reject other systems/settings/games?

What are the primary reasons your players reject other systems/settings/games?

  • Limited time/schedules to learn new rules/systems

    Votes: 41 51.3%
  • Maximizing play time and minimizing systems

    Votes: 11 13.8%
  • Disinterested in other genres/settings

    Votes: 27 33.8%
  • Group/social dynamics

    Votes: 8 10.0%
  • Large investment in time/money to the current game

    Votes: 20 25.0%
  • Large investment in the current campaign/characters

    Votes: 13 16.3%
  • "System wars" (other systems are threatening in some way, active system "fighting")

    Votes: 5 6.3%
  • Current system fulfills a character power dynamic

    Votes: 16 20.0%
  • "Simulationsist" vs "Narrativist" reasons

    Votes: 5 6.3%
  • "Crunchy" vs "Rules Lite" reasons

    Votes: 17 21.3%
  • Current system has been settled for a long period historically

    Votes: 12 15.0%
  • General resistance to change ("if it ain't broke...")

    Votes: 31 38.8%
  • Other (describe below)

    Votes: 12 15.0%
  • Open to new systems, but enjoying current system

    Votes: 8 10.0%
  • Lack of VTT support

    Votes: 4 5.0%

Character power - it's tough to get some players to move to a system where their character is going to be weaker.

Crunchy vs rules lite - this one is because of a lack of character build options. I tried to move to DCC from dnd5e, and with DCC once you make your character your "build options" have basically ended. Lots of things will come up over the course of a DCC game that'll affect how your character works, features, options, items etc. but those aren't strictly under the player's control like building your character level-by-level is.

"If it ain't broke..." - Yup. I've heard that dnd5e can do whatever they/we want, so why bother investing the time to learn something else? Also, "I just want to play 5e."

The best way (IMO) to get folks to try other systems is to radically alter the genre you're playing in... if you play dnd5e, try playing some Warhammer40k or Paranoia, that can help. Or if it's an IP they're excited about, like Fallout or Aliens, a moderate genre shift is enough. "Let's play the official fallout/Aliens rpg!"

Back when I was just running games for friends (as opposed to running as a proGM) really it could just be"whatever the GM wants to run is what's going to be played, unless someone else wants to run something."
 

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I can only speak for myself. As a forevereferee, I prefer to run my favorite system, and I'm just not interested in running other systems. Regardless of setting or period, I'm sticking with the mechanics I know and like. And I'm pretty much the only one in my gaming circles who seems to care about system even that far. If I did want to run something else, I'm pretty sure any players I've ever played with would shrug and play the game I was running. It just so happens that I don't personally care for the variety.
 

My group and I have largely always been D&D players. From 1st edition in the 80's through 2nd and 3rd. In that time we did dabble with the likes of Vampire, Call of Cthulhu, Star Trek and Star Wars but we always came back to D&D as the game we loved. We hated 4th and what was done with it, so we started a 15 year love of Pathfinder. As everyone settled down with families, jobs and so forth the time to devote to gaming dropped so we stayed with Pathfinder with a couple one offs of other games.

Now we seem to have hit a point where gaming desires are splitting. I've decided that I've had enough of the heavy crunch of Pathfinder and have decided to return to D&D with the 2024 edition. Another player wants to move over to Pathfinder 2nd which I'm not keen on, and a third wants to run Daggerheart when that comes out.

With us having such limited time for gaming these days I don't want to hopscotch systems. I want to stick to D&D but there aren't so many players locally and some of my friends I only see these days become of our weekly game night. I feel that I'm the one rejecting other game systems. :(
 



As a GM and sometimes player, I do have some culpability in games that are played and/or rejected. It's not like it's just players who reject other systems.
 

Sunk cost fallacy, mostly. People start with a heavy game like D&D5E and think that all other games work like that so the idea of dropping $150 or more to switch systems and learn a new game they might not play is just a no-go. So, better to stick with the game they've already spent $150 or more on and deal with whatever quirks they're already used to instead of whatever quirks them might not like even more than what 5E has.
Similarity of genre and system is a problem. My group has a hard time feeling motivated to learn somewhat but not completely different rules to basically play the same sort of game they do with WotC's version. You've got to sell it. It took some effort to convince them to give Level Up a try, for example, but it worked out in the end.
 

We spent a good amount of time trying some other game systems over the last year and a half and I did see some in our group bounce off certain games that were too rules light and now if they get a whiff of narrative, rules light games, they tend to turn their noses up.
Am I in your game? 'Cause that sounds like me.
 

Am I in your game? 'Cause that sounds like me.
lol, it’s been eye-opening! I mean, hey. Better to try a game and know it doesn’t click for you than never try it at all.

I will say, for my part, I feel like we move on too quickly from some of these games. It’s rough being a GM playing a new game and having people decide after one or two sessions that they don’t like it. I’m not sure we give all these systems a true fair shake.
 

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