Choosing the right ruleset for a game

The other day, a Patreon member suggested on the Blackoath Discord that I could write a post about how I choose which system to use when I'm working on a game, and I think it's a good idea (thanks, NatX!).

Most of you know that my go-to system is a D100 one. But not all my games use a variation of that sort of ruleset. Why, you ask? Well, let's see:

• I am a firm believer that the rules, and therefore the ruleset, should be written with a setting in mind. This is why we get so crappy D&D 5e adaptations: the rules work well for what they were intended to do (high-powered, high fantasy), and while of course you can make them work with other types of settings, it's not ideal, and it's not easy. I'm amazed by the work they did with the Dark Souls adaptation, to mention a controversial one; it's a really good game, DESPITE being a 5e adaptation (yes, it was a mess when it was released but the original mechanics it introduced to the standard 5e formula are great). I can't imagine how good that game would have been, unshackled by that ruleset.

• This brings me to the second point, though: why do people keep hammering all sorts of settings into a 5e shape? Because it's a familiar ruleset, and the vast majority of people don't want to learn new rules, they want to experience different settings with rules they know and are comfortable with, so they can fade to the background. This is the reason why I sometimes write games using a D20 ruleset. The problem is, I really dislike D&D's version of what a D20 ruleset can be, and while my D20 games started off as compatible as possible with any OSR systems (Sacrifice, Path of the Aram Thyr), I've slowly but surely made the system into something I like. Which means removed from what people expect from an OSR ruleset. This is evident in Ruthless Heavens, Boundless Fate, and Machine Gods of the Noxian Expanse, but more so in the upcoming Sacrifice 2e. The core D20 mechanic that we're all familiar with is still there, but that's pretty much it.

• I like skill-based rulesets, and D100 systems lend themselves very well towards that. Combined with the fact that they don't need to have XP in order for your character to progress, as well as not needing Target Numbers, makes them ideal for playing solo. Sure, you can do those things with other rulesets, but this is already baked into a standard D100 system.

• Generally speaking, when I decide to make a game using a D20 ruleset, it's because I want people to be familiar with the core rules, and my goal is to make a simpler game. When I want more nuance, I choose a D100 ruleset. And in the rare occasions that I just want to try something else, I come up with a different ruleset altogether. Let's take Salvage & Sorcery as an example: my goal was to have a very simple game that would give you the feeling of playing an ameritrash, dice-chugging boardgame. That, in my head, means dice-pools, exploding dice, lots of randomness, and a feeling of constant action and adventure. Which is why Salvage & Sorcery ended up with the type of rules it ended up with, something quite different from my other games, but that I feel worked out fantastically.

So that is it: I take a look at the setting, see what sorts of procedures it's going to need, how those are affected by this or that ruleset, determine my big picture goals with the game, and then I narrow it to this or that set of rules. At this point in my career as a designer, I have two very clearly developed rulesets: a D100 one, and a D20 one. Yes, I have the Thousand Worlds game engine that I developed for Across a Thousand Dead Worlds, that uses a D20 ruleset but has nothing to do with D&D, and I've touched other rulesets as well (Salvage & Sorcery, Blood Moon Apocalypse, Earthjumpers...), but those two are the ones that I naturally gravitate towards. This means that most of the time I'm going to fall back to one of the two, since it's easier to iterate than to come up with a whole new ruleset. I really love coming up with new rulesets, though, so you can expect me to release new games in the future that will not be using either of these two familiar ones.

So what do you guys think, which is your preferred ruleset? Should I keep coming up with new ones, or just stick to D20 or D100?