22: SUBSTITUTE
Have you switched out a system to run a game? Or if you’re reading this RPG blog, a better question might be how often?
There are a lot of RPGs out there, many systems and many more settings. Companies often use house systems, there are several games you can licence or use open-source, and the official system doesn’t always work for every table. When a game-friendly setting doesn’t have an official RPG, expect to see various versions for it too.
Switching system will naturally bring a different feel, which may or may not work, but if you’re trying it you must have a reason.
A regular question about a new action-y system is “can it do Star Wars?” And many can, and many have, though they’ll emphasise different things, as the official games and their editions have. Adventure! and Cinematic Unisystem Star Wars use the balance of Dramatic Editing and Drama Points to let normals work with Jedi, while Feng Shui and supers Star Wars work for over-the-top Prequel Era adventures.
I once got a group to substitute an unofficial CineUni Stargate SG-1 for the then official D20 after our first attempt to use automatic weapons in the system. Redoing the characters being faster than one round of D20 combat helped.
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