Jaeger
That someone better
Neither do I, but I think more people drop well and deeply into a rut than I suspect you do.
I would say ultimately unquantifiable, but entirely possible. I'm not omniscient.
Its not about the rules (though going from the particulars of D&D which have a notable degree of stylization present in few other games that are not derivatives from those is not, I think, as trivial for many people as you're suggesting), but learning that you just can't run CoC or Vampire in the same mindset as D&D and have it go well (as I noted, you probably can do that to some extent with SR or Cyberpunk)
I have seen players struggle with adjusting their "D&D mindset" when transitioning to other RPGs to be more of an actual issue..
I think this has a lot to do with the GM's spending more time with the rules before play starts, so they have had more time to absorb the differences and 'mentally switch gears' as it were. Whereas the players have to do so mostly during play after getting a short rules rundown.
You might be right, but I've seen enough of it (and people transitioning specifically talking about their problems with it) over the years to stand by my position that its extremely common.
(Its not just limited to D&D either; people used to one particular game both in system and the type of things you do in it will often have trouble going to the next one unless they do it early. Its just that the nature of the beast means a very large percentage of people who have that situation are going to come form D&D just because of the reality of where people tend to enter the hobby).
I think our different experiences in the hobby have largely shaped our views.
For me the big transitioning issues on the GM side you cite have been essentially non-existent from what I have seen.
From my experience what I have seen to be an extremely common attitude is that a very large percent of D&D groups utterly refuse to even consider playing a different RPG at all.
IMHO this is the crux of our disagreement.
i.e. I have read several posts on this forum of GM's with players that take several minutes to decide what to do on their turn in combat as a normal occurrence. Every round!
As a GM and Player that would drive me Insane! It is a play experience that is completely outside my frame of reference. Yet I have seen it mentioned often enough by different posters that it must be a thing for some groups.
Thank goodness I've never had to deal with anything like that!
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