Quote Originally Posted by Craft (Cheese) View Post
That's actually a curious situation: This was all his idea in the first place, and he's the one who introduced me to D&D. Why would he introduce me to this system specifically if he's not interested in working with its mechanics? I've never actually looked into non-D&D systems before: Are Fudge and FATE adaptable to fit any genre, or do they need significant reworking to work outside of their intended genres? I'll see if I can't find the books and take a look.
There's a good chance that it was this system specifically due to ignorance. Outside of hobbyist circles, D&D and roleplaying games are roughly synonymous, and D&D and Pathfinder (read: more D&D) have something like 98% of the market between them. As such, other systems are more likely to be an unexplored option than a rejected one.

I'd recommend either Fudge or Fate. However, I pretty much always recommend either Fudge or Fate, and probably introduced it to at least one of the other people here recommending it, so my recommending it really doesn't mean much. I'd also add Chronica Feudalis and Warrior Rogue and Mage to the list. The first is sort of like FATE, but fairly light, made for medieval Europe in particular, and using a step-die system instead of a roll and add system. The second is more like D&D, and just very minimalist, and would work well if you personally didn't want to jump into a completely different style of gaming.

There's also the possibility to go way out there, to a system where the mechanics don't necessarily even operate at the character-task level. Dread and Fiasco are the games of choice here. Dread is a horror game where the core mechanic is a Jenga tower, Fiasco is basically a Coen Brother's comedy in game form.