Post originally by Roy Morgan at 2004-05-22 19:15:26
Converted from Phorums BB System

They did. Many of the really innovative ideas from d20 first appeared in Alternity. It did draw from a variety of sources, but as far as I can tell it was the first system to codify something like feats into its advancement rules.

While Feng Shui certainly could have been partial inspiration for feats, nearly all of its schticks are class-exclusive. Alternity had this to a degree, but many of the same options appeared at different times to each of the different classes, which is similar to the requirement system used by d20's Feat system. It's not quite the same thing, but it does seem to have served as inspiration for what eventually became Feats.