Cory and Specter,
What could be done to bring you over to RMU? What you state above is something I referenced earlier as RMU being a “bookshelf game”. Is there a point where you’d run RMU instead?
Well, two thoughts. Maybe three actually.
Firstly, the danger of a system like RM, that has tended to draw in veteran gamers and that is pretty consistently customized by the user due to the flexibility of the system, is that they've created 'their' system and it's going to be hard to get someone to move away from that. RMU has to do everything my version of RM does, but
better. I've been using it as a complete system for 25+ years. I've actually 'pulled apart' (via copies) all the books and made my own complete binders (Races/Cultures, Professions, Training Packages and Skills, Talents and Flaws, Open/Closed/Evil/Training Package Spell Lists, and Base Spell Lists). You just can't design for the individual, you must design for the average user, which I do not think I can claim to be.
Second, I wrote the Channeling Companion, so I'm perfectly comfortable creating my own material from scratch anyhow. In this respect I don't think I'm a good example for anyone to try to use as a gauge for how well RMU was done being a factor in my using it.
It's highly unlikely I'll use RMU as a system, just like a good chunk of RM2 users never moved on to RMSS. The only reason I'm using RMSS instead of RM2 is because, while we used RM1/RM2 to modify D&D, we moved to RM as a complete system when RMSS was coming out and it was far more organized for the new user. I'd also argue it was better balanced in the end also (power creep in any long standing system, RM2 in this case, was part of that but I also think RMSS retained its balance better in the long run).
Last, I'm not going to get into detail, but there are specific things I don't like about RMU and some of those things make it more difficult to back convert than ever before - so again being comfortable just creating my own material is a drawback for RMU. That said, since I do design my own material from scratch at times, RMU may actually give some inspiration for things I can back convert with some moderate tweaking. Although it's unlikely it'll do that for some time. I'll be happy if I get proven wrong in all cases there.
I'll also likely buy it in order to support ICE in the end out of respect for most those involved (and shared trama lol).